cowtowner
Line Up and Wait
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- Oct 7, 2009
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Cowtowner
Thought I'd post this here as I have lurked for a long time, and it's one of the few aviation Forums left in the world that's worth visiting.
My first flight was on a sunny day in 1995 in a pristine Cessna 150. Gawd, that airplane looked small. My flight instructor was an old Korean War Vet, had flown for Braniff Airlines and was now instructing for something to do. He was a small guy (and I weighed 150 back then) so we both were pretty comfortable in that small Cessna.
I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when he helped with the walk around and getting the pesky 150 to start, that he turned the controls over to me. I did most of the taxi (with him telling me to my hands in my lap to keep from “steering” the plane with the yoke), did the runup and then I did the unbelievable. I took off by myself (with him on the controls). I think they do this to hook you, and it did.
I made it through solo in 11 hours, short and long solo cross countries and ready for the final finish up when real life stepped in and stopped me going any further.
I tried again…..two more times. Both failed as the instructors/school weren’t a good fit. Charlie (my first instructor) really cared about his students. He also cared about making sure you were a safe pilot. These other two didn’t give two rats asses what type of pilot they were creating, they only cared about cashing the checks.
This past fall approaching my 54th time around the planet, I decided this was going to be the time that I finished this up. I am lucky, I have an airstrip that is literally half way between my office and home, ten minutes each way. There is a small, new flight school there run by a bunch of young kids trying to get hours to go to the airlines. I decided to try it out.
Travis was my instructor, a young 28 year old kid with 500 hours. He’s a good kid, but he has a lot of holes in his knowledge just from lack of experience. I filled those holes with my previous training, or on my own. Three months and 40 hours later I was a newly minted private pilot. Total time 114 hours. I was Travis’ first solo and his first checkride he signed off on. We became friends, and two weeks after my checkride he quit teaching and got a job flying pipeline. I may be his only student ever to pass a checkride if he keeps up the pipeline work.
A week before my checkride, Travis and I went to look at a Cherokee 180 at a nearby airport. The guy helping the owner sell it is a local A&P. Travis’ whole family is involved in aviation, his dad works at AA as an A&P and his brother is a pilot for a regional airlines. Mike showed us the airplane the day it was listed on BeechTalk and he said there had been 10 calls already on it.
1965 Cherokee 180 with 6000 hours and about 900 on the engine. Good equipment, leather seats, great paint, good auto pilot just no GPS. Seems Travis’ dad Allen knows Mike as they both worked together at AA for 20 years. We put them on the phone allowing Allen to ask about different aspects of the Cherokee (Allen has owned 3 over the years, and as they talked on the phone for about 45 minutes we crawled around N8820J looking at the plane. A young couple showed up during the time we were looking at the plane and I ended up talking with them for a while. He was a corporate pilot and he owned a Barron. He wanted to buy a plane for his wife to learn to fly.
Mike handed my phone back to me and Allen simply said “Buy it”
And that’s what I did. I had a full prebuy done where I helped for about 10 hours of it, learning about the plane. It was two weeks before I got to fly it, as I was studying for my checkride and weather issues. Allen and Travis flew it back to our home airport and a week later Travis took me up for 2 hours and checked me out in 20J.
It was only a matter of days before the shut downs began. Covid19 killed my business as it killed oil prices. The immediate plans to put a GPS in her was put on hold as well as moving right to my instrument training. I still flew, every week I went somewhere. I wanted to land in Arkansas, so I flew to a little airport across the border. A customer wanted to meet in Altus, I was on my way in 45 minutes. Georgetown had cheap gas? A flight down in the afternoon after work to fill up the tank.
I finally convinced my wife to go up in 20J, and while she was scared to death, she motored through. I then planned a weekend trip to Jefferson, a small tourist town in East Texas. We flew out early, spent the day shopping and seeing the sights and then got a B&B, stayed the night and flew back early the next morning.
All in all I had put 40 hours on 20J and she was needing an oil change. I scheduled to have my A&P come show me how to do the safety wire, but the rest of the time he watched and we BS’d about the riots going on around the country as I did all the dirty work. It was nice to be able to sign the log book.
Oil hit $40 last week. It was time to go see some customers.
I spent four full days planning this trip. Looking at different airports and FBO’s along the way. I would takeoff early, 6:30am wheels up, head to Liberal Kansas for fuel (and to see a customer), then on to Denver, Aurora Nebraska, Omaha, Kansas City, OKC then back home. I refreshed myself on Density Altitude, talked to Travis on my planning and got his blessing and then in minute detail, explained the trip to my wife. She is very smart, and knew a lot of the questions to ask. I read all the forums and Facebook groups on different Denver airports, and decided on KBJC. It isn’t as busy as KAPA and is about half way in between the two customers I need to meet.
There is a tropical storm moving into to Louisiana as I takeoff from T67. My latest weather briefing is telling me I am going to be in Denver for one extra day waiting on a system moving in from the west to move out the way. It is supposed to be 104 in Dallas on Tuesday and 67 in Denver. Decision made, I’ll wait it out and while “stuck” sitting at the hotel, catch up on some work and begin this trip report.
At exactly 6:29 Monday morning I texted my wife I was taking off. It was a beautiful clear morning in Texas and the winds favoring runway 32 making the departure to the north that much easier.
I climbed off the runway and called Fort Worth Approach for Flight Following and was told to squawk. I told him I was headed to Liberal at 4,500 feet and he actually cleared me into the Bravo (4000 ceiling above T67) but no way my little Cherokee could climb that fast. I would be out on a 6000 shelf before I could reach my cruising altitude.
The air was like glass, and I cruised along at about 120kts over the ground. Took some pictures, texted my wife a few times, even replied to a few emails. As I moved into southern Kansas, I climbed up to 6,500 and gave up a few knots of tailwind for smoother air and better clearance over the big windmill farms. I was handed off from controller to controller, who didn’t seem very busy, until I was within 10 miles of LBL. “Squawk VFR, airport 10 o’clock 10 miles.”
The wind in Liberal was blowing. No, it was howling. 28kts G 36 and the AWOS was reporting a 5,000 ft density altitude. The wind was straight down the runway though (if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been landing there)
It did get bumpy as I descended to pattern altitude, and I lined up on final and glanced down at Foreflight which showed my ground speed at 40 knots. I didn’t bother with the last degree of flaps and was having to keep in about 2200 rpm to maintain my glidepath and to keep the extra 5 or so MPH to account for the gusts.
I flared too soon and ended up dropping it in from higher than I would like to admit. The Cherokee will drop out of the sky if you reduce power to idle, I know this, it’s even more dramatic when the wind is blowing that hard. Didn’t hurt the plane, just my ego.
I taxied over to the FBO where they were fueling up a United flight and told me they’d fuel me up in a few minutes. Told them no rush and went inside for a bio break and where the gals gave me the keys to a very nice crew car. Nothing to sign, and if I didn’t say anything, I don’t even think she would have asked to make a copy of my drivers license.
I drove the half mile to my customers office, only to find it locked up and everybody gone. Crap. I left my card and a couple of ball caps tied to the front door, I hope they didn’t blow away.
I was back at the FBO within 5 minutes of leaving, and everybody stopped to ask if there was something wrong with the car. I explained my customers office is just around the corner and went and filled up my Yeti coffee cup, purchased a TShirt (nice shirt, only $10! I have started to collect them from the places I fly) and headed out to preflight the plane.
My first flight was on a sunny day in 1995 in a pristine Cessna 150. Gawd, that airplane looked small. My flight instructor was an old Korean War Vet, had flown for Braniff Airlines and was now instructing for something to do. He was a small guy (and I weighed 150 back then) so we both were pretty comfortable in that small Cessna.
I was shocked, shocked I tell you, when he helped with the walk around and getting the pesky 150 to start, that he turned the controls over to me. I did most of the taxi (with him telling me to my hands in my lap to keep from “steering” the plane with the yoke), did the runup and then I did the unbelievable. I took off by myself (with him on the controls). I think they do this to hook you, and it did.
I made it through solo in 11 hours, short and long solo cross countries and ready for the final finish up when real life stepped in and stopped me going any further.
I tried again…..two more times. Both failed as the instructors/school weren’t a good fit. Charlie (my first instructor) really cared about his students. He also cared about making sure you were a safe pilot. These other two didn’t give two rats asses what type of pilot they were creating, they only cared about cashing the checks.
This past fall approaching my 54th time around the planet, I decided this was going to be the time that I finished this up. I am lucky, I have an airstrip that is literally half way between my office and home, ten minutes each way. There is a small, new flight school there run by a bunch of young kids trying to get hours to go to the airlines. I decided to try it out.
Travis was my instructor, a young 28 year old kid with 500 hours. He’s a good kid, but he has a lot of holes in his knowledge just from lack of experience. I filled those holes with my previous training, or on my own. Three months and 40 hours later I was a newly minted private pilot. Total time 114 hours. I was Travis’ first solo and his first checkride he signed off on. We became friends, and two weeks after my checkride he quit teaching and got a job flying pipeline. I may be his only student ever to pass a checkride if he keeps up the pipeline work.
A week before my checkride, Travis and I went to look at a Cherokee 180 at a nearby airport. The guy helping the owner sell it is a local A&P. Travis’ whole family is involved in aviation, his dad works at AA as an A&P and his brother is a pilot for a regional airlines. Mike showed us the airplane the day it was listed on BeechTalk and he said there had been 10 calls already on it.
1965 Cherokee 180 with 6000 hours and about 900 on the engine. Good equipment, leather seats, great paint, good auto pilot just no GPS. Seems Travis’ dad Allen knows Mike as they both worked together at AA for 20 years. We put them on the phone allowing Allen to ask about different aspects of the Cherokee (Allen has owned 3 over the years, and as they talked on the phone for about 45 minutes we crawled around N8820J looking at the plane. A young couple showed up during the time we were looking at the plane and I ended up talking with them for a while. He was a corporate pilot and he owned a Barron. He wanted to buy a plane for his wife to learn to fly.
Mike handed my phone back to me and Allen simply said “Buy it”
And that’s what I did. I had a full prebuy done where I helped for about 10 hours of it, learning about the plane. It was two weeks before I got to fly it, as I was studying for my checkride and weather issues. Allen and Travis flew it back to our home airport and a week later Travis took me up for 2 hours and checked me out in 20J.
It was only a matter of days before the shut downs began. Covid19 killed my business as it killed oil prices. The immediate plans to put a GPS in her was put on hold as well as moving right to my instrument training. I still flew, every week I went somewhere. I wanted to land in Arkansas, so I flew to a little airport across the border. A customer wanted to meet in Altus, I was on my way in 45 minutes. Georgetown had cheap gas? A flight down in the afternoon after work to fill up the tank.
I finally convinced my wife to go up in 20J, and while she was scared to death, she motored through. I then planned a weekend trip to Jefferson, a small tourist town in East Texas. We flew out early, spent the day shopping and seeing the sights and then got a B&B, stayed the night and flew back early the next morning.
All in all I had put 40 hours on 20J and she was needing an oil change. I scheduled to have my A&P come show me how to do the safety wire, but the rest of the time he watched and we BS’d about the riots going on around the country as I did all the dirty work. It was nice to be able to sign the log book.
Oil hit $40 last week. It was time to go see some customers.
I spent four full days planning this trip. Looking at different airports and FBO’s along the way. I would takeoff early, 6:30am wheels up, head to Liberal Kansas for fuel (and to see a customer), then on to Denver, Aurora Nebraska, Omaha, Kansas City, OKC then back home. I refreshed myself on Density Altitude, talked to Travis on my planning and got his blessing and then in minute detail, explained the trip to my wife. She is very smart, and knew a lot of the questions to ask. I read all the forums and Facebook groups on different Denver airports, and decided on KBJC. It isn’t as busy as KAPA and is about half way in between the two customers I need to meet.
There is a tropical storm moving into to Louisiana as I takeoff from T67. My latest weather briefing is telling me I am going to be in Denver for one extra day waiting on a system moving in from the west to move out the way. It is supposed to be 104 in Dallas on Tuesday and 67 in Denver. Decision made, I’ll wait it out and while “stuck” sitting at the hotel, catch up on some work and begin this trip report.
At exactly 6:29 Monday morning I texted my wife I was taking off. It was a beautiful clear morning in Texas and the winds favoring runway 32 making the departure to the north that much easier.
I climbed off the runway and called Fort Worth Approach for Flight Following and was told to squawk. I told him I was headed to Liberal at 4,500 feet and he actually cleared me into the Bravo (4000 ceiling above T67) but no way my little Cherokee could climb that fast. I would be out on a 6000 shelf before I could reach my cruising altitude.
The air was like glass, and I cruised along at about 120kts over the ground. Took some pictures, texted my wife a few times, even replied to a few emails. As I moved into southern Kansas, I climbed up to 6,500 and gave up a few knots of tailwind for smoother air and better clearance over the big windmill farms. I was handed off from controller to controller, who didn’t seem very busy, until I was within 10 miles of LBL. “Squawk VFR, airport 10 o’clock 10 miles.”
The wind in Liberal was blowing. No, it was howling. 28kts G 36 and the AWOS was reporting a 5,000 ft density altitude. The wind was straight down the runway though (if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been landing there)
It did get bumpy as I descended to pattern altitude, and I lined up on final and glanced down at Foreflight which showed my ground speed at 40 knots. I didn’t bother with the last degree of flaps and was having to keep in about 2200 rpm to maintain my glidepath and to keep the extra 5 or so MPH to account for the gusts.
I flared too soon and ended up dropping it in from higher than I would like to admit. The Cherokee will drop out of the sky if you reduce power to idle, I know this, it’s even more dramatic when the wind is blowing that hard. Didn’t hurt the plane, just my ego.
I taxied over to the FBO where they were fueling up a United flight and told me they’d fuel me up in a few minutes. Told them no rush and went inside for a bio break and where the gals gave me the keys to a very nice crew car. Nothing to sign, and if I didn’t say anything, I don’t even think she would have asked to make a copy of my drivers license.
I drove the half mile to my customers office, only to find it locked up and everybody gone. Crap. I left my card and a couple of ball caps tied to the front door, I hope they didn’t blow away.
I was back at the FBO within 5 minutes of leaving, and everybody stopped to ask if there was something wrong with the car. I explained my customers office is just around the corner and went and filled up my Yeti coffee cup, purchased a TShirt (nice shirt, only $10! I have started to collect them from the places I fly) and headed out to preflight the plane.
