azpilot
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2015
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azpilot
After completing all the wedding activities, and spending an extra day away from the kids, we were ready to leave. The flight from Provo (KPVU) back to Cedar City (KCDC) was a breeze. We were able to get flight following this time, which was nice. This time in Cedar City I just pumped the gas myself and saved $24. We were anxious to get home, so there was no trip into town this time.
The plan was again to use the TUCKUP corridor to cross the canyon on the way home. The way these VFR transition corridors work, you have to be at a specified altitude during the crossing. The Southbound crossing altitudes are 10,500 and 12,500. The problem was that there was a pretty good broken layer at about 11,000 feet. Having done my flight training in the Phoenix area, this was the closest I had ever been to clouds and it was really freaking me out. As I approached the North point of the corridor, the clouds were not looking very inviting, and they were looking a lot closer (vertically speaking) than I would have liked. I had this bad feeling in the back of my mind, but kept pushing forward. I can really see how people can get into dicey weather situations when they have somewhere they want to go.
The TUCKUP corridor is the shortest of all the VFR corridors. It is only 13 NM long and 4 NM wide. And of course it just so happened that there was a storm cell right in the middle of the corridor. The specified altitude was 10,500 feet. I was doing my best to stay at that altitude, but I found that I kept drifting down, because those cloud tops looked so close. As I entered the corridor, I started to drift to the East side to say away from the storm cell. LA Center called me up to let me know there was precipitation over the corridor. I had a horrible feeling about all of this and was weighing my options when it stuck.
At about my 2 o'clock position, I saw a lightning bolt. It couldn't have been more than three or four miles away. I made an immediate 180 degree turn to the left and started heading back to the North. I called up LA center and let them know there was lightning in the corridor. He suggested I try the Dragon Corridor, which is about 30 miles to the East. I let him know that I needed to regroup and think.
I had studied my route tremendously before the flight. I researched all the airports close to my flight path in case I needed to divert, but I hadn't researched any of the other corridors. I tried to find it on my tablet, but I was a little flustered and was having trouble searching for it on the screen. The way the garmin pilot app works, you have to be zoomed in very close for the map to convert over from the regular sectional view to the "Grand Canyon VFR" view. It was like looking through a soda straw trying to find the corridor.
I did have paper copies of all the charts though, so I reached into my flight bag and found the Grand Canyon VFR chart, and quickly found the Dragon Corridor. In hindsight, I could have just asked LA center for help, but didn't think of that at the time.
We were able to get over to the Dragon Corridor and make the transition. Once we were on the South side of the Canyon, the cloud problems went away, but we were still dealing with the headwind. I made an unscheduled stop in Prescott (KPRC) to buy fuel because I am paranoid about running out of gas whenever I have less than half a tank.
From there the flight back to Chandler was pretty easy. It was just super HOT! We had the sun shining right in our faces and cooking us in the plane. I made the Bravo transition over Sky Harbor (KPHX) and then back to Chandler. There was a nasty gusting crosswind at Chandler, and I made my worst landing of the trip, but we were just glad to be back home.
This was a really awesome trip. I learned quite a bit and gained some really valuable experience. It was 4.9 on the Hobbs for the trip up and 6.7 for the trip home. As of the writing of this post, this flight makes up 10% of my flying experience.
I'll follow up with some pictures.
The plan was again to use the TUCKUP corridor to cross the canyon on the way home. The way these VFR transition corridors work, you have to be at a specified altitude during the crossing. The Southbound crossing altitudes are 10,500 and 12,500. The problem was that there was a pretty good broken layer at about 11,000 feet. Having done my flight training in the Phoenix area, this was the closest I had ever been to clouds and it was really freaking me out. As I approached the North point of the corridor, the clouds were not looking very inviting, and they were looking a lot closer (vertically speaking) than I would have liked. I had this bad feeling in the back of my mind, but kept pushing forward. I can really see how people can get into dicey weather situations when they have somewhere they want to go.
The TUCKUP corridor is the shortest of all the VFR corridors. It is only 13 NM long and 4 NM wide. And of course it just so happened that there was a storm cell right in the middle of the corridor. The specified altitude was 10,500 feet. I was doing my best to stay at that altitude, but I found that I kept drifting down, because those cloud tops looked so close. As I entered the corridor, I started to drift to the East side to say away from the storm cell. LA Center called me up to let me know there was precipitation over the corridor. I had a horrible feeling about all of this and was weighing my options when it stuck.
At about my 2 o'clock position, I saw a lightning bolt. It couldn't have been more than three or four miles away. I made an immediate 180 degree turn to the left and started heading back to the North. I called up LA center and let them know there was lightning in the corridor. He suggested I try the Dragon Corridor, which is about 30 miles to the East. I let him know that I needed to regroup and think.
I had studied my route tremendously before the flight. I researched all the airports close to my flight path in case I needed to divert, but I hadn't researched any of the other corridors. I tried to find it on my tablet, but I was a little flustered and was having trouble searching for it on the screen. The way the garmin pilot app works, you have to be zoomed in very close for the map to convert over from the regular sectional view to the "Grand Canyon VFR" view. It was like looking through a soda straw trying to find the corridor.
I did have paper copies of all the charts though, so I reached into my flight bag and found the Grand Canyon VFR chart, and quickly found the Dragon Corridor. In hindsight, I could have just asked LA center for help, but didn't think of that at the time.
We were able to get over to the Dragon Corridor and make the transition. Once we were on the South side of the Canyon, the cloud problems went away, but we were still dealing with the headwind. I made an unscheduled stop in Prescott (KPRC) to buy fuel because I am paranoid about running out of gas whenever I have less than half a tank.
From there the flight back to Chandler was pretty easy. It was just super HOT! We had the sun shining right in our faces and cooking us in the plane. I made the Bravo transition over Sky Harbor (KPHX) and then back to Chandler. There was a nasty gusting crosswind at Chandler, and I made my worst landing of the trip, but we were just glad to be back home.
This was a really awesome trip. I learned quite a bit and gained some really valuable experience. It was 4.9 on the Hobbs for the trip up and 6.7 for the trip home. As of the writing of this post, this flight makes up 10% of my flying experience.
I'll follow up with some pictures.
