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.

The Next Step in My Training - Complete

I made a big step in my learning yesterday. I completed my checkout in the two Cessna 182's my flying club owns. The first is N182SV, A 2000 Cessna 182S. It has traditional steam gauges, but a GPS and KAP140 Autopilot. Autopilots and GPSs are new to be in the aircraft. The first planes I trained with at Mt. Comfort had them, but once I joined Sky-Vu, I only had the standard 6 pack gauges and then 2 VORs and an ADF. Luckily I had a handheld GPS as a back up. Pilotage is fun and all, but terribly inefficient.

The flight in Sierra Victor was about a month ago now, due to weather being terrible. Most of the required 5 hours of flight were done in our other C182, N721ZA. This is a 2004 Cessna 182T with G1000 avionics. Because of the avionics suite, I flew about 3.5 hours in this plane, and only around 2 in Sierra Victor.

So, here is what my 5 hours of required time looked like:
First flight was in SV. We departed from UMP and headed over to Mount Comfort (MQJ) and Shelbyville (GEZ). These are all on the east side of town, and the goal was just to get used to constant speed propeller operations as well as dealing with the different power settings and V speeds. I think I picked it up pretty quickly, and with direction from my instructor, all was well. I ballooned a little on a couple landings, and I bounced one pretty good, but we made it home safe. I ended up putting on 1.8 hours.

The next flight was a couple of weeks later in Zulu Alpha. We did mostly pattern work, but went from Eagle Creek over to Crawfordsville. I did a few turns on the pattern at Crawfordsville and then headed back to EYE. I had a 7 mile run that afternoon, so I didn't get as much time as I wanted to. We ended up with 1.3 on the Hobbs and decided we'd do it again to finish up the time.

Yesterday afternoon we completed that effort. I left work a little bit early and met my instructor at Eagle Creek around 3 pm. We did quite a round about flight and I landed at some airports I've never been to. First we headed off to Frankfurt (FKR) then Kokomo (OKK) then Wabash (IWH) and finally Huntington (HHG). They are all between 15 and 20 nautical miles apart, so we had some time to get settled in the air before entering the pattern at the next airport. I had some really good landings, and on the way back home we punched through a hole in the clouds and flew back at 6500' msl. Total on the Hobbs was 2.6 and after my instructor finished off the paper work, I had my checkout complete.

I think the next thing I going to try to work on is my check out in our C172RG and combine that with some instrument training. I'm not sure who I am going to have instruct, but I'm probably going to do my 10 hours of the RG and then go back and finish out in 146K...if we still have that plane. I wish my pockets were as deep as my dreams are grand...