Cross country larceny? (flying lesson 25)

I finally made my cross country flight to LNS (Lancaster, PA) two days ago.  The weather cooperated as did my wife’s work schedule so she was invited along for the ride.  The plan was straightforward – fly up to Lancaster, have lunch, fly back.

It was a cold morning that day.  I preflighted before my CFI or my wife arrived and gladly returned to the warmth of the club to review my plan with CFI Mike.  Flying up I would use dead reckoning and pilotage (i.e. looking out the window, looking at a map, and measuring time between checkpoints to verify my previously determined course); the return trip would be navigated using VORs with a little simulated instrument time thrown in for good measure.  As a bonus I was able to fly with the Bendix/King AV8OR my wife gave me for Christmas, though that was definitely for informational purposes only.  The point of the flight was to work on my cross country navigation.

We finished going over the plan, I filed the 4 flight plans (ADIZ entry and exit and a pair of VFR search and rescue plans), and left my instructor and passenger in the club while I went out to preheat the engine.  I run a full service airline…still waiting for the heated jetway to be delivered.

Preheating may have made the engine more comfortable but it didn’t do a damn thing for the cockpit, that’s for sure.  At least the cold ensured everyone moved quickly to get secured in the aircraft – a good thing since I don’t wear my jacket when I fly.

I borrowed my daughter’s new Kodak Zi6 HD video camera for the flight (thanks Santa) and my wife took some video during the flight.  The camera worked great and while it was neat to see my flying from a different perspective it was hard for her to film my takeoffs and landings from the back seat.  She had to hold her arm up to get a view out the front window and that made the viewfinder nearly useless.  It also had the unfortunate side effect of making it appear as if I smacked the ground on landings.  I won’t go on about how good my landings were…you wouldn’t believe me anyway.

They were pretty good though.

Especially the one back at FME.

That one was restaurant quality, even if I did drag it in.

But you won’t believe me, so here they are: 

The flights were uneventful – a little too bumpy for my wife who is always apprehensive about flying.  I’ll give her credit – she kept her eyes open.  I didn’t turn around and look at her but the pictures and videos don’t look like they were shot by Stevie Wonder.

It was windy and colder in Lancaster but the wind was down the runway.  Our first stop was the pilot shop where we bought…Pinewood Derby supplies!  I’m pretty well stocked with pilot gear now and the Derby is in 2 weeks, so Louise (after months of “the wife” perhaps she should have a name) grabbed a couple of pinecar skins and we were headed to the restaurant.  For the fellow scouters out there I’ll post a picture of the finished product with the skins.

The restaurant, Fiorentino’s, is at the other end of the ramp so we climbed back in the aircraft…the cold cold aircraft…and after checking in with ground headed to lunch.  Not long into our taxi we get a call on the radio – I thought from the FSS but it could have been on behalf of the FSS – we forgot to close our flight plan.  D’oh!  That could be expensive – glad they found us.

Turned on the GPS late on the return but you can still see me chase the VOR radials.

After lunch (nice atmosphere with a good view of helicopter training, decent food, slow service) we flew back to Tipton, the smell of my wife’s leftover veal piccata filling the cockpit.  My wife…er…Louise…definitely did not like it when I was flying with the Foggles on.  The idea of one of the two pilots unable to see outside made her nervous, even if it was the student pilot who couldn’t see.  It didn’t help that I was chasing the needle on the VOR receiver a bit. 

The winds are light back at FME and the landing was, well, we already covered that.  After refueling  (and closing out the flight plan) we get back to our parking space 5 minutes before the next reservation…much to the chagrin of the following pilot.  My reservation ended at 2pm, his began at 3pm – he figured he could get an early start.  At least he didn’t have to preheat the engine.

A good time was had by all, though not so much by Louise.  She’s not used to the little bumps yet so she was uneasy for a good portion of the flight.  I told her that on my first flight I noticed every little bump and jostle but eventually my brain learned to ignore them.  She’ll get there after enough flights.

Note to Venture Jets Inc: I’m sorry I swiped your copy of “Aviation Digest” from the little pilot work area in the terminal building.  We were rushing through on our way to the plane and I grabbed it, thinking it was one of those freebie throwaways like you see near the exit at a grocery store.  It wasn’t until I got home that I saw your address label on the front.  When I do my solo cross country I’ll probably stop in Lancaster again – I promise not to take anything else of yours.

Google Earth track

Total time: 38.3
PIC: 3.9
Cross country (dual): 4.2
Night: 2.0
Simulated instrument: 1.0
Landings: 127
Night landings: 9
Airports landed at: 54J-dirt, CGE, ESN, FME, HGR, LNS, VPS
Number of airports landed at: 7

P.S.  I’ll write more about the AV8OR another time.  It’s very cool…there, have a 3 word review.  I’m still using the Forerunner 305 to track my flights, at least until I figure out how to extract the speed data from the AV8OR track.  It’s in the output track xml but stored in a way that Google Earth won’t use.

The Bendix/King AV8OR in action on the return flight