"Just don't fly into P-41."
I hear this over and over before my first flights in the Frederick, Maryland, area. Having just moved here from Denver, I feel like a fish out of water. I spent seven years flying and instructing in Colorado—I can picture my "home state" from the air like my own face in the mirror. I know how to read the skies to tell when the winds coming off the mountains might hit the traffic pattern at my local airport. I know where to find every open strip of grass in the Denver metro area. I know what route to file out of Centennial when launching an IFR flight to the south.
Now, I feel like I know nothing.
What I need is a local area checkout.
Pilots launch to far-flung destinations all the time with little or no local knowledge. But experience indicates that a little instruction can go a long way, especially if you're flying into an area with challenging topography, airspace, or weather.
Home study
Start your checkout on your own by accessorizing: Order local charts, especially any terminal area charts, and instrument approach procedures in advance of your flight. Spend some time reviewing the nuts and bolts, such as pattern information, visual checkpoints, frequencies, and IFR approach, departure, and arrival procedures. Note any features unique to the area, such as the VFR corridors on the Los Angeles Terminal Area Chart and the triumvirate of Class B airspace on the Washington-Baltimore Terminal Area Chart. You'll probably come up with questions to ask your instructor, but if not, at least you'll be more familiar with the numbers when you go fly.
Beginnings
When you schedule a checkout in unfamiliar territory, emphasize to the instructor that you are looking for a form of differences training. Some airline pilots undergo transition training when they move from one aircraft to another on the same type certificate, such as the Boeing 757 and 767. The training focuses on the differences between the two. Your regional checkout can begin with what's different between the place you've flown before and this unfamiliar territory.
The discussion should begin with large-scale issues such as altitude and operational differences. For example, if you're used to flying from an airport at sea level and plan on checking out at an airport at a higher elevation, this change in altitude affects nearly everything you'll do in the airplane.
For one, the airplane reaches a given indicated airspeed at a higher true airspeed—and, therefore, groundspeed—than it does down low. Besides making your takeoff and landing distances longer, this change makes you feel like you're going "too fast" while flying at the same indicated airspeeds you've always used. The opposite effect occurs when you move from high to low—there's a ghostly feeling at lower elevations of hanging in the air on final when you're used to moving along at a 10-percent faster rate.
The lay of the land
The most obvious reason to get a regional checkout could be the landscape surrounding your new home base. While you've probably heard that it's a good idea to get a mountain checkout before you fly over rough terrain, it's also wise to get advice the first time you fly over coastal and plains regions.
Each area has its own set of challenges. When you fly in the mountains, you'll explore ridge crossing, valley flying, and operations at mountain airports.
For example, the traffic patterns at airports surrounded by high terrain, such as those at Aspen and Glenwood Springs, Colorado, are probably quite different from the standard "enter on a 45 to a left downwind" procedures to which you may have grown accustomed. You'll need to look at the airport layout relative to the surrounding terrain ahead of time, and research what local pilots do to set up for a landing. Often, you are strongly encouraged to land in one direction, such as into a canyon, and depart in the opposite direction. If you think about it, you may realize that, because of the rising terrain at one end of the runway, you need to make any go-around decision at a higher altitude on final if the approach isn't going well.
If you're used to flying in coastal or mountainous regions and you move to the flatlands, you may notice that you've traded a windscreen full of landmarks for what can be unremarkable terrain. You may laugh, but especially in the hazy visibilities of the central and eastern states, every town and sectioned farm can look alike. One remedy is to note that small towns often put their names on water towers; however, the more reliable method is to go over local landmarks with a CFI from the area. Of course, this is always a good idea, regardless of your new area of influence. For example, the Los Angeles area has some landmarks that are quite well known, such as the big letters of the Hollywood sign, the Santa Monica Pier, and the Queen Mary. However, could you tell the 605 freeway from the 710 freeway if you were not low enough to read the signs?
Airspace
Los Angeles brings up another interesting facet of regional checkouts: airspace. If you're accustomed to flying over one-horse burgs in the Midwest, you may be intimidated by the prospect of flying VFR in the sky around the City of Angels or other congested areas. A local CFI should spend some time with you on the ground explaining where the special flight rules areas—otherwise known as VFR corridors—are and where you can go to safely stay clear of the big traffic. There are also specific procedures for approaching various airports, such as discrete frequencies to use and landmarks to overfly. On the Los Angeles Terminal Area Chart, you'll also see visual checkpoints marked with five-letter identifiers. These are VFR waypoints for use with your GPS, such as Pacific Palisades (VPLPP) and Huntington Pier (VPLHP); AOPA championed their introduction a while back. You can find the specific latitude/longitude coordinates in the region's airport/facility directory.
In some busy areas, you also have special-use airspace to contend with. In the Colorado Springs area, the proximity of the Air Force Academy means alert areas and intensive flight train-ing, while nearby military operations areas and prohibited airspace add to the mix. A local instructor will tell you to expect vectors east from Colorado Springs Approach and to keep your head on a swivel.
And then there's airspace like Prohibited Area P-41 in northern Maryland. Known to the public as Camp David, the presidential retreat, this prohibited airspace doesn't advertise itself like the Mall to the southeast in Washington, D.C. Only a group of antennas and some densely forested hills signal the fact that if you wander across the wrong line on the chart, you will be spotted by a man in dark glasses through binoculars, and your movements will be followed back to wherever you land. Local legend has it that this is the most frequently violated prohibited airspace in the United States?but good positional awareness should keep you clear.
Procedures
But special ops aren't limited to special airspace. Because of unique brands of GA flying such as soaring and parachute jumping, there may be places near your new home base that you should avoid during certain times. For example, some airports may host parachute operations for which the drop zone is on the airport property. A seemingly innocuous overflight at pattern altitude may take you right through a shower of jumpers under canopy. Likewise, a glider traffic pattern can be quite different from that of a powered aircraft, consisting of a crosswind over midfield at slightly more than 1,000 feet agl, with turns to downwind and base inside the standard rectangle.
A good portion of your regional checkout should be spent identifying local landmarks that are used as official or unofficial visual checkpoints. Every airport has its equivalent of "I'm turning crosswind over the water treatment plant" or "Cherokee Eight-One-Whiskey is over IBM inbound for a 45-degree entry to downwind, Runway 8." If you know where the IBM office building is, you're not only a lot safer, but you may also get invited to join the local pilots' club.
If you plan on flying IFR, this leaves more procedures you may want to practice during a regional checkout. Though pilots fly unfamiliar approaches often enough, it doesn't hurt to run through your new local GPS procedure to get a feel for any nuances before you do it alone in the soup. Knowing the local song and dance for getting a clearance is also helpful, so you're not scrambling to figure out whom you need to call when you're trying to get on your way before a real trip. You may also want to ask about common clearances?sometimes, because of radar coverage or traffic flows, the controlling ATC facility gives a standard routing for flights in a given direction. If you know this ahead of time, you can file accordingly.
Weather
In coastal areas, you see other adjustments that you'll need to make to your usual way of doing things. For most of the country, flying in the early morning results in a smooth ride and clear skies?making it preferable through much of the year to flights in the afternoon. However, if you fly in the Los Angeles area, for example, you may want to rearrange your thinking and plan your flight for noon or later. Why? Because diurnal fog, known as the marine layer, and haze are the general order of the day. Fly too early and you're filing IFR, if you get to launch at all. That, and the pictures you take may not be as pretty.
Thunderstorms can affect you no matter where you fly, but in different regions they take on different characteristics. If you were brought up flying in the West, you may think of thunderstorms as isolated cells or clusters that show up in the afternoon, which are easily circumnavigated by visual cues, and that normally dissipate by evening. However, in regions where there is more moisture, you're likely to encounter embedded thunderstorms as a rule of thumb. And if you move to the Midwest, you'll note that thunderstorms happen at all hours of the day or night, on no apparent schedule.
Other regions produce their own microscale weather?mountains in particular come to mind. Though many phenomena are affected by rising terrain, wind is one that behaves quite differently than when it blows across flat land, and this deserves some discussion on the ground.
Because wind behaves like water, your instructor can help you visualize how the wind will change when it flows over the terrain near your new home airport. For example, the mountains west of the Boulder, Colorado, airport run perpendicular to the prevailing winds aloft. The wind tends to accelerate as it flows over this ridge. Also, if stable air is present, a mountain wave may result, creating large areas of lift and sink, and extremely turbulent air at lower levels. If the airport where you're checking out is located in an area affected by wave activity, there will be days such as those at Boulder when the sky looks sunny and clear and the wind is calm on the surface, yet the ride only a few hundred feet above the ground will knock out your fillings.
The start of a new world
A regional checkout that lapses into little more than a CFI-sponsored scenic tour doesn't do you much good. But when thoughtfully done, it sets the stage for years of safe flying in a new locale. I certainly feel more comfortable taking off from my new home airport after listening to the advice of those who have shown me how to "fly local."
And I've managed to stay clear of P-41.
Your Own Scenic Flight
Some regional checkouts require special attention. Let's say you want to take some friends or relatives up while you're on vacation, but you've never rented at the airport you plan to fly from. Rather than dealing with logistical complications on your way to renting an airplane, you may opt for a modified scenic flight. You can arrange to take a couple of passengers along while you fly with an instructor. This option may be more cost-effective, as well as more relaxing, and you won't have to worry about meeting time-in-type and insurance requirements. You reap the benefit of having a person with local knowledge of scenic areas on board, and you have peace of mind knowing there's a copilot while you're in unfamiliar territory.
You should plan your vacation flight ahead of time—some operators are very busy at those times of the year when travel peaks at their destination. Looking ahead means you can shop around and ask for recommendations, like you would if you were looking into renting long-term.
Be sure to stock up on local charts as well, to familiarize yourself with the airport and airspace, and look into places you want to see during the scenic tour you design?and get to pilot. — JKB
Links to additional information about local area checkouts may be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links0012.shtml). E-mail the author at [email protected].
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