The time has finally come for my solo cross country. For the first time I would be given the task of flying to an airport far far away by myself. This is what it’s all about; a start to finish travel plan and execution of said plan. I would be going from Sanford (TTA) to Blue Ridge (MTV) near Martinsville, VA to Smith Reynolds (INT) in Winston-Salem and back to Sanford, about 203 statute miles total.
I spent a lot of time planning. Having been on two dual cross countries, I had a much better idea of what I’d need to do in addition to flying the plane. After much research, I purchased a simple $15 kneeboard to hold my paperwork to replace the full-size clipboard I had on my lap on the previous trips. The kneeboard holds an 8.5×11 sheet of paper folded in half on an aluminum board that straps around my leg. The board itself has some useful information such as common frequencies, light gun procedures in case of communication failure at a towered airport, the phonetic alphabet, VFR visibility and cloud clearance limitations and lots more.
I found a fairly descent VFR flight planner made for a kneeboard to replace the hard-to-understand full-sized club provided planner. I printed out AOPA and Airport Facilities / Directory sheets on TTA, MTV, INT as well as GSO (in case I needed help from Greensboro Approach), and the taxi diagrams for INT. I filled out a separate flight planner for each of the three legs of the trip. Each included several checkpoints, the distance to each, and (once I got the forecast winds aloft for the day) estimated time to each checkpoint. I spent a lot more time preparing for the trip than it actually took to make it. I wanted to do as much as possible on the ground where I was comfortable and relaxed.
Gene and I met at my house at 8:30am to go over the plan. After 40 minutes of review, he signed off on the trip in my logbook and wished me well. I finished a few calculations and headed for the airport, more nervous than I had been any time before.
The weather couldn’t have been much better. Visibility wasn’t infinity, but it was pretty close, and the winds were light out of the NW. It was mostly clear, but there were some cirrus clouds later in the day and a few cumulus at 6000 feet or above. I called and filed a VFR flight plan for the first leg.
The preflight on 4640B went fine. It was getting pretty hot (hight was in the mid 80s for the day), but I knew it would be cooler once I got in the air. At 11:20am, I was off. Not 5 miles from the airport and I was already surprisingly nervous. I had made the trip to MTV with Gene during the day before, so I knew exactly what to expect, but I guess the thought of everything ahead was getting to me. I tried to relax and after calling FSS to open my flight plan and getting a few more miles away, I was able to enjoy.
I came to Pittsboro (my first checkpoint) and noted the time of 11:28; exactly my estimate. Burlington would be the next checkpoint. The air was surprisingly calm, so I had no problems keeping my chosen altitude of 2900 feet and heading of 330. At 11:43 I reached Burlington; again, at exactly the time I estimated. That was a good sign and I was able to relax even more.
I listened to Greensboro Approach as I continued and heard a slew of “bad” radio calls and interesting conversations. There was one about some sort of balloon at about 200 feet that was reported by a pilot and Approach was trying to find out what color it was and why it was there (they guessed some sort of car dealership, but never found out for sure).
Two more checkpoints and MTV was in sight, along with a beautiful mountain range and lots of countryside. MTV is a Class G airport, so after getting the one-minute weather from AWOS and hearing another pilot announce his landing on runway 30, I announced my position and intent to do the same. A couple more calls as I approached, followed by a slightly sloppy landing due to increased turbulence, I was safely at my first destination. Though I was already starting to get nervous again in anticipation of my trip to Winston-Salem, I realized and enjoyed what a milestone it was to be 89 miles from where I started in exactly one hour of flight time…alone.
I parked the plane and started to go inside. In my haste, I forgot to put chocks on the wheels, so I went back. Then, I forgot to get my flight plan info so I could close my flight plan. Then, I forgot to get my wallet so I could pay for gas. I think that was it, but I wasted 5 minutes forgetting stuff, though I’m sure the restaurant folks enjoyed the show.
I closed my flight plan, used the restroom, signed the guest book, got the airport manager to sign my logbook, and asked for fuel. I had to taxi the plane to their tank/pump and someone would fill it up for me. It took what seemed like a long time just to get the plane over there, but it was probably only a couple minutes. I wasn’t quite sure how much of the startup checklist I really needed to go through just for the 100-foot taxi. I went in to pay and called to file another flight plan for the trip to Winston-Salem.
It was getting hot, so I was eager to get back into the air. I got my flight planner together for the second leg and listened to the weather. The wind was 250 at 7 knots. That made about a 6 knot crosswind, the maximum allowed by the club for solo students. After my run-up, I watched as a small Beechcraft twin engine wobbled its way to the ground. If he was blowing around like that, I expected a rough departure; and I wasn’t disappointed. As soon as I left the ground, the plan was bouncing around in the air. Nothing worse than I’d experienced before, but it took some doing to keep it on track. It was 1:04pm, four minutes after I told my dad I expected to meet him at the airport in Winston-Salem.
After a few hundred feet over the ground, I turned left to depart to the south. Winston-Salem was only about 35 miles, so the trip would be a short one. The downside, though, was that there really weren’t any good checkpoints. It was mostly a flight along empty countryside with lots of trees and small, uncharted roads. The air was very turbulent and a few times it really jerked the plane, banking it quickly one way or the other. I had to fight to keep altitude and attitude, but I managed pretty well considering.
Given the shortness of the trip and the full fuel situation, I didn’t bother with ground speed calculations. I concentrated on keeping my heading and finding something that indicated I was on track. I could see downtown Winston-Salem and Greensboro, so I knew I wasn’t going to get lost. At about the time I expected to be right over the only good checkpoint, the Meadow Brook airport in Walnut Cove, I started looking around for it, but saw nothing. I spotted the power plant and lake a few miles to the east, but no airport. Several minutes later and after a increase in anxiety, I finally spotted it about two miles to my left. I was supposed be going right over it, so I wasn’t too far off. I adjusted my heading and prepared to approach INT. I listened to the ATIS twice and gathered I would be landing on runway 22, almost straight in from where I was. I called the Winston-Salem tower (my first solo tower communication) with all the standard info (including the magic phrase “student pilot”) and they told me to report a 2-mile final for runway 22. I acknowledged and then realized I had a slight problem… I couldn’t find the airport. I knew it was 10 miles ahead of me, but I couldn’t tell if I was headed for it or not.
After more minutes of increasing anxiety, I spotted the airport at my 11:00. I made a descending turn to the left and then right again to line up with 22. What a beautiful sight. Growing up in Winston-Salem I had seen many airplanes land on this runway (well, going the other way on 4 over highway 52) and recalled at that time dreaming about flying into it myself. There I was, two miles from touching down. Oh yeah… called the tower to report two miles and I was cleared to land. The trees started looking pretty tall at the end of the runway, so I made a steeper approach than I probably would’ve otherwise. The landing wasn’t perfect, but good enough considering the variable wind.
As I was rolling out, tower asked me where I was headed. “Landmark”, I said, and was directed to turn right at the next exit and I would be right there. I can’t remember how I responded, but I don’t think it included proper aviation phraseology. I was happy to be on the ground, so an “Ok. Thanks.” would have to suffice coming out of my nervousness. As I approached the ramp, a man in an orange jacket directed me where to park and I shutdown.
I gathered my stuff, and headed for Landmark. I met my dad there and we chatted about my trip and his wait; taking pictures of every plane before mine, except mine… oh well, sorry. We went to Wendy’s for lunch and talked more about flying and other stuff. I can’t remember the last time just he and I sat down for a meal together. It may have been 15 years ago; maybe he remembers otherwise. At any rate, it was nice and I needed the time to relax (and eat) before heading back to Sanford. (By the way, thanks for lunch, Dad!)
When we returned to the airport, dad joined me for a close-up peek inside and out of the airplane while I did the preflight. He took some nice photos; the first ones ever taken of me beside the airplane I fly, no thanks to my photographer wife. 😉 After preflight, I got my papers together, listened to the ATIS, then listened to the ground frequency, but heard nothing. I figured maybe the tower was handling ground control, so I switched to the tower frequency and it seemed they were. I proceeded with the startup checklist and as soon as the engine was running, another man in an orange jacket came out in front of me across the taxiway and stood there as if to wait for me to do something. I listened to the tower another minute and made my “ready to taxi” call. I was told to taxi to runway 22 and hold sort of 15. I repeated the instructions and started moving. The lineman signaled me to come straight forward, so I did. Then he signaled me to turn left, so I did. Then he waved a “goodbye” and I headed out to the runway. As I approached runway 15, I slowed but was immediately told to cross it, so I did.
I stopped short of the hold short line on runway 22 to do my run-up. It went fine. Moving forward to the hold short line, I called the tower and told them I was ready for takeoff to the south. I was cleared to takeoff and my left turnout was approved. I was rolling and in the air, enjoying the view as I cross the aforementioned highway 52 and downtown Winston-Salem. Dividing my time between a walk down memory lane and flying the airplane (mostly the latter), I turned south and flew past downtown to head for the lake northeast of Lexington. That would keep me out of the Class C airspace around Greensboro.
I climbed to 3500 feet and turned east at the lake. Here is where things got really interesting. I was expecting this leg of the trip to be the easiest as far as navigation, because I was to track directly to the Liberty VOR and then from it to Sanford, but I had also calculated my expected heading based on the wind. I failed to realize, however, that my heading indicator had precessed much more than usual. I thought I’d set it on takeoff as I usually do, but now I’m not sure. So, instead of an easy track to and then from the VOR, what followed was 40 minutes of confusion.
I was paying half attention to the heading I calculated and half to the VOR instruments, and things weren’t adding up. In order to stay on the VOR, I had to change my heading considerably off what I had calculated. “Surely the winds weren’t that different”, I thought to myself. I looked around for landmarks and checkpoints and while I generally recognized the area, I couldn’t pinpoint where I was. I saw GSO off to my left, but the other things I expected to see weren’t there. On top of that, the turbulence was much like it was from MTV to INT, so I was fighting with the plane to maintain altitude. I looked right and saw an airport. “Where is that?” And a lake. “And that?!” And, “Why are those towers way over there; I’m supposed to be going right over them.” Then I realized that I had drifted off to the south nearly 10 miles. Ok. Not a big deal considering that I’m actually tracking more directly to Sanford that I would’ve by following the VOR, but I was still confused about why. I continued to head 20-30 degrees off of my calculated heading to stay with the VOR. Then I decided I was at a point where going to the VOR would be a waste, so I continued directly east.
Visibility wasn’t high enough for me to see the nuclear plant cooling tower yet, so I still couldn’t point to Sanford, but as soon as I came across Siler City a couple miles north of me, I knew I was close to home. I was supposed to be three miles north of Siler City, but I looked at the clock and noticed I hadn’t lost even a minute of time getting off track. I approached Sanford with great relief, but I wasn’t on the ground yet. It was at that point that I noticed when heading perpendicular to the runway, my heading indicator was showing 90°, not the 120° it was supposed to be showing! Ah ha! I should’ve known better. I should’ve remembered that those things need to be reset regularly with the magnetic compass or some other reliable source of direction, and I should’ve trusted the VOR instrument. All good lessons learned for next time.
I was happy to be taxiing back to the ramp after that exciting, but draining adventure. It took about 45 minutes from INT to TTA, plus a few to get on the ground. Right after I shutdown, John (the club mechanic) came out in the golf cart and said that he would be taking the plane into the hanger to take a look at the DG (directional gyro… a.k.a. heading indicator) as someone reported that it was getting off a lot! HAHAHA… sigh. I told him about my experience and wished that someone had made a note of it in the squawk book like they’re supposed to do when they find something wrong. If they had done that, I would’ve known about it before I left Sanford and I could’ve been paying more attention to it.
After a long day, but only 2.8 hours of flight time (well, engine running time), I was exhausted, but also excited that the trip went mostly well and that I am one step closer to getting my private pilot certificate. I look forward to my next trip to complete the required 5 hours of solo cross country time.