Cross Country Requirement...complete!

I finished my cross country requirements today with a flight lasting nearly 3 hours. The route was Albert Whitted (SPG) to Lake Wales (X07) to Leesburg (LEE) to Brooksville (BKV) and home. It was fun, uneventful and not overly exciting. Uneventful is the best kind of flying. My photos are not too good. My wife had the camera, so I'm back to cell phone pics.

Prior to the flight, Rob checked my flight plan and signed my logbook authorizing the trip. I filed a VFR flight plan. Rob says it will probably be the only one I ever file. The briefer at Flight Services was none too friendly, so Rob might be right. After departing Whitted, I tried to contact the St. Petersburg Flight Service Station with no success. I wanted to open my flight plan before asking Tampa for permission to enter their airspace. Possibly, I was too low to get the FSS on the radio, and after contacting Tampa Approach and receiving flight following and permission to transit the Class B airspace, I dropped the idea of opening my flight plan. Tampa had me on radar almost all the way to Lake Wales, where they terminated radar service.

Lake Wales is a scenic town in the hill and lake country of central Florida. I could clearly see Bok Tower, an old time Florida attraction. However, I have learned my lesson about taking photos near the airport or in the traffic pattern and did not get a pic of the tower. I flew north to Winter Haven, the city of my birth, and set course for Leesburg. Leesburg is the first towered field I've landed at by myself. It was pretty busy, but the controllers kept everything moving and I got in and out without any problems. From Leesburg I was off to Brooksville.

Brooksville, or Hernando County, sounded busy on the radio, but I think most pilots were doing instrument approaches and never put wheels on asphalt. I got a bit confused about which runway to use. The winds were light and variable, so I went with the flow and landed on 9. The FBO seemed to be about 5 miles from the runway, but nature was calling and I had to stop. This was the first time that I have gotten out of the airplane at an airport other than Whitted. Someone was at the plane before I could exit to see if I needed fuel or anything. Nice to see that kind of service, but I just wanted the restroom and vending machine. The photo is trusty old N54666 on the ramp at Brooksville.

The GPS came in handy today. I missed two checkpoints. There was enough haze to make spotting landmarks difficult. Couple that with a bad forecast of the winds aloft and I got off course a bit, particularly on the legs from Leesburg to Brooksville and from Brooksville to the coast. Now its hard to miss the Gulf of Mexico, but without the GPS, I don't think I would have found the Brooksville airport. One of my checkpoints was a small private airfield, which I never saw. I would have gotten home with little problem. Like I said, its hard to miss the Gulf and once there a left turn would take me home. Over the Florida peninsula, you can't get very lost.

I plan on putting in some pattern work and maneuver practice this weekend. My medical flight test is tentatively scheduled for next Friday. The FAA inspector has to talk to someone in Washington first. I didn't realize this required an act of congress. He tells me that he can't be the PIC for the flight and I can't be the PIC with a passenger. Sounds like a catch 22 situation. I'm starting to think that Rob may have to go along, or that I'll be taking my checkride with a FAA inspector rather than a designated pilot examiner (DPE). As my wife says, we'll see.

lesson 26

You will need google earth to open and view the lesson 26 flight track.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 23.3 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 15.8 Hours

Landings: 130

Unusual Attitudes

I had my second round of simulated instrument flying today. I might not have explained that well enough last time for my non-pilot readers, so here goes. We fly VFR, that means good weather, but to practice instrument flight, I put on a hood that limits my vision to the instrument panel of the airplane. The instructor gives directions on which way to turn, climb or descent, and keeps a look out for other airplanes.

Rob threw me a few curves today, literally. After a few minutes of basic instrument flight, we got into unusual attitude recovery. For this fun event, I close my eyes while Rob flies the plane and tries to get me disorientated. He then puts the plane in an unusual attitude (hence the name) and has me recover. The plane may be climbing, diving and most likely banked at the same time. I have to quickly, by looking at the airspeed and turn coordinator, access the situation and take steps to return to straight and level flight. It went pretty well. Rob never was able to get me thoroughly disorientated, and I recovered quickly. I over controlled on the recoveries, but I got things back to straight and level pretty quick. If the GPS track looks like we were drinking, its because Rob played this game for a good while.

I can't tell you that I saw anything interesting, because I didn't see much of anything at all. I had the hood on all the way back to Whitted, where we did a few short field landings and called it a day. Don't worry, I took the hood off for the landings. Next week I'm going to try to finish my cross country requirement with a flight to Lake Wales (X07), Leesburg (LEE) and Brooksville (BVK) before returning to Whitted. Rob endorsed my logbook for solo flights within Tampa's class B, so I'll be able to request flight following. I may file a VFR flight plan for one leg of the trip, just to have done it. I will try to get some good photos on that flight.

lesson 25

You will need google earth to view the lesson 25 file.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 23.3 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 13.0 Hours

Landings: 126

Aeronautical Knowledge Test

Just a quick note. I took and passed my FAA Private Pilot Aeronautical Knowledge Test today with a score of 95%. They got me with one trick question, one math error and one I simply didn't know. I'm glad it's over with, I got real tired of studying for it. Next up will be my medical flight test, then the big one.

Hood Time

It was my intention to snap a photo of the instrument panel of N54666 first thing this morning, but like so many intentions, it got away from me. So, the panel to the left is from another Cessna 172P found on the Internet, but happens to look amazingly similar to the one I stared at for an hour this morning. Oh, did I forget to mention, I was wearing a hood, or blinders, that kept me from seeing anything else.


First things first. Rob went over my log book to make sure that we had not missed anything in the course of my training. I don't have much left: One solo cross country, a few hours of instrument time and a few hours of test preparation. Presuming I pass the test, I would then be free to terrorize the skies with passengers, as we were terrorized this morning. More on that later. After the log book review, Rob went over the instrument scan, a technique for flying and managing the plane without outside visual reference. Ten minutes of ground instruction then time to give it a shot.


I put on the hood as soon as we hit 400 feet and didn't take it off until we were on final at about 400 feet. We flew east, over Tampa Bay to Ruskin, where I practiced some simple maneuvers. Climbs, descents, standard rate turns, climbing turns and descending turns. That's pretty simple stuff, but made difficult when you only have instruments to look at. Now, I have only 1.1 hours of instrument time, so I'm not claiming to be an great instrument pilot, but I think I did pretty well. I didn't get disorientated or confused. Lost maybe, but not confused. I sort of liked it. It took a good deal of concentration, and if I had to do it for hours, I'm sure it would be exhausting. Actually, I think Rob was just trying to sell me the instrument course after I finish my PPL.


Rob kept me under the hood and gave me headings to get us back to Whitted. As I mentioned above, instrument flying takes concentration, but as we were approaching the airport I hear half of a conversation between Whitted's Air Traffic Control and another of the rental planes. Someone is having trouble finding his way around the airport. He finally takes off and turns left when ATC told him to go right. Bad news, we're on the left. About this time, I'm guessing the other renter changes radio frequency because the tower can no longer contact him. The tower calls us to warn us to avoid this guy. Rob yanks the hood off, the other guy climbs above our approach path and I land in a stiff cross wind. Pretty exciting. The controller didn't want the guys name, but did want him warned not to change radio frequency until clear of the class D airspace. Now the really funny part. We walk in the office and Rob asks "Who's in 54159?" We're told, oh, that was so-and-so, you know the (insert name of major air carrier here) pilot. Honest.

Tomorrow I take the FAA Private Pilot's Knowledge Exam. I'll be glad to be done with it. I'll fly some more later this week, but I haven't decided what I want to do just yet. I get to choose my own route for my next cross country, so I might just do that.

lesson 24

You'll need google earth to view the lesson 24 flight track.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 22.0 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 13.0 Hours

Landings: 122