I was not looking into the finder. So the runway is off center. It's runway 28 of Allegheny County airport. On final, I thought the airplane was a bit left of course, so I looked at the ILS, but the localizer needle was at the center, and the direction was correct. ILS apparently had some error. I don't know if it was the problem of the airplane or of the ground.
On Saturday, November 26th, the last Saturday of Thanksgiving holidays, I flew a cross-country flight from Allegheny County (AGC) to Ohio State University (OSU.) The plan was to take off AGC and fly straight to OSU by GPS navigation. GPS navigation itself is not difficult, but if I fly straight from AGC to OSU, I fly through a little bit of Pittsburgh class B airspace. I've been avoiding flying into class B as much as I could because ATC communication in class B is often very busy, but this time, I decided to fly through class B for practice. Another thing to practice in this flight was the VFR flight following service. The VFR flight following service watches my airplane by radar, and gives me a warning if another airplane comes close. To use the VFR flight following, I need to request the service to the ground controller before take off by telling the destination and cruising altitude. And, due to the radar coverage, Air Traffic Controller (ATC) will hand me off to the next controller when I come to the edge of the covered area. So, the radio communication gets more complex than just flying by my own. I think I now can fly an airplane as good as I used to be, so next step is naturally practicing ATC communications and navigation.
The flight from AGC to OSU was supposed to take about an hour. The distance was about 140nm, and the cruising speed of Diamond Eclipse is 120 to 130kt. As the name implies, the airport is apparently maintained by the Ohio State University. The reason why I chose the OSU airport was because there is a bakery owned by a Japanese (or Japanese-American maybe) called Crescent Bakery. I can buy some Japanese cakes that I cannot buy here in Pittsburgh. Also, next to bakery is a grocery store called "Seafood Japan" in which I can buy Japanese groceries. And, there's a used-book store that sells Japanese books. There is a Honda research facility in Columbus, and the population of Japanese is in the order of ten-thousand, in Pittsburgh just thousand.
Five-day forecast told early in the week that I would have a snow storm on Saturday. Luckily, it turned out that the snow storm missed the area to the north. The weather was good enough for VFR flight. The ceiling was 6000ft overcast. Cruising altitude was 4500ft, and if I subtract elevation, 1200ft from 4500ft, it becomes 3300ft. I had 2700ft margin under the cloud. The ceiling near OSU was lower, but it also was good enough for the VFR flight. The weather briefer told me that the wind at 3000ft was 240 at 18, and 6000ft 260 at 44. It was a strong head wind. But, when I was writing down the wind aloft on the paper, for some reason I thought "Ok, it's a nice tail wind. It'll shorten the flight." I noticed that I was thinking opposite when I talked with my instructor. In fact, at the cruising altitude, the head wind was about 40kt.
Anyways, the weather looked ok for the VFR flight. We took the airplane to the hangar and melted the snow on the wing. Then took it out, performed pre-flight, and started the engine. First thing was requesting the flight following to the ground control. I called "Allgheny Ground, Eclipse 166SE, PFTC, ready to taxi for take off with Quebec, requesting flight following to Ohio State University flight level 4500." But, later the instructor corrected that I shouldn't use the term "Flight Level" because it is for an airplane flying above 10,000ft. So, I should have said "cruising altitude 4500." Well, I always heard "flight level" from my scanner, so I was thinking it's for anything. I'll not make mistake next time. We then got squawk for the flight following and took off runway 28.
Because I had asked flight following, the Allegheny tower handed us off to Pittsburgh Approach. They replied, but the radio was so noisy and I couldn't hear all but "cleared for class B." One of the two radios on the airplane was not functioning very well. It was ok until I talked with tower. My instructor apparently could get all the words, so he replied to the approach this time. The noise problem disappeared when we switched to the other radio. So, we decided to use that one for the rest of the flight. The photo below is Pittsburgh International Airport taken from the cockpit.
Then we were handed-off to Cleveland center, Indianapolis center, and then Columbus Approach. Honestly, I never had IFR flight training. So, I had never experienced the hand-off procedure. Only experience was that I listened to some radio communication of the airplane on my scanner when I was waiting for an incoming airplane on the perimeter of the airport before airshow. Basically, the process is like: (1) The ATC tells me the next center and the radio frequency, (2) I reply the center name and the frequency, (3) I call the next center at the given frequency and tell my cal lsign and the current altitude. (4) The next center gives me the altimeter setting. and (5) I reply the altimeter setting. For example, if the ATC calls me "Eclipse 166SE, Contact Indianapolis Center 124.45," then I should reply "6SE, contact Indianapolis Center 124.45." Then, I change the radio frequency to 124.45 and call Indianapolis Center as "Indianapolis Center, Eclipse 166SE, 4500." At this time, my destination, cruising altitude, and transponder code (Squawk) is supposed to be notified to the Indianapolis center, so I don't need to request them flight following again. If they get my call, they will reply me like "Eclipse 166SE, altimeter 30.10." Then, I reply "Altimete 30.10, 6SE." And, handing-off is done.
The procedure itself is not too difficult. However, when I need to look outside, and look at instruments, and look at navigation instruments, and make altitude and course corrections simultaneously, paying attention to the radio on top of them becomes quite a challenge. In fact, in the early stage of my training, just contacting tower was a challenge. I often missed even "Left traffic, 22 left, report downwind," and had to ask them to say again. But, later I learned a pattern of the phrases that the tower may say. After that, I had little difficulty. So, as soon as I get used to the procedure of handing-off, I should be all right.
The below photos are taken on the way.
Wheeling
County Airport
Ohio
river just west of the Wheeling County Airport
Harrison
County Airport.
Finally,
the city of Columbus is in sight. The center of the photo is the
Columbus Int'l Airport.
Close
up look of the Columbus Int'l Airport, but not very recognizable
Arrived
at the Ohio State University airport.
Finally, I arrived at the Ohio State University airport. Due to the strong head wind, the flight that was supposed to be a little over an hour took two hours. We rented a crew car and drove to Crescent Bakery. But, we found that the person who were baking cakes there is now in Japan for renewing his visa, and they were not selling cakes. Not only cakes, but most of the breads were unavailable :-P I got a good reason to fly to OSU again.
When I contacted Ohio State University ground, I requested flight following again. But, this time, they told me to request flight following to Columbus Approach after taking off. So, I took off, and turning right, and talking with Columbus approach, and trying to level off at 2200ft and trim, but the airplane ended up with climbing to 2500ft while I was distracted by the radio. I often feel as if the airplane was descending when it is in a level flight maybe because Eclipse gives a very good forward view. I should have pushed the stick harder.
I took the following photos after coming back to 2200ft, and finishing requesting flight following to Columbus approach.
Hoover
Reservoir, located north east of Columbus.
From
the same place, north of Columbus
From
the same place, just took a forward view (for no particular reason.)
When we came out of the Columbus approach radar area, Columbus approach terminated the radar service, and I had to request flight following all over again to Indianapolis center. Well, I had one more opportunity for practicing.
I initially planned to fly at 5500ft on the way back. However, because of the low cloud, I had to fly at 3500ft. It was a kind of strong tail wind. But, it didn't give me much time saving. When we came back to AGC, it was dark, and the landing was just like the photo at the top of this page. ATIS reported the wind at AGC was 210 at 4. It was a cross-wind, but pretty weak. But, apparently, the wind was strong at the traffic pattern altitude. I did two stop-and-goes, but twice I was pushed to the runway on downwind, and made a big overshoot when I turned from base to final. I have never experienced this much wind speed change in such a small change of altitude before.
The biggest mission goal of this flight, buying some Japanese cakes, was not accomplished. But, it was a good practice of VFR flight following. I should be able to do better when I get used to it.
