Cross Country to Hailey, and Burley

Monday, April 21st

I had planned over the weekend to create three flight plans, and have them ready on Monday morning, when it came time to meet up with Ryan. Some things happened over the weekend, so I didn't get to get them as complete as I wanted them. I had most things lined up except for the weather, and some calculations.

I got there Monday morning at about 7:45 am, and spent a couple hours with Ryan going over the plans. We completed one from KBOI to KSUN, one from KSUN to KBYI, and then one from KBYI back to KBOI. I had planned to fly at 9500 feet from Boise to Hailey, 7500 feet from Hailey to Burley, and then 6500 feet from Burley back to Boise.

I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF for the first time to file them, and get a weather briefing. This was a neat experience, and the briefer was very patient with me. He claimed though that there was 2 inches of snow on Hailey's runway, so I had to call Hailey to verify. They said there was no such thing, so we got going. The briefer also had said that there was going to be some tubulence, but that it was going to be high level turbulence, and that it wouldn't bother me. Of course things change in a matter of hours, and in a couple of hours, there WOULD be turbulence at my flight level.

We got going later than expected, and on our walk out to the plane, Ryan took a phone call. After the call he asked me if I was going to be away from work all day, or if I had to go in. I told him I thought I should be able to take more time off if I had to. He then said that his early afternoon student had canceled, so he was available till 3. Great! No rush!

We headed out, and started climbing to our 9500 flight level. The clouds met us before we got there, so we had to change our plans to flying at about 7500 feet. This meant we'd have to change our flight path a bit to work around the mountain tops. This was fun, and a learning experience on what to look ahead for when planning what path to take.

I really wish I had gotten some pictures of our flight over Pine, and over the mountains. It was gorgeous. There was just too much to think about, and too much to learn. I'd be doing all kinds of things in the cockpit, listening to Ryan, then look out the windows, where my eyes would glaze over with the view.... and then I'd go "Huh? What?" when Ryan would say something and I'd have to focus back inside again. There was a fair bit of moderate turbulence on this route, but not too bad.

We found our way to Highway 20, which was on our original plan, and followed that to the Hailey DME, and then turned in to land in Hailey.

Friedman Memorial (Hailey) airport is somewhat different from airports you might be used to. It's seated at the end of a draw with mountains at one end, which means that the traffic pattern is opposing. It has one runway, 31/13. You land on 31, and take off on 13. Bellevue, a town just south of Hailey, has a noise abatement stating that they don't want you to fly below 7000 feet as you pass over the town. This means it's a fairly steep glide to get from 7000 feet above Bellevue, down to 5318, which is the altitude of the Hailey airport. Here's a picture from the chart of the area.

Our landing was a bit difficult, there was a lot of wind blowing around in this draw today, so Ryan helped a bit on the way down. I haven't had too much practice in crosswinds. Windy days, yes, but it seemed in those days most of it was blowing down the runway, not across it.

After landing, Ryan asked the FBO for the courtesy car (a very nice thing!) and took me to a burger place called "The Snow Bunny". It was very good, they make great shakes.

Here's two pictures of the plane sitting at the FBO in Hailey. I had just finished my preflight, and I hadn't taken any pictures yet, so I wanted to get a couple in for proof that I (or at least the Archer) was there.



After take off, we started our flight path to Burley, when we realized it wasn't going to work for us like we had originally planned, either. There were some low lying clouds in the path we had chosen. I called EFAS (Flight Watch) for the first time, and got some in route information to Burley. It seemed that it was still fine to land in Burley if we wanted, so, we flew around the clouds, got dialed into a radial at Burley's VOR, and headed down. Again, there was moderate turbulence. It seemed to be worsening here, but still doable.

About 7 miles from Burley, Ryan decided to see how I'd do if the weather was too bad to land at Burley. He claimed "The weather's too bad here, take me back to Boise." So, remembering what I had planned for my original flight from KBYI to KBOI, I dialed in the VOR so I could intercept the Victor 4 airway and head back to Boise. We used some landmarks, and we would use the towns below to make sure we were on course.

At this time, the turbulence was even worse, a lot of bouncing around. I felt like I was in my truck, out wheeling on the rocks somewhere. Ryan suggested I make a PIREP (a Pilot Report), and since I wanted to find out how to do that, I did. I called Flight Watch again, and filed a report. Now, if another pilot was getting weather information for flying through this area, they'd get my report. (After I got home, I went on the computer to look, and sure enough, there was my weather report! I felt so special.)

After a little while, Ryan took the flight controls, and had me put on the hood, for some more instrument work. We flew back, and when I took them off again, I was looking at the glide slope for the Boise Aiport.

I made one of the best landings I've made, and Ryan was there to see it. I kept the nose off the ground nice and long.

It was about 10 minutes to 3pm when we tied down the Archer, we left the cover off, as another student would be flying soon.

What a great experience. I learned a lot, and now that VOR/Navigation/Flight Planning stuff is starting to stick.

A Recap on Two Solos

April 11th, 2008

Oh, it was an absolutely gorgeous day. Already on my way to the airport at 7:30 am, I called Ryan with the METARs, which were perfect. I was afraid I was going to wake him up, but he claimed he was up. I still felt bad for calling him so early, but I wanted to get up in the air! The plane had to be back by 10 am for another student.

I watched the sun creep over the mountains and show it's full round face on my walk out on the tarmac to the plane. The plane had about an 1/8th of an inch of frost on the wings, so I got out the de-icer and a towel and cleaned it up during my preflight.

Preflighted, I ran through the checklists, and started up the engine. I got ATIS, and called Clearance wanting to head out to the practice area. Then, taxied out for my run up, and took off.

Out in the practice area I worked on more stalls, slow flight, steep turns, and ground reference maneuvers.

Have you ever taken a boat out on glassy water? That's what it felt like up there that day. Smooth. Not a hint of turbulence. I didn't want to come down.

After a bit I asked for a departure from the practice area to Nampa, where I could practice some touch and goes. When I got there, I spent more time on short and soft field take off and landings, and then I headed back to Boise.

April 18th, 2008

This day wasn't nearly as perfect. It was another early morning flight, and I think my problems started when I got to the airport. As I was preflighting the plane, I called Ryan again thinking I was going to wake him up.

He was already at the airport, and he said "Is that you out there preflighting?" I had asked him earlier in the week if I could take the Archer this morning, and he had said yes. However, I didn't put it on the schedule as I wasn't sure about the weather. He explained to me that another student had reserved it last night for a flight this morning. I immediately thought, well, no biggie, guess I got the cover off for this student, and I was getting mentally prepared to leave when Ryan said "It's ok, because we're going to spend this morning in the simulator so you can still go."

Well, I guess that means I need to be more thorough about the scheduler, and put myself on there no matter what I think the weather might be, or what I talked about earlier in the week.

I didn't have much turbulence, but I did have quite a bit of haze, and for some reason I wasn't as on the ball as I should have been. I forgot the carb heat on one climb out, and I seemed to be behind the plane on a couple of circuits in Nampa.

I did several touch and goes, and a full stop. Later, I started to head out to the practice area from Nampa, when I realized I probably should just head back to Boise in my current state. I even made one mistake to ATC.

When contacting ATC so that I could maneuver back into their airspace - I know that in my head, I heard myself saying "Cherokee 43839 inbound from the southwest for landing", when my mouth actually said "inbound from the east". I knew I fudged, and after a few seconds it was confirmed when the controller came back to me, and said with a smirk on her voice "Cherokee 43839, radar contact SOUTH WEST of Boise, squawk..." Sigh.

At least I didn't land on the wrong runway when I got to Boise.

Local Navigation Practice... with a Passenger!

Saturday 4/05/2008

Today we went up for some local navigation practice, and some more landing practice. I needed a refresher in VOR navigation. I had a ground lesson on Friday, the 4th, where we went over flight planning, and calculations. These areas are where I'm failing in my practice tests for the FAA Knowledge Test.

I brought a passenger with me this time, my stepdaughter, Ariel. Since she's been questioning my flying, I thought this would be a neat experience for her. She would also make a good distractor, something I really haven't had too much of yet. I also learned that adding an extra moment of weight to the plane does make a difference.

Things went well, we took off, and headed south to practice navigation. Ryan would give me a bearing, or a radius, and I would fly it. He showed me reverse sensing, and the differences between using VLOC and GPS track on the VOR indicator.






Here's a video of us taking off that Ariel took from the back seat.

She also took another short clip while we were turning out over the desert and farms south of Boise.

After about an hour, Ariel complained of some butterflies in her stomach, so Ryan suggested we land in Nampa to help quell them. There was some turbulence out there south of Boise, and this was Ariel's first time in a small plane, so I don't blame her. We also got to tour the pilot lounge and facilities there, which I have not seen before. Ryan also showed me the credit card operated gas pump.

Soon, we were back up in the air, and we navigated back to Boise for some more touch and go Short field and Soft field practice. Ariel took another clip of our last landing for the day.

All in all it was a good day, I appreciate Ariel for coming along for her first ever small plane ride, and I also appreciate Ryan's patience with everything. At the end, when we were on our way to the car, Ariel looked at me and said, "you've got a nice teacher". I'd have to agree with that, Ryan's great.


I will be taking another solo practice flight this week, to work on more of my own navigation, as well as the PTS standards for my future checkride. Then, I plan on studying and planning our next cross country, which should happen next week sometime. We will be going to Hailey, and then Burley.