catmandu
Pattern Altitude
Took my wife and my son out for a great day of family flying today, knocking out five Maryland airports for GoFlyAmerica.org and the challenge. I originally wanted to get all the remaining airports in the state in one big day, but a clipper system moving in and timing to get my wife to work limited us to the ‘local’ ones only. The western ones will have to be another adventure.
Took off out of Hyde Field (W32) and were vectored north, doing a little sight seeing at Andrews AFB and other points known to my 11 year old son, sitting next to me up front. Checked in with BWI Tower and listened a little, didn’t seem too busy, so asked for a quick landing for training. They pointed out some Southwest Airlines traffic, and cleared us for the visual to 33R. Did my best “high speed Skyhawk at a big airport” approach and landing, and then asked for and was granted a quick stop on the apron for a ‘seat swap.’ Jumped out, snapped a couple photos, and then right back to tower for an intersection departure to the east, five minutes total on deck!
Next up was Essex Skypark (W48), a nice skinny runway on the edge of the water that I had heard a bit about, but never even noticed from the air. A more reasonably paced pattern to a decent landing, pulled up to the ramp area where there was one LSA being preflighted, and what looked to be a nice experimental aluminum fuselage on a rollback, moving from the garage to its new home (hopefully not the other way around). Hard to find anything identifiable of note (common problem today), so just took a shot of the ramp area. Upon review of the day’s photos, I probably should have framed / taken more of the photos myself, but they get the point across, and I wanted to involve everyone since I got to be PIC all day!
Now out to our westernmost target, Hoby Wolf (1W5). This place was interesting to all of us because it was just a few hundred feet down the street from some soccer fields my son had played at twice this fall, and we never even knew! It got a lot more interesting to me on short final when I saw what I had to deal with! Note to self: when the airport directory says ‘undulating runway’ and you can’t get in touch with the airport manager ahead of time, pull out some topographical maps and make sure your mind is set right before you get there. The wind was nice enough to lead us correctly to runway 20 for landing, where we were greeted with a medium upslope for 800 feet, a corresponding down slope for 500 feet, and then a pretty good rise to the end 600 feet away. Touched down halfway to the hump, slowed plenty fast, and had to really gas it to the end to the assembled onlookers. Their greeting of “well, at least YOU made it in” was another reminder that I had gotten into more of a challenging spot than I had expected, but not totally out of the skill set. Not much happening flying wise at Hoby Wolf these days, but we had a nice chat about some of the less than stellar approaches and departures, and the local knowledge on how to tackle takeoff and what to expect was very welcome. A dash down the slope of runway 02, sort of used the hump as a ski jump to get flying, then left up the valley of the rising terrain, and we were set. Time for me to think harder about taking a back country course next year to polish some skills.
Climbed up and did the ADIZ dance with ATC and headed back south for a stop at College Park (CGS). I had flown over it often, and we had done a family trip to the museum once before, but this was my first flying visit to a great historical airport. It was really nice to see a decent amount of activity at this FRZ airport on a Saturday morning, and the warm FBO was a nice place to stretch the legs and grab a tasty pastry! On startup we saw quite a few kids against the fence at the museum, so I gave them a wing-wag as we left, hoping they, or the adults nearby, knew it was a wave and not impending doom!
Arced around the east side of the FRZ towards home, but instead dropped into Potomac Airfield (VKX) for our last of five claims. Another quick shutdown for the photo and then we were ready to go. But there was a mistake in the flight plan required to do the crosswind transition home to W32. It was just not much fun spending 15 minutes on the phone taking care of a problem for a three minute VFR flight. Such is the life flying from the DC-3, but at least we do in fact get to fly.
All in all everyone enjoyed the day (and I think a first for me: six different runways in one day), with plenty of time left for a nice lunch before sending Mom off to work. It will be interesting to see if she enjoyed today’s 172 event more than the 767 event, especially since my son and I took all the stick time on the former! But hey, as we often say, any flying is good flying!
Took off out of Hyde Field (W32) and were vectored north, doing a little sight seeing at Andrews AFB and other points known to my 11 year old son, sitting next to me up front. Checked in with BWI Tower and listened a little, didn’t seem too busy, so asked for a quick landing for training. They pointed out some Southwest Airlines traffic, and cleared us for the visual to 33R. Did my best “high speed Skyhawk at a big airport” approach and landing, and then asked for and was granted a quick stop on the apron for a ‘seat swap.’ Jumped out, snapped a couple photos, and then right back to tower for an intersection departure to the east, five minutes total on deck!
Next up was Essex Skypark (W48), a nice skinny runway on the edge of the water that I had heard a bit about, but never even noticed from the air. A more reasonably paced pattern to a decent landing, pulled up to the ramp area where there was one LSA being preflighted, and what looked to be a nice experimental aluminum fuselage on a rollback, moving from the garage to its new home (hopefully not the other way around). Hard to find anything identifiable of note (common problem today), so just took a shot of the ramp area. Upon review of the day’s photos, I probably should have framed / taken more of the photos myself, but they get the point across, and I wanted to involve everyone since I got to be PIC all day!
Now out to our westernmost target, Hoby Wolf (1W5). This place was interesting to all of us because it was just a few hundred feet down the street from some soccer fields my son had played at twice this fall, and we never even knew! It got a lot more interesting to me on short final when I saw what I had to deal with! Note to self: when the airport directory says ‘undulating runway’ and you can’t get in touch with the airport manager ahead of time, pull out some topographical maps and make sure your mind is set right before you get there. The wind was nice enough to lead us correctly to runway 20 for landing, where we were greeted with a medium upslope for 800 feet, a corresponding down slope for 500 feet, and then a pretty good rise to the end 600 feet away. Touched down halfway to the hump, slowed plenty fast, and had to really gas it to the end to the assembled onlookers. Their greeting of “well, at least YOU made it in” was another reminder that I had gotten into more of a challenging spot than I had expected, but not totally out of the skill set. Not much happening flying wise at Hoby Wolf these days, but we had a nice chat about some of the less than stellar approaches and departures, and the local knowledge on how to tackle takeoff and what to expect was very welcome. A dash down the slope of runway 02, sort of used the hump as a ski jump to get flying, then left up the valley of the rising terrain, and we were set. Time for me to think harder about taking a back country course next year to polish some skills.
Climbed up and did the ADIZ dance with ATC and headed back south for a stop at College Park (CGS). I had flown over it often, and we had done a family trip to the museum once before, but this was my first flying visit to a great historical airport. It was really nice to see a decent amount of activity at this FRZ airport on a Saturday morning, and the warm FBO was a nice place to stretch the legs and grab a tasty pastry! On startup we saw quite a few kids against the fence at the museum, so I gave them a wing-wag as we left, hoping they, or the adults nearby, knew it was a wave and not impending doom!
Arced around the east side of the FRZ towards home, but instead dropped into Potomac Airfield (VKX) for our last of five claims. Another quick shutdown for the photo and then we were ready to go. But there was a mistake in the flight plan required to do the crosswind transition home to W32. It was just not much fun spending 15 minutes on the phone taking care of a problem for a three minute VFR flight. Such is the life flying from the DC-3, but at least we do in fact get to fly.
All in all everyone enjoyed the day (and I think a first for me: six different runways in one day), with plenty of time left for a nice lunch before sending Mom off to work. It will be interesting to see if she enjoyed today’s 172 event more than the 767 event, especially since my son and I took all the stick time on the former! But hey, as we often say, any flying is good flying!
