October 18, 2005

Flight down to Port Aransas

Sunday I flew down to Mustang Beach Airport in Port Aransas (http://airnav.com/airport/KRAS) . I flew in the 152 I got checked out on the other day, N49785. The plane really doesn't make me happy. It reads about 200rpm high on the tach and is missing a knob on the VOR receiver. For more general griping against the club's 152s, they only have 1 radio and no DME (or, heaven forbid, RNAV). I'm spoiled by 172s with nice radios that let you hot swap frequencies, have two radios, and occasionally even have GPS :)

It was 2 hours there, and 2 hours back. I flew KCLL..IDU..VCT..KRAS, which can pretty much be summed up as due south of Easterwood. The Victoria VOR is annoying, with a fairly short range.

I left KRAS later than I wanted (about 9pm, and I really wanted to be up by 7pm) so I was treated to an... interesting night flight. My night cross country before this was in a 172 with GPS. Thankfully there was a full moon, but the lack of DME meant that for distances I was estimating (real hard to tell which city is which at 4500' at night). I called into Houston Center for flight following, and got an earful for telling them I was about 30 miles from where I really was (understand, I was on course, I just thought I was further than I was). The landing at KCLL was a bit bumpy, I think I flared a bit soon (shouldn't have set the runway lights on high intensity, I think).

Anyway, all in all a fun flight. KRAS is really worth going to if you want to hang out and go to the beach from College Station.

Posted by jeff at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

October 15, 2005

152

I finished getting checked out in the Cessna 152 today. Originally I had reserved a 172 for a nice long cross country flight down to maybe Corpus, but the plane was still in annual.

I have a 152 reserved for a cross-country tomorrow. There are definitely things I don't really like about the 152s, but it's still a lot cheaper to operate when you don't need a lot of luggage or more than 2 people.

Oh, I also found CoPilot , a Palm app for flight planning. Too useful to do without.

Posted by jeff at 07:25 PM | Comments (2)

September 04, 2005

Yay! Private pilot license

As of yesterday at about 7pm, I am officially a private pilot :)

The oral exam and checkride weren't bad at all. But then, I've spent so much time grinding and practicing that if they were, it would have been disturbing.

Posted by jeff at 11:09 AM | Comments (1)

May 05, 2005

Night Cross Country

Hmm, so a few days back I made my "long distance solo cross-country". That is a cross-country trip with more than one stop. There's a distance requirement for defining exactly what is cross-country, but I can't be buggered to look it up for my internet friends. Anyway, that LDSXC (haha, a new acronym!) was from Easterwood to Waco then down to Taylor and back to College Station. It was in N9925Q, a very nice plane with an IFR-approved GPS. Flying with a GPS was sexy after doing my first solo xc using ded reckoning and waypoints. So anyway, very few problems indeed. I wouldn't say I was competent on the radio with Waco approach, Gray approach, or really anyone in-between, but I got my point across eventually and they didn't curse at me.

Tonight, I went on my night cross country with an instructor named Mick (Bill was a bit tired from students during the day and begged off). It was a simple straight shot from Easterwood to Austin-Bergstrom. I flew visual waypoints to AUS, which sucked mightily. It sucked even writing them down. "Well, I assume and hope this city will be visible at night." Made my first couple of checkpoints (and verified I wouldn't be far off the time estimate in my filed VFR flight plan) and then rode the GPS into AUS. Mick was great at helping me get ready for my radio calls, although he fiddled with buttons quite a bit (dangit, I like to fiddle with the buttons grin ). He mainly teaches and flies IFR, so he had practical tips for the various callups that I wouldn't normally get. It sounds like he'll soon be leaving for the high-stakes world of regional jet piloting.

The landing at AUS stank. The FBO was nice (I got a coffee, Mick got popcorn). The return trip was all GPS (because I didn't feel like fiddling the radios for a VOR trip) and wildly variant around the intended course. The landing at CLL wasn't terrible.

Now that that's done, I mostly need to get my solo flying out of the way before my checkride. holds hand over head mysteriously I foresee... lots of turns about a point... in my future.

Posted by jeff at 02:06 AM | Comments (0)

April 20, 2005

Solo Crosscountry

I made my solo crosscountry flight last Saturday, the 20th. I flew from Easterwoord (KCLL) to Madisonville (51R) and then up to Palestine (KPSN).

It was quite hazy at altitude. Spent 3 hours up total, because I forgot my logbook at PSN and had to fly back for it when I was about 15nm south of the airport. I made most of my marks (was flying ded reckoning and visual landmarks), although I drifted a bit further west than I intended on the return flight, and flew over Coulter when they were about to drop skydivers.

I decided that in aircraft that support it, radio navigation is definitely the way I prefer to go. Or GPS, for that matter.

Posted by jeff at 06:07 PM | Comments (0)