Lesson 35 - The Cross-Country

Let me start off by saying today's lesson marked a milestone in my journey--the one year mark of me flying. So it was fitting (though entirely coincidental) that my lesson today would be another milestone--my first cross-country flight. The reality is that we were supposed to fly this trip three weeks ago, but my past three lessons have been cancelled due to high winds. 

The term "cross-country" conjures up images of family road trips to other states, but in the eyes of the FAA, "cross-country" merely means a flight to an airport 50 nautical miles or farther away. It's something that might sound cooler than it really is, but it's also far enough way to where the student pilot has to demonstrate the ability to plan a flight that may not be a direct straight line flight, choose waypoints along the way to keep you headed the right direction, determine fuel consumption, calculate wind course adjustments, and other things you'd need to do whether the airport was 50 miles or 500 miles away. This is the "logistics" aspect of flight training. 

My instructor told me after our last lesson to plan a flight to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport, which is 54 miles away from Centennial, just far enough to qualify for a cross-country flight. If you're driving, it's a straight shot up I-25. Easy enough. Ironically, flying isn't quite as direct. You see, the term "as the crow flies" applies only to birds. They don't have to follow FAA regulations. Planes do. So while crows can fly straight lines all day long, planes have to fly in ways that they do not interfere with other planes in the air. In this case, we have Denver International Airport to our northeast, a busy "Class B" airport that has a very large airspace surrounding it that we need to avoid, and also the Rocky Mountain Regional airport to our northwest, which like Centennial is a fairly busy Class D airport.

A quick note about airspace is in order here. The airspace surrounding airports is "controlled" airspace, meaning that where there is a tower present, you cannot fly in that airspace without talking to Air Traffic Control. Class D and Class E airspace looks like a large cylinder extending out 5 miles from the airport, and up a few thousand feet depending on the airport. Class B and C airspace surrounds larger, busier airports. Their airspace is similar, but (a) extends much higher, and has different layers, with each layer having a larger radius the higher you go. Think of an inverted wedding cake. You cannot fly into Class B airspace without the express permission of the controllers in that airspace, and because they're busy commercial airports, getting clearance into or through that airspace for general aviation pilots is rare. GA pilots can fly under the layers (called flying under the shelf) without issue, but must be careful not to accidentally climb into the class B (or class C) shelf that may be right above them. I keep 500' below the elevation of any shelf I'm flying beneath.

The upshot is that when planning a cross-country flight around areas with lots of airports, you should plan your route to make sure you fly around any airspace that you would otherwise need permission to enter. I guess you don't have to if it can't be avoided, but don't count on getting clearance through a class B airspace just because you want to shave a few minutes off of your flight. I plotted a course that took me northwest, then through a narrow corridor between Rocky Mountain's and DIA's airspaces before turning northward to get to Fort Collins. 

If you're "old school," you pull out paper charts, pencils, plotters, and calculators to figure out your course, time from waypoint to waypoint, fuel burn, etc. (And it's a good idea for pilots to at least know how to do this, even if they never actually do.) Most folks today use software to do this electronically. There are a number of platforms you can use. I have ForeFlight loaded on my phone, so that's what I use. You enter your start and end points, then add waypoints as needed. The software then calculates the time between each point, estimated fuel burn, and on the day of the flight, will factor in the wind forecast to give you heading and course correction information. This becomes the "official" flight plan that you would submit electronically to the FAA if you were going to file a formal flight plan for your excursion. (Not required for VFR flight.) My instructor liked my plan and bumped us over to a Cessna 172 which had a more user-friendly GPS than the one I was originally scheduled to fly in. This way we could transfer my flight plan into the GPS and use that as opposed to having to use my phone. 

The reality is that I really "should" be working on my landings. However, a few factors--again coincidentally--made today a better day to do cross country stuff. First, the primary runway was closed for repairs, so all traffic was using the secondary north/south runway. This meant no touch-and-goes at Centennial. Second, today felt like the first calm-wind day in a long time, so everyone and their brother decided to go flying today. This meant that Spaceport was already crowded with folks from Centennial trying to get in pattern work. So, yeah. Let's go to Fort Collins and get my feet wet in flying long-distances. 

We took off (after what seemed a long wait due to everyone using the same runway) and started climbing out. I started heading west (per ATC instructions) and began climbing to 7,500'. It wasn't too long before ATC told us to descend to 6,800' to avoid oncoming traffic. My instructor took us down quickly, while I looked for the oncoming traffic. It was there, about 200' directly above us. Did I mention that it seemed like everyone and their brother decided to fly today? Yeah. Once he passed overhead, we resumed our climb and turned towards the first waypoint, Mile High Stadium. (Sorry, er, "Empower Field.") I checked my time, and I was right on schedule. I turned north towards our next waypoint. My instructor worked the radio since this was my first cross country so I could get a feel for how to talk to the various controllers along the way as I had not done that before and had enough to do keeping track of waypoints, time, etc. 

We made our way up to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport and I began my descent. I was thrown for a loop because we took off to the north, so in my mind I had us also landing to the north, as the airport runway faces the same general direction. No. They had us landing to the south. "Expectation bias." Once I got my bearings straight, I got us lined up for a touch-and-go. We had a bit of a crosswind, so my instructor had me land with just 10 degrees of flaps as opposed to my usual 30. This meant I was going to land a bit faster than normal, but not too bad. I was more concerned with countering the crosswind, which has thrown me for loops in the past. I think I did a pretty decent job of it, but it was a team effort.

Once back in the air, we turned south. My instructor was going to have me fly to Rocky Mountain airport (southwest) and I started to get us set up for that. We couldn't head straight south because of DIA's class B airspace. ATC instead had us turn east for traffic. And more traffic, and more traffic. There were definitely a lot of folks flying today, and they kept having to have us make adjustments to avoid them. A few minutes later, we heard "three-niner-mike" (our callsign/tail number) "climb and maintain 8,500 direct to Centennial." This meant we were to fly pretty much straight south through DIA's airspace. This doesn't happen all that often, apparently, but due to the high volume of traffic, Denver's controllers figured it was easy to just have us fly straight through their airspace so they didn't have to worry about routing us around other traffic. The "big boys" were still going to be high enough above us as they approached DIA, so we were well out of their way, and at 8,500' and well within DIA's airspace, we were going to be clear of everyone else, too. We got some cool views of downtown from the east, which my instructor pointed out was a rare vantage point for GA pilots. 

I found Cherry Creek Reservoir through the haze, which is a landmark just north of Centennial Airport I use for approach. Winds had picked up and were gusting by the time we got there. We flew a wide loop to the east and lined up for runway 35L. Centennial ATC advised us of winds gusting to 17 knots, and because of the amount of traffic, told us to "keep our speed up." This meant flying the pattern at 100 knots instead of my usual 75 - 85, and no flaps due to the heavy wind gusts. Let me tell you, when you're used to the pace of flying an approach at 75 - 85 knots, all of a sudden doing it at 100 knots means things sneak up on you quickly. I was not used to this pace. After we landed, I quipped that I did not like no-flap landings. My instructor assured me that I'd learn to like them when it's gusty. He hasn't been wrong yet...

All in all, a very fun day in the air. I felt good about my flight plan to Fort Collins. I was able to stick to it, my estimated times were spot on, and I felt comfortable the entire time. I got a good feeling for the radio communications along the way, not so much what to say, but at least who to say it to. That will come with time. I felt with my landings, I was more doing what my instructor was telling me to do as opposed to feeling things out for myself, but given the adverse conditions, being told what to do and doing it is what gets you down safely. At least I was doing it. I'll take that for the win. 

Our next cross country will be out to Fort Morgan, which will be a lot less congested, though because it's in the middle of friggin' nowhere, finding visual waypoints may be a challenge. That will afford me the ability to ease into radio coms along the way, though, since it will not be quite so busy.

Lesson 34 - Highs and Lows (Wings)

There seems to be a raging debate among student pilots as to which type of plane is better to learn in, high or low wing. While it's not quite to the level of Ford vs. Chevy, the High vs. Low debate still stirs surprisingly strong emotions. For my part, I never gave it much thought. I had flown in my friend's Piper Warrior (low wing) and also his Pietenpol Air Camper (high wing) 20 years ago. Maybe it was because I was just too new to flying and the whole experience was so cool that I couldn't dissect the nuances between the two to form an opinion one way or the other. I was just thrilled to be in the air. I'm a photographer, so the high wing does make more sense for taking photos, but if I'm the one flying, I'm not the one taking photos so what do I care? 

When I first started training, I decided to stick to the Cessnas (high wing) because (a) I figured sticking to one type of plane for my early training would eliminate some variables from the equation, and (b) the Cessna 172s make up the vast majority of my school's fleet, so it would be easier to find an available plane. For the most part, my reasoning has proven solid, though it seems recently the school's maintenance department has determined which plane to pull for maintenance next based solely on which one I had reserved. Usually when my school pulls my plane for maintenance, they'll try to book me in another C172. Failing that, they'll move me to the simulator (in which my instructor sees little value) or a ground lesson. Such was the case with today's lesson. The Cessna I booked went in for maintenance, so I got bumped to ground. My instructor and I keep our eyes open to see if anything opens up last minute on the schedule when that happens. This time, I got a text from my instructor, "booked us in a Grumman." The Grummans are small low-wing trainers, a bit smaller than the Pipers the school also has. They look cool, though, which is always important. At this stage in my training (40+ hours), I was pretty confident I could adapt to the plane without much fuss. I was pretty stoked to try something new. 

Parallel to this, my birthday was at the beginning of this month, and my wife got me a yoke and rudder pedal set so I could set up a flight simulator on my computer. While I hadn't actually flown for real in a month, I had logged a whole lot of time on the simulator. You'll find similar debate among students and instructors as to the efficacy of simulators in training, especially at the private pilot level. As mentioned above, my instructor doesn't see a whole lot of benefit for early-on training. (Neither does the FAA, which is why you can only log 2.5 hours of sim time towards your required hours for private pilot.) Without question, the sim is different than the real thing. I agree with my instructor that in terms of teaching the basics, there's no substitute for the real thing. So much of what we learn is by "feel," and you don't get that on a sim. Having said that, I have found that one advantage of a home-based simulator is the ability to repeat things over and over again to build that mental and muscle memory. 

Take for example the "dance" between ailerons and rudder when lining up for landing. You get that wrong in the plane, you're 20' off the ground with little room for error. It's not the right time to have to mentally sort out rudder opposite aileron to stay on center. You get that backwards, and you're going sideways down the runway. (See previous blog entry.) On top of that, you have to be flying on a day when ATC is letting you do touch-and-goes to get more than one crack at it. On the sim, you can get 30+ simulated landings in an hour. You can set up a scenario and just fly it and fly it again and again and again to begin to sort things out in your mind. I think of it as chair flying with visual aids and props. You're not as task-saturated in the sim as you are in the plane, so it's easier to recognize things you didn't do when you don't get a good result. Many times in the plane after a bad approach, my instructor would ask "what happened?" I couldn't really figure out in that moment what went wrong because I was also flying the plane and concentrating on that. Here, when something goes wrong, you hit pause and evaluate what you did and did not do so you can correct it next time. And if you crash, you just hit "load flight" and go again. The FAA doesn't need to know you bent your virtual plane. 

Back to today's lesson. Having probably spent 30 hours on my home sim since I got it set up, I was anxious to put theory into actual practice. Hammering away on procedures (particularly landing procedures) trained my mind to keep track of visual cues as well as the instruments more consistently than I think I had been in the past. I wanted to apply that to an actual flight to make sure things translated well from one environment to the other. Flying a different type of plane added another layer of "let's see how it translates" to the process as well. I had something to prove to myself this flight. 

My instructor and I decided that since this was a new type of plane for me, we'd go out and fly some maneuvers to give me a good feel for the plane before heading to the airport for touch-and-goes. Alas, even without knowing what ATC was going to do, our plans for touch-and-goes was thwarted by a severely worn tire. We had called a mechanic out to put air in one that looked low, and as he was topping them all off, he asked "you doing touch-and-goes?" We said we were planning on it. He said it wasn't a good idea with the tire like that since one hard landing would leave us stuck on the runway. That happened to my instructor the previous week, and for some odd reason he had zero interest in repeating that scenario. We agreed that if we were going to do them, we'd do two or three at the most. With our plans for flying around first, that was probably all we'd be able to get in anyway.

The biggest difference between the Grumman and Cessna (besides the location of the wings) is that the Grumman relies solely on the differential left and right brakes for steering on the ground. The front wheel is just like a shopping cart wheel, there to keep the nose from hitting the ground. Of course, either I didn't entirely pick up on that nuanced difference or my feet were still in "Cessna mode" so I wasn't quite as smooth on the taxiing as I wanted. I kept wanting to steer with the rudder, not brakes. Next time, I'll do better.

Once in the air, though, the Grumman proved to be very easy to fly, surprisingly similar to the Cessna. The low wing certainly gives a lot more visibility. It was a little bumpy, and the Grumman being a smaller and lighter plane than the Cessna was a bit more susceptible to those bumps and I found myself needing to really stay on top of my altitude. I'd blink and I'd be up 200'. When you're flying under a class B airspace shelf, it's important to stay far enough below so not to make folks watching the radar screens nervous. We flew to the southeast practice areas where I did some slow flight and stalls, some steep turns, then we headed west across Castle Rock (which doesn't look nearly as imposing from 8500') then up to Chatfield Reservoir and our Southwest practice area. Once at Chatfield, I called ATC and asked for touch-and-goes. They said no, so--sadly--I would only have one shot at landing the Grumman today to see if my landing work on the sim translated to the real world. I do like being able to see the runway all the way through the downwind-base-final process, though even with that I still found myself just slightly askew from the centerline and needing to slide a bit further to get better lined up so is it really an advantage? The landing wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but I've had lots worse, too. 

Today's flight was in many ways just flying for the fun of flying. The skies were clear, the scenery was cool, the atmosphere very relaxed. On one hand, I didn't feel like I was pushing myself very hard and some might say I wasn't using my time wisely. On the other hand, it was my first time in a different plane, and that I adapted so quickly and easily to it gave me a big confidence boost. The maneuvers I was doing felt natural to me. I didn't have to think from one step to the next, it all just kind of flowed. That and I could feel myself spending more time bouncing back and forth between looking outside and inside at the instruments, and keying off of what I was seeing outside the window to stay more on top of what the plane was doing in the air. (Thanks, simulator!) So maybe an easy day in the air isn't so much just taking it easy as it is recognizing how far I've come, and giving me confidence that the skills I'm still working hard to develop will--eventually--feel as natural as the rest of my flight today.

And I'm still in the "doesn't matter" camp when it comes to the high/low debate. I'll definitely be flying the Grumman again. Always good to have more options.