We need more pilots!! If you are interested in being an Angel Flight pilot, you can learn more about adding this rewarding aspect to your flying repertoire by visiting the Angel Flight web site.
I flew several missions last year with Terry Davis in his Cherokee 235, splitting the cost with him. However, Angel Flight can only credit one mission pilot with the mission, so I was surprised to see at the end of 2005 that I was credited with zero missions! I intend to set that straight in 2006, and had set a goal to fly one mission per month this year. With the end of January quickly approaching, I had to get moving or I'd miss my goal!
A quick check of the schedule last week showed a two-leg mission where the second leg, from Ardmore, Oklahoma up to Salina, Kansas, had yet to be filled. It was on Tuesday, January 31st... if I could get a plane, the day off of work, the weather to cooperate, and could get the mission assigned to me, I'd just squeak in under the wire to get that January mission in and stay on track with my goal.
The day off work was approved on short notice by my boss (thanks, Truc!), who is aware of my goal. I appreciate his support in these charitable activities. I was able to reserve a Cessna 172 from my normal FBO, and the mission got assigned to me. Even the weather looked good, albeit a little windy (and when is it not windy in the central plain states?).
Unfortunately, the day before the mission, Monday, I got a call from my usual FBO telling me that the left vacuum pump had failed in the 172 I planned to take, and it was in the shop. They weren't sure if it would be ready. The other 172 they have (both of them are newer Cessna 172SP's) has an inop autopilot, inop EGT, and the IFR database in the GPS had expired months ago... when I inquired "why?!" these things weren't fixed, when I had reported them as squawks back in December, I was told "we're a flight school first (VFR, day student flights), and a rental place second, which means the IFR stuff is expensive and isn't a high priority. We'll fix it at the next 24-month IFR certification check."
Game over. I won't rent there again. Dispatch reliability and good maintenance are key factors in my risk-management. OK, what now?! I checked with Terry to see if he could take the afternoon off and fly the mission with me in his 235 (even though that would mean not getting Angel Flight credit for the mission), but he couldn't get the day off work, as his boss was out of town and things were piling up.
There's another FBO near me that has a nice selection of planes; a 152, a few newer 172's, a 182RG, a Citabria for tailwheel endorsements and spin/upset training, a Cessna 310Q multi-engine plane, etc. They recently added a Garmin G1000 equipped Cessna 172 to the line for $125/hour wet. I had gone to their open house where a Garmin/Cessna rep did a full briefing on the Garmin G1000, and I've been playing with the Garmin G1000 simulator on my home PC and reading the manuals... could I get checked out in the Garmin G1000 in the morning, signed off by the FBO, and take the plane out of state on a long flight that would go into the night-time hours and would arrive back after they closed!? A quick call, and YES! They'd let me do that.
So, bright and early today (Tuesday) I was at the FBO for a checkout with Karl Low. We did all the necessary "new renter" paperwork, license and currency validation, review of FBO procedures/rules, Garmin G1000 simulator work, then a 1-hour checkout flight, and I was signed off to go to Kansas!
I topped off the tanks and off we went... here I am passing abeam Denton Municipal (wave and say 'hi', Terry!) northbound to Ardmore Municipal (KADM) to meet the first leg pilot.
Lake Murry in Oklahoma is a popular recreational playground. The water was exceptionally blue-green today.
This new (2005) Cessna even has AIRBAGS built into the seat belts. That's the "bulge" on the lap part of the belt. The smell of new leather... ah.... ;-)
Here's a look at the panel. The swtiches and knobs are all noticeably of higher quality than previously used. They remind me of the switches used in the full-motion Lear 45 jet simulator I got to fly once at SimuFlight.
I arrived at Ardmore at 2:30 pm, ready to receive the inbound passengers, who were arriving from Addison in North Dallas.
About 2:45 pm, the inbound flight pulled up. Kevin Glanzer was the mission pilot. He works for the same company I do, in a different building, and is a Vice President of Software Development. This is his Archer... gotta love that paint job. He said that almost ALL of his flights are Angel Flights. He bought the plane because he was spending too much on rentals for Angel Flights, and trying to find a rental on short notice to take all day can be tough (I feel your pain, Kevin, I just heard from the FBO what the total cost of this G1000 flight was!).
Teresa really "dug" this paint scheme. She told me to make sure I filed that away as a possibility for the RV-7. ;-)
Passengers safely strapped in and briefed. Ready to go home? Young Karen looks pleased to be on the way, as does her Mom.
The Garmin G1000 presents all the right information in a very easy to read format. I filed IFR for the next two legs, even though it was gorgeous weather outside, both for the opportunity for "time" in the system, and to have a controller watching over us the entire way.
Right were that "flash" is on the MFD in the shot above was where the groundspeed is shown... the winds at 6000' were over 40 knots as a quartering left tailwind; I saw up to 171 knots groundspeed in a Cessna 172! Wow! Of course, that meant the trip home was going to be SLOW.
Crossing the Colorado River.
Karen fell asleep, just like her Mom said she would. The Garmin G1000 system receives live (almost) weather data, including NEXRAD radar, METARS, etc. from an XM Weather satellite feed. The AUX 4 page has another nice feature... XM Radio! I picked a channel, and we were soon listening to digitally perfect music, which would automatically cut out for me when ATC called, but would keep playing for the passengers, uninterrupted. The G1000 screen would show us the artist name and song title... this is just TOO cool!
I loved the way the sun lit up all these little lakes and ponds in a row!
Somewhere over the red dirt of Okahoma.
You're going to see lots of pictures of airports we passed enroute... I like to take pictures of the airports. This one is Perry, Oklahoma. We passed Perry at 4:23pm according to my notes. At the time, we were doing 171 knots groundspeed with a 52 knot tailwind.
In the foreground of where the buildings are in this picture is the runway at Ponca City, Oklahoma. Lake Ponka Park is in the background. I've marked the runway with a green line to make it stand out a little more clearly... Airports can be hard to spot from the air if you don't know what to look for.
We filed, and to my surprise, were given "direct Salina" from Ardmore... over 350 nm with no turns! I've never been given direct from point of origin to destination. "Direct" usually comes further down the line. I wasn't surprised, then, to hear, near the Oklahoma border, "November 712 November Victor, I have an amendment to your routing, advise ready to copy." Oh, great, I thought. Pencil ready... "Oklahoma City, 2NV ready to copy". "Roger 2NV. We're a bit busy up ahead, so fly direct Pioneer VORTAC, that's Papa Echo Romeo, then direct Salina as filed."
Hah! And I got all worked up about an amendment to my clearance! This was just a very slight dogleg to the right. Very easy to set up on the G1000; press the FPL (flight plan) key, move the cursor to the entry for KSLN, enter PER to insert it before KSLN, then press the DirectTo key to go direct PER. The autopilot was engaged, and it smoothly turned us right about 10 degrees, direct Pioneer. As we reached the VOR, the autopilot gently turned us back to the left enroute to Salina. Here's the VOR in the turn... and this VOR is at the OK/KS border, so in no time we were in our destination state.
There was a fire on the ground at Wellington, Kansas, just south of "downtown" (can you say that a midwest farming town has a "downtown"?).
In this shot of the fire, the municipal airport at Wellington is just visible behind the smoke. The identifier for Wellington is KEGT... EGT? That's an abbreviation pilots use for "Exhaust Gas Temperature", an indication of engine performance and fuel leaning efficiency. Funny that there's an airport out there with that identifier.
Wichita, Kansas is a major hub of aircraft activity. Boeing has a plant here, Cessna builds its jets here, Pawnee makes crop dusters and fire-fighting planes... all three of these are based in Witchita. The next two photos, though, shows the two long parallel runways at McConnell Air Force Base (KIAB).
Just to the west of that airport is Wichita Mid-Continent (KICT), the main airport for passenger planes coming into Wichita. Lots of intersecting runways here.
Looking down the runways at KICT. We're north of the field now, this view is looking to the south.
I guess the only way to get "waterfront property" in Kansas is to dig a hole, fill it with water, then plant houses around it....
And finally, two hours and a few minutes after leaving Ardmore (it was a heck of a tailwind!) we're cleared left downwind for the visual approach to runway 17 at Salina. The University of Kansas Flight Team is based here; the line boy told me that U of K got the first Cessna G1000 that was made; seems fitting, since the planes are built in Independence, Kansas. As before, I've marked the runway in this photo.
This would have easily been a 7 hour drive for these nice folks. Karen was an especially good passenger. I wish her and her family well.
The return flight was all at night. I had the tanks topped off at Salina, "to the brim" (literally, the fuel was TO THE TOP of the filler neck). I took off just before sunset, and a short while later it was dark. Over the central plain states, with sometimes miles between towns, dark takes on a new meaning. I didn't get any good photos (there was nothing for the camera to focus on), but this shot with the flash turned off as I passed Oklahoma City was cool. It's exactly as it came off the camera; I haven't retouched it or anything.
Going home, I was again cleared direct to my destination (WOW, this is great!). I climbed up to 7000', my filed altitude based on winds aloft, where the winds were about 30 knots out of the west, perpendicular to my course. That was better than the 42 knots on the nose that I would have had down at 3 or 5 thousand feet. I saw groundspeeds in the 114 - 128 knot range on the way home. XM radio was going, I could check weather ahead of me, all was well. The G1000's transmitters are of a higher wattage output than most radios, so ATC often reported on the "airline quality" of the transmissions. The "nearest airports" screen on the MFD has to be seen to be believed. It is constantly drawing a white line from your course to the nearest suitable emergency airfield in case you need to make an unscheduled stop. Included in that information is the field's frequency, runway length/width/surface type, lighting, etc. It certainly made the flight home at night in a single-engine aircraft more enjoyable. The air at 7000' was so smooth, for the most part, that it felt like I was floating; there was no sense of movement other than the earth and lights slowly sliding by underneath me, a mile and a half below. It was surreal.
I had topped off in Salina because I did not want to have to stop for fuel on the way home (of course, I would have if it was neccessary... I never violate a strict one-hour reserve, which means I land for fuel whenever I get to one hour fuel remaining in the tanks). The G1000 has a wonderful feature to help manage this. On the moving map display, it will draw a fuel-endurance ring, centered on your aircraft's position, that is constantly recomputed based on fuel flow, winds aloft, groundspeed, etc. It depicts two green circles--a dashed green circle that shows how far you can go and still have legal reserves, and a solid green circle that depicts zero fuel distance. Both circles also show a time in hours and minutes until you reach that point. Fuel management has never been easier! It clearly showed I had enough range to go from Salina to HOUSTON (in far south Texas) with more than an hour's fuel still on board, even with this headwind. Using the G1000 to lean out to 8.4 gph at 7000 feet and my cruise power setting was paying off. I landed back home at NW Regional in 3 hours 20 minutes after departure from Salina, at 9:15pm local time, and still had another 28 gallons of fuel on board.
I'm glad I live somewhere were people can fly; there are countries where this privilege to see this beautiful planet from above is not available to the general public, at any price. General Aviation does more than just whisk jet-setters away to island vacations... learn more about how to protect this precious resource today. Airports and small airplanes are crucial to our infrastructure and to helping good people like little Karen.