So after a very brief stay in Charlotte I headed to the airport at 1230 on Sunday to begin the trek home. Even though the cross country is a lot of fun and it was good to see everyone, the primary purpose is for training. There are six graded flights to be completed and it is another day at work for me. Since I am working hard right now to get jet grades, the stress is on for every flight. I wanted to get hammered, go out and have a good time with my friends in Charlotte, but I couldn't because I had to be in flying shape on Sunday. There'll be time after Primary for that.
When we got out of the car at Wilson Aviation, the place where the private aircraft park in Charlotte, there was a regional jet sized aircraft on the flight line with United States Marine Corps emblazoned in huge letters across the side. My first thought was holy crap, the commandant is here and I haven't had a haircut in a week. I met him once before in TBS, but I didn't want to meet him with my Navy looking haircut and wearing my smelly flight suit. Hell, my Navy instructor had a more marine like haircut than I did. Thankfully the aircraft was taxiing out and according to my instructor, who had met them, it was only carrying a couple of majors who were in Charlotte for some annual training.
So I got to take Taylor, Kris, and Taylor's boyfriend Jeff out to the plane. I was hoping to have more time to show them the plane and even let them get into it, but there was time pressure to get airborne in order to get home before the 2200 cutoff back in Corpus. I don't know if Taylor was impressed or just confused by all the gauges and stuff inside. Kris didn't say much and Jeff was busy trying to act unimpressed. Guess I'll have to bring a real jet to Charlotte to impress him.
Startup and takeoff in Charlotte were uneventful. We had to taxi all the way across the field from 36R to 36L. It's strange how often they change runways in Charlotte. I'm used to Corpus where the duty runways are always 13L and 13R unless a storm has recently passed through, and even then it just changes to 35. Eight runways here and we really only use three of them.
I did get my first experience with snotty controllers and waiting in line though. We waited in line behind three regional jets and watched three or four heavies land before we were cleared to take off. Here in Corpus you have to check in with tower when you get to the hold short line, but when I checked in with Charlotte tower I got a snotty hold short reply. Well I knew that I was going to hold short, that was never in question, but I guess the unspoken rule in Charlotte is to keep quiet, they know who you are. Noted.
Since we were departing VFR, we were given instructions to climbout on a heading of 270 which meant a 90 degree left turn immediately after takeoff. I didn't know it at the time, but Kris and the family had hightailed it over to the observation area overlooking 36L and my left turnout took me almost right over their heads. If I had known they were there I would have delayed my turn and given them a 45 degree AOB turn. Oh well, some day.
And once again there was confusion with air traffic control. I had filed a VFR flight plan complete with six or eight checkpoints but for some reason when I checked in with clearance delivery they filed a direct flight plan for me. So when I started my turn to my first checkpoint approach control got their undies all in a twist wondering where I was going. As I flew the plane my instructor dealt with them and finally got things straightened out. It wouldn't be the last bit of confusion.
Flying on a visual navigation route over South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama isn't the easiest way to get from point A to point B. There were many long stretches of nothingness, just trees and farms, which are of course not on the map. I didn't get lost though, through maintaining heading and timing we arrived at every checkpoint.
Because of our fuel card fiasco in Birmingham on the way to Charlotte, my instructor told me that there was no way in hell that we were landing there again even though I had already planned the route to land there. It wasn't a big deal; I just planned another leg to land in Tuscaloosa, another thirty miles away. Unfortunately, as we got closer, the weather refused to cooperate with us. A massive thunderstorm cut us off from our route and we had to turn to the north to avoid it. We radioed the flight service station to pick up an IFR clearance into Tuscaloosa, but it very shortly became obvious that wasn't going to happen. A thunderstorm had set up right over the field and we were running low on gas. There were no other fields of a reasonable size in the area for us to land at so we had to land in Birmingham yet again.
When we checked the weather a convective sigmet had been issued for the area so we decided to borrow the FBO's Cadillac to go eat dinner and wait it out. It was pretty funny rolling into the Olive Garden in a flight suit. Of course it was in Birmingham, so I wasn't exactly underdressed.
We returned from dinner to find that the hours on the sigmet had been extended so I retired to the snooze room. They really had it labeled as such, the "snooze room." It was in the back of the FBO and consisted of a mostly dark room with two couches and two recliners. It was awesome. Every FBO should have a snooze room.
But after an hour long nap, my IP woke me up to tell me that the sigmet had been extended yet again and we were staying in Birmingham for the night. We stayed at the Pickwick hotel in Birmingham, which was pretty nice but showing its age. No big night out though, I just watched some TV and went to bed.
So we tried again at 9 in the morning. This leg was to be another visual navigation flight, this time down to Acadiana Regional Airport in New Iberia Louisiana. Yeah, in the middle of nowhere. The place was run down and looked like you would expect a crop duster airport in the middle of nowhere, but for $2 they offered a really good lunch of shrimp gumbo on white rice, two pieces of seasoned blackfish, a mozzarella stick, veggies, and a coke. The field is pretty cool too; there is a water filled ditch there for seaplanes to land. A seaplane did land while we were taxiing back out to take off, but he had wheels on so he landed on the hard surface runway.
So finally we took off from Acadiana and we were on our last leg. I was ready for the cross country to be over with by that point. My ass was killing me, I was tired, and it was hot. All I wanted to do was land and get the hell away from that plane. We had been burning gas at the rapid rate on the low level visual nav flights so we planned to do the majority of the flight at 8,000' to improve our gas mileage and then pick up the visual navigation on the last part of the flight.
I never thought I would be so happy to see the Gulf of Mexico. I don't ever want to move back here, there is nothing appealing about this part of the country, but on that day the Gulf signified that the end was near. But like I said, the cross country is training so we had to do some holding and shoot an approach before we could land. So there I was, only ten miles from home, doing laps in holding. But finally it was over, we began the approach and I saw the glory of the runway numbers on 13R.
After taxiing back to the flightline my instructor checked us back in with Ranger base and there was a pause. "Say again the call sign?" was the response. Obviously he was a little confused about who we were and why he didn't know that we were airborne. It took a bit of clarification to convey that we were the cross country that was overdue. I found out later that we were not the only one. The cross country flight to Denver that weekend had been grounded in Amarillo, TX when one of the two aircraft going there had an attitude gyro failure. They had to send one of the twin engine training aircraft with parts and mechanics up to meet the stricken aircraft. The second plane returned on Monday evening and the one with the attitude gyro failure returned on Tuesday.
I was so glad the cross country odyssey was over, but glad I had gotten to do it. It really sucked to have so little time in Charlotte and being tired the whole time but it was great to fly myself to Charlotte and get to see Charlotte at all. I'll get some time off soon and get to spend some time having fun.
