Chicago Aviation

Short Solo Cross Country
Length: 2.2 hours
Total Time: 56.2 hours

One of my final requirements is to finish my Cross Country time. I have to add 2.2 hours to hit my 5 hour target, so I had to fly pretty deliberately in order to hit that target.

The flight was pretty straightforward. I have made this trip a few times with my instructor, so I had a bit of an understanding of the terrain. Also, a bit help was the fact that the lake is in constant view, so it's hard to get too far off course.

I was on with Chicago Center and South Bend Approach the entire trip, so there wasn't any lapse in Flight Following. There were a few contacts in my vicinity, but the only one that was of any concern was after heading back to Lansing from South Bend. There was a contact at my 12 o'clock at 2 NM and about 1,000' above me. Due to cloud coverage, I couldn't see the plane until it was clear. I descended in order to give way, but it turns out that the other plane was a bit higher than 1,000'.

There are a few key landmarks along this route. The most obvious is the Michigan City Generating Station which has a very obvious cooling tower.

Solo Cross Country
Length: 2.8 hours
Total Time: 54.0 hours

The first time I attempted this trip, I spent a lot more time practicing the route on Microsoft Flight Simulator in order to make sure I can hit my waypoints as planned. This time I put more time into organizing my navigation log. I believe I made the better choice this time.

Link to weather briefing notes and navigation plan

You can see that my VOR freqs and radials are all entered in the same place on each line. This made it much easier for me to quickly look at the page and get the info without hunting for the numbers. This is opposed to having the name of the milestone as the predominant text in the box.

After completing my due diligence and weather briefing at home, I headed for Lansing to meet my instructor for my endorsement.

My instructor asked me a few questions about what I would do in certain scenarios. For example, some questions were "what would you do if your engine stopped running?" and "what would you do if you got lost?".

For the first question, I would follow the ABCDE procedure. I made a note to myself to always keep a best place to land in mind. This doesn't seem to be that difficult as most of the terrain is flat and farmland, meaning most fields appeared to be as good of a spot as any other. But, I always wanted to keep any airfields in mind whenever I thought I was in gliding distance from them. This also was a good exercise in determining how far I could see along the ground compared to the distance on the map. Meaning, I now know that I can see approximately twenty to thirty miles along the ground when I'm flying around 4,000 AGL. I'm still not great at estimating distances, but I can not at least start to understand how far off my mapped track I can select my milestones.

As for the second question, I would follow the 4Cs procedure: Climb, Conserve, Call, and Comply. I would climb to the highest allowable altitude in order to get a better vantage point. Then I would Conserve my fuel by leaning and lowering the RPMs. I would then take the time to check for a VOR triangulation. If that failed, I would ask ATC if they could locate me and give me a vector to a nearby airport (or destination airport, if I was able to complete the flight). If I couldn't raise ATC, I would try FSS on the local freq, and/or 122.2. My final option would be to use the emergency freq of 121.5 to get someone there to try and get my location.

At this point, I wanted to call for an abbreviated briefing in order to get a new view on the weather. Originally, the clouds were supposed to clear at 1800z. Now, they weren't going to clear until 2100z. I had 4,500 scattered and 5,500 - 12,000 Ceilings around my route. So, things looked acceptable. I was expecting clear skies, but the clouds were well within my tolerances.

This did give me a good idea of how the horizon appears with lower ceilings. When I was leaving Aurora, I noticed that the far horizon appeared hazy. I didn't know exactly what to think of that, but I knew that the weather didn't have any factors that should turn convective. I just kept that in mind and headed towards Bloomington. It turns out that the haze was just the regular amount of debris and/or pollution in the air. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it appears to be normal.

The trip itself was relatively uneventful. I made sure I was always checking something while primarily flying the airplane. There were a few times where I would roll the airplane about 10 degrees while jotting down times in my nav-log. I was trying to use the passenger seat as a table instead of picking up my clipboard for each notation. The other learning point was that I didn't properly trim the airplane for take off after each taxi back the the hold-short point. I was preoccupied with verifying my radios and headings. I did double check my flaps, carb heat, mix, etc.. but I missed the trim.

The mechanics of flying the plane aren't a primary issue at this point, I wanted to go over some of the new details required for a cross country trip.

Controlled Tower Landings
Length: 0.9 hours
Total Time: 51.2 hours

After today's refresher lesson, I wanted to get some solo time in. I knew that this was wasn't 100% necessary as one could get their three control tower landings during the long cross-country flight (by taking an extra landing at a towered airport, if necessary).

I took what is essentially my first real cross-country flight. For certification requirements, a cross country flight must be fifty miles away, but otherwise it's a full-stop landing at any airport that wasn't your original.

This also gave me some experience with tower communications. Entering the airspace, declaring my intentions, requesting taxi to runway for takeoff, and ready for takeoff all had to be handled correctly. Speaking to a tower isn't that complex at all once you get a good understanding of all of the information required to execute the intended procedure.

Straight & Level, S-turns, Landing practice

Length: 1.1 hours

Total Time: 50.3 hours

It's been weeks since my last flight, so I had to get out and practice the basics. Simple things like using Vy to climb to altitude, change attitude to hold altitude & increase speed, then reduce power & again change attitude to hold altitude had to be practiced to ensure I was seemless. After practice after practice of working on specific things, I realized that the very simple things had to be honed as well.

S-turns actually turned out quite well. On the gps, the path looked like a perfect S-path. Using the technique of picking a point on the ground & flying over it really helped to polish this maneuver. This has to be the best method of performing ground reference maneuvers. It allows you to feel out the controls while controlling the flight path instead of the other way around, which I consider to be more difficult.

Lastly was a number of landings to make sure that I haven't forgotten one of the most important parts of flying..

Maneuvers and S-turns

Length: 1.1 hours

Total Time: 49.2 hours

Quick update:

At this point, I'm confident on the majority of my maneuvers except for steep turns. From what I understand, these are the most challenging as there are the most variables. You have to maintain your altitude while splitting your lift into the turn. You have to ensure you're maintaining a steep turn and not just a 30 deg turn as I kept finding myself. You have to ensure you airspeed doesn't exceed the maneuvering speed, but doesn't fall under tolerances as well. Lastly, you have to keep aware of your location within the turn so you can end it on course.

I seemed to find myself loosing altitude while approaching 45 degrees. Technically, I was well aware that you need to increase elevator pressure to maintain altitude, then increase power to compensate for the loss of lift. But, I couldn't figure out how to best implement these controls.

 After noticing that I was losing altitude, I increased the elevator pressure. This causes a very noticeable change in g-forces in the plane. It's clearly not a good sign when anything drastic is occurring & I knew it. After chasing back to my altitude, I lost an extra 10 - 15 knots. At this point, I was all over the place. I could get things under control, but it was not a properly executed maneuver.

At this point, I'm still not able to pull this maneuver off. Technically, I knew what was needed, but it's different when attempting to execute.

Night Cross Country (dual)

Length: 1.8 hours

Total Time: 48.1 hours

My trip to South Bend started one hour after nightfall. I've done some local work at night, but never a XC. Luckily, Chicago gives quite a good reference point. Same goes for the lake, but the lake is a black area exactly the same as the non-lighted ground areas.

Although there are some rural parts (i.e., non-lighted areas) between Lansing and South Bend, it's not enough to cause any disorientation. Downtown Chicago is always visible, so there's always a solid reference on the horizon... at least when weather is good...

All of my checkpoints were airports for this trip. I made a non-direct path to South Bend, sacrificing length of the trip for safety. This also allows me a lighted checkpoints. Each time I was expecting to be in visual range of a checkpoint, I would look to see if I saw it already lighted. If not, I would click the pilot-controlled lighting on (using the freq listed for lighting, of course). It would light up, and there was my perfect checkpoint.

The green/white beacons were also helpful, but these weren't as 100% obvious to me. In the future, once I have more experience picking out the beacons from all other town lighting, perhaps I can get by on beacons alone.

Approaching South Bend was uneventful except for the large jet taking off on 09R when I was told to approach for 27L. The large jet departed with a tailwind and, although it moved much quicker than me, it departed the pattern as I was mid-way downwind.

I did a few 360s while the jet departed. This gave any wake turbulence a chance to dissipate, and it also allowed me a good look at a huge plane.

The return journey home was uneventful, but I did get get a bit confused with the horizon and the shoreline. It's just another example of how flying at night can easily disorientate.

Attempted Cross Country

Length: 1.6 hours

Total Time: 46.3 hours

This was my first attempt at a cross-country solo flight. I prepared for hours, including a full review of the route on google earth.I had all of my numbers checked and re-checked. I knew I was ready for this to happen. My flight from Lansing (KIGQ) --> Aurora (KARR) --> Bloomington (KBMI) --> Lansing (KIGQ) was imminent.

I took off from IGQ and the weather appeared good. I dialed in 118.4 to request flight following with Chicago Approach. That went uneventfully. I switched com2 to FSS so I could open my flight plan. I was listening on both frequencies, but transmitting on FSS. What I thought was going to be a quick call turned into an entire briefing. I didn't have any way to write everything down, nor did I think I needed to since I just got a briefing not 30 minutes ago. But, this extra briefing did two things... it made me miss some calls from Chicago Approach & it made me think that a distant front was closer than I initially thought.

So, after being mildly reamed by Chicago Approach, I continued to Aurora. I saw the Aurora river & knew I had to get my ATIS before calling the tower. Did it, no problems.

I approached as instructed by the tower & again, no problems. My pattern was more or less fine but there was some concern about a building on the final leg. This being one of my first times (and my very first time solo) landing at a different airport, it was a bit different than usual. I ended up bouncing the landing a bit and decided to go around. Due to the bounce, I accidentally went to 0 flaps instead of 20. While the flaps were retracting, I was able to bring the plane back into the air. But, once the flaps kept retracting, the lift was lost and the plane wanted to settle back down, so I quickly replaced 20 deg of flaps. That all happened within about five seconds, so it's a lesson learned... Things happen quickly and can escalate even quicker.

Not to let this frazzle me, after notifying the tower that I'm going around, I asked permission to land (again). Permission given and I continue around the pattern. Landing was uneventful this time around.

After changing up my maps and radios, I prepare to depart to Bloomington. After leaving Aurora, I look the 80+ miles towards KBMI and see, what I know now to be, a thick layer of haze. After the long debriefing from Flight Services, I was concerned that the thick air ahead of me was actually a front. I'm not about to turn my first solo XC into my first weather close-call, so I returned to Lansing.

The issue with this is that I wasn't prepared for this leg of the flight. It was easy enough to find the reciprocal course back to Lansing, but there is a lot of airspace of which to be aware. Also, I didn't have the control frequency for this location. This had me calling 118.4 when I was out of range and too low. I wasn't about to climb and risk breaking airspace just to get flight following. There was some midway traffic (Southwest 737s) above me (probably around 6,000 or 7,000) but no close calls by any means.

Landing back at Lansing was, again, uneventful.

Next time, I'll ensure that I have a better understanding of how far ahead of the plane is visible. Since I typically am just practicing, I'm either looking for close traffic or ground reference markers. It just now dawned on me that I never really look 5-10 miles ahead of the plane to find checkpoints. Blurred sky 20-30 miles ahead doesn't appear to be abnormal at all, but I found that out once I was on the ground.