After having had a private pilot's license for twenty-five years, I finally flew in Class C airspace...
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to fly the CAP airplane down to Daytona Beach to drop it off for its 100 hour inspection.
Daytona is Class C airspace. Back when I first got my license, such a concept didn't exist. Of course, there were airports with control towers, but the airspace classification system as we currently know it didn't exist. I did make a couple of landings / take-offs into Charleston, which was a reasonably large airport, but for the most part, I flew out of small airports with no tower / approach / etc.
Even when I resumed flying a few years ago, I did my flying out of pilot controlled airfields.
I did finally fly into a Class D airport a few months ago (St. Augustine), but I still hadn't flown into an airport with regularly scheduled major airline traffic.
On the one hand it wasn't that big a deal, on the other, it was quite interesting.
The bulk of the trip down was very routine. I had filed my VFR flight plan on DUAT, and shortly after take-off, I had activated it and had contacted JAX approach for VFR flight following.
For the majority of the trip, the sky was clear, visibility was good, and the ride was smooth.
We started seeing a little build-up right around our altitude (3500 feet) as we neared Daytona, but nothing we couldn't easily navigate around. As we got closer to DAB, the clouds got closer to each other. Not so close that we couldn't get through, but close enough to have to dodge...
Things didn't get really interesting until we got close to Daytona. When I had checked the weather, the reported conditions around DAB were 3 miles visibility with smoke, improving to 6 by the time of our anticipated arrival. Well, let's just say that there was more smoke than anticipated and even though I was quite close to the airport, and it's a pretty big airport, I couldn't see it.
Fortunately, I had a very experienced pilot as a co-pilot. He flew for the Air Force for twenty-seven years and then for an airline for another fifteen.
Even though we were flying VFR, he had dialed in the frequency of the ILS approach on the NAV.
Between his coaching and the GPS, when I rolled out onto final, it turned out I was right on track, at least according to the ILS - it took me at least fifteen seconds before I could actually see the runway.
I learned a number of good lessons along the way:
- Make use of HIWAS or TWEB enroute to check for weather. You can tune to a nearby VOR on the NAV radio and still listen/talk to ATC. Availability is indicated by a dark circle with a light H (HIWAS) or T (TWEB) in it in the VOR information box.
- Listen to EFAS (Flight Watch) on 122.0 enroute.
- Don't fly right along the beach. So does everyone else, which makes traffic avoidance more interesting. Better to slide over a mile or so to either side...
- When ATC informs you that there is traffic in the area, switch on your landing light. Don't forget to turn it off after the traffic passes.
- Turn on your landing light within ten miles of your destination - even if it is daytime.
- Even if you are not IFR qualified, it is interesting and potentially helpful to know (and tune in) the frequencies for the ILS for the runways in use at your destination. You can either get this information from an approach plate, or from your GPS.
- When approach tells you to join the base leg for a runway, they mean to do it far out (~5 miles or more), not like you are flying the pattern at your local little airport.
- Which means, take a look at the airport diagram as soon as you hear from ATIS what the active runway is, then look at the GPS to get an idea of where you are going to want to go when you get told how they want you to approach.
- Make sure you know, before you take off, where on the airport you need to end up at. Once you know which runway you are going to be landing on, figure out whether you need to exit the runway to the left or right (if there are taxiways on both sides) based on where you need to get to. Once you are off the runway and switch to ground, you can figure out exactly how to get there, but if you are on the wrong side of the runway to start, it's a pain to get across.
- While on the base leg, get configured for landing. After turning final is not the time to realize you need to slow down, etc. Of course, sometimes you don't have the luxury of loafing in, but at the same time, you need to get configured for whatever you need to make a stabilized approach.
- If you really are having trouble figuring out where you are and/or where you need to go, ask ATC for vectors.
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Posted by David at August 28, 2007 09:37 AM