Continuing the quest…
Thursday I renewed my medical. A couple of weeks ago I explored coming in higher so that I would not have to carry power. It’s been a long time since navigation meant anything other than ‘Look out the window.’ VORs aren’t effective at 400 feet in the helicopter, and the ranges involved are fine for pilotage. This week I decided I wanted to work on navigation.
We took off to the south and headed out over the water, climbing for 3,500 feet. Another new thing: Flight Following. Oh, from Canada. Never used FF before, since my x-c flights were over less-busy areas and I could keep track of people just by listening to the radio. I got a quick lesson on how to tune the Garmin 430’s NAV radio and tried to find the VOR. I put on a pair of homemafe Foggles, and halfway to the VOR we switched to direct GPS navigation to Lynden. I didn’t even know there was an airport at Lynden! Oh, and at the same time – navigating, re-learning VOR work, learning GPS, and having restricted vision – Odd said he wanted me to fly at 50 knots and then do stall recovery with 20º and 40º flaps while turning. It was a bit of a work-out.
We found Lynden (38W), and it was small. 2,400 feet long, and 40 feet wide. (Wingspan on a Skyhawk is 36 feet.) Trees on the east end, and two-storey houses on either side with driveways leading to it. Basically it’s like landing on a residential street. I came in too high and balked the first landing. The second attempt concerned me because of the woman walking her dogs across the runway. I made it down, but it was disconcerting landing between houses. We turned around at the end and took off downwind.
Returning to Bellingham we made a straight-in approach. Haven’t done one of those in a while! I was cleared for a stop-and-go. I think touchdown is where workload is heaviest. You’re maintaining heading, maintaining sink rate, flaring the aircraft, feeling for the runway, and thinking about what’s next. OK, so I’ll touch down, retract the flaps, apply brakes, come to a stop, turn off carb heat, add power, and take off. Right? No. Having been cleared for a stop-and-go, the tower called just as my wheels touched the ground to tell me that they’d cleared someone to land behind me and I was no longer cleared to stop. Make a touch-and-go instead. I can’t remember ever getting ‘special instructions’ when flying airplanes before, or helicopters, except for a couple of times when I was asked to extend my downwind. At B’ham, it seems that every time I go up they’re asking me to make a 360 because they’ve cleared someone else to do something after I’ve been cleared for what I’m doing, or turn immediately because they’ve cleared someone to cross in front of me, make opposite traffic because they’ve cleared a Q400 to land downwind, blahblahblah. ‘“Adopt, Adapt, and Improve.” That’s the motto of the Round Table.’ You just deal with it. But dang, they ask people to change their patterns a lot up here!
Second landing I requested a full-stop and was cleared for a stop-and-go. I told them I wanted a full stop. I turned base, and tower cleared a Robbo to cross in front of me. As a heli pilot, I avoided fixed-wing patterns. Turns out the Robbo was going to the closed runways, but his final leg was my final leg – and I had already been cleared to land. Good thing Skyhawks fly slow.
Usually pilots are told to monitor ground upon leaving the runway. This time we were told to contact ground for taxiing. (There was a Fairchild taildragger coming the other way.) Since we had been tuning radios during the flight, I had to tune in ground – which I did. But there was chatter on the radio and the instructor was saying something, and I forgot to push the button to move ground to the active frequency. :smack: Tower informed me of my mistake.
Today was, as I said, a work-out. Lots of frequency changes and navigation changes – ‘under the hood’, yet – in a small space. Plus landing an airplane on a strip I’d be more comfortable landing a helicopter at. It sure didn’t seem like 1.2 hours! With weather expected to be sleazy for the foreseeable future, I think my next step is to brush up on flight planning and navigation, and then probably just have a ground session. I’m confident in my flying. Navigating around an area new to me is going to take some work.
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