Long solo cross country

Today was my long solo cross country. The requirement is a solo flight of at least 150 nautical miles with landings at 3 airports and one leg of greater than 50nm. I exceeded that by plenty. The first leg (to Porterville) was over 100nm, and the whole trip was 290nm.

The day started out looking just barely workable, with haze all around the Van Nuys area, forecast to clear by about 11:00am. Everything else along the route was great. I got to the airport early – like an hour too early – so I figured I’d go get our just-repaired transponder from the avionics shop on the field. By the time I taxied all the way to the end of the field where the shop was (the opposite end from where the planes are tied down) it looked like it was clearing. Figured I could get a weather briefing on the cell phone while I waited. Problem was I couldn’t find the phone – and I really wanted to have it with me. So – after they put our transponder back in, I had to taxi ALL the way back to the tie downs (I left it on the footlocker) and ALL the way back to take off.

My first leg was to Porterville (PTV) and it went absolutely perfect. Got the flight plan opened, saw every checkpoint, and hit the time within 1 minute. The air was perfectly smooth the whole way. I imagined the whole trip being that way. Yeah – right. Had a quick lunch at Airport Annie’s at PTV while I got a new briefing to my next stop – New Cuyama (L88).

As soon as I got airborne at PTV, I knew this was going to be a tad different. Getting bumped around quite a bit until I got up to 7500’, but it smoothed out for a while after that. Until – that is – I got to the mountains between me and New Cuyama. The plane was all over the place. I couldn’t get the FSS on radio to open my flight plan, so I just kept my fingers crossed that nothing would go wrong. Nothing did, of course, and after a go around (the wind was just crazy) at L88, I was on the ground again. Met 4 kids near the field that had all kinds of questions (can that plane do loops?) and walked with me to the finest restaurant in town – Burger Barn. I got another weather briefing for my flight home, filed a flight plan and headed back up.

This was some of the most intense turbulence yet. I decided to circle L88 a few times to get some altitude, but it didn’t help much. Got the FSS on radio to open my plan, but they just plain didn’t have it. Had to give it to them over the radio. Got experience I guess, but a hassle considering the conditions. Once I got over the mountains to Santa Barbara, everything smoothed right out, and the ride back home via Simi Valley was great. Even managed to get flight following on the way. Van Nuys was a ZOO that time of day (right around 5:00pm) and the entry into the pattern was confusing as hell. I was flying a right base leg for 16 right, when the controller told me to immediately turn downwind. I tried to ask for clarification, but the radio was just jammed with traffic. I finally made a sharp left to switch to downwind, just as the controller asked “57 Echo, are you on the base leg already?” – to which I replied “I was – but I’m back on downwind now”. She was really swamped. We got it all figured out, just in time for me to blow the landing and have to go around. Great. Got it down after that, and headed home.

A great experience over all, with so many different situations to handle in one day. Nothing seems difficult anymore. All that’s left is 1.5 hours of hood time, 6 night landings, the written exam, and the checkride prep. The first three will be done by next week sometime. The last part will take as long as I need to be sure I’ll pass the checkride.