Night Xcountry KAPV KCCB

The flight for our night xcountry was schedule for Friday, at 7:30.  For this flight we had to go further than 100 miles, and I still needed 4 landings to complete the requirements of 10 night landings.  So we were going to fly to Apple Valley and perform 3 landings there.  While in route we would do some hood work to get the requirements met.  That would put the 92 mile trip well into 100 with the hood work we were doing, and changing course to compass headings.   Then come back to Van Nuys and do the 4^th landing there at our home field.  I think he chose Apple Valley for a few reasons.  There is terrain around there that I need to be wary of, there is KVCV airspace right up on KAPV.  Additionally one of the runways is closed at night, so that should make it a little easier (I don’t think mike expected me to know that.  He was impressed when I told him that they runway was closed at night).  The proposed flight would take us from Van Nuys, north to Magic Mountain (VPLMM), then track the 053 degree inbound radial to the Palmdale VOR (PMD), at which point, we would the track the 081 degree outbound radial, to just past Southern California Logistics (KVCV).  Once out of KVCV airspace we would descend, while entering crosswind into the pattern, then I would continue downwind, at which time our altitude should be pattern altitude.

So by 6:30 I had the weather.  There were thunderstorm cells all over the place.  But they were at 15000’, so we were going to be well below them.  Most of the storms should be just north of our route, or to the west, and I was fine with both of those.  I’m glad we have the g1000 for this trip, as it has topology, so I can see if I’m close to any terrain around us, and we have the NEXRAD as well, so we would be able to monitor the weather.  I was at first iffy about the trip, as I was not comfortable with the weather, but mike ensured me it would be fine, and at first sign of deteriorating weather we would turn back.  We did not want to climb over mountainous terrain with downdrafts from the storms.  So we had it as a readily available option to turn back at any time.  So I felt better about it at that point.  I also did not hear once during my call to WXBRIEF “VFR NOT RECOMMENDED”.  They just told me about all of the thunderstorms around the area, and any Sigmets/Airmets that were current. 

I met mike at the airport at 7:30 and soon I was doing my preflight.  The plane was fine, although it was hard to see the oil level in the dark with a flashlight.  I think the oil was just changed, as it was almost clear color.  Although with the touch of my finger I could feel the oil was between the 6 and 8 on the dip stick.  I was also using just a blue/green/or red light as I did not want to look at or have a bright white light anywhere close to me to screw up my night vision, so that might be why it was so hard to see on the dipstick.  Soon we were inside to start her up, and I took an extra 5 minutes to get the AFD in the front pocket, all pens and flashlights in a place that I could easily find in the dark, as well as getting my flight plan, and sectional charts in order and in the correct places.  I got my checklist in the front pocket as well.  Ran through the checklist, and we were ready to go.   Contacted tower and was told to stand by for landing traffic.  Once I heard that, I turned off the taxi lights and just kept on the beacon and nav lights.  I did not want to blind the landing traffic. 

We were cleared for a right downwind departure at the flood basin.  We climbed to 2000’ and maintained altitude until we were out of Burbank’s airspace.  Then we initiated a climb up to 5500’.  This would get us over the mountains and leave us with sufficient room of buffer from the mountains.  At the Newhall pass, we turn to start and follow the 14 freeway.  It is the lowest point going through the mountains, and if we lose an engine, we have something to land on, rather than mountains and darkness.  This is one of mikes biggest things about xcountry is making sure to ALWAYS have somewhere to put her down if needed.  He is always telling me on my xcountry solo’s to always have somewhere in mind at all times, that I can put her down if needed.  Because you never know when to expect a failure and you always want a way out in those cases.

During this entire time, we are seeing the lightning strikes everywhere in the sky.  Just about everywhere you looked, you would see lightning cutting through the clouds and lighting up the sky like it was day time for a slight moment.  Then back to darkness.  It was unnerving, surreal, and beautiful all at the same time.

Once we got to 5500’, Mike tells me, put on the hood.  I ask him to take control the aircraft as I put it on.  But we have to make sure who has the airplane.  Once I asked him he said “Sure.  I have the airplane”.  I then repeated “You have the airplane”, and then he repeated “I have the airplane”.  You ALWAYS want to do this 3 step procedure, as to ensure positive transfer of control of the aircraft by someone.  I told mike, he had the airplane, he told me he had the airplane, and I repeated so he knows I heard he has the plane.  Then I let go of the controls.  I did not release until that was complete, as I wanted someone to have control of the airplane at all times.  This is a MUST in your check ride as well.  The examiner likes to see that someone is in control of the plane at every moment, and that you both know exactly who is controlling the aircraft.

I put the hood on and he gives control of the aircraft back to me.  He then puts a little twist on it.  He takes a wash rag, and covers the PDF and says I just had a failure of the PDF.  I don’t think he was expecting what I did next as it caught him off guard.  I push the red reversionary mode button and brought the PDF to the MDF screen.  He tells me that’s cheating and takes a wash rag and puts it over that one as well.  CRAP.  Now to the standby gauges.  Now all I have is the Attitude indicator, airspeed, altitude, and the compass. 

This was my first time flying with the compass.  He tells me to turn to a 050 heading.  I turn to what direction I think I need to turn to get there on the compass and the compass goes the opposite way.  So the compass is backwards.  If the number is to the right, you need to go to the left to get to it.  Then he asks me when the compass is accurate.  I told him in un-accelerated straight and level flight.  Correct.  Then he asks if I turn to different headings what the compass would do.  I knew of ANDS and NOSL but did not know about UNOS.  These are the deviations of the compass during flight.  *Note these are for the northern hemisphere:

ANDS: Accelerate North, Decelerate South.  So if your speed up it will show a heading change to the north.  And decelerate will show a heading change to the south.

NOSL: North Opposite, South Lead.  If you turn from a north heading, the compass will initially show a turn in the opposite direction, and then catch up.  If you turn from a south heading, the compass will initially show a turn in the correct direction, but at a much faster rate than is actually occurring.

UNOS: Undershoot North, Overshoot South.  If we turn to a north heading, we need to undershoot our compass heading by about 30 degree for north.  If we wanted to turn to 45 degree heading we would undershoot by about 15 degree.  And on east/west we do not under/over shoot.  If we turn to a south heading, we need to overshoot our compass heading by about 30 degree for south.  If we wanted to turn to 225 degree we would overshoot by about 15 degree.  And on east/west we do not overshoot.

Mike told me a good way to remember which way to turn.  It’s like a clock.  If you want a bigger number in the heading turn clockwise.  If you want a smaller number, turn counter clockwise.  That helped a lot while I was flying to think about it that way.  It much easier to remember something, when you can relate it to something you are familiar with.    We did this for about an hour, turning back and forth to different headings.  The entire time though, we stayed within 100 feet of our altitude, and stayed practically right on our headings. 

Mike asks me to take off the hood, which I do.  Then he asks me where we are.  He zoomed out the GPS screen so I can only see we are in California.  But was uncertain where we were exactly.  So I use my trusty sectional chart.  I took at a VOR that is in the area of where we are, and find out what outbound radial we are on.  Turns out we were on the 081 degree radial from the PMD VOR.  Then I tune the EDW VOR and find out we are on the 150 degree radial.  That means we were just due east of Gray Butte Private airfield.  We zoom into the GPS and sure enough, we were only a few miles from the airstrip.  Perfect lost procedure to find out where we are.  The lost procedures are pretty easy, with the exception being night flight.  You cannot use ground references as easily as during the day time.  So VOR navigation is extremely important at night.

We continue our flight over to KAPV, but cannot really see it yet.  I queue the microphone a few times to get the lights to turn on, but we are still unable to see it.  Once out of the KVCV airspace we begin our decent, but also make sure to keep some buffer between us and the ground, since we cannot see any obstructions or mountains in our way.  We get to where the airport is, and still cannot see it.  We fly what would be a normal pattern and mike tells me he sees the runway below but still no lighting.  I’m guessing one of the lightning strikes cut the power to the airport. 

So now we have a real life diversion on our hands.  We initiate a climb up to 6500, and mike tell me we are going to cable airport KCCB, next to Ontario.  He then tunes, 122.0 for flight watch, and request a updated weather briefing, as well as inform them of the power outage at KPAV.  The weather is still looking ok over in the inland valley.  So we now are going to KCCB to get my night landings in to meet the requirements.  Once at 6500’, I pull out my sectional, AFD, and start calculating some things, as well as getting frequencies, weather, runways.  I get everything tuned in, get weather from Ontario, since KCCB does not have an ATIS/ASOS/AWOS.  We are going to be using runway 24 to land, as they are using 26 at Ontario.

From where we are currently flying we would come straight in for a landing.  So once over the mountains, into the inland valley, we begin our descent so we can stay well below Ontario’s Class C airspace.  We maintain 2500.  We stay right on the edge of Ontario’s airspace until right at Cable.  It was easy to see the airport while coming in, but I could not see the runway even with the lights on.  Once we got closer thought, the runway quickly became apparent. 

I announce the position of our aircraft while in route to the CTAF, and announce each 5 miles just about.  The first landing we were high and had a little excess airspeed.  So we floated down about half the runway before touching down.  If we would have floated any longer, I would have elected for a go around, but we still had quite a bit of runway left for stopping.  Upon landing, mike had the same feeling.  He was wondering if I was going to do a go around, but said he would have landed when I did as well.  But any further and he would have initiated a go around.  Funny how both of us fly the same and have the same reactions. 

We perform a taxi back, and take back off into the pattern.  We do another lap in the pattern, and perform a second landing.  The entire time mike and I were talking.  Not sure if that means I am a lot more comfortable now with flying to where I can talk, and not have to fully concentrate on everything I’m doing, as it’s more of a second nature now.  The second landing was much better.  I dislike KCCB as the runway has dips and humps and bumps and the airplane gets moved around a lot when landing.  It also makes braking a bit more difficult and you are in need of constant rudder adjustments to keep the plane on the runway.  We take back off and perform one more lap in the pattern.  This makes 3 landings thus far, and now landing at KVNY would make 4 and complete my requirements. 

The third landing was the best one yet, although I’m a fan of being above glideslope at night rather than below or on glide slope.  I like to give myself some extra buffer for the, what if.  We land and mike commends me for that landing, and then we take back off to come home to KVNY.  We initially climbed to 4500 to stay above other airspace, and once at KEMT we started our descent to 2500 to stay below the outer ring of Burbank at 3000’.  Contact Burbank about 5 miles out and request westbound transition to KVNY.  They vector me in for a left base for runway 16R.  Then hand me off to KVNY just before the Budweiser factory, and I get cleared to land on runway 16R.  Landing there was awesome too.  Good airspeed, good glide slope.  The airplane was flying the approach by itself without me intervening.  I set it up and didn't really touch anything except to round out and flare.


Mike liked my progress through the flight and liked how i kept within PTS limits during the hood work.  I'm suppose to do one more night flight tomorrow, and do some additional hood work so i get my requirements close to being complete.  We are also suppose to land at Burbank.  This will be my first time landing at a class c airport.  I did some reading on this, and it is practically the same thing, except i have to contact approach control and they will hand me off to tower to land.  So it's not too much different than a normal flight into a class D airspace.  Then i have my last long xcountry the Sunday after that.  Stay tuned!

Hood Work / Unusual Attitudes / Class C Airport Operations

Saturday was the day to complete more requirements.  I arrived at the airport at 3:45 and the weather was beautiful.  No clouds in the sky.  The wind was a little strong but not more than i or the plane could handle.  I walked into Pentastar and met mike there.  We went into the conference room to start and discuss what we were going to do.  We would start out with some pattern work at Burbank, and then finish with some hood work, unusual attitudes, and VOR work.  This is all easy enough.  He briefed me on Class C operations and had me get Clearance Delivery freq just in case they made us land instead of staying in the pattern. 

We had 29 Gallons of fuel.  Enough for some practice, and reserve.  Since we would be burning roughly 9 gallons per hour.  I did my preflight inspection and run up and we were soon off for a right crosswind departure.  I already had the burbank tower freq in my standby when we departed.  So it was a quick switch over to them.  "Burbank tower, skyhawk 889er lima brave, just out of van nuys, request pattern if able".  They cleared me for the option, left base, runway 33.  So it was roughly 90 degree to the left of us.  So we turned towards the runway.  We came in a little high, and had one hell of a cross wind, wing down, and opposite rudder.  We touched down hard, but mike immediately said "Good Landing, Perfect". As he raised the flaps and i put in full power, we took back off and he mentioned again that it was a good landing.  He said yes, it was hard, but the wind was strong, and that is what is needed, to get it on the ground, and keep it there.

"889er lima bravo, make right base runway 26".  So they are having us doing a figure 8.  This is sort of cool.  So we get cleared for the option for 26.  Upon taking off you can not really go cross wind, as there is a MOUNTAIN right in front of you.  So you need to go a climbing turn while turning towards the threshold of runway 33.  This is a difficult airport at first, because we could not do a normal pattern, where you go downwind parallel the runway, and reduce power at the threshold.  So it takes some thinking and steady control, to judge the distance above the ground and to the runway.  You sort of have to "wing" it.  But it turned out perfect.  Mike even commented on how the pattern was thrown in the trash, but i was still able to fly it correctly and safely.  I also did a decent job on judging the distances.

We land and it was more of a headwind then a cross wind on runway 26, so we touched down really slow.  But it was a nice stead slope and we touched down nice and slow.  Awesome landing.  Mike raises the flaps, and i apply full power, and we take back off.  Once in the air tower tells us to make left base runway 33.  So we get to pattern altitude, and we are cleared for the option.  So we come in and do another cross wind landing, this one was very similar to the last one.  We touched on upwind side first, then downwind side, then nose wheel.  Mike is pretty confident now.  It was a little sorter than the last, but crosswind landings are hard to get down soft.  Since the plane is sort of falling on to the other wheel.  Mike raises the flaps, and i apply full power, and we take off.  Again we get cleared for the option, right base runway 26.

While getting over there, mike said he was happy with the pattern and my operations in the airspace.  He told me after landing to request a straight out departure, and we would go over to the practice area.  We come in for a touch and go on runway 26, and we do another really good landing.  Landings are a second nature now.  I have done them so many times, it's all natural now.  Im amazed at how far i have come in a short amount of time.  Upon takeoff i request a straight out departure, and as expected they handed me off to SoCal Departure.  So we take up flight following and start to our 4500' altitude.  Mike then tells me as we are climbing to put on the hood.



So i say Your controls, he confirms, and then i repeat.  I release the controls and grab the hood and put in on, and get it situated.  I then take the controls, and continue the climb up to altitude.  At 4400' i start to level off to slow our ascent and then level off at 4500'.  The whole time i was doing the instrument scan.  Trying to keep us on the exact same heading, and stay on altitude.  There was a stiff wind out so it was a little difficult to keep us on the same heading, but i was able to do it, by flying slightly into the wind, and using the ground track magenta diamond as the reference in the G1000 glass cockpit.  It seemed like it took us an hour to get out to the practice area, not being able to see anything outside, and just flying by reference to instruments.  Once we got out there, Mike then briefed me on unusual attitudes.  He mainly emphasized one point.  ROLL THE WINGS LEVEL, before pulling out of a dive, or pushing out of a nose high climb.  Easy enough.

Mike then tells me to close my eyes and tell him when i think we go into a left or right hand turn.  It takes a second, but i can sense a left turn.  So i say left turn.  Then he says, tell him when i think we are climbing, or descending.  Again it takes a second, but i then say, climbing turn.  He says wow.  Your good.  Then he says tell him when i think we are level.  I can feel the plane come down and level out.  I told him level.  He said WOW.  Ok.  He then says what do you feel.  I feel a dip to the left, and what seems like a descent, i say left descent, and he tells me to open my eyes.  I do, and i see us left wing down, but right rudder to keep us level.  He talks about it for a second, and asks if i read all this, which i have, so i told him yes.  He was just making sure, and showing me how easy it is to get confused by relying on senses in IMC, or IFR conditions.

He then tells me to close my eyes again.  I do, and i feel a roller coaster.  Up,  Down,  Left,  Speed up, Speed Down, Skid, Slip, then i hear, "Your Controls".  I look and we are in a dive, with wings fairly level but not completely.  So i quickly level the wings, pull back power, and pull up to get us into a level attitude.  Then i add power to re-establish level flight.  Then he asks for the controls back.  I give him controls and close my eyes.  Again.  A roller coaster.  For about 45 Seconds.  Then i hear again "Your Controls".  I look, and we are 30-45 degree turn up in the air.  So level the wings, add power, and pitch down to level flight.  Pull back power, once established, and we are back to level flight.  Again, i give mike the controls, and once again roller coaster.  After about 30 seconds, i hear again "Your Controls".  I look, and we are at a 30-40 degree turn pitched down, and gaining speed really quick.  I pull back power, as i level the wings.  Then pull up not too quick, but quickly so that we can bleed off the airspeed that has built up.  Again back to level flight.   Mike was happy with that.  So now he asked me to tune FIM vor.  He took my sectional that get me the correct frequency.

I put it the frequency, and he asked to track some inbound and outbound radials.  He wanted to make sure for inbound radials i used the reciprocal of the current radial we were on, and wanted to make sure i could get onto the course and track it with little to no deviation.  Then he wanted me to intercept a bunch of radials, and then he was happy with my flying.  The whole time i keep us right on altitude.  By making standard rate turns.  That is what made it easy to not over-bank, and to stay at a constant nice easy bank.  It was well within PTS limits.  I was pretty happy with the whole time.  During the VOR we had a discussion of outbound and inbound radials, as that is what my previous post VOR NAVIGATION is all about.

We start to go back to Van Nuys.  But mike does not give me headings.  He wants to see me get back still under the hood.  I put in KVNY as direct to on the g1000, and boom.  I have a line to follow.  So i follow the line, and close to the airport mike tells me to take the hood off.  I do so, and come back to a HECTIC pattern at Van Nuys.  We got told to keep straight at best possible speed, until told by ATC.  This was because there was a bunch of traffic, and he were vectored out of the way for some jets.  I'm perfectly fine with that.  But soon we are getting right to the edge of Burbanks airspace, but i still cant turn as im not sure if the traffic is next to me, and we can not get a radio call in.  Within 10 seconds we are in Burbanks airspace.  By then Mike chimes in quickly "Tower, uhhh niner lima bravo is IN BURBANKS AIRSPACE".  The controller comes back and says "Ohh yea niner lima bravo, reverse course, and cleared to land 34 left.".  I guess he forgot about us.  Mike said we would talk about that when we got back to the airport.

We did a quick 180 as i wanted to get out of burbank and quickly.  We came in for a landing, and it was a SWEET landing.  There was a bit of a crosswind, so it made it a little bit more difficult, but fun at the same time.  I have done so many landings, that the crosswind landings, add a bit of SPICE to it.  We touched on the upwind wheel then the other, then the nose wheel, and turn off at the reverse high speed taxiway exit.  We taxied back to pentastar, and shut her down and put her to sleep for the night.  We went into the conference room at pentastar, and did out debriefing.

All in all it was an awesome fight.  Mike liked it.  Talked to me about the check-ride, and setting the date for it, and a few other things.  He said he thought it was ready, just need to "tighten the screws a bit to fine tune".  He likes how in front of the airplane i am.  I have steady graceful movements and i lead in when i am suppose to.  He also talked about what happened with the controller.  He said that if we would have went any further, maybe call Burbank and tell them we were vectored into their airspace, and we just wanted to let them know, or if we did get questioned, mention what happened with the controller.  He clearly told us to keep straight, and we did.  We could not get a word in edge wise.  We had really no option due to the controller not telling us where the traffic was, and don't want to turn and hit someone.  So we were sort of forced to break into burbank without clearance.  I guess sometimes stuff happens.  I can see how it would be easy to bust into airspace, if you are NOT using a g1000.  It would be hard to thread the needle between airspace.