You mean I have to TALK to ATC? - long

Well, today was my first foray into controlled airspace......

Enjoy!

jf

(entire blog at http://n1451f.blogspot.com)

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YEEEEEEE HA!!!!!!!!!!

This week's flight was more fun than.....well....something that's a lot of
fun. The goal of this lesson was to work more with VOR navigation and (more
importantly) fly into my first controlled field. I feel very comfortable
with the navigation part. There are times that I still have to really think
about what Kary is asking me, but if I were out on my own, I'm confident I
could find my way.

On a side note, I will say that I think my time spent flying in MS Flight
Sim was well used. I've heard many "real" pilots knock MSFS as a game and
dismiss it. From experience, I will tell you that my navigation and
instrument understanding was helped IMMENSELY. There is still TONS to learn,
but basic concepts were learned a long time ago when it didn't cost me
$4/gal of gas. I even "invented" my own procedure for flying paralled to a
VOR and timing a 5 degree change. Then by doing the math, I could figure out
how far from the VOR I actually was. I thought I was cool, until someone
told me that you have to know how to do something similar for your IFR
ticket. So much for being a visionary

But back to Thursday morning. I arrived at LUG at 8:30 and Kary was ready to
go. I went out and preflighted 51F before we sat down to discuss what we
were about to do. Basically, the plan was to leave LUG, keep up with where
we were using the VOR's and eventually pickup the radial that would carry us
from Shelbyville (SYI) to Smyrna (MQY). From there we'd make the required
radio contacts and land. Take a break then head out again. We reviewed the
chart, got all my frequencies together (which was new...I thought the whole
world operated off of 122.8) and headed to the plane.

We fired up, taxied out and took off...eh...."departed"...Lewisburg. As we
were climbing out, it was actually pretty cool to realize that we were
"going somewhere", albeit only 35 miles, it sure beats the pattern I've been
relegated to (not that there's anything wrong with that!!!!). As we made our
way NorthEast, Kary was quizzing me as to where we were and where the SYI
VOR was, etc. We ended up picking up our MQY radial about 10 miles North of
SYI. Apparently, we were inside someone else's practice are, because we got
to fly some formation maneuvers with a Piper who liked our airspace. We
safely snuck behind him, but I still don't think he ever saw us.

We picked up our radial (352 FROM SYI, i think), and headed for MQY. One
cool part of this was that I've never flown over most of this area. The
majority of my flying has been west and south of here, so, it was all new to
me. We climbed on up to 2500(ish) to be sure that we were well above a nice
little 2000ft tower in the area and made our way north. One thing that was
new to me on this flight was simply keeping up with the frequency changes. I
don't think I've ever changed frequencies in 51F, other than to go from the
standby freq (always set to LUG's AWOS) and back to 122.8 (CTAF for most of
the airports in the area). So, believe it or not, I had to figure out how to
tune our own radio. Sad, but true.

As we got about 13 miles south of MQY, I made my first ever ATC radio call.
I really wasn't nervous about doing this, like I thought I'd be. Kary had
told me (and given me a example "script") what to expect and what to say, so
now it was just a matter of doing it. It was kind of neat to realize that
someone on the other end of the radio actually gave a crap about what I was
saying. When talking in the pattern at LUG, your just blindly calling out
where you are for others, but no one is speaking TO you or expecting you to
understand them with great clarity.

MQY is in Class D Airspace, but part of it sits just under the edge of
Nashville's Class C shelf. So, even though there isn't any reason for that
to be a problem, it's still cool to realize that I've got to do it right (or
Kary gets blamed!).

There wasn't too much traffic as we got closer, but we were told to find a
Katana on an ILS approach and were cleared to land behind him once we did
find him. Now this is where everything I ever learned about a pattern went
out the window. Suddenly, we're turning a VERY wide base-to-final turn and
trying to keep the Katana in sight. When I got lined up with the runway, we
were all of 5 miles out. I suddenly knew what it was like to fly a
Citation....except it was going to take me another 4 minutes to get there!

There was traffic behind us, so Kary told me to keep my speed up to about
90mph until we got in tighter, just to be nice (we later found out that the
traffic behind us was a Blackhawk....I don't think he would have complained
about us doing 80....he could have just hovered and waited ). About 1
mile out, I drop a few degrees of flaps and slow us down. Kary had warned me
that this was a BIG runway and the depth perception might be a problem. I'll
admit, the sight picture is definitely different, but expecting it, I was
able to make a fairly good landing. We taxi to one of the FBO's and
shutdown. Pretty cool experience.

After about a 20 minute break (and the obligitory coffee and free popcorn),
we go back out and fire up. Contacting ground went just like Kary explained
it would. As with all the radio comms, it's just a matter of knowing what
you want to do, how to say it and then what to listen for. We taxied out to
Rwy 1, did our runup, contacted the tower and left....eh....departed.

The trip back was pretty cool. I opted to fly the VOR all the way into SYI,
did a touch and go there, dodged another Katana and flew home.

All together, we managed 1.6 hours in the air. And it was FUNNNN! Just going
places....ANY places (even the break room of Smyrna Air) makes this whole
thing that much more fun.

I know guys who did all their training at a Class C airport. ATC comms to
them started on the first lesson. What's funny is listening to them talk
about being intimidated about flying into an uncontrolled field. They think
us Class G'rs are insane!

I'm starting to think I like this flying thing....but that "free" bag of
popcorn just set me back $100. Welcome to General Aviation, Mr. Franks!

It's all good.

jf