onwards
Pattern Altitude
Having just arrived back home after a most excellent flying weekend adventure, I wanted to share the flying aspects of it with you.
In a nutshell, I had tons of fun, made several truly boneheaded moves (including my first and hopefully last fuel management idiocy), flew more than I ever have in a single leg, landed at three new airports, faced many situations new to me (from ATC to equipment failure), and somehow managed to survive it all.
It all started Friday with a fairly simple flight from CCR to MRY. A short, 85nm hop... except that MRY this time of year has all sorts of marine layer challenges.
I had been looking at the weather for days, reading forecasts, planning for eventualities, prepping an alternate (KSNS) - easy in normal times, but this weekend was Grandprix at Laguna Seca, so everything was difficult - and ended up at the airport early enough to have time for truly a thorough preflight (my girlfriend was late due to traffic).
So I spent 40 minutes checking everything, in a leisurely manner, making sure everything looked good - I discovered a small bald spot on the left main and squawked it, I cleaned the cowl flaps, I inspected every cotter pin... yaknow, the works.
And therefore, one might ask, HOW ON HELL DID I MISS THE FACT THAT THE PLANE HAD LESS THAN HALF FUEL LEFT???!!!!!
Note that I had not discovered this fact until Sunday, when I picked my plane up at Del Monte Aviation in MRY, and found that to "top off" the tanks they had to put in SIXTY THREE gallons (the plane takes 84). I about had to pick myself from the floor in shock.
I ran through the entire preflight in my head. I did the same things I always do. I strained it. I climbed the stool, and on account of it being quite impossible to peer into the very high tanks on the 182 to inspect visually, I stuck my finger in and pulled it back to make sure it "hit gold"...
... wait a second.
I DID stick my finger in both tanks. It DID come up wet. I even noted it (having so much time for a preflight, I was being overly ambitious and did little checkmarks on stuff). How could that be? (no, no leaks). Yes, the fuel gauges showed half or so, but they are notoriously bad on this plane and even the instructor who taught me on it said it's safe to ignore them (ha!) and use the finger method instead, which he showed me.
Best I could think of is that I THOUGHT my fingers were wet but they only touched fumes? some sort of condensation? I don't know. Suffice it to say, I took off with half tanks when I thought I took off with full ones. Fuel dipstick for the 182 ordered. Screw my fingers and gauges, I need something I can trust.
Scared the f*** out of me, lemme tell ya.
Back to Friday. The flight into MRY was uneventful, except that by the time we got there (remember the delay?) it turned from VFR to marginal. And gusty (G18). Oh well, I've done the SVFR shtick before - except not in an unfamiliar airport. Asked for it anyway. MRY tower claimed it was VFR so I didn't need the clearance (broken at 1700 which is below TPA), and handed me another little surprise.
Dance, baby, dance. Went pretty well, when is all is said and done.
Two days later, my little Sunday fuel surprise got me pretty darn rattled. I listened to ATIS and then asked for the wrong runway, inverting the winds in my head. Thankfully, MRY tower gently steered me in the right direction. I then did the following stupid thing for the first time in my life: I taxied all the way to the runway with the handbrake on.
By the time I got to the runup area, I contacted tower and said I am going to shut down and see what's going on, cause the plane is acting weird (try steering this way). Two minutes later, redfaced and ashamed, I called back and said I'm ready to take off... he asked if everything was OK, and I said something about the baggage door not being properly locked.
Yeah, right.
At least I made a United Express guy happy cause my little shutdown in runup allowed him to jump me in line getting out of MRY.
Anyway, out of MRY and out from under the clouds we went, headed to L35 (Big Bear City), this time with an actual full fuel load.
So I get on with Norcal, and get handed off a couple times, then... silence. For several minutes, I can hear the other guys talking to Norcal, but not Norcal itself. One-sided conversations.
What to do? this has never happened to me before. I tried to think. Then I tried asking other pilots to relay a message to Norcal for me, asking if there another frequency I should switch to. No one wanted to help (really).
Plan two.
I looked up the nearest big airport - it was BFL - and checked the app freq. Lo and behold, it was LA ctr. I have never spoken to LA ctr before. Another first. Anyway, I brought them up, and explained that I was on with Norcal but had somehow gotten lost in the system. I gave them my code. And in another first, effected a handoff from my end, rather than ATC. The guy at LA ctr was real nice about it, and it sounded like Norcal may have simply forgotten about me until I was out of radio reach.
Anyway, they got me back, then handed me off to Joshua (another first), and we made our way to Big Bear... on a hot day... in the afternoon... with density altitude almost 10,000ft...
Thermals. Boy, do I love thermals.
The plane was shaking around so bad by the time we crossed over the peak to Big Bear Lake I was getting queasy. And then I had to land. Wind was gusting to 20kn at altitude. That strip looked awful small as I tried to get the plane down. I kept only 20 flaps, and decided to follow training advice for landing in adverse winds, slamming it onto the runway instead of trying to coast in gently. Ended up working really well. I later saw a plane coming trying to do the greaser, almost got blown off the runway, sideloaded badly and then had to break hard to avoid overrunning.
Adrenaline anyone?
My daughter was waiting to be picked up, which was really lovely. We also picked up her counselor from camp. And all... their... baggage.
Do girls get born with this ability to overpack beyond reasonable doubt?
I still don't know I fitted it all into the back of the 182, but I was glad L35 was out of avfuel today. Why? cause had I also filled the tanks, we would have ended up swimming in the lake. As it was, climbing with full seats and a packed back (yes, all still just within W&B and CG limits), with those winds, at this altitude, on a hot day... I'll put it this way. I never thought I'd live to feel that a 1-mile long strip might be too short for a 182. Getting a positive rate of climb took practically the entire length of the runway, and I was sure glad for all those lessons about "climbing in the ground effect" for soft-fields, because they translated well to "keeping the plane slowly gaining speed while in ground effect without stalling".
Headed to Bakersfield for refueling and a late lunch. Did you know Bakersfield had one airport called Bakersfield (L45) and one called something else entirely which actually IS Bakersfield? I didn't either. So I was happily aiming for the wrong airport, until the very very nice controller at BFL tower asked if I was sure I had Bravo for weather.
Say what? weather? there's no weather at Bakersfield... that is, Bakersfield Muni... wait a gosh-darned minute!
Ah.
Yes, THAT Bravo. At THAT Bakersfield. Gotcha. Yessiree, I was on it all along, oh yes, no worries, I knew exactly what I'm doing every step of the way. Uh huh.
Are we there yet?
Atlantic Aviation at BFL were real nice, gave us a crew car so we could go grab some food while they refueled the plane (not all the way, to avoid being over max gross, but certainly enough for the rest of the trip).
Climb performance at max gross even from sea level on such a hot day SUCKED. Royally. It took me about 15 minutes to get to 6500ft. And then... then my transponder died. While I was with Norcal, over the Diablo Range, they lose me. I tried recycling. No luck. They terminated services, and I was all alone in the world.
Oh well. Got RHV tower on radio, gave them position, and straighted in, resetting the transponder over and over again, trying test mode, almost breaking the ident button in frustration. Which made is sort of funny when it came back to life when I was on a less than 2 mile final to 31R at RHV.
Dropped my daughter's counselor off, jumped back in, and hightailed it to CCR. Gave CCR tower a short final to help them with sequencing traffic, had a picture perfect landing to end the day, taxied back, parked the plane...
... and promptly banged my head against the left aileron.
In a nutshell, I had tons of fun, made several truly boneheaded moves (including my first and hopefully last fuel management idiocy), flew more than I ever have in a single leg, landed at three new airports, faced many situations new to me (from ATC to equipment failure), and somehow managed to survive it all.
It all started Friday with a fairly simple flight from CCR to MRY. A short, 85nm hop... except that MRY this time of year has all sorts of marine layer challenges.
I had been looking at the weather for days, reading forecasts, planning for eventualities, prepping an alternate (KSNS) - easy in normal times, but this weekend was Grandprix at Laguna Seca, so everything was difficult - and ended up at the airport early enough to have time for truly a thorough preflight (my girlfriend was late due to traffic).
So I spent 40 minutes checking everything, in a leisurely manner, making sure everything looked good - I discovered a small bald spot on the left main and squawked it, I cleaned the cowl flaps, I inspected every cotter pin... yaknow, the works.
And therefore, one might ask, HOW ON HELL DID I MISS THE FACT THAT THE PLANE HAD LESS THAN HALF FUEL LEFT???!!!!!
Note that I had not discovered this fact until Sunday, when I picked my plane up at Del Monte Aviation in MRY, and found that to "top off" the tanks they had to put in SIXTY THREE gallons (the plane takes 84). I about had to pick myself from the floor in shock.
I ran through the entire preflight in my head. I did the same things I always do. I strained it. I climbed the stool, and on account of it being quite impossible to peer into the very high tanks on the 182 to inspect visually, I stuck my finger in and pulled it back to make sure it "hit gold"...
... wait a second.
I DID stick my finger in both tanks. It DID come up wet. I even noted it (having so much time for a preflight, I was being overly ambitious and did little checkmarks on stuff). How could that be? (no, no leaks). Yes, the fuel gauges showed half or so, but they are notoriously bad on this plane and even the instructor who taught me on it said it's safe to ignore them (ha!) and use the finger method instead, which he showed me.
Best I could think of is that I THOUGHT my fingers were wet but they only touched fumes? some sort of condensation? I don't know. Suffice it to say, I took off with half tanks when I thought I took off with full ones. Fuel dipstick for the 182 ordered. Screw my fingers and gauges, I need something I can trust.
Scared the f*** out of me, lemme tell ya.
Back to Friday. The flight into MRY was uneventful, except that by the time we got there (remember the delay?) it turned from VFR to marginal. And gusty (G18). Oh well, I've done the SVFR shtick before - except not in an unfamiliar airport. Asked for it anyway. MRY tower claimed it was VFR so I didn't need the clearance (broken at 1700 which is below TPA), and handed me another little surprise.
Dance, baby, dance. Went pretty well, when is all is said and done.
Two days later, my little Sunday fuel surprise got me pretty darn rattled. I listened to ATIS and then asked for the wrong runway, inverting the winds in my head. Thankfully, MRY tower gently steered me in the right direction. I then did the following stupid thing for the first time in my life: I taxied all the way to the runway with the handbrake on.
By the time I got to the runup area, I contacted tower and said I am going to shut down and see what's going on, cause the plane is acting weird (try steering this way). Two minutes later, redfaced and ashamed, I called back and said I'm ready to take off... he asked if everything was OK, and I said something about the baggage door not being properly locked.
Yeah, right.
At least I made a United Express guy happy cause my little shutdown in runup allowed him to jump me in line getting out of MRY.
Anyway, out of MRY and out from under the clouds we went, headed to L35 (Big Bear City), this time with an actual full fuel load.
So I get on with Norcal, and get handed off a couple times, then... silence. For several minutes, I can hear the other guys talking to Norcal, but not Norcal itself. One-sided conversations.
What to do? this has never happened to me before. I tried to think. Then I tried asking other pilots to relay a message to Norcal for me, asking if there another frequency I should switch to. No one wanted to help (really).
Plan two.
I looked up the nearest big airport - it was BFL - and checked the app freq. Lo and behold, it was LA ctr. I have never spoken to LA ctr before. Another first. Anyway, I brought them up, and explained that I was on with Norcal but had somehow gotten lost in the system. I gave them my code. And in another first, effected a handoff from my end, rather than ATC. The guy at LA ctr was real nice about it, and it sounded like Norcal may have simply forgotten about me until I was out of radio reach.
Anyway, they got me back, then handed me off to Joshua (another first), and we made our way to Big Bear... on a hot day... in the afternoon... with density altitude almost 10,000ft...
Thermals. Boy, do I love thermals.
The plane was shaking around so bad by the time we crossed over the peak to Big Bear Lake I was getting queasy. And then I had to land. Wind was gusting to 20kn at altitude. That strip looked awful small as I tried to get the plane down. I kept only 20 flaps, and decided to follow training advice for landing in adverse winds, slamming it onto the runway instead of trying to coast in gently. Ended up working really well. I later saw a plane coming trying to do the greaser, almost got blown off the runway, sideloaded badly and then had to break hard to avoid overrunning.
Adrenaline anyone?
My daughter was waiting to be picked up, which was really lovely. We also picked up her counselor from camp. And all... their... baggage.
Do girls get born with this ability to overpack beyond reasonable doubt?
I still don't know I fitted it all into the back of the 182, but I was glad L35 was out of avfuel today. Why? cause had I also filled the tanks, we would have ended up swimming in the lake. As it was, climbing with full seats and a packed back (yes, all still just within W&B and CG limits), with those winds, at this altitude, on a hot day... I'll put it this way. I never thought I'd live to feel that a 1-mile long strip might be too short for a 182. Getting a positive rate of climb took practically the entire length of the runway, and I was sure glad for all those lessons about "climbing in the ground effect" for soft-fields, because they translated well to "keeping the plane slowly gaining speed while in ground effect without stalling".
Headed to Bakersfield for refueling and a late lunch. Did you know Bakersfield had one airport called Bakersfield (L45) and one called something else entirely which actually IS Bakersfield? I didn't either. So I was happily aiming for the wrong airport, until the very very nice controller at BFL tower asked if I was sure I had Bravo for weather.
Say what? weather? there's no weather at Bakersfield... that is, Bakersfield Muni... wait a gosh-darned minute!
Ah.
Yes, THAT Bravo. At THAT Bakersfield. Gotcha. Yessiree, I was on it all along, oh yes, no worries, I knew exactly what I'm doing every step of the way. Uh huh.
Are we there yet?
Atlantic Aviation at BFL were real nice, gave us a crew car so we could go grab some food while they refueled the plane (not all the way, to avoid being over max gross, but certainly enough for the rest of the trip).
Climb performance at max gross even from sea level on such a hot day SUCKED. Royally. It took me about 15 minutes to get to 6500ft. And then... then my transponder died. While I was with Norcal, over the Diablo Range, they lose me. I tried recycling. No luck. They terminated services, and I was all alone in the world.
Oh well. Got RHV tower on radio, gave them position, and straighted in, resetting the transponder over and over again, trying test mode, almost breaking the ident button in frustration. Which made is sort of funny when it came back to life when I was on a less than 2 mile final to 31R at RHV.
Dropped my daughter's counselor off, jumped back in, and hightailed it to CCR. Gave CCR tower a short final to help them with sequencing traffic, had a picture perfect landing to end the day, taxied back, parked the plane...
... and promptly banged my head against the left aileron.
