Wow! What an amazing day I had today flying! I’ve been waiting to do my long Cross Country flight for a couple of weeks now due to weather. Today the weather gods smiled upon me and I got an amazing amount of flying in. The plan for the day was to take off out of Puyallup (KPLU) Thun Field, cross over McChord AFB, hang a left at Anderson Island, overfly Olympia (KOLM), overfly Centralia/Chehalis (KCLS), hang a right over Kelso (KKLS) and follow the Columbia River to Astoria, Oregon (KAST). After landing at Astoria, I would stretch my legs, then hop back in the plane for a trip to Hoquiam, land there, stretch my legs and finally head back to Pierce County, Thun Field skirting around the Rainier Military Operations Area (MOA) to the South, overflying Eatonville airport on the way. My flight was scheduled for 12:00PM and I had … Read More
Bravo…Class Bravo…
OK today I’m simply giddy with excitement! I got to do my third cross country flight, my longest time in the plane yet, 2.3 hours. I haven’t spent the time to total up my log book yet, but I’ve got to be closing in on 20ish hours of flight time. Today, our route was from KPLU (Thun Field) to 0S9 (Jefferson County Airport) up on the Peninsula. The way I planned it was like this: Take off out of KPLU and head pretty much due west, crossing over McChord AFB (KTCM). Which means I’d have to contact their tower and ask permission to cross over. Once we were past McChord, and over Harstine Island, I’d turn us just a little west of North and follow one of the designated Airways (Think Highway in the sky) using the Olympia VOR pretty much all the way up to Jefferson County Airport. Passing … Read More
My First Cross Country Flight
Today (Sunday) I hit another milestone in my flight training, my first cross country flight! As I’ve mentioned before a cross country flight is a flight more than 50 nautical miles from your home airport. The plan today was to fly from KPLU (Thun Field) to KHQM (Hoquiam). My flight lesson started at 9:00 AM, and I booked 4 hours of time. I got up at 7AM and started plotting my course on the Sectional Chart and filling out my flight plan. I quickly realized I hadn’t allowed myself enough time to plan this flight! It’s crazy that a 2 hour flight, takes that long to plan. I’m sure as I get better at it I will be faster, but today there definitely was a steep learning curve. I called Lockheed Martin Flight Services for a standard weather briefing. Told them we’d be cruising from KPLU to KHQM at … Read More