26 Feb 2006: Cross Country to Catalina Island.

A rash of bad weather in the Boston area and a business trip to California prompted me to evaluate the possibility of renting a plane while on the west coast. I'd be staying in Rancho Bernardo, north of San Diego and about 9 miles from Ramona Airport.

When I awoke, there was a pretty substantial layer of low clouds that obscured the mountains. A call to San Diego Flight Service Station confirmed it was a typical marine layer that moved in overnight but was expected to burn off by mid-morning. Winds at altitude were light at about 10 knots from the west, pretty much an ideal day was shaping up.

I started driving to Ramona airport which is situated in the hills above Rancho Bernardo at about 1600 feet. The drive to the airport wound it's way through some pretty impressive elevation gains and I realized that this was indeed mountainous terrain compared to what I was used to. Every once in a while, a jackrabbit would dart across the road . When I turned into the airport, I was greeted by tumbleweed rolling toward the runway! Darn! I forgot my spurs at home!

Jim, the chief flight instructor met me as I pulled up to the hangar. He seemed like a pretty normal guy. By this point I was expecting some chewing-tobacco spitting cowboy to come out and give me the "Saddle-up, we're burnin' daylight" speech. (apologies to John Wayne). He said that Dino, my CFII would be by eventually and I'd be flying N738ZY, an older Cessna 172. I'd forgotten what the older 172's were like, lots of cracked plastric and fairings. This one had a 160 HP carbureted Lycoming engine out front, an ADF, DME (inoperative), STEC autopilot (inoperative), strobes (inoperative) but a nice new Garmin GPS. It also had extended tange tanks but the electric boost pumps for them were...........you guessed it, inoperative. The package was rounded out by some STOL wingtips and a stall fence. At least the paint job was nice, a dark blue and white pattern that looked fairly new. Yup, we'd at least look good in the 6 o'clock news photos showing the Cessna that landed on the freeway after an engine failure !

Dino arrived after I preflighted. We exchanged some info on experience levels and I taxied to runway 27 after programming my flight plan into the GPS: Catalina airport via the Oceanside and Catalina VORs; 81 miles total, 57 of which would be over the ocean. We were carrying life jackets but they were stowed away in the back of the plane. I hoped we'd get enough glide time to be able to get them out and on in the event of an engine failure. While we taxied, some more tumbleweed rolled across the runway. Yiiiiiii-Haaaaaaa pardner! We're a going to go flyin'!

After the runup, I was cleared by the tower for takeoff. After flying 172SP's at Hanscom, this plane seemed a bit sluggish and after rotation, took forever to get into the air. At 70 knots climb speed, we were showing about 300-400 foot per minute climb rate. Boy, on a hot and humid summer day density altitude would make this an interesting takeoff. A small right turn kept us clear of the hills that surrounded Ramona (It's essentially in the bottom of a bowl, surrounded by rocky hills). I turned toward the Oceanside VOR and contacted SOCAL Approach for flight following.

The climb to 6,500 feet took almost all of the leg to Oceanside but the view was beautiful. Camp Pendleton was on the right and you could see the huge hangars on the beach that housed the Marine Corps' assault hovercrafts. To the left were the hill surrounding Palomar airport and in the distance, the skyline of San Diego and the hills at Point Loma. There were high white cliffs down the south coast which were probably Torrey Pines near La Jolla.

Once we hit the Oceanside VOR, a 20 degree turn to the left headed us out to sea with Catalina Island visible in the distance rising out of the haze. Immediately to the left of Catalina was San Clemente Island and now that we were over the water, Los Angeles could be seen in the distance with jet traffic descending onto LAX's runways. It was unnerving to be flying over so much water, we were well outside of gliding distance to the shore. But the air was smooth and we were showing about 102 knots groundspeed on the GPS.

As we approached Catalina, you could make out the cliffs rising steeply from the rocky shoreline to about 2,000 feet in height. We flew just offshore above Avalon, Catalina's only town. It basically is a small marina and village wedged into a very steep cove on the eastern side of the island.You could see about 30 speedboats all leaving the harbor at the same time, seemingly racing toward the east. The island itself was a mass of steep mountains covered in boulders. No consolation here after the long overwater flight. If there were an engine failure, the best bet would still be to ditch in the ocean. There were no flat spots to set down at all!

Finally, the airport came into sight. They didn't nickname Catalina Airport the "Airport in the Clouds" for nothing. The runway starts at the very edge of a 1,600 foot cliff and angled upwards at a 4 degree angle. Dino suggested I descend between 2 mountain peaks that seemed rather close together in my opinion, but I passed through them with a minimum of turbulence. I overflew the runway at 3,500 feet, announce my intentions on the UNICOM and turned back to the right to start my downwind leg, entering the downwind and slowing to 90 knots. After turning base and then final, I was astounded by what I saw. The view was like I've seen in movies about aircraft carrier landings and it was clear that in my apprehension of losing too much altitude, I was coming in to hot and high so the CFII suggested I make a 360 degree turn to bleed off altitude. I did, but without the visual cues you normally have at the approach end of the runway, I kept thinking we were too low and were going to smack into the side of the cliff. The key to Catalina is fly the altimeter then focus on the runway............all of the cliffs and hills just distract you.

I finally crossed the threshold and flared touching the mains down and started the rollout. Everything was great until I touched the nosewheel down; the whole plane began to shake violently. Broken shimmy dampener! I pulled back on the yoke to shift weight back onto the main landing gear and taxied to a tie town spot on the ramp dodging the numerous potholes on the runway. Dino seemed pretty unconcerned, apparently the plane always does that (little consolation). I shut down and climbed out to look around.

The view was unbelievable. Palm trees swayed in the warm breeze. We walked to the approach end of the runway and looked over a 1,600 foot drop off to the ocean below. This approach is usually leeward of the prevailing wind and there is often a very strond downdraft as you approach the runway. The key is to carry a little extra power in the apprach and be ready to add power IMMEDIATELY if a high sink rate is encountered.

In one direction was a 500 foot peak with some antennae on top of it and an adjoining peak, the ones we passed between on the approach and they looked no farther apart then they did from the air. There was a sign on a fence that warned you of appoaching buffalo. Buffalo ??!! Apparently, there were some buffalo brough to the island years ago that have since prospered and they roam around at will, occasionally grazing on the airport grounds. There were no "tatanka" in sight at that moment (the only Sioux word I know thanks to Dances with Wolves) so we headed over to the restaraunt for a buffalo burger in tribute. The restaraunt is old and rustic with a stone fireplace and a veranda overlooking the beautiful scenery. We had a couple of buffalo burgers which are, by the way, made from Colorado buffalo. As the woman behind the counter said, "We don't eat our own!" OK, no offense meant! Didn't realize you were part buffalo!

In the distance, one could make out LA, the Hollywood hills and Pacific Palisades. The houses you see in the picture are mansions above Malibu including Cher's place. Must be nice!

After about 2 hoursof walking around, we saddled up for the flight back. As we were taxiing, a voice came over the UNICOM.

"Cessna 738ZY, Catalina Unicom. Have you paid you landing fee and registered at the tower?"

"Negative Catalina. Could I just mail you the cash?"

"Negative 8ZY. Return to the ramp and pay the fee in person."

Between, tumbleweed, jackrabbits and buffalo, I figured I'd better comply or wind up with a feathered arrow through my head. I spun the plane around, found a place to park and shut down. Hiking around some planes tied down amid the cacti, I finally climbed the stairs to the tower and paid the $20 landing fee. They gentleman in the tower was very cordial and said people forgot it all the time. Many ignore his radio call and depart without paying so he was appreciative that I stopped to pay up. Up in the tower was a distraught woman whose Piper Archer II had broken down and she was trying to figure how to get a repair mechanic out to the island. (Catalina has no mechanic, fuel or other aviation services.) I got back to the plane and started up again.

By now, the sun was getting low and we were taking off on runway 22 right into it. I taxied to the very edge of the runway (and cliff, by the way) to make sure I had every available inch of asphalt available. With the throttle firewalled, the airplane accelerated uphill very sluggishly and then that darned nosewheel started shaking like crazy again. I realized that it was eating up my speed so I pulled back on the yoke and raised the nosewheel off of the ground and flew into ground effect. We were accelerating to 70 knots and about 30 feet off of the runway when we reached the other end and the cliff fell off into the Pacific Ocean. That is a visual memory I will not soon forget, exhillerating and terrifying at the same time. An earlier Cirrus had the same experience, just passing over my head as I took in the view at the departure end of the runway.

Since it was getting late, I decided not to circle he island but headed direct to Oceanside VOR at 5,500 feet. SOCAL approach cleared us direct to Ramona, passing over the Camp Pandleton restricted area. Dino took the controls so I could get some photos.

After the 30 minutes overwater, it was nice to get back within gliding distance of Oceanside and Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. SOCAL Approach cleared me to descend at my discretion so I began the approach into the Ramona bowl, crossing some rather menacing hills but appreciating the absolutely gorgeous views of the mountains and valleys. The tower gave me the option for approach so I chose a left downwind for runway 27. The landing was a bit hard and I was surprised just how fast that beast settled when the power came off. We taxied back to the tiedown just as it was getting dark and the field lights were coming on.

What a great day! Rabbits and buffalo, mountains and ocean, tumbleweed and cactus all topped off by 2.1 hours of flying to one of the prettiest and most challenging destinations I've seen to date.

22 Feb 2006: Intersection Holding at Night!

After a couple of weeks of lousy weather, it was time to hit the skies and demonstrate some holding patterns.......this time at night! We departed Bedford at 6 p.m. The Cessna 172 climbed out at almost 950 feet per minute in the cold air, even with both of us and full fuel. I turned the plane to the northeast and headed direct to the Lawrence VOR. My CFII instructed me to hold over WITCH intersection which is under the Boston class bravo airspace so we contacted Boston and were assigned a squawk code on the transponder. After crossing the Lawrence VOR, I tracked the 125 degree radial outbound using VOR #2, slowed the plane down to 90 knots and identified Pease VOR on my #1 navigation receiver. Soon the HSI needle began to move and when both needles centered, I had arrived at WITCH intersection.

I made a standard rate turn to the right to a heading of 021 degrees and tracked outbound for 1 minute, then turned around again and intercepted the Pease VOR 201 degree radial. It took two minutes to get back to the intersection with the headwind so I shortened the next outbound led to 30 seconds. This made my next inbound 1 minute.........great. I set up all of the right corrections with only 1 loop around the holding pattern.

Next, I put WITCH into the GPS and swithed the HSI to get its VOR information from the GPS. It worked like a champ; just like holding at a real VOR. Next, the CFI directed me back to the Lawrence VOR to the west and wanted me to enter a right hand hold on the 270 radial. In the way, he asked me what type of entry it would be. The rest of the exchange went sort of like this:

"Parallel", I replied.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Pretty sure."

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to say 'teardrop'?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure I'm comfortable with 'parallel'."

"Really. Well what do you think your going to do when you get to Lawrence VOR?"

"Fly outbound on the 270 radial for 1 minute, make a left standard rate turn to a heading of 045 degrees, intercept the inbound radial and once I get back to the VOR, start making right hand turns in the holding pattern."

"That's right, just trying to make sure you're really sure."

Actually, I'm pretty sure that he got confused himself, but what the heck, it served a purpose. I stuck by my guns and won. We entered the hold at Lawrence uneventfully. After 2 orbits, he asked me if I wanted to shoot the ILS approach back at Bedford.......cool! We received vectors to intercept the localizer and I descended from 2,700 feet to 1,800 feet as published. About 2 miles from the final approach fix, I slowed down to 90 knots and dropped 10 degrees of flaps. At decision height of 428 feet I took off my foggles and there was the runway, right where it was supposed to be ! I never fails to amaze me. I slowed the plane down and made sure I focused on the far end of the runway.......flare, keep it off..........pitch up higher......touchdown! What a great night!

22. Jan 2006: Cross Country to Nantucket Island.

"Oh, you're going to have a loooong flight", said the weather briefer at the Burlington Flight Service Station. I had called for a weather briefing and to file my flight plan from my home base of Bedford, Massachusetts to Burlington, Vermont. The anticipated three hour jaunt was to build up some cross country time and train on the use of the autopilot in my rented Cessna 172SP.

"Winds aloft 6000 feet are 320 degrees at 65 knots but they'll be dropping later on this morning." Great....... dead-on stiff headwind for the ride there and no guarantee of a nice push on the way back. Plus, turbulence over the White and Green Mountains was pretty much guaranteed with that much wind. Since I only had the plane and instructor for 4 hours, I decided to change destinations to something a little closer......hmm......never been to Nantucket!

So off to Hanscom Field to preflight the plane, always a fun experience when it's 20 degrees out with a nice stiff breeze. At least there is no need to de-ice this morning, no recent snow and too cold for frost. Josh, my CFI, arrived around 7:30 and suggested we file IFR for the first time. We filed direct KACK (that's Nantucket Airport by the way, not the sound made by Bill the Cat which would be Oop-Ack!) and headed out to the plane, N21693.

After starting the plane, setting up radios and instruments, I was ready to copy my first IFR clearance. Josh said it was inevitably going to come back "as filed" so there would be very little to actually copy. After contacting Hanscom Ground control, were cleared via the Marconi VOR, southeast of Provincetown on Cape Cod. A 40 mile stretch of open water over Cape Cod Bay, but we'd be tooling through Boston class bravo airspace!

We taxied to Runway 5, obtained our release and were cleared for takeoff. After a normal departure, I leaned the engine for our climb to 4,500 feet and contacted Boston approach expecting a right turn to a heading of 120 or 130 degrees to get us pointed to Marconi. Instead, we were told to turn left to 220. 3 minutes later it was left to 210 then left to 200......We were being vectored into an arc around the southern part of the class bravo airspace, almost in the same pattern I would have flown if we filed VFR. It really didn't matter, it was a beautiful, clear morning and the GPS was showing a 165 knot groundspeed.."Cessna 21693, Boston Approach, Proceed direct Nantucket VOR".. we were on our way.

We requested an instrument approach and were told to expect the GPS approach to runway 33. Cape Control vectored us south over Nantucket Sound and told to descend to 1,800 feet. Looking out of the window, all you see was water as far as the eye could see and whitecaps that looked close enough to touch. Descending into all of that blue was quite a memorable experience. Josh said that if we lost an engine, we'd have a long swim back to the island. I pointed out that we'd be dead in 3 minutes from hypothermia anyway......what a cheerful bunch we are!

After turning back to land, I intercepted the localizer and flew the approach. The wind was almost 90 degrees from the right at about 15 knots gusting to 25! Just into the flare I was caught by a gust and ballooned but a second flare and a little power made the landing work out. After being given our taxi instructions to the ramp, the tower decided to shift the pattern to runway 6.


We were the one of only three planes on the ramp. Quite a difference from the summer when the flight line extends all the way to the beach and you're taken to your plane on a golf cart ! Quick trip to the FBO for bathroom and a sampling of their free, rather chewy coffee.

After starting up, we received taxi instructions back to runway 33. The crosswind was still there so I took it personally that we weren't given runway 6. Despite the crosswind, takeoff was uneventful and we climber to 4,500 feet. This was my first time programming the Bendix/King KAP 140 autopilot. Quite a long cry from Otto the autopilot of "Airplane" fame. I programmed a flightplan to Martha's Vineyard, then Norwood airport and finally back to Bedford at 4,500 feet and engaged the autopilot.

The plane rolled to the west and started a direct track to Martha's Vineyard. It was slightly unnerving keeping my hands off the yoke and feet off of the rudder pedals as we reviewed different settings for the autopilot and how to disconnect it in an emergency. It did give me a chance to do a little sightseeing and picture taking.The course that I had set took us over Chapaquiddick Island (site of an old Kennedy family tragedy).

Looking down at the beach, the water was crystal clear; you could see the sandbars extending below the surface of the water.

Out of the left window, the view was of Gay Head and the cliffs on the southern side of the Vineyard. Beyond Gay Head, JFK Jr. crashed his Piper Saratoga one night in a more recent Kennedy family tragedy.
The plane continued flying until it was over Martha's Vineyard airport where the autopilot sensed it needed to make a right turn according to the flight plan I had programmed. It did so flawlessly and we crawled back toward Buzzards Bay at 75 knots grounspeed fighting a 60 knot headwind.

Our groundtrack took us right over Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and you could make out a white research vessel in the dock at the institute.

Out of the left window one could see Naushon island where Malcolm Forbes has a private residence. The rest of the island stretched out to the southwest. As we neared the mainland, I was shocked to have Boston approach control clear us into the class bravo airspace without asking. We could stay at 4,500 feet and descend at our discretion as we approached Bedford.

As we passed over Lakeville, you could pick out the cranberry bogs below, some of which supply Ocean Spray. Some were flooded and it must be beautiful to see them at harvest time with the bright red berries floating on the water.

Finally, the Boston skyline came into sight as we overflew Norwood airport and past just west of the Needham towers. As we descended through 3,000 feet, we finally picked up some light turbulence. Traffic was still light and we landed on runway 11 without any delay. What a nice trip and all in 2.6 hours of logged time.