Charlottesville? Twist my arm...

N65410 - C172S - 1.7 hours

On my way out the door with my friends Ashley and Katelyn, I ran into my good friend Roscoe, as he was up at the airport to check out a Sport Pilot Seminar that was going on.  It was just about to start and would go for a few hours, so I told him I'd be glad to come back in a few hours to go on a flight if he wanted to.  He agreed, so I set off for a shopping experience with the girls to kill some time.  In that time, I also sent a message to a buddy who just moved down to the area, Aaron, to see if he'd like to join, which he did.

Still looks new

Back at the airport I was told I by Tim, one of the CFIs, that I should go collect Roscoe from the Landmark hangar where the event was going on.  On the way back from the hangar, we ran into Aaron in the parking lot, so we all ran in to prep for the flight.  The evening's flight would be in one of Av-Ed's newer (in terms of acquisitions) 172S models, N65410.  I've never flown this one before, so I gave it a closer look than I would N172DR or one of the other usual suspects, but it's newer and pretty well taken care of, so everything was in order.

After Roscoe and Aaron climbed in and got situated, I got the plane started and off towards Runway 17 for our southwest departure to Charlottesville.  Since Roscoe works out at Potomac TRACON, I made sure to give them a call as I was heading out.  I called up ASPER (Dulles' north-side departure sector that works JYO departures and arrivals) first, but he dumped me right onto CHOEA (CHarlOttesville EAst).  At this point, I was over Upperville, well north of CHOEA's airspace, but they must've worked something out.  Anyway, after giving me a code and a few more miles for me to get closer to his radar range, he picked me up and I continued on my way to CHO.

Heading down to CHO

As I got closer, the controller asked if I had the weather information for CHO, but because I was out of its broadcast range, I hadn't picked it up yet on my second COM radio.  Just to make sure it wasn't the radio, I told him I was going to jump off of his frequency to check it with my primary radio.  Getting nothing, I went back over to his frequency and told him the situation, which prompted him to rattle off the weather for me.  Of course, as soon as he finished, I picked up the information on the second radio, which was still tuned to that frequency.  Joking with him about it, I also called the field, as I had Piney Mountain in sight.  For those of you unfamiliar with that area down there, Piney Mountain is just north of the airport, and the TRACON actually has one of their radar sites on top of it.  From there, it was straight in Runway 21, contact the tower.  Tower advised me to let him know when I was on a 5nm file, and at that point I was cleared to land.  That landing was probably my best one that day.  I actually got the nose up some, and the stall warning horn went off right as we touched.

I shut down and the ramp guy must've recognized me because he asked if I would be needing the crew car this time.  Inside, the ladies at the counter got my information and made fun of each other for even making me go through the motions because I'm apparently a regular now.  Can you guess where we went with said crew car?  Timberwood Grill, of course.

Locking up in CHO

Roscoe and Aaron both got burgers while I got the crab bisque, half to change it up, and half because I promised a friend I'd cook her dinner when I got home, and I wouldn't live it down if I showed up full.

The flight back was pretty hazy, but it was getting dark, so it wasn't too bad.  The dusk actually made spotting traffic a lot easier, and there was a lot of it.  Before departing, I had tower coordinate flight following for us, and when I was cleared for takeoff I made a short-soft takeoff just because I could, and I find them fun.  After departure, it was CHO's normal "climb on course," so I turned downwind and climbed up out of the pattern heading back to JYO.

As we got closer to JYO, you could start to see some departures out of Dulles climbing above us, though we couldn't hear them on our frequency.  I did, however, hear an arrival check in past Winchester that would eventually pass right over me closer in.  At about that time, the controller also called another aircraft 800' below me, opposite direction, type unknown, which would have been startling, but the plane we were flying had a traffic display in it, and I had noticed the plane on the display a few seconds before.

The rest of the flight was pretty quiet.  The wind had shifted, so I made my way in to land on Runway 35.  The landing was pretty flat, as usual, but not bad.  After we shut down, we all put the plane back in its spot and headed home.

I think one or two more flights will put me right on the edge of the 50 hour pilot in command cross country (PIC XC) requirement.  Some of that time will come as part of a long cross country later on that's a requirement for the instrument rating, so I plan on cutting my cross country flights just short of the 50 hours and picking up some hours in the sim, with some regular flights in between.  I'll probably still make blog entries for the sim time, commenting on what I've learned, but don't expect anything really, truly interesting to happen in those posts.  Don't fret, though, because we all know I can't go too long without actually getting in a plane.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.7 - 46.4 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0 - 4.9 (of 40)