Forgive me fellow aviators, for I have sinned.
Sunday I took a short 196nm hop west to Gatlinburg Tn to have lunch with family. The weather was sever clear and flight service said that I should expect some moderate turbulence below six thousand and a pretty good head wind. Otherwise it was looking to be a great flight. This would also be the first real trip I have taken in the plane since I flew it up from Florida in August.
The 10 knot wind was right down the runway and soon I was off. After departure turned me over to Atlanta Center for flight following I settled in for the trip. As advertised the winds were choppy but smoothed out at 6.5. The 396 was saying that I had a 20-30 knot headwind at that altitude, but my options were limited considering the chop below me. So I settled in for the trip.
The flight over the Tennessee River valley gave testament to the drought that they are feeling. Many of the “lake front” houses are 200 yards for the water with their boats hanging in the boat houses. From my perch I could see lots of tracks in the mud banks and even one lonely stuck truck that looks like it may have been there a few days.
The landing was a non-event. As many of you here have said before our planes seem to draw a crowed. No more had I shut down the engine and dropped the nose when a few folks walked over to ask questions. After a short tour of the plane we were off for lunch and weather stripping.
During the flight down I was showing a cockpit temperature of 17 degrees. My plane was built in Florida and the builder did not feel a need to put in any sort of weather stripping. So during the flight I had very cold wind coming in under the canopy blowing right on my right hand. A quick trip to Lowes for some weather stripping solved that for the trip home. However, a pair of gloves are now in my helmet bag.
The sin:
The sin happened when I miscalculated the time and arrived back at the airport about an hour before sun down. My preference is not to fly at night yet since the bird is new to me, and the flight home was going to be about an hour.
So, I broke my own minimum. My logic was that I would be over familiar territory before I lost all of the light and would be within my comfort zone. My plan was to fly slightly north putting me over I-81. In the event of an engine out I would have a hard surface to get down on. I know these planes do not do off field soft terrain landing well at all, and a night of hanging upside down in the harness was not my idea of a good time. To stack the odds in my favor just a bit I decided to cruise home up high to take advantage of the winds, and to give me more options should the motor decide to quit.
The flight was a nonevent and I made great time. The little 396 showed ground speeds as high as 190knots, but stayed fairly consistently at 180knots. The air was smooth as glass up there as well making for a very pleasant trip.
Lessons learned:
1. Stick to your minimums. Once you break one and have a good outcome it becomes very easy to say “I have done this before and nothing bad happened.” Scott Crossfield is an example that real bad things happen even to really good pilots.
2. Have a plan. Identify the risks involved and then try to mitigate each as much as you can. For me one of my safety valves is to always carry 2 hours of extra fuel. Some might call this unneeded, but one of the main causes of perfectly good airplanes falling out of the sky is fuel starvation. Extra fuel buys you time, usually.
3. Flight following is my friend
And D. I really need to invest in a good pair of socks and gloves!
So there it is. Let the beatings begin.
Anybody else care to share.
:wink:
