Monday, July 25, 2005
Cross Country Flight
Well finally, after not really going anywhere, I got to use my flight skills to go somewhere. It is called a cross country flight. A long time ago I thought that meant across the United States, but no I know that doing that in a Cessna 172 would take a loooong time. Cross country just means that I land at a different airport than I take off from and I use navigation and charts to get there. I was actually really looking forward to it.
So my flight took me about 70 miles southeast to an old WWII airport we call West Point. I was supposed to fly at a cruising altitude of 3,000', but the weather didn't really cooperate with us. As I was climbing up to altitude, we encountered clouds which caused me to cut short my ascent. We started to make the flight at 2,500' but that wasn't even low enough. The other problem was the decreasing forward visibility; I could not see more than 4 miles in front of our plane. The minimums for my current rating are a cloud ceiling of 1,500' and 3 miles visibility. By the end of the flight down to West Point, we were really pushing that.
I flew into West Point without incident, but then things got a little hairy. Another student from the IFS program was right behind me doing the same flight, but I never heard him on the radio as I was landing. West Point is an unontrolled airport, which means there is no tower to talk to, so you announce all of your intentions and flight actions on a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF). I should have heard him announce that he was approaching the airspace and should have heard him announce he entered the landing pattern, but I never heard that. So when I was pulling up to the end of the runway and saw him in the downwind leg of his landing approach, I asked my instructor. "We didn't hear him announce, so he's not coming here" was the response, but before he could finish saying that, the other a/c turned base (perpendicular to the end of the runway he's landing on). Guess we'll have to expedite that takeoff.
We took off without any incident, but I think my instructor underestimated how close they were. Before we turned crosswind (the first left turn after takeoff) they were at the end of the runway. It was more of a situation of us cutting them off than us being in danger. Hey, they deserved it, we found out later that they had dialed up the wrong frequency and thought we were the assholes.
The rest of the flight went without any excitement at all, we flew back to home direct, using the GPS, because someone else was waiting for the plane.
That is all I have left though, a couple more cross country flights and then I am on to Pensacola. The Mike Company XO, Capt. Segisi, wants me to go to SERE school Aug 22d for ten days, but I'm not so sure about that. I want to go to SERE school (Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion), but the problem is that if I don't check into NAS Pensacola, I'm not officially on the waiting list and it will just be that much longer until I start flight school. SERE is pretty nasty too, it is a school designed for aircrews, special forces, other people who may be captured behind enemy lines, and it teaches them how to deal with being a prisoner of war. And not a Geneva convention prisoner of war, a prisoner of war in a country which doesn't give a damn about the Geneva convention. We'll see.
So my flight took me about 70 miles southeast to an old WWII airport we call West Point. I was supposed to fly at a cruising altitude of 3,000', but the weather didn't really cooperate with us. As I was climbing up to altitude, we encountered clouds which caused me to cut short my ascent. We started to make the flight at 2,500' but that wasn't even low enough. The other problem was the decreasing forward visibility; I could not see more than 4 miles in front of our plane. The minimums for my current rating are a cloud ceiling of 1,500' and 3 miles visibility. By the end of the flight down to West Point, we were really pushing that.
I flew into West Point without incident, but then things got a little hairy. Another student from the IFS program was right behind me doing the same flight, but I never heard him on the radio as I was landing. West Point is an unontrolled airport, which means there is no tower to talk to, so you announce all of your intentions and flight actions on a Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF). I should have heard him announce that he was approaching the airspace and should have heard him announce he entered the landing pattern, but I never heard that. So when I was pulling up to the end of the runway and saw him in the downwind leg of his landing approach, I asked my instructor. "We didn't hear him announce, so he's not coming here" was the response, but before he could finish saying that, the other a/c turned base (perpendicular to the end of the runway he's landing on). Guess we'll have to expedite that takeoff.
We took off without any incident, but I think my instructor underestimated how close they were. Before we turned crosswind (the first left turn after takeoff) they were at the end of the runway. It was more of a situation of us cutting them off than us being in danger. Hey, they deserved it, we found out later that they had dialed up the wrong frequency and thought we were the assholes.
The rest of the flight went without any excitement at all, we flew back to home direct, using the GPS, because someone else was waiting for the plane.
That is all I have left though, a couple more cross country flights and then I am on to Pensacola. The Mike Company XO, Capt. Segisi, wants me to go to SERE school Aug 22d for ten days, but I'm not so sure about that. I want to go to SERE school (Survival, Escape, Resistance and Evasion), but the problem is that if I don't check into NAS Pensacola, I'm not officially on the waiting list and it will just be that much longer until I start flight school. SERE is pretty nasty too, it is a school designed for aircrews, special forces, other people who may be captured behind enemy lines, and it teaches them how to deal with being a prisoner of war. And not a Geneva convention prisoner of war, a prisoner of war in a country which doesn't give a damn about the Geneva convention. We'll see.
// posted by Josh @ 7/25/2005 05:36:00 PM 
