With as much flying as I've been doing lately, I can't keep up with writing a story for each flight. So for a while I will probably just write a summary of two or three flights and post them together.
- First up was a cross country with my Commercial CFI, Ryan, to Cape Girardeau on October 7th. It was a scattered cloud kind of day, but a bit chilly. The heater was going to be needed. We take off and head south, then contact St. Louis Approach to get flight following. Now in radar contact, we climb to 3,500ft and assess the clouds. We planned on cruising at 5, 500ft, however it looked like the layer of scattered clouds were hanging out there. "Oh, what the heck..." we thought, and called up Approach and notified them that we were climbing to 7,500ft. I was a bit nervous dodging the clouds as we climbed up over them. This was a first for me to do under basic VFR, but wow was it beautiful. It seems that the more I get to be one with the weather, the more I crave it.
It was about 17 degrees up there and our heater was luckily keeping us warm. Eventually, we had to come back down under the clouds. I study the openings and my speed, figuring out which clearing I would go for and how much time I'd have. I find my spot and bring the power back. My descent is fast and steep, which is something I need to know how to do for commercial training anyway. Without violating VFR cloud separation rules, we make it under. At Cape Girardeau we decide to practice a Localizer Backcourse instrument approach. With Ryan as my safety pilot and the help of ATC giving me vectors and clearances, I make my way inbound. The airport is Class D, which means there's a control tower on the field. I need approval to land, which I quickly get. The wheels gently touch the ground and while we are taxiing back to the runway, we hear a conversation between an incoming jet and the tower. "Tower, can I ask you a question? Why did VFR traffic get priority over IFR traffic?" The pilot was clearly upset that he didn't get to land first. The tower responds, "I don't know, if it were me, I wouldn't have allowed that." The conversation continued for a couple minutes before we were cleared to take off. Sorry guys!
We make our way north and pick up flight following again. There was no point in going over the clouds again, so we just stay under. They were clearing up anyways. ATC tells us to fly to the Cardinal VOR at 3,500ft. Ryan and I look at each other and smile. I don't get to do this often. The Cardinal VOR station is on Lambert Airport's field, meaning we will be going right into Class B airspace and directly over the busy international airport. Woooo!! Once over top, we get switched over to Tower's frequency and she vectors us home. Nothing special on Lambert's field today... oh well. We set up to land on Runway 18, and are no longer talking to ATC. Another decent landing, and another 2.8 hours logged. I'm happy.
- I did an instrument lesson on October 13th, which was uneventful and not worth writing about, so I will continue on to my next instrument lesson. Just a day later, October 14th, the weather was clearly different that its previous day. Clouds were fairly low and the winds were strong. A front had just moved through. It appeared that most students were canceling their lessons, but I want to go for it. My instrument instructor, Mark, and I file an IFR flight plan. We get out to the plane and it's swaying in the wind so much that it looks like it's going to take off from the ramp. This was going to be an interesting flight. I look up and see the clouds soaring across the sky. We taxi out to the runway and I call up Clearance Delivery to get approval to take off. I'm nervous, but excited. "First for departure, runway 18" I tell them. We have an obvious crosswind from the right and shortly after leaving the ground, the wind tries to push me left (click here for video). We fly out north and set up for the Localizer Backcourse at Alton. I peak out of my foggles to see that we're flying right at the cloud base... no wonder the turbulence is intense! After a successful approach, we do a hold then get vectored around for a different approach. While inbound, we had a heart racing moment. The plane drops... 40 feet, instantly and unexpectedly. Even while buckled, Mark and I are lifted off our seats momentarily and Mark bumps his head on the ceiling. Both of us now have all hands on the yokes. In the moment it freaked me the hell out, but after it was over, I busted out laughing. That was insane!
After another good approach, we head back home. The wind is strong. Our airspeed indicator reads that we are flying at 100kts, however, the GPS shows our ground speed as 60kts. The winds up here at blowing at 40kts and we are crawling as we fly directly into them. The turbulence had taken its toll on me. The foggles must come off, I'm actually getting nauseous. The flight home seemed to drag, I was ready to be on the ground. I ask Mark that if I were to file a PIREP report, how would I classify the turbulence? He said moderate turbulence to heavy chop. My jaw drops open... this was officially the worst I've ever been in.
There's no one flying at the local airport today so I make a straight in approach to land on runway 18. Down low, there's a 30kt crosswind from the right. I crab into the wind, then on short final I correct for the wind. Ailerons into the wind, opposite rudder to keep the plane aligned with the runway. My hands are gripped hard on the yoke and the controls are almost as far as they will go. The wind is the devil. I fight hard as the wind clearly doesn't want to me to land on the runway. One wheel touches the ground, then the other, then the nose wheel lowers. But I'm not in the clear yet. The wheels start skidding to the left and Mark grabs the controls to help me stay on the runway. Once on to the taxiway, I stop the plane, take a deep breath, and then look at my watch to see if we had time to do it again, nauseous or not... but we don't. I taxi us back and turn the plane off. That was one very wild day.
- Lastly, I flew with a pilot friend on October 15th to Farmington, MO. He wore the foggles on the way down, then I wore them on the way back home. The trees were almost in their peak fall colors though, which made for a pretty sight. The flight's route was nearly identical to the Cape Girardeau route, so there's nothing special to note. We got to fly over Lambert again though, which is always cool.
After coming home and adding up my hours in the logbook, I happily find that I made some achievements. I finally logged over 100 hours total PIC (pilot in command) time and have exceeded 150 total flight hours. YAY!!! I fly again this weekend and as always, I look forward to it ;-)
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