dell30rb
Final Approach
Had a great trip this weekend, flew myself up to Asheville, NC saturday to stay with some friends and back home sunday.
On my way up I was cruising at 6,500 enjoying a tailwind and a vector -free clearance through class B airspace. I heard the magic words "mayday mayday mayday cessna xxx has lost engine power and is descending through 7,000" and you could definitely hear the stress in the pilots voice.
Not a good place to be but the weather is CAVU and 7000 is quite a bit of altitude. The controller responds with "CessnaXXX your descent is approved, maintain vfr at all times" (really?) then continues to vector other traffic. About 30 seconds later the pilot of the aircraft keys the mike "mayday, mayday, mayday ... I have an airport in sight... need some help here"
Controller asks him to standby and replies "that's concord at your 12 oclock, 10 miles" and "how many souls on board and how much fuel"
Anyway they handed him off to concord tower who did a nice job of calming the pilot " you're cleared to land either runway, wind is xxx, don't worry we got everything cleared out for you" He made it in safely.
Coming home - I launched into a 2500ft overcast from asheville. There is a mountain right in my path from AVL to the home base, so I told asheville ground that I wanted to fly from asheville to 0A7 and then direct to my home airport, a route that would keep me from overflying any terrain higher than the field at asheville. Of course when I took off, I was immediately vectored straight for the mountain. There looked to be at least 1000 feet of clearance between a lesser peak on the right and the cloud deck so I asked for a heading 10 degrees right of what I was assigned and got it. I have little time in the mountains and generally stay far above them (east coast luxury i guess) but it was AM with calm winds and I knew I was home free after crossing the ridge. Crossed over and had a good flight home.
On my way up I was cruising at 6,500 enjoying a tailwind and a vector -free clearance through class B airspace. I heard the magic words "mayday mayday mayday cessna xxx has lost engine power and is descending through 7,000" and you could definitely hear the stress in the pilots voice.
Not a good place to be but the weather is CAVU and 7000 is quite a bit of altitude. The controller responds with "CessnaXXX your descent is approved, maintain vfr at all times" (really?) then continues to vector other traffic. About 30 seconds later the pilot of the aircraft keys the mike "mayday, mayday, mayday ... I have an airport in sight... need some help here"
Controller asks him to standby and replies "that's concord at your 12 oclock, 10 miles" and "how many souls on board and how much fuel"
Anyway they handed him off to concord tower who did a nice job of calming the pilot " you're cleared to land either runway, wind is xxx, don't worry we got everything cleared out for you" He made it in safely.
Coming home - I launched into a 2500ft overcast from asheville. There is a mountain right in my path from AVL to the home base, so I told asheville ground that I wanted to fly from asheville to 0A7 and then direct to my home airport, a route that would keep me from overflying any terrain higher than the field at asheville. Of course when I took off, I was immediately vectored straight for the mountain. There looked to be at least 1000 feet of clearance between a lesser peak on the right and the cloud deck so I asked for a heading 10 degrees right of what I was assigned and got it. I have little time in the mountains and generally stay far above them (east coast luxury i guess) but it was AM with calm winds and I knew I was home free after crossing the ridge. Crossed over and had a good flight home.
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