Tarheel Pilot
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 603
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Tarheel Pilot
Ok, so today, I finally was able to do my long cross country. My route took me from Concord Regional (KJQF) to Siler City (5W8) and Rockingham (RCZ). On this flight, I tried out the flight planner that I used in Excel to create, which works great because everything is neat, and you can read it without too much trouble. The forecast was low winds speed coming from the west with moderate turbulence. After making sure all of my affairs were in order and getting the cockpit set up I taxied out and did my usual run-up and departure.
Departure out of Concord was easy, I climbed up to 3,000 then 5,000 then 5,500. I was able to maintain course and thanks to the tail wind I made it to Siler City in record time (personal record anyways.) After I landed I went through the whole routine. I had to taxi-back on the runway so I did that, and Siler City has these taxiway that loops back to the end of the runway at each end. So after I did my run-up and taxied to the whole short line of the runway for departure. I look left, look right, everything was fine, final was clear and runway was clear. I announced my intention to depart the airport to Rockingham. I turn onto the taxiway and all the sudden I have a Piper Cub J-3 on the taxiway ahead of me. I saw the pilot doing his walk-around when I was on the ramp, I'd though I wouldn't have any conflict with him, apparently not. I decided to just go ahead and let him depart and turn crosswind. Since I was going to be going in a different direction anyways. He turned crosswind and I departed. It was apparent to me that he either didn't pay attention to the radio, or didn't have any but I had him in my sight the whole time I was within the airport's airspace.
After my departure from Siler City, I climbed up to 4,500, got my Flight Following (which was important to me since this leg was close to the Fort Bragg Restricted Airspace. Last thing I needed was to be forced down by the army and arrested for violating airspace. To put on top of that, I was flying on a leg that put the sun directly in front of me! So keeping everything straight and level was hard enough. The way points weren't that hard to spot though since I put them either to the left or right of the flight path. Seeing the instruments much less what's in front of you was hard. I actually had to have Fayetteville Approach vector me close to Rockingham. However, I did land in Rockingham ok, by then they had calm winds and no traffic on the radio nor what I could see.
So after doing the normal, landing, taxi back to the end via taxiway, and departure routine, I departed Rockingham back to Concord. This leg of the trip was calm, like the first one. I just flew at 4,500 feet, got my weather information after being handed off by Charlotte, I just connected everything wire to wire. I landed back in Concord safe and sound. This leg of the trip was a bit longer because what was a tailwind was now a headwind.
All in all, I thought this was a great trip. I only had problems on the Siler City to Rockingham Leg and I blame that on the sun, and on me not wearing my clip on sunglasses. I really felt confidence on this trip, I didn't do any major slip ups and I thought I was a very safe pilot who did everything correctly and by the books.
Thanks for reading!
Departure out of Concord was easy, I climbed up to 3,000 then 5,000 then 5,500. I was able to maintain course and thanks to the tail wind I made it to Siler City in record time (personal record anyways.) After I landed I went through the whole routine. I had to taxi-back on the runway so I did that, and Siler City has these taxiway that loops back to the end of the runway at each end. So after I did my run-up and taxied to the whole short line of the runway for departure. I look left, look right, everything was fine, final was clear and runway was clear. I announced my intention to depart the airport to Rockingham. I turn onto the taxiway and all the sudden I have a Piper Cub J-3 on the taxiway ahead of me. I saw the pilot doing his walk-around when I was on the ramp, I'd though I wouldn't have any conflict with him, apparently not. I decided to just go ahead and let him depart and turn crosswind. Since I was going to be going in a different direction anyways. He turned crosswind and I departed. It was apparent to me that he either didn't pay attention to the radio, or didn't have any but I had him in my sight the whole time I was within the airport's airspace.
After my departure from Siler City, I climbed up to 4,500, got my Flight Following (which was important to me since this leg was close to the Fort Bragg Restricted Airspace. Last thing I needed was to be forced down by the army and arrested for violating airspace. To put on top of that, I was flying on a leg that put the sun directly in front of me! So keeping everything straight and level was hard enough. The way points weren't that hard to spot though since I put them either to the left or right of the flight path. Seeing the instruments much less what's in front of you was hard. I actually had to have Fayetteville Approach vector me close to Rockingham. However, I did land in Rockingham ok, by then they had calm winds and no traffic on the radio nor what I could see.
So after doing the normal, landing, taxi back to the end via taxiway, and departure routine, I departed Rockingham back to Concord. This leg of the trip was calm, like the first one. I just flew at 4,500 feet, got my weather information after being handed off by Charlotte, I just connected everything wire to wire. I landed back in Concord safe and sound. This leg of the trip was a bit longer because what was a tailwind was now a headwind.
All in all, I thought this was a great trip. I only had problems on the Siler City to Rockingham Leg and I blame that on the sun, and on me not wearing my clip on sunglasses. I really felt confidence on this trip, I didn't do any major slip ups and I thought I was a very safe pilot who did everything correctly and by the books.
Thanks for reading!
