Tarheel Pilot
Line Up and Wait
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
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Tarheel Pilot
I would've posted this yesterday, but the birth of my nephew got in the way lol.
Yesterday I flew my first real cross country trip, from Concord Regional to KRCZ. The original plan was to go to KMEB, but we had to deviate which I will explain later. I got up at 9:00 AM EST, and got ready for my day at 9:30AM. I sat down at my computer and pulled the weather off of CSC DUATS system. Now so far the DUATS was painting a good picture weather wise, all stations along my route was calling for VFR conditions, with winds coming out from the west. Now the weather channel did call for storms to the west and north of North Carolina and the Charlotte/Concord area was to get isolated thunderstorm, but that was at 30%. I decided that this would be the best time to fly since that mean storm system that was over Texas would blow over to here soon. So I planned my trip at my kitchen. It would be a direct route from Concord Regional to Maxton.
Now I chose Maxton because it's an aircraft graveyard and I just always wanted to go to one and look at the abandoned aircrafts. All performance checked out, we would have enough runway for take off and landings, and the route to Maxton would give us a nice tail wind putting my GS at 135 knots, which is good for a Cherokee 180-E. So I planned the route to and back, using the current weather and I just hope it's current enough. Well the planning stage took longer than I expected and really didn't get to the pre-flight till 12:30 PM. Take-off time was 12:00 PM, so we're already running late. Did the pre-flight, got my sectional folded so I can hold it with one hand and see my entire route, got my flight plan with me, tuck the other one to the side and everything is ready. Well almost, I forgot my ADF (It turned out I left it in my car.) so I had to run to my car and get it, which delayed us back more. We went through the usual stuff, called up tower, tell them we're going to Mike Echo Bravo, 5,500, requesting flight following. We got our FF, and we taxied to Runway 20. We did the run-up, got everything set up and ready, and we depart from Concord at 1:08.
After climbing out, I turned to heading 130 and headed towards Maxton. Contacted Charlotte Approach and they told us to remain at or below 3,000. I actually thought I would get clearance up to 5,500, but apparently I was wrong. So I leveled out at 3,000 until I passed that part of Class Bravo airspace and was allowed to climb up to 5,500. The wind was pushing us south of our route, so I adjusted the heading to 125 to 120. Things were pretty much uneventful, except for the part that every time I look at my map to see if we're on route, the aircraft gets off the heading so I have to turn it back to the correct heading. Jim gave the helpful advice of holding my map up to my face so that way I can keep my eye on the instruments and map at the same time. Once we pass over the small town of Rockingham, I descended the aircraft to 1,200ft, at a rate of 500 fpm. Pretty soon we were at Maxton. We got our weather and tuned into Maxton traffic.
Now here's where our plan changed. Apparently they chose today as the day to have sky diving at the field, so we had to be extra careful, and the aircraft over the Unicom channel kept telling us to stay clear of the field (which is ok since it's Right Pattern anyways) and to stay clear until final. Now this had us worried because we had people falling to the ground, and we didn't know where their landing site was on the field. We did ask for it but they never gave it to us. So we made a big right traffic pattern for runway 23, and after our extended downwind, we decided that it was just unsafe to land there due to the fact that we didn't know where the sky divers were landing at, so we deviated back to Rockingham which had a small field called Richmond Co. (KRCZ).
Trying to figure out how to fly from Maxton to Richmond was, interesting, I basically let the aircraft fly itself while using my plotter to find out our new heading with the winds. Luckily the planner from Maxton back to Concord showed what correction we would need to make if we're going west. So we climbed back up to 4,500. headed 300. We landed at Richmond Co. and I basically landed the aircraft by the seat of my pants since at this point we were just winging it lol. Richmond Co. was actually a nice airport, it has a small terminal, a small uncontrolled field, which a few hangers, it was very nice. I really could see myself being based out of there once I get on my own two feet (and out of college).
After stretching our legs and walking around the field, we climbed back in and plotted the course from Richmond back to Concord, which would give us a heading about 310. We departed Richmond, climbed up to 4,500 and it really was just a relaxing flight. We used the VOR to make sure that we were on course and the VOR showed us that we were, so that was good.
We decided that we wanted to avoid Charlotte ATC (not that it wasn't good but we were VFR, so we didn't really need them.) and we slipped under the class B airspace and flew back to Concord Regional.
All in all, it was a good cross country, I made a few mistakes, the first one was forgetting my ADF, the second one was not calling ahead to Maxton to see if the sky divers would pose any hazards, and always plan for an alternate airport. Which you don't have to do since you're VFR, but I'd like to anyways just in case. It wasn't exactly "pro" flying, but I think overall I did good, and I just need to do more cross country to become more proficient.
I did not take any pictures this time because well, I had my work load double, so I figured flying the aircraft was more important lol. Anyways, thanks for reading. Next cross country is night time to Greensboro!
Yesterday I flew my first real cross country trip, from Concord Regional to KRCZ. The original plan was to go to KMEB, but we had to deviate which I will explain later. I got up at 9:00 AM EST, and got ready for my day at 9:30AM. I sat down at my computer and pulled the weather off of CSC DUATS system. Now so far the DUATS was painting a good picture weather wise, all stations along my route was calling for VFR conditions, with winds coming out from the west. Now the weather channel did call for storms to the west and north of North Carolina and the Charlotte/Concord area was to get isolated thunderstorm, but that was at 30%. I decided that this would be the best time to fly since that mean storm system that was over Texas would blow over to here soon. So I planned my trip at my kitchen. It would be a direct route from Concord Regional to Maxton.
Now I chose Maxton because it's an aircraft graveyard and I just always wanted to go to one and look at the abandoned aircrafts. All performance checked out, we would have enough runway for take off and landings, and the route to Maxton would give us a nice tail wind putting my GS at 135 knots, which is good for a Cherokee 180-E. So I planned the route to and back, using the current weather and I just hope it's current enough. Well the planning stage took longer than I expected and really didn't get to the pre-flight till 12:30 PM. Take-off time was 12:00 PM, so we're already running late. Did the pre-flight, got my sectional folded so I can hold it with one hand and see my entire route, got my flight plan with me, tuck the other one to the side and everything is ready. Well almost, I forgot my ADF (It turned out I left it in my car.) so I had to run to my car and get it, which delayed us back more. We went through the usual stuff, called up tower, tell them we're going to Mike Echo Bravo, 5,500, requesting flight following. We got our FF, and we taxied to Runway 20. We did the run-up, got everything set up and ready, and we depart from Concord at 1:08.
After climbing out, I turned to heading 130 and headed towards Maxton. Contacted Charlotte Approach and they told us to remain at or below 3,000. I actually thought I would get clearance up to 5,500, but apparently I was wrong. So I leveled out at 3,000 until I passed that part of Class Bravo airspace and was allowed to climb up to 5,500. The wind was pushing us south of our route, so I adjusted the heading to 125 to 120. Things were pretty much uneventful, except for the part that every time I look at my map to see if we're on route, the aircraft gets off the heading so I have to turn it back to the correct heading. Jim gave the helpful advice of holding my map up to my face so that way I can keep my eye on the instruments and map at the same time. Once we pass over the small town of Rockingham, I descended the aircraft to 1,200ft, at a rate of 500 fpm. Pretty soon we were at Maxton. We got our weather and tuned into Maxton traffic.
Now here's where our plan changed. Apparently they chose today as the day to have sky diving at the field, so we had to be extra careful, and the aircraft over the Unicom channel kept telling us to stay clear of the field (which is ok since it's Right Pattern anyways) and to stay clear until final. Now this had us worried because we had people falling to the ground, and we didn't know where their landing site was on the field. We did ask for it but they never gave it to us. So we made a big right traffic pattern for runway 23, and after our extended downwind, we decided that it was just unsafe to land there due to the fact that we didn't know where the sky divers were landing at, so we deviated back to Rockingham which had a small field called Richmond Co. (KRCZ).
Trying to figure out how to fly from Maxton to Richmond was, interesting, I basically let the aircraft fly itself while using my plotter to find out our new heading with the winds. Luckily the planner from Maxton back to Concord showed what correction we would need to make if we're going west. So we climbed back up to 4,500. headed 300. We landed at Richmond Co. and I basically landed the aircraft by the seat of my pants since at this point we were just winging it lol. Richmond Co. was actually a nice airport, it has a small terminal, a small uncontrolled field, which a few hangers, it was very nice. I really could see myself being based out of there once I get on my own two feet (and out of college).
After stretching our legs and walking around the field, we climbed back in and plotted the course from Richmond back to Concord, which would give us a heading about 310. We departed Richmond, climbed up to 4,500 and it really was just a relaxing flight. We used the VOR to make sure that we were on course and the VOR showed us that we were, so that was good.
We decided that we wanted to avoid Charlotte ATC (not that it wasn't good but we were VFR, so we didn't really need them.) and we slipped under the class B airspace and flew back to Concord Regional. All in all, it was a good cross country, I made a few mistakes, the first one was forgetting my ADF, the second one was not calling ahead to Maxton to see if the sky divers would pose any hazards, and always plan for an alternate airport. Which you don't have to do since you're VFR, but I'd like to anyways just in case. It wasn't exactly "pro" flying, but I think overall I did good, and I just need to do more cross country to become more proficient.
I did not take any pictures this time because well, I had my work load double, so I figured flying the aircraft was more important lol. Anyways, thanks for reading. Next cross country is night time to Greensboro!
