August 31, 2010: Rich and I flew a cross country flight from Gaithersburg, MD (KGAI) to Lancaster, PA (KLNS), to Capital City Airport in Harrisburg, PA (KCXY), to Carroll Country Airport in Maryland (KDMW), and back to Gaithersburg. It is truly amazing that you can be standing in Annapolis, MD that morning, drive to work in Columbia, MD during the day, drive to Gaithersburg, MD after work, and be standing in Lancaster, PA approximately 35 minutes after you take off. It is impossible to do that with a car, and without being a pilot is hard to arrange in one day. This blog post contains the chronicles of our flight the last night of August 2010.
Gaithersburg, MD to Lancaster, PA (70 nm): We took off at about 7PM, local time, in N739BA. We were only a half our late from the time we wanted to take off. The nice thing is that when you don’t fly commercially, leaving late is not a big deal because you’re working on your schedule, not an airline’s schedule. Here is our ride for the night:

N739BA
After takeoff we noticed a problem immediately. For some reason I wrote down the wrong heading to fly to Lancaster. When you’re not even at 1,000 feet and you notice a problem with your navigation log, you begin to wonder what it was you did wrong, and how the rest of the night will go. Fortunately, part of being a pilot is being able to figure things out on the fly (no pun intended). Rich showed me how to estimate the real direction we wanted to fly with some estimates on our chart, and we flew that way. We were able to pick up our checkpoints visually and we were on our way to Lancaster without delay. (Later, I figured out that I copied the wrong heading into one navigation log that was meant for a different leg – something I don’t plan on doing again!) I saw one of the more beautiful things from 5,500 feet on this leg: someone had a fire going and the smoke smeared down a slight valley for about a mile which showed us the evening’s temperature inversion and that we had a nice tailwind.
Not long after takeoff and letting Potomac Approach know we were off of the airport for our SFRA flight plan, we requested to enter the Class B airspace for BWI airport in order to cruise at 5,500 feet instead of the usual 3,000 feet we use to stay out of their airspace. What do you know… they cleared us to gain altitude and we were flying in the “big boys” airspace. I was surprised how easy it was to get that clearance!
It looks like FlightAware.com tracked us going out of SFRA:

Leaving GAI on FlightAware

Leaving GAI Tracking on FlightAware

Leaving GAI Tracking on FlightAware
Not too bad, considering all the training that was going on, opening of Search and Rescue VFR flight plans, and finding our way visually through our checkpoints with what was an erroneous initial heading. Oh, and we don’t have (or use) autopilot.
We made our checkpoints and were handed off to Harrisburg Approach before our decent into Lancaster, PA. We were then turned over to Lancaster’s tower, and he let us choose which runway we wanted to land on because the airport was quiet. We chose runway 26. The nice thing with a control tower is that you don’t have to fly a complete pattern if the controller clears you into a runway differently. We were cleared into a left base turn for runway 26. I started remembering all steps Rich likes for me to use when landing, without his prompting. CGUMPSB – Carb Heat, Gas, Undercarriage, Mixture, Prop, Switches, and feet off the Brakes. Check. (I added the brakes check, as it is what I’ve used since I started flying with my other instructor.) I executed a pretty nice landing during calm wind on runway 26. We took a minute to stretch our legs, even though the famous pilot shop was closed for the night.

Proof N739BA Made It In One Piece

The Sun Has Set in Lancaster, PA

The Swanky Lancaster Pilot Lounge
I love it when airports have cool pilot lounges. If you’re not a pilot, you probably don’t know that we have cool little lounges at each airport. This lounge had a pool table, computer terminals, nice couches, and more. Being a pilot is like joining a cool little exclusive club, complete with the brotherhood and sisterhood that goes along with it.
We climbed back into Bravo Alpha and got ready to fly to Capital City Airport.
Lancaster, PA to Harrisburg, PA (26 nm): We called up the control tower and received our clearance to take off towards Capital City Airport. After we were airborne, we switched over to Harrisburg Approach to scoot around Harrisburg International (KMDT). The controller vectored us around and we had some fun along the way. We got to fly parallel to a Fedex jet, and even flew right over the top of Three Mile Island. I thought the nuclear towers would have made us bounce around more, as we were only at 2,500 feet, but they did not. In the dark I would have missed this sight unless Rich pointed it out to me. Harrisburg lined us up for a direct final approach to runway 30 at Capital City and handed us over to the tower. This is where things went really weird. The tower controller was not a happy man, by any means. We were on an extended left base for runway 30, and too high. Rich had me forward slip to lose altitude quickly. So that was one thing I had going on and was concentrating on. Then the controller started yelling at us that we were almost to the airport, and wanted to know our “intentions” after already clearing us to land on runway 30. Rich said we are on a left base, and the controller was still mad that we weren’t coming straight in. Rich took control of the plane from me to deal with the irate controller and performed a left 360 degree turn to lose the rest of our altitude. All the while, the controller was asking what our intentions were and warning us of hills in the area. Rich handled this difficult controller very well. I admit, I was flustered. Rich lined us up on final and gave me control of the plane again. I landed pretty well despite the initial adversity. Then, the controller said the airport didn’t have a terminal even though it was clearly marked on the airport diagram. Rich and I taxied, after clearance, to the “nonexistent terminal”, debriefed, and cooled off. Then, Rich brought up a good point… The controller is only in control to a certain point. We could not have physically landed the way we were cleared so we had to turn from base to final. Therefore, as pilot in command we could make the safety call that we had to make that turn to land safely. I thought that was a great way to look at it. I would have been very bothered that I personally did something wrong until Rich put it that way to me. Luckily, the controller went off duty 2 minutes after we landed, so we didn’t have to deal with him again that night.
Oh, there was a pretty cool runway model with lights in this airport. I did not take any pictures of this airport as it was dark and I was letting my adrenaline fade before we headed towards home.
Harrisburg, PA to Carrol County, MD (37 nm): We took off on runway 26 from Capital City. Since it was dark, we chose to climb as fast as we could using a short field takeoff. 60 knots is pretty slow, but you surely climb without any worries in the dark. After we were above the ridges, we turned South to Carroll County Airport for the last of our journey. This was pretty uneventful. We found our checkpoints without any problems in the dark, and the radios were pretty quiet. I really love night flights! When we landed at Carroll County Airport, we fueled up the plane and took off towards Gaithersburg.
Carrol County, MD to Gaithersburg, MD (28 nm): This route isn’t new to me anymore, so I don’t have much to say about it. It was late by this time… after 11PM. Potomac Approach picked us up into the SFRA, and so did FlightAware:

Returning to GAI on FlightAware

Returning to GAI Tracking on FlightAware

Returning to GAI Tracking on FlightAware
Rich later pointed out that I weaved a little bit on my way back to Gaithersburg, but in turn I pointed out my flawless altitude holding skills for this leg.
We were both tired and ready to put the plane to bed. I logged 3.2 Hobbs hours for this long flight, 4 landings (3 of them at night), 2.2 hours of night flight, and 3.2 hours of cross country flight. After the drive home, I finally fell into bed at 1AM!
Hurricane Earl may be visiting us tomorrow, which wouldn’t be good for my training flight. I also have a flight set up for Monday morning, but Labor Day activities may interrupt that one. Hopefully I’ll be back flying in less than a week.
Rich says that I have a little more cross country practice, concerning diverting to other airports, because we didn’t have the chance to do that last night. We have some short and soft field practice, potentially a landing at BWI (a Class B airport), and some clean up work. I may actually have my certification in short order! It’s about time… because I started training almost three years ago!
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