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)

Breakfast in Luray Part II

N172DR - C172R - 1.3 hours

Last week, when I was out with some of my pilot friends, we started talking about getting back into flying.  My friend Ashley, as you may know by now, has been a good flying buddy on a few of my flights, while her roommate and one of my friends, Katelyn, I haven't yet flown with.  Since it's been just shy of two months and the flight school I rent from requires a flight every 60 days for checkout currency, I figured it would be a good time for both of us to take a flight.

As usual, since I'm somewhat over the idea of trying to think up a destination, I put it off on Katelyn.  She's a pilot, so the idea of having her pick something off of a sectional isn't so unreasonable this time.  In the end she suggested Luray.

The weather was pretty awesome this morning, so I was pretty excited to get up in the air.  Since I'm such an addict, I ended up getting to the airport before the flight school even opened, so I had to sit pretty and wait for someone to show up.  Once it opened, I grabbed the book and headed out to preflight so that the plane would be ready for when the girls showed up.

My usual workhorse, N172DR, was the 'breakfast chariot' for the trip down to Luray.  After I got it all set and ready to go, I went back inside to meet Ashley and Katelyn.  Ashley was going to stay behind and get work done, so I showed her Landmark's crew room, and Katelyn and I went out to go get the flight started.

Upperville - 2VG2

Since she hasn't flown around this area, I described some of the procedures in and out of Leesburg and pointed out some of the landmarks to help in avoiding some of the less friendly airspace.  After crossing my southwest exit point, Upperville, we headed toward Front Royal and down the valley to Luray.

As we were heading down, I tuned in the Luray's common traffic advisory frequency (CTAF), which is a frequency shared by many airports out there because they don't draw enough traffic to justify having their own frequency.  You'll hear calls from all over the place because of that.  One of the calls I heard was from might-as-well-be-Delaware Harford County, Maryland (0W3).  The total distance that call traveled was slightly over 100nm.  Crazy.

With the wind from the south, I made for a straight in approach to Runway 22.  It wasn't my most stellar landing, but it certainly wasn't the worst.  As I was slowing the plane down and getting ready to taxi back to the tie downs, the airport attendant, John, asked what we were up to.  I told him we were headed into town and he met us with the van at the plane to drive us in.

Since Uncle Bucks turned out to be good last time, I figured it was worth another shot.  I'd say it was a good choice, but I was stuffed by the end of it.  After eating, we decided to walk back and get a couple laps around the pattern before heading back to Leesburg.  Unfortunately, by the time we made it back, it was getting close to the time we had to have the plane back home because someone had it after us.

That said, we set off towards Leesburg, this time with Katelyn at the controls as I played navigator.  As we got closer, I called headings and descents to keep us out of Dulles' airspace, and made sure everything was in order.  I also explained how to make the really awkward pattern entry to Runway 17 at Leesburg.  It's a really hectic approach because you really don't have much time to get situated on the downwind before you have to start your base turn.  You're boxed in by the SFRA to the southwest and east, and Dulles tower's airspace to the south, so you have to keep a tight pattern.  All of that worked against her, and the wind that was picking up only made it worse, but she salvaged the landing in the end.

We got in right before we had to have it back at 1230 so Katelyn ran the book in so that the next guy wouldn't be too delayed, while I made sure the plane was in order and locked up.  After taking care of the paperwork, we went over to collect Ashley from the crew room and head out for a little time at the Leesburg Outlets.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.3 - 44.7 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0 - 4.9 (of 40)

Breakfast in Luray

N329ME - C172S - 1.4 hours

In an earlier post, I mentioned there were people I hadn't taken flying since getting my license.  Several of those people are in my own family.  While I've taken a few family members up - my grandma, my aunt and uncle, to name a few - none of my immediate family had been up with me until today.

A little while back, my dad proposed that my brother and I set up some activity for each month so that we actually see each other regularly.  What better to draw my attention than flying?

Originally, we'd planned on flying the day before, but it was supposed to be windy, so we delayed until today in hopes that it would be better.  I'd also planned on trying to get out earlier rather than later so that we could fit in an early lunch, or breakfast, and not get in the way of plans later in the day.  Luckily both of those worked out. It wasn't too windy and we were able to get out right on time to head down to Luray.

Front Royal - FRR

The departure was standard, with a little turbulence over the mountains.  On the way out, I pointed out Upperville (2VG2), Mount Weather, Front Royal (FRR), Skyline Drive, and a random assortment of other roads and landmarks.  The turbulence really didn't let up in the valley, but it didn't bother me too much.  Being a frequent flier of the commercial sort, it didn't bother my dad much either.

Final into Luray - W45

The approach into Luray ended up being a little high, so I ended up slipping the plane in during the approach.  I'm not sure how my dad had heard of that before, but when I mentioned what I was doing, he was familiar with it.  I also explained the whole "barn door" approach path indicator system and how it would let me know if I was high or low with about as much technology as smoke signals for communication, but it works, right?  The slip worked out well, and I ended up greasing in a nice landing on Runway 22.  Despite the nice landing, I ended up locking the wheels up slightly as the runway dips right after the touch down zone and we ended up getting airborne for a few feet.  Since I was braking and we lost contact with the ground, the wheels didn't have to work against the aircraft's weight and locked.  When we settled back on the runway the locked wheels took a second to catch back up.  In the end it wasn't a big deal, though it did catch me off guard.  In any case, I turned around and taxied back to the tie downs so that we could run into town for a few hours.

John, the airport attendant on the weekends, suggested a place called Uncle Bucks for breakfast.  Initially, I thought we'd just go back to Artisans Grill, but it was early enough that we could get breakfast.  Despite the wait, it was actually pretty good.  I had corned beef hash, and it was awesome.  I really can't remember what my dad ate, but my attention was taken by the amazingness of my own dish, to be honest.

After breakfast, we figured we'd walk around town before calling John to pick us back up, but the quick walk ended up being all the way back to the airport.  It was nice out, so why not?  The town is pretty small, and had some interesting small town sights.  On the outskirts of the town, we passed the entrance to Luray Caverns, and then continued past a petting zoo and corn maze back to the airport.  I still have yet to actually go into the caverns, though I've driven by them several times.

The flight back was uneventful.  I ended up filing a flight plan on my cell phone using DUATS, instead of bothering with Flight Service, on the phone or in the air.  Closer in to Leesburg, past Front Royal, the turbulence started to get worse, and my dad got to run his own mini-experiment with the altimeter, where he watched to see how much we actually "fell" when we dropped in turbulence.  It's really not that much, even though I explained that basic altimeters have some lag in their indication.  Unfortunately, when we made it back to Leesburg, I proved planes can fall quite quickly - onto the runway.  It wasn't a terrible landing, but compared to the nicer landing into Luray, it wasn't nearly as graceful.

I'll have to dream up an interesting destination for next time.

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.4 - 38.6 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0 - 4.2 (of 40)