Dark Rantings

From: Mikki Barry (ooblick@intercon.com)
Subject: Epic Saga of Long X Country

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Newsgroups: rec.aviation.student
Date: 1995/05/02
One of the most sadistic possible tortures that can be inflicted on a private
pilot wannabe is called the long cross country. In this thinly veiled version
of throwing the warrior into the deepest darkest jungle with a stone knife and
bearskin, the fledgling student pilot is sent to faraway airports, in some
sort of configuration of legs that equals at least 300 nautical miles, one leg
having to be at least 100 nautical miles long. Each wannabe pilot must do
this evil ritual, plus another unknown series of flights over 50 nautical
miles that add up to 10 hours worth of total cross country agony.

This is the epic story of the day that I was sent forth into the wilderness,
armed only with a sectional chart, a terminal area chart, and about $10,000
worth of electronic navigational equipment, a large contingent of FAA air
traffic controllers, weather personnel, and a cast of thousands. One would
think that with all this outside help, flying across the not so frozen tundra
would be simple, right? Well, um...not really. Lest we all forget, this is
ME we're talking about.

For this route, I chose the "ocean" tour. A nice flight to Ocean City, MD,
Ocean City, NJ, then Easton, MD, then home to Gaithersburg. A flight of
exactly 300.5 nautical miles with one leg being 108. Paul, that bastion of
flight instructorness, had signed off on the route the previous weekend, after
we had had a wonderful time playing in the crosswinds. I think that shook up
his brain just enough so that he would have signed off on a route to the
Smyrna vortac, even though there's no airport there. After all, he'd raised
my X wind component to 15 with total winds of 30 that day. He must have taken
one too many flight instructor valiums.

I had been scheduled to take this scenic tour on Tuesday. However, a quick
weather check revealed that Tuesday would be a *bad* [tm] day, and I should
instead do this Monday if I was going to get it over with. My weather
minimums were 2000 foot ceilings and 5 miles visibility. Monday was forecast
around 3500 foot ceilings and 10 to 20 miles visibility along the entire
route, cept for a 2200 foot mess somewhat southwest of the intended route. We
decided this was a go, and off I went, into the unknown, without a paddle
(without a canoe for that matter, but hey, who's watching?).

I had decided to do the longest leg of this trans suburban journey first, to
get it out of the way. So I taxied to the end of runway 32 at Montgomery,
around this ridiculous bunch of media types probably doing a "why we should
close this airport" documentary, and watched them immediately swing their
camera around to watch the little red and white airplane take off. I felt
like doing the run up in their general direction, but decided to be nice and
turn the plane the other way :-). After an uneventful take-off, I called my
pals at Baltimore approach and asked to "traverse the Class B" (oh doesn't
that sound just so 'pilot-like'? :-)). I had them snowed, cuz they said that
was fine. The adventure had begun. Silly me thought that this would be a
piece of cake now cuz those nice radar guys would tell me where to go and all.
Yeah, right. They told me where to go all right. Off course to the left,
descend 500 feet, off course to the right, climb 500 feet, swing back left
again, back the other way, then....guess what? Radar services terminated.
Have a great time. Thanks a lot, folks. By this time I was over the bay and
they told me to call Pautuxent approach. I'd heard these guys weren't the
sweetest in the world, and a few hours of listening to them before calling
confirmed that. They were giving some Arrow a rough time about maintaining
heading and altitude. Well, I thought I'd call them anyway and at least get
some sort of flight following so that I didn't wind up who knows where. They
were actually nice to me, probably because I could keep heading and altitude
sort of ok. Unfortunately, they didn't give me a suggested heading. Being
too proud to ask for one, or reveal my inept status as a student pilot, I
reviewed my checkpoints and times and determined I was on the right track. I
should have remembered that a bit later.

After what seemed like a very short time, Pautuxent "lost radar contact".
Rats! I had hoped they'd do a "do you see the airport" routine where they ask
and I say no and they tell me the airport's direction. Damn! Oh well. From
my estimates, I was about 10 miles outside the airport. Unfortunately,
nothing in the area really looked like I thought it should look. There was a
"hard" boundary on one side (the ocean), and the city of Ocean City on the
silly little sand bar our tax dollars get spent to add more sand to each year,
both of which made handy references. Unfortunately, even with these rather
obvious landmarks, I couldn't quite find this airport. So, I made the silly
mistake so many student pilots do. I changed course. Ooops!

After flying a few more minutes, and still not finding the airport, I started
doing the sectional to ground to sectional to ground to sectional again
routine. On that very last check to the sectional, I noticed a little magenta
box with a number in it. DUH! It was an NDB, and I just so happened to have
this little ADF. So, I tuned it in, remembered to ident, and headed where the
thing pointed. Still couldn't find the airport. ARGH! By now I was getting
pretty annoyed with things. The needle had swung back on itself, and I still
didn't see nuthin that looked like an airport. (Hey, at least this time I
wasn't at 4500 feet and needed to swoop down on it when I finally *did* find
it :-)). After what seemed to be eternity, and following the ADF around in
circles, there it was. Unicom told me where to land, I found the bathroom,
and life was good. They even had an airport cat whose picture I saw.
Unfortunately, the cat had been fed that morning, so he was long gone, doing
cat like things.

Leg number #2 began with a confused taxi around the airport, looking for the
taxiway I needed to get to the active runway. Once airborne, however, things
went pretty easily. I have no idea why I can spot VOR's from about 10 miles
out, and can't see airports til they bite me, but that's the way it works.
Saw the Waterloo VOR from way out there, grabbed the outbound radial, and
crossed the Delaware Bay, avoiding the nasty looking cloud hanging directly in
the path. Once on shore, I actually spotted an airport! Cape May was on my
right. Cool! At least I was in the right part of Joisey. From there,
finding the Sea Isle VOR was trivial, and then followed the radial off of that
to Ocean City. This time, even though I didn't see the airport precisely when
I thought I should, I didn't turn off course. See, I can learn something
sometimes :-). I called their unicom multiple times, looking for an airport
advisory. Nuthin. Oh well. Just when I thought I'd have to talk to Atlantic
City cuz I was going to dither into their space, I saw the teeny tiny little
runway real close to the beach. I still hadn't gotten an advisory, so I
decided to enter a downwind for 24. I called traffic, and let them know this
was the plan. Just then, this voice on the unicom says, rather urgently,
"Ocean City advises runway 6!". Well gee! I wish that Ocean City had advised
that a bit earlier in the game. Since I was set up, I told them I'd do a
straight in for 6, which they thought was just peachy. I hung around long
enough to have some wonderously useful caffeinated fizzy stuff, and headed out
for Easton.

The leg to Easton was totally uneventful and boring, and I can't make anything
funny out of any of it. However, the actual approach and landing at Easton
were...."amusing". Silly me, tired and shagged out, decided that Easton's
active (22) must be the same kind of orientation as Montgomery's active (32).
Cept for the little fact that Montgomery is right hand traffic. Oops! So I
went around for that "other left", mentioned something on the radio about 76R
being unable to tell right from left today, was on a right upwind, turning a
"modified" crosswind, courteously let someone coming in on a 45 for midfield
downwind ahead of me, and landed pretty well for a tired person :-).

More caffiene, a phone call to the worried boyfriend and one to my pals at
flight service who by now were tired of listening to me whine, and I was off
again, enroute home. Baltimore was wonderful, and cleared me into Class B,
and I was on my way. Three quarters of the way across the Chesapeake, they
called traffic to me at about 3500 feet, 2 miles out at 12:00. They said this
traffic was travelling in the same direction, but I was slowly overtaking it.
I looked, and told them I didn't have the traffic. Next thing I know, they're
calling the same traffic at 10:00 crossing left to right. This time I saw
him, and started descending because it was pretty clear that this guy was at
about 2000 feet, which, coincidentally was where I also happened to be. I was
about to call Baltimore to let them know I was doing this when they asked me
if I was descending to avoid this traffic. Well, like, YEAH! Next thing I
know, this guy had crossed in front, made a swooping left, and wound up facing
me at about 2:00. I decided it was wise, at that point, to get the hell out
of there, which I did, much to the controller's relief. Seems he had this
person who identified himself as a "student pilot on a cross country to York,
PA" to dote over. Guess this student had picked the 50% of the time when
identifying yourself as a student actually worked to get your sympathy points
with Baltimore approach :-).

At about 10 miles outside Montgomery, Baltimore terminated radar services
(rats!) and I started looking for the airport. The good news is that I knew
the landmarks pretty well and could actually find the "landfill" (actually a
dump) everyone uses to enter the pattern on a 45 for downwind. A few minutes
later and I was on the ground, vowing never to do anything like this again!
Boy was I tired. Wake me up sometime next week, ok?