ScottM
Taxi to Parking
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2005
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- 42,529
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Display name:
iBazinga!
Decided Saturday to fly to my brother in laws in Fort Wayne for lunch and visit. It is not a long flight and usually only takes about 1.5 hours at the most.
After forgetting the plane keys at home and having to go get them were off only 5 minutes behind schedule. The winds were very calm when we arrived at the airport. I wanted to upload the new database into the GPS so we were early. While I was handling the GPS I noticed the winds were starting to pick up. I called FSS for my briefing and they forecast winds at 310/14G20 starting at 9am. It was 9:10 when I called. The winds at 3k and 6k were 280@25 and 290@35. So we were to have some great tail winds on the outbound. We took the lake front of Chicago route and were treated to some spectacular views of Chicago. As I was nearing Gary I climbed to 5500 and turned east.
Notre Dame was playing USC and South Bend approach was so busy that I could not get radar advisories. I listendd in anyway to here at least for those that were IFR if any conflists that could have been me were pointed out.
Our GS was great, about 140knots, I kept thinking of the return later that day. We heard a student on SB freq, he was doing his first solo XC and had been told to remain clear of the Class C at South Bend. His call to ATC was that he was getting bounced around so bad he needed to land. ATC helped the fellow out and got him to Goshen which is near Smith Field, my destination, at Ft. Wayne. Up were I was it had been a very smooth ride and I was surprised that he was saying there was moderate turbulence.
As I neared Ft. Wayne's airspace I started my decent and sure enough as we passed through 4000 it became a pretty rough ride. My wife hates any bumps and I always try to give her a smooth ride. When we landed the trip had only taken us 1.1 hours.
Later that day for the return it was obvious that the winds were still kicking. FSS said the winds at 3k and 6k were 310@30 and 310@35 respectively. My heading home for the first 110 Nm was 310. CRAP! that is a lot of head winds for my little bug smasher. I wanted 6500 to stay out of the turbulance so I recalcualted the fuel and time and I decided to head off. I calculated a 2.5 hour flight. A whole 1 longer than normal.
We had ground speeds of about 77knots almost the entire way. I kept thinking this is what it feels like to fly and ultra lite or a Cub. It was the longest short flight I had ever made! Since there still was turbulence I had climbed to 6500. Once established I used the GPS to calculate the headwind and it was 305@44knots.
My original intent was to go the long way around the Chicago airspace but I decided as we got close to Gary, IN to go up the lake front to get out the headwinds. I told Karen it would be a little bumpy but we would save about 15 minutes of flying. We turned to the north and started our decent from 6500 to 3500 as we went over Gary and then past Gary to 2500.
Normally the big iron comes into ORD Class B at about 7-8kMSL but as we passed through 4200MSL, 2NM south of Gary, something big passed right underneath me only about 500' lower. It was a Southwest 737. GHEESH! that was scary! He came from my 5 o'clock position, that is in my blind spot. He must have seen me on TCAS and dove below my to avoid hitting us. I told my wife to take a look back in that direction in case ORD was lining up approaches that way and there were more planes. Fortunetly there were none. I am not sure why they were there but I think I will fill out a NASA form anyway. I had just set my altimeter to Gary's setting from their ATIS and double checked my altitude. I was not inside the Class B.
I had been on flight following when I was in South Bend's airspace but they had canceled earlier when I left and entered Chicago's air space. Normally I do not even try to get FF around ORD and it is rare that the TRACON will give it to you. They simply are too busy. When you fly IFR in that area it is damn near impossible to even get vectors through the Class B, they always have you go around.
As we headed up north the only thing to happen was to be treated to a beautiful sunset behind Chicago. Total flight time for our normal 1.5 hour journey was 2.4 hours.
Scott
After forgetting the plane keys at home and having to go get them were off only 5 minutes behind schedule. The winds were very calm when we arrived at the airport. I wanted to upload the new database into the GPS so we were early. While I was handling the GPS I noticed the winds were starting to pick up. I called FSS for my briefing and they forecast winds at 310/14G20 starting at 9am. It was 9:10 when I called. The winds at 3k and 6k were 280@25 and 290@35. So we were to have some great tail winds on the outbound. We took the lake front of Chicago route and were treated to some spectacular views of Chicago. As I was nearing Gary I climbed to 5500 and turned east.
Notre Dame was playing USC and South Bend approach was so busy that I could not get radar advisories. I listendd in anyway to here at least for those that were IFR if any conflists that could have been me were pointed out.
Our GS was great, about 140knots, I kept thinking of the return later that day. We heard a student on SB freq, he was doing his first solo XC and had been told to remain clear of the Class C at South Bend. His call to ATC was that he was getting bounced around so bad he needed to land. ATC helped the fellow out and got him to Goshen which is near Smith Field, my destination, at Ft. Wayne. Up were I was it had been a very smooth ride and I was surprised that he was saying there was moderate turbulence.
As I neared Ft. Wayne's airspace I started my decent and sure enough as we passed through 4000 it became a pretty rough ride. My wife hates any bumps and I always try to give her a smooth ride. When we landed the trip had only taken us 1.1 hours.
Later that day for the return it was obvious that the winds were still kicking. FSS said the winds at 3k and 6k were 310@30 and 310@35 respectively. My heading home for the first 110 Nm was 310. CRAP! that is a lot of head winds for my little bug smasher. I wanted 6500 to stay out of the turbulance so I recalcualted the fuel and time and I decided to head off. I calculated a 2.5 hour flight. A whole 1 longer than normal.
We had ground speeds of about 77knots almost the entire way. I kept thinking this is what it feels like to fly and ultra lite or a Cub. It was the longest short flight I had ever made! Since there still was turbulence I had climbed to 6500. Once established I used the GPS to calculate the headwind and it was 305@44knots.
My original intent was to go the long way around the Chicago airspace but I decided as we got close to Gary, IN to go up the lake front to get out the headwinds. I told Karen it would be a little bumpy but we would save about 15 minutes of flying. We turned to the north and started our decent from 6500 to 3500 as we went over Gary and then past Gary to 2500.
Normally the big iron comes into ORD Class B at about 7-8kMSL but as we passed through 4200MSL, 2NM south of Gary, something big passed right underneath me only about 500' lower. It was a Southwest 737. GHEESH! that was scary! He came from my 5 o'clock position, that is in my blind spot. He must have seen me on TCAS and dove below my to avoid hitting us. I told my wife to take a look back in that direction in case ORD was lining up approaches that way and there were more planes. Fortunetly there were none. I am not sure why they were there but I think I will fill out a NASA form anyway. I had just set my altimeter to Gary's setting from their ATIS and double checked my altitude. I was not inside the Class B.
I had been on flight following when I was in South Bend's airspace but they had canceled earlier when I left and entered Chicago's air space. Normally I do not even try to get FF around ORD and it is rare that the TRACON will give it to you. They simply are too busy. When you fly IFR in that area it is damn near impossible to even get vectors through the Class B, they always have you go around.
As we headed up north the only thing to happen was to be treated to a beautiful sunset behind Chicago. Total flight time for our normal 1.5 hour journey was 2.4 hours.
Scott
