Ocean City - For a Few Hours

N329ME - C172S - 3.1 hours

Even before I had my private pilot's license, I've always wanted to fly to a vacation destination.  I don't know if it's been some repressed elitist thought in my mind, or not.  I imagine the following scenario in the case that it is:

Random person on beach: "It took us 5 hours to get here from Northern Virginia!  The Bay Bridge traffic was terrible!!!"
Me:  "Yeah, it did look pretty bad when I flew over it.  I managed to make it in one and a half."
*brushes imaginary sand off burned shoulders*

Potential elitist thoughts aside, I've always wanted to fly to Ocean City instead of drive.  My friend and Potomac TRACON/Smithsonian contact, Roscoe, also wanted to head out on a flight somewhere, so I started researching how to get to Ocean City.  Unfortunately, if you only look at the Washington Sectional, you'll see one of two very inefficient scenarios from Leesburg:

1 - Fly north of the Washington Class B airspace, to the border of Pennsylvania, up by the DuPont VOR (DQO) and follow the Delaware coast on down.
2 - Fly south of the Washington Class B airspace, to Fredericksburg, and then somehow work through, around or under Patuxent's airspace.

What you won't see is the efficient option three, unless you own a Washington Terminal Area Chart (TAC):

3 - Fly through the VFR corridor, under a BWI airspace shelf, between the BWI surface airspace and the DC Area Flight Restricted Zone (FRZ - pronounced 'freeze')

So, when I mentioned in the previous post that I wanted to "test an aircraft out before I took it through a potentially dangerous corridor of airspace," this is what I was talking about.  Flying into airspace you aren't cleared into ("busting the airspace" as pilots will say), gets you unwanted attention from the FAA, among others, depending on the airspace.  Flying into BWI's airspace is going to tick off some controllers, and the FAA.  Flying into the FRZ is going to tick off the DHS, the FAA because the DHS is riding them, and potentially the guy in an F-16 or Blackhawk sent to track you down (if it gets to that).  At its narrowest, that corridor is 2.6nm (just shy of 3 miles), so I tested the previous aircraft (N5294W) out to make sure I was familiar with it before putting my license on the line.  Luckily, N5294W has a moving map GPS that shows the airspace on it, so I could be sure to avoid it.

Well.
Life isn't that simple, is it?

I managed to wait too long before reserving the plane, so N5294W wasn't available.  The only other aircraft available had types of GPS that I wasn't completely familiar with.  Luckily, they're all reasonably similar, so adapting in my case would only take a few minutes.  Beyond that, I flew the flight in Flight Simulator to get an idea of what the terrain and cities would look like, in general, supplemented by going on Google Maps and drawing in extra landmarks on the chart.  While a familiar GPS would have added a good bit of situational awareness, I still felt equipped to make the flight without it.

In order to get through the corridor correctly, I departed Leesburg, headed direct to Gaithersburg (GAI), then direct to a VFR GPS reference point called VPONX, then direct another VFR GPS point called VPOOP (yes, VPOOP - in reality, it's "VFR Point" OOP), then direct Easton (ESN), and finally direct to Ocean City (OXB).

On the way out, we talked to the Potomac Approach position assigned to watching the SFRA, along with two other controllers when closer to BWI.  Once we were clear of the Class B airspace, I asked for flight following (ATC keeps an eye on you and issues traffic advisories as they can).  The last Potomac controller I talked to set me up with the service, and then passed me on to Patuxent Approach, which helped me make sure I wasn't in conflict with anything going on at the Naval Air Station (fast moving jets plus slow moving Cessna could cause problems).  Closer in to Ocean City, the controller dropped me to the local airport frequency so I could coordinate landing with anyone else in the area.

After landing, we grabbed a rental car that we coordinated prior to departure.  The guy who rented it to us just said "leave $20 under the driver's mat - the keys are in it."  That's one of the big differences between Northern Virginia and Eastern Shore Maryland, I guess.  In Northern Virginia, it's a credit card for insurance, a lockbox for a key, a contact number, your SSN, and a signed contract.  In any case, the car got us to the boardwalk for a quick run up to Malibu's (a local surf shop), and a small dinner, before running back to the airport.  If the Fractured Prune right by the airport had been open, I definitely would've stopped there, too.

I'd intended on departing with some daylight left, because the thought of flying the corridor at night made me uneasy (a lot of my references were on the ground and likely unlit), but the walk on the boardwalk and dinner took a little longer than expected.  Since it was definitely night before we even departed, I took advantage of the situation and took a lap around the pattern for night currency, and then headed west, talking to Patuxent to get flight following again, which is where things got interesting, in a good way.

While on Patuxent's frequency, I got to listen in on the controller setting a flight up for a Precision Approach Radar (PAR) approach, along with a pilot getting denied several times over because he was being demanding and impatient (wanted direct to the field, wanted to land opposite traffic flow, and so on). When I was switched to GRACO (a Potomac TRACON Sector for BWI), I opened my SFRA flight plan back to Leesburg, but I also requested clearance into the Bravo to avoid the FRZ as much as possible.  The controller had me climb up to 6500', and once at 6500', direct to the Baltimore VOR (BAL - a navigation radio beacon at BWI), and a heading of 290 (WNW) after BAL.  Getting closer in, two aircraft departed BWI.  Departure (the controller I was talking to) kept him at 5000', then direct PALEO (a navigation fix) to stay clear of me.  That aircraft passed a few miles in front of me.  The second aircraft was on a heading of 155 and was kept low as well, until he was clear of me.  He passed about 1500' below and nearly right under me.  To be honest, that was pretty cool.  Just before passing BWI, I was switched to WOOLY (another Potomac sector for BWI) and on again to MULRR (a Potomac sector for IAD). That controller called out traffic on my right side, and then got snippy on an interaction where he was trying to figure out what I was doing.  Apparently, nobody clued him in on the fact that I was assigned a heading of 290, so he asked.  Static in the transaction made it sound like he said "turn from your assigned heading direct Leesburg," but after hearing my readback, he came back with "no, I was asking if you were on an assigned heading, or direct JYO."  Oh well.  From there, I went over to IADFE (final approach controller for IAD), and the controller there kept me above the arrivals into Dulles.  Soon after checking in, I was sent direct to Leesburg.  Once clear of the finals for Dulles, I was given a descent and a switch to the airport frequency in order to land.

Overall, a good flight. I got 3.1 hours of PIC cross country time, with 1.7 of that at night.  Potomac saved me a lot of hassle and went a good bit out of their way to make sure I was set up tonight.  I'm headed out to the TRACON on Thursday, so hopefully I'll be able to pass a thanks along for the hookups.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 3.1 - 28.4 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0 - 3.6 (of 40)