New Airport, Grass Strip, Night Landing

As some quick background, my father is a duck hunter. He belongs to a duck club in north-western Illinois. It is located just south of Bath, IL. My dad asked my last week if I wanted to fly over with him on friday and fly back on Saturday. He would be willing to foot 50% of the bill (no more according to FAR Part 61.113). I looked up some possible landing sites and found only one. Havana Regional. Luckily it was only about 5 miles from the duck club. Interestingly it is a grass strip. I don't know about you guys, but I've not landing on a lot of grass strips at night. This strip did have runway edge lights, but no beacon. The lights are on all the time from dusk to dawn, so it shouldn't be too hard to find with the GPS. I planned the flight knowing that I would have to stop for fuel some where.

Here is what I came up with:
KHFY - KAAA - 9I0

Looked good to me.  Nice and direct.  AAA had 24/7 self serve.

On Friday morning my dad asked where we would be eating dinner.  Well, I didn't see many options at AAA, so we decided to make a stop at Coles County (KMTO).  They have a restaurant on the field.  I've been to MTO before, the first time was on my dual XC and then again on my solo XC.  I altered the route and planned the flight.  We would be able to fuel up at MTO as well.

I picked up my dad at 5:00pm on Friday and we headed down to KHFY.  While my normal drive is about 30 minutes, it took us almost an hour due to traffic.  That was a bummer, but I mood wouldn't be spoiled, we were going flying!

I did my preflight, briefed my dad and we taxied off.  We departed from KHFY, headed out under IND's Charlie airspace and climbed up to 2500'.  We were going to stay low because there was a pretty mighty headwind at high altitudes (30-40kts).  We stayed down low because it was only about 15-20kts in the face. 

We landed at MTO after 1.4 hours on the HOBBS.  One of the runways was closed but the one we needed was in great shape.  Unfortunately the FBO had closed 30 minutes prior.  I should have called first, shame on me.  My dad and I went ahead and ate anyway and planned a stop in Decatur.  We would be able to go inside the FBO and get full service fuel.  I usually don't do that, but it was getting cold out and I could have used a free cup of coffee.  At KDEC we chatted with the line guy about landing in Havana.  He had no personal experience, but he knows other people have planned it at night.  We paid for fuel, said our good byes and took off. KDEC is a controlled field, so we got to do a straight in arrival and straight our arrival, barely any lost time on the Hobbs.

We climbed to 4500' in order to have a better margin of safety at night.  The sky was extremely clear and I swear I could see the lights of St. Louis over 100 miles away.  When I got about 10 miles out from Havana and my dad and I stopped the field.  I made my radio calls, did a low pass at about 150' in order to check out the runway before landing.  The turf was in fantastic shape.  I stopped the plane in about 800' and made the turn off towards parking easily.

  

I slept wonderfully that night.  My dad got up early to hunt and I woke up to make myself sausage patties and eggs.  We departed Illinois around 11:00am and were back home in 2.2 hours.  Before heading back we took some really cool photos of the club.  Those are all included below.  Check out the one at the end of KIND.  We received flight following again and got to fly over the touchdown point of runways 5L and 5R. I love FF in Indianapolis.

Transient Parking Ramp

One of the Three Buildings on the Field

Building Two

Me, Walking Toward the Plane

Turning Around at the End of the Runway

The River

Bath, IL

Can you spot the duck blinds? If you can, they aren't very good blinds!

Over 2R2

KIND in the distance

Runway 5L

5L and 5R with the terminal in the middle

 Thanks to my dad for all the cool photos!

My Easter Flight

On Easter Day, my parents and I flew out to St. Louis.  We left Indianapolis Metro (KUMP) at about 0715 Eastern.  The skies were clear and the winds aloft were about 25 kts on the nose.  We were in the Cessna 182, so our ground speed was still around 120 kts.   The first hour and 30 minutes were not very exciting, climbing up to 8500' using the KAP 140.  We used the GPS and followed it in to St. Louis via the STL VOR.  During the decent we passed right in front of the active runways at KSTL.  We got to see a regional jet taking off and then continuing over the top of us.  Neat to see from that perspective.

Easter was great.  We had Ribs and Chicken Marsala and other delicious foods.  I got to see my cousin Ryan, my step cousin Megan, my Aunt Sara, my Step-Uncle Grant and my Grandparents.  it was a neat little Easter.  I can't remember the last time I've seen the Aunt and Step-Uncle.  They all wanted to go up and fly with me, but it was really really windy on the ground.  In fact, the winds at take-off were 18 kts gusting to 23.  They were about 50 degrees off runway heading which, for those of you playing along at home equates to a 13.7 knot crosswind.  The Max demonstrated in a 182 is 15 kts.

dAnyway, we took off and headed south around KSTL.  We went about 2 miles north of the St. Louis arch and engaged the KAP 140 to take us back to 7500'.  We got a hefty tailwind and our ground speed was nearing 175 kts.  On the decent into Indianapolis, we hit 178 kts, which is quite impressive for a Skylane.  But, ground speed isn't a good measure when you aren't actually attached to the ground.  I made a pretty good landing at KUMP given the 15+kt winds on the ground and made the realization that I had officially been the pilot of an airplane going over 200 mph.  But only ground speed, with a 30 kt tail wind.  Whatever, I'll take it.  Bring it on Mooney Acclaim.

My Recent Flying Opportunities - Why I Network

I've recently been introduced to a fellow pilot who is very fortunate to fly for business and pleasure and be afluent enough to fly very often. The first time I flew with him was in December to go out to Pennsylvania to pick up his son. The best part was that we got to fly in his Piper Malibu Turbo prop. I had a great time on that trip, and told him if he had any other trips to let me know.

Last Wednesday evening, at about 8:00 pm, the pilot called me. He would be flying out to Seattle and wanted to know if I would like to join as a co-pilot. He also invited Annie’s Dad who had introduced us. We both agreed and we were going to stay with Annie’s Uncle on Bainbridge island. We met the pilot at the Shelbyville airport at the hanger with the CitationJet1 and departed for Torrington, WY at about 6:30. We landed in Torrington, re-fueled and headed to Boeing Field in Seattle. It was dark when we landed, and I couldn’t see the 787, but I was looking for it.

We ended up staying in the hotel on Thursday night instead of heading to Bainbridge island via ferry because it would have been at 2:00 am local time before we arrived at the place we were staying. On Friday morning I sent Lindsay a bunch of text messages about how awesome it was and asked about work. She still wants to punch me in the face. I had a Mocha Latte at the first Starbucks, shopped at the pike street market and saw the fish throwers. After that we headed to the space needle and had lunch at the rotating restaurant. We took the Bainbridge ferry to the island in the evening for dinner and I hung out with Annie’s Family. (note, she was not there).

We left the following morning after lunch with the pilot’s son, daughter and future son-in-law. We arrived back home in Shelbyville at around 7:30 pm after a non-stop flight back.
Here are some details about the actual flights:
GEZ -> TOR: 3 hours and 10 minutes. 844.5 nautical miles
Not much to talk about here. I sat up front with the pilot in the co-pilot seat. We chatted about the airplane, turbine engines and such. He is a very interested individual and asked about N1 vs. N2 and which was fan and which was compressor and how limits for the rotating parts are determined and why the N1 limit is 101.5, but the N2 limit is only 100%.

TOR -> BFI: 2 hours and 50 minutes. 836.9 nautical miles
I actually sat in the back for this flight and let Bob Alonso sit up front. I took a sweet nap and work up during the approach over Seattle. It was unusually clear and the city lights were very bright.

BFI -> GEZ: 5 hours and 30 minutes. 1641 Nautical Miles
This flight was awesome. It was day time for most of the fight and the pilot hopped in the back from time to time and let me montitor the flight. I didn’t have to do a lot, but I did help with: Optimizing the %N1 for best fuel burn and range; monitoring ITT, Oil Temp/Pressure and do an RVSM Log (see below); answering radio calls and talking with ATC at Minneapolis, Denver Chicago, and Salt Lake City; watching for traffic and looking at the rocky mountains. It was pretty amazing.

An RVSM log is something that pilots have to do when the go into the Reduced Vertical Separation Minimum airspace above 29,000 ft. The previous separation between aircraft was 2000ft, and now it is 1000ft. A number of things need to be logged every hour to make sure that the instruments are behaving properly and you are truly at the correct altitude. Because the air is so thin, a minor change in the pressure outside that accounts for maybe 20 ft on the ground could make hundreds of feet of difference. Here is what is required to be logged:
- Altimeter settings
- Airspeed (True, ground and indicated)
- Fuel on board, fuel burn per hour and reserve fuel at landing
- location (nearest airport and altitude)
- Temperature outside

Solo XC - Evansville, IN (KEVV)

I completed my second cross country today.  Well, half of it.  I went to Evansville to visit my grandparents for the evening.  This whole flying thing is really great.  Anyway, There isn't a whole lot to talk about, so I'll do another photo post: