Fall Colors

N172DR - C172R - 1.9 hours

I'd have to say that autumn is my favorite season of all of them.  It's not too hot, it's not too cold, and although it's a little rainy around where I live, the leaves changing colors is pretty cool.  When I woke up this morning, I didn't think I'd go flying, but I did note how awesome one of the trees in my neighborhood looked.  When someone I met at work mentioned going flying, I knew exactly where we would be going.

No, not Charlottesville.

One of the better places to go around here, if you're looking to check out the fall colors, is Skyline Drive.  To the west of the ridge line that Skyline Drive follows is the Luray Valley, which is part of the Shenandoah Valley.  If you've ever been on Skyline Drive and thought it looked cool, you should see it by air.

Because Marcy and I wanted to actually see the colors, we were presented with a little time issue.  Meeting up at Leesburg (JYO) would've meant losing daylight after work, so I agreed to fly down to Manassas (HEF) to pick her up, and then continue to Luray (LUA).  This, of course, presented me with a little airspace issue.

The direct path would really get me in hot water with Dulles Tower, as you can see in the picture on the left.  Another option was to head out of the SFRA (the blue hatched arc with a white background in the picture) to the west and remain outside almost all the way until HEF.  That option would take more time, but it gave me more room to work with.  The final option is somewhat less obvious, unless you're really looking, and you're really comfortable with ATC and airspace.  The four blue lines near the center of the picture are the runways at Dulles (IAD).  The thick blue circle surrounding it is the airspace that starts at the ground and continues up to 10,000'.  The next ring out is airspace that starts at 1,500', which you can see over JYO.  As long as I stay under that 1,500' shelf of airspace, west of the floor airspace, and talk to Potomac Approach for clearance into the SFRA, I'm golden.

If you look closely, I even have a good landmark to keep me out of the floor airspace (aviation term for airspace that starts at the ground): Route 15.  What you can't really see are the Bull Run Mountains, which I've talked about before in past posts because they're tall enough that you can't fly over them with legal clearance, yet remain below the Class B airspace.  So, if I stay at 1,300', west of Route 15, and east of the Bull Run Mountains, I'm set.  It really isn't the most ideal route - I don't really like being kept that low to the ground, and being close to airspace always makes me a little nervous - but it shaves enough time to make it worth it.  I definitely wouldn't try it at night.





I took my time with the preflight, since I was slightly ahead of schedule, but still managed to get out ahead of a couple inbound aircraft.  Once airborne, I coordinated my departure path with one of those inbound aircraft as flying the standard pattern would have meant cutting him off.  I've noticed I've gotten a lot better at spotting traffic, for reasons I'm sure you already know if you've been following the blog for any amount of time.  After I was clear of the traffic, I called Potomac up and got cleared into the SFRA.  From there, I turned southbound to follow Route 15 down to Haymarket.

IFR really means "I Follow Roads" right?
(Route 15 runs right up the middle of the image)

Closer to HEF, Potomac passed me over to tower, who set me up on a left downwind for Runway 34R.  If the pilot or ATC-side of you thought that last sentence was odd, mine did too.  In the world of ATC, however, never forget two words: operational advantage.  While putting me on the left downwind for runway 34R made me cross the final of 34L, it kept me away from two helicopters using 34R.

After landing over a construction team still working on extending the runway, I taxied off to the main terminal.  Unfortunately, the main terminal doesn't have any parking spots painted on the ramp, so I asked the ground controller if she knew anything about the parking situation.  She said she didn't, but offered a frequency for one of the FBOs next to me.  The person who answered the call at APP Jetcenter was the GM, as I found out later.  He gave me instructions on where to park, and even came out to marshal me into a spot as all of the other rampers were busy with other aircraft.  I was pretty impressed, especially having been a ramp agent and supervisor myself.



I decided to try something new with the videos.  I've always wanted to be able to add the voice communication to the recordings I take, but everything gets drowned out by the sound of the engine.  I actually bought a cable to work with my voice recorder a while ago, but just got it (story and review of that will come at some point).  With it, I'm now able to record the audio and then overlay it using the same program I use to create the time-lapse videos.  This is the result:


It gives it an interesting new feel, and now I don't have to try to explain the things I find funny on frequency.

The rest of the flight was pretty simple.  After taking off, tower kept me on runway heading for departure traffic on Runway 34L.  Once that traffic turned southbound, I got my turn on course and frequency change to Potomac.  Despite listening in to the frequency for a few seconds and calling when it was clear, the controller snapped back with "all VFR traffic standby!"  As I've mentioned before, controllers often work combined frequencies, so you can't always hear the other traffic on the frequency.  While the tone did seem a little unnecessary, I shrugged it off.  In any case, I continued on my way to LUA, climbing under the Class B airspace.  After crossing the mountain ridge, I descended into the valley to get a closer look at the colors and continued inbound to the airport.

After landing on Runway 4, I parked the plane on the North Ramp and got a ride into town from Kenny for dinner at Uncle Buck's.  If you haven't flown in during the week, you probably haven't run into Kenny, but he's a great guy, just like John.  They have a good crew down there.

The flight home was pretty quiet, and the landing at JYO was uninterrupted as there aren't many people who fly later in the day on weekdays.  After landing on Runway 17 and parking the plane back in its spot, it took a while to get all of my technology out.  It hadn't occurred to me until just now how much I have in there: the Contour, the iPad, the Garmin GLO, and a voice recorder.  That's all on top of the other normal items.

No idea where the next trip will take me, but I'm not going unless I can get some simulated instrument time.  Yes, that's an invitation to my other pilot friends.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.9 - 72.4 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 8.3 (of 40)