ET's Info-Stew

Today we made the flight to Harris Ranch, and we had fun doing it. The total flight time was 3 hours, which is my longest distance and duration round-trip flight. We had hamburgers at Harris Ranch, which were quite good. And we found our 100th cache! So this flight was something special for us. At $125 per hour the flight cost a pretty penny. Combined with the Cal Airways member dues, a balance I owed, and the food, the whole thing cost $500. So, it was a $500 hamburger.

As for the flight, I did things well, and I did things poorly. Instead of listing the good and the bad, I think I'll just say what I learned today, and it was A LOT.

I haven't flown since mid-January, which means it has been two months. Usually over such a period of time, one loses proficiency in communications and landings. My communications were quite good today, though I could have done better on my initial call-ups for flight following. I decided to learn how to file a flight plan, so before both flights after I got my briefing I asked to file a flight plan. It was so easy! The trick is to ask the briefer what frequency to use to open the flight plan from the air. It's also useful to ask what approach/center frequency to use to ask for flight following.

The approach of Harris Ranch was well on track, but it was windy. The winds were 30 degrees off the centerline at 12 gusting to 17 (approximately), so it was a bumpy ride in. The landing wouldn't be easy because the runway is only 30 feet wide, which is like a two-lane highway. My landing at Harris Ranch was horrible. I bounced off the left tire fairly hard because I didn't flare well, and that's mostly due to the narrow runway illusion. The winds didn't help any, but the true cause is my lack of experience. Jenny has a video of it, and it's not pretty.

After tying down we had lunch, found the cache, and got ready for the flight home (okay, we spend a couple hours there, so it was more involved than that). When I got my briefing and asked for my frequencies, the FSS person told me I'd have to contact FSS on the Stockton RCO, a long way away. I wrote this frequency down and proceeded with my work. When we were lined up for take-off, I applied full throttle, but was surprised at the sound of the engine. It sounded like I was getting quite low RPM. I cut the throttle because I figured we were having problems. Well we had quite a bit of runway left, so I decided to test to see exactly what RPM settings I was getting with full throttle. I was getting about 2350 RPM, and typical RPM on take-off is about 2500 RPM. We were picking up speed, so though we weren't getting full power, I figured we were okay. We took off fine, but in hind-sight, taking off then was a BAD decision. Doing the test was a good idea, but taking off was stupid and we could have crashed.

We climbed somewhat slowly with 2300 RPM, me worrying the whole time what the engine problem could be. When we reached 3,000 feet, I started leaning the mixture and, lo and behold, the RPM spiked upward! We got the power back and power on the rest of the flight was just fine. It didn't seem hot enough for the density altitude to require leaning on the ground (the thought didn't even cross my mind before I started leaning). This is an excellent lesson learned because our situation was dangerous, but not dire. From now on, I really need to calculate density altitude.

With the engine all figured out, I decided to start trying the FSS to open my flight plan. That's when I noticed how far away we were from Stockton. I gave it a shot, but heard no response. I decided to get adventurous and searched for a closer FSS. We were within 15 NM of Panoche VOR, which has discrete transmit and receive frequencies, another first for me! So I gave it a shot. The guy on the other end said my communication was a bit garbled (may have been the old radio), but I was successfully able to get him to open my plan.

When we were getting flight following with NORCAL approach level at 4,500 feet, things settled down, and Jenny actually took a bit of a nap. Things got a little flustered near Livermore when I was expected to report receiving Hayward ATIS, but the second radio wasn't picking it up. So the controller just terminated radar service and told me to go to Hayward ATIS.

It started getting a bit bumpy at this point, and the winds were 30 degrees off the left at 15 knots. Another windy landing. The landing was once again quite poor, with me bouncing on the runway several times. It is quite clear that I need to fly more often and practice more landings. Going on a cross-country after going two months without making a landing is just dumb.

After we parked, I wanted to see if I could figure out the radio problem. Turning the COM on and off didn't seem to help. But when I changed frequencies away and then back, it started working again! So another lesson learned.

Traffic on the freeway sucked. It took us about 40 minutes to get to Pleasanton. Just about when I was getting off the freeway, I nearly had a heart attack. Did I ever close my flight plan?!?!?!? The way a flight plan works, you tell FSS what time you expect to land. If you don't call them withing 30 minutes and let them know you're okay, they start searching for you! I called them and talked to the briefer, telling them to close my flight plan. After some time he finally came back and told me I was reporting an hour late! But I was one lucky dude...Hayward tower closed my flight plan when I landed. He gave me a small reprimand and warning, and I'm so happy that I learned this lesson now. But I really need to come up with a system so that I never forget again. It could be VERY embarrassing.

Jenny took some pictures, but they aren't great because of the haze. I'll see if there are any worth putting up.