OC Day Trip

N571DS - DA40 - 3.9 hours

Today's trip was a change from the original plan of flying to Lynchburg (LYH) on somewhat of a mission, to a trip to the beach. Since there aren't any pictures and nothing truly interesting happened, I'll keep it brief:

• The wind in the morning was ridiculous: 31015G21KT at Hagerstown (HGR), and similar at Leesburg (JYO) and Ocean City (OXB)
• The route of flight was JYO-HGR-OXB-HGR-JYO
• I finally met the guy I've been renting cars from each time I've flown over to OXB after hours
• Potomac TRACON's (PCT) radio coverage between BWI and Salisbury (SBY) - a new sector for them, taken from Washington Center (ZDC) - is weak to the point where I had to relay radio messages from a military helicopter conducting low altitude operations to PCT. Hopefully that brings good pilot karma for later.
• I also learned that P-40 has a cap of 5000 feet as long as it isn't "supersized."
• The Shark on the Harbor is as good as I'd remembered it.

Oddly enough, this flight was longer than some of my other flights recently, and it's probably one of the shorter posts. Still, the in-depth play-by-play gets old to write, and it's probably tiring to read, so I had to shake it up a bit and just hit the highlights. I'll save detail for the more interesting and technical flying.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 2.9 - 101.4 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 17.1 (of 40)

A Night Trip to the Beach

N677JA - C172S - 2.9 hours

Today was planned to be a quick flight out to Ocean City (OXB) with friends for dinner, a trip to the boardwalk, and then back home. It was also planned to be in the DA40, but it was being fussy and wouldn't start, draining the battery in the process. Luckily, other aircraft were available, so I was able to swap into one of the 172s.

Taken before the change in plans...

The trip out brought us up toward Frederick (FDK), above some of the Dulles (IAD) arrivals, but below some of the departures. That was definitely a cool experience, as we had an Icelandair 757 fly under us, and an Air France A380 pass over us. Passing Baltimore, the Orioles game was clearly visible, though not in any detail since the stadium is pretty far from BWI, and the fact that games merit a temporary flight restriction (TFR).

After landing at OXB we snagged the rental car I'd arranged, drove to a restaurant on the bay called The Shark on the Harbor and stuffed ourselves full of good seafood. After consuming everything from oysters to shark, we made our way for a quick trip to the boardwalk. Since it's April, though, just about everything was closed, and it was eerily quiet.

The flight home was similarly quiet, as we were all pretty tired. The controller gave us a slightly quicker route through the airspace over Baltimore, which saved us some time and allowed us to get back home sooner in pursuit of sleep. Great flight, and if you're ever out by the airport in Ocean City - admittedly not quite near the rest of the touristy stuff - check out The Shark on the Harbor.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 2.9 - 98.5 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 16.6 (of 40)

Friday the 13th

N5294W - C172R - 2.8 hours

Apparently this weekend is beach weekend for just about everyone, and I got tired of reading everyone's Facebook updates on the matter, so I did something about it.  Using the same media they were using to celebrate the fact that they were going interesting places, I asked if anyone wanted to go to Ocean City for the evening.  Interestingly enough, an old friend from high school picked up on the offer with a "plus one," if you will.

We worked it out so that he'd get there at about 6:30, and we'd leave around 7.  As I walked into the terminal, I passed by a tall guy who looked a lot like Rick Santorum and thought to myself "hey, that guy looks a lot like Rick Santorum - poor guy must get that a lot."  I dismissed it and walked inside to file a flight plan and write down all the frequencies.  As I rounded the corner, I saw a familiar face from back when I lived out in Phoenix and worked at Deer Valley (DVT).  Turns out one of the flight instructors there, who now works the charter side, just flew Rick Santorum back from a conference in St.Louis.  We caught up for a few minutes and he showed me the plane quickly, but they were off for one more leg to Teterboro (TEB).  Crazy.  Unfortunately, as we'd all find out in a few minutes, none of us were going anywhere anytime soon.

Joe and crew waiting patiently

As I was preflighting and waiting for fuel, Matt and Z both got situated in the plane.  At some point in there, Joe taxied by for the flight up to TEB.  Soon thereafter, as I was getting myself situated, I saw a guy pushing a Cessna on the runway.  Getting out for a closer look, the guy was trying pretty hard to get the plane off of the runway, so Matt and I both ran down there to try and help out, joking that our high school track days are long gone.  The plane had a flat on the left main, so it wasn't going anywhere.  We tried to pull it farther off into the grass, but the airport officials said it wasn't far enough and closed the airport until it was moved.

Killing time

Luckily, the Landmark crew brought a tug out to pull it back to their hangar to take care of it.  As we were waiting, there was very little for us to do, so the pilot of the plane started taking pictures of the plane, and I started taking pictures of the sunset.  I'm sure the people sitting in the run-up area were less than pleased that we weren't doing anything productive, but there was really nothing we could do.  In the end, I think there were four or five aircraft in the run-up before the airport reopened and aircraft could depart.

As soon as the Cessna was past the hold line and clear of the runway, I went back to our plane to get us out of there.  Unfortunately, by this time it was already about 8, which is very clear in the video.  I had it running in HD 1080 this time, not that it looks any better since the low light means it's not picking up much.  The high resolution also killed the battery at about 45 minutes in.  To avoid that in the future, while still capturing high def, I ordered a power adapter.  Here's the takeoff, though:


[Video was here, and then Contour went bankrupt for a bit, so it got lost.]

The flight out started off somewhat oddly, as I couldn't turn eastbound until Potomac TRACON observed my transponder (note the terminology), so that I could proceed through the SFRA and the VFR Corridor that I flew through back in August.  I talked to MULRR (126.1) first, then WOOLY (128.7) and BWIFS (119.7).  While with WOOLY, I got to listen in to the controller handling two flights into Fort Meade (FME).  He pointed them both out to me, and then handed me off to BWIFS where I was alerted to three more targets over the Chesapeake Bay.  Two of them passed under me in an uncomfortable way.  I'm really not sure what they were doing, but they seemed to have gone into Annapolis (ANP).  I wish the video picked it up, but it didn't (though it did pick up my opinions of the pilots, muted somewhat by the sound of the engine).

OC Oceanfront at the Inlet

As soon as I cleared the Bravo and climbed a little, I passed the controls to Matt so he could fly some.  Potomac handed us off to Patuxent Approach, and we stayed with them all the way out to Ocean City.  Closer in to Ocean City, I took the controls and brought us out over the city so Matt and Z could get some pictures of the shoreline. Nearing the boardwalk, I attempted to bring us in to Runway 32, but I was so high I needed to circle back around.  That did the trick, and after landing we taxied back to a dark, motionless ramp.

Walking out, we grabbed a Ford Expedition that was left for us and headed off to the boardwalk.  There, we grabbed some pizza and ice cream before stopping by another friend's place up on 89th Street.  Since we needed to have the plane back, we didn't stay too long and made the trek back to the airport around 11ish.

Back in the air I called Washington Center for flight following, but the controller had me wait and let him know when I was passing 4000'.  At first I was confused as to why, but then I remembered it probably had something to do with the radar not picking up aircraft below that altitude (the area is normally covered by Patuxent, using a different radar site, but they had closed for the night).  Later on with Potomac, I managed to get a clearance through the Bravo all the way back to Leesburg.

FlightAware track for the flight home

Once I had Leesburg in sight, the controller dumped me to CTAF for the landing.  You know the routine from there.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 2.8 - 53.2 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 5.6 (of 40)

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)