Thrance
Filing Flight Plan
About a month ago I first posted a few questions about flight following, Denver airspace, and meat bomb dogs.
Well this last weekend was my trip. What a learning experience beyond what flight school could have taught me.
The trip was filed for a 0630 departure. I was woken at 0400 by one of the meat bombs with the need to go pee. As I let the dogs out I noticed it was raining.. Knowing my flight was VFR and I had to cross a 7000+ foot pass 10nm from KBZN I called up flight service checked the weather. The outlook was for MVFR flight till 0800 when it would improve to VFR. I changed my departure time to 0845 to give a bit of extra time. My first leg went fine.
I checked the weather for my next leg at KWRL. There was a small rain storm between KWRL and KCPR. I decided to navigate around the storm and continue on. No problems right? Well this added an hour of flight time and by the time I reached KCPR another storm had had developed from Denver to the Wyoming state line.
Once again I called up flight service modified my flight plan to KTOR. After landing at 1300 I learned the storms would remain till 1800 with 1.5 hours remaining to fly I had to suck it up and call it a day.
It was disappointing not reaching my intended destination but had a renewed confidence in my decision making. In the future though I would not leave KWRL if I had to reroute that far off of a flight course. Had I waited 30 minutes I would not have had the first storm to deal with AND I would have learned of the storm over Denver and would have headed back home.
The return trip to KWRL was uneventful. From KWRL to KBZN wad 1.5 hours of light turbulence and an 20 kt headwind. The landing at KBZN was immediately interesting. The active run way was 30 with winds from 220 at 15 g 23.. Not good for a C172. I requested and received clearance for runway 21. After what seemed to be an hour on Final I touched down with a greaser. And probably sounded elated when I confirmed ground .8..
Other lessons, my first leg I kept finding myself a 4 miles off using the ancient gps that was installed and switched to using the VOR predominately. I had only had a few brief lessons using a VOR as I learned in aircraft with g430, 530s, and 1000s and always did cross country flights using that. It took me 5 minutes to remember all if the rules for VOR flight but now I feel as if I have it mastered.
Well this last weekend was my trip. What a learning experience beyond what flight school could have taught me.
The trip was filed for a 0630 departure. I was woken at 0400 by one of the meat bombs with the need to go pee. As I let the dogs out I noticed it was raining.. Knowing my flight was VFR and I had to cross a 7000+ foot pass 10nm from KBZN I called up flight service checked the weather. The outlook was for MVFR flight till 0800 when it would improve to VFR. I changed my departure time to 0845 to give a bit of extra time. My first leg went fine.
I checked the weather for my next leg at KWRL. There was a small rain storm between KWRL and KCPR. I decided to navigate around the storm and continue on. No problems right? Well this added an hour of flight time and by the time I reached KCPR another storm had had developed from Denver to the Wyoming state line.
Once again I called up flight service modified my flight plan to KTOR. After landing at 1300 I learned the storms would remain till 1800 with 1.5 hours remaining to fly I had to suck it up and call it a day.
It was disappointing not reaching my intended destination but had a renewed confidence in my decision making. In the future though I would not leave KWRL if I had to reroute that far off of a flight course. Had I waited 30 minutes I would not have had the first storm to deal with AND I would have learned of the storm over Denver and would have headed back home.
The return trip to KWRL was uneventful. From KWRL to KBZN wad 1.5 hours of light turbulence and an 20 kt headwind. The landing at KBZN was immediately interesting. The active run way was 30 with winds from 220 at 15 g 23.. Not good for a C172. I requested and received clearance for runway 21. After what seemed to be an hour on Final I touched down with a greaser. And probably sounded elated when I confirmed ground .8..
Other lessons, my first leg I kept finding myself a 4 miles off using the ancient gps that was installed and switched to using the VOR predominately. I had only had a few brief lessons using a VOR as I learned in aircraft with g430, 530s, and 1000s and always did cross country flights using that. It took me 5 minutes to remember all if the rules for VOR flight but now I feel as if I have it mastered.
