Yesterday I did my second cross country flight. Nathan and I headed over to Clermont County Airport, home of Sporty's Pilot Shop. On Saturdays from 12:00 to 2:00 they serve free hot dogs and brats to visitors. I had a fantastic spicy and cheesy Mettwurst, but back to the flight:
We called up 1-800-WXBRIEF to get a weather briefing and to file our flight plan. Everything seemed be working great. I did my pre-flight and realized we were missing one of the fuel tank caps, so I looked to see who had the plane last and determine why this wouldn't be attached. Of course, I had the plane last, and therefore I felt quite foolish. I called the FBO where I fueled and they had my fuel cap. I drove down there and picked it up. Hooray! Everything else on the preflight went well and pretty soon we were on our way. We skirted around the class C airspace of Indianapolis and when we had gotten to shelbyville realized we needed to open our flight plan. We did so and there was no other big news until closer to Ohio.
We were about 30 miles from the big Cincy airport (CVG) and this was not our destination. We were headed to I69 which was on the other side of Cincy. We called into Cincinnati Tower and were told to contact Cincinnati Approach. Cincinnati approach hooked us up with some flight following and clearance in to the class B airspace. We navigated to our destination using VORs (Very High Frequency Omni-Directional Range). Now you know why we shorten the names. We found the airport after some looking around and made a landing. The landing was quite poor, it wasn't unsafe or anything, I was pretty high and had to do a forward slip in order to lose altitude. I landed later down the runway and I hit kind of hard. It wasn't awful, just not my best.
We called up 1-800-WXBRIEF to get a weather briefing and to file our flight plan. Everything seemed be working great. I did my pre-flight and realized we were missing one of the fuel tank caps, so I looked to see who had the plane last and determine why this wouldn't be attached. Of course, I had the plane last, and therefore I felt quite foolish. I called the FBO where I fueled and they had my fuel cap. I drove down there and picked it up. Hooray! Everything else on the preflight went well and pretty soon we were on our way. We skirted around the class C airspace of Indianapolis and when we had gotten to shelbyville realized we needed to open our flight plan. We did so and there was no other big news until closer to Ohio.
We were about 30 miles from the big Cincy airport (CVG) and this was not our destination. We were headed to I69 which was on the other side of Cincy. We called into Cincinnati Tower and were told to contact Cincinnati Approach. Cincinnati approach hooked us up with some flight following and clearance in to the class B airspace. We navigated to our destination using VORs (Very High Frequency Omni-Directional Range). Now you know why we shorten the names. We found the airport after some looking around and made a landing. The landing was quite poor, it wasn't unsafe or anything, I was pretty high and had to do a forward slip in order to lose altitude. I landed later down the runway and I hit kind of hard. It wasn't awful, just not my best.
We had our brats and took a quick break. I realized that I really needed a better way to organize my stuff in the air, so I bought a kneeboard. This was one of the greatest decisions I have made. It is a clipboard with some pockets for maps and other papers. It hold my sectional charts so that I can track my progress easier.
On the way back I took over and used the VORs a little bit more than I had before. I talked on the radio more and I only needed help when I didn't know exactly what to say in return. The landing at EYE was much better than at I69, but I still am coming in a little bit high and using too much of the runway. It isn't an issue at Eagle Creek because of the longer runway.
We did get flight following, and because of this my flight showed up on flightaware.com.
We fueled up, using about 25 gallons total for 2.8 hours on the Hobbs Meter. In general, that was good usage, about 9 gallons an hour. I've been using 10 as my estimate, just in case.
I did earn my solo endorsement back, so I can go fly on my own if I want, but I have to call Nate first so he can ok it.
Totals for this flight:
2 landings
2.8 hours of Cross Country
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