Sky, sea, and clouds

The heavily loaded Cessna 182 lifted off Runway 22 at Lexington, Kentucky’s Blue Grass Airport. Lexington Departure assigned the flight an easterly heading and instructed the pilot to climb. He also had to identify the Lexington VOR and navigate, and in the back of his mind, he knew he had a VFR flight plan to open by radio with flight service.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on initially here, isn’t there?” asked student pilot James Stephens of Nicholasville, Kentucky. Soon he would be deviating around cloud buildups, too.

“Yes, there is,” replied flight instructor Nick Greenwell from the right seat.

Stephens, training to become a private pilot, was making his first dual cross-country flight. Instead of the typical 60- or 70-nautical-mile flight to a nearby airport, however, Stephens was embarking on a 472-nm odyssey to Panama City, Florida, where two days of sailing awaited. By evening he would log five hours of dual cross-country time.

A few minutes later, the radio began to behave erratically, and it appeared that the Cessna’s battery was not charging properly. Recycling the alternator switch seemed to resolve the problem, but Greenwell made it a teachable moment. Stephens and Stephanie Millard, a student pilot from Cincinnati who would fly the return trip, identified several options—returning to Lexington, landing at the nearest airport, or continuing and watching the electrical system closely. “James, what would you do?” Greenwell asked. “Stephanie, what would you do?” The group agreed on the third option, although both students initially suggested a precautionary landing.

In southern Kentucky and northern Tennessee, Stephens had to circumnavigate building clouds—something he’d never done before—but good visibility allowed him to do this safely, and Greenwell’s coaching gave him confidence to deviate from his carefully planned route. Greenwell talked about VOR navigation and receiver sensitivity. “We’re almost to Hinch Mountain [VOR]—do you see how sensitive the needle is getting?”

“Yes, I see that,” Stephens answered, as the Cessna flew southbound at 7,500 feet.

“Cessna Two-Zero-Bravo-Kilo, traffic,” air traffic control interrupted. “A Cirrus, northbound at 12 o’clock and 10 miles, level at 7,000 feet.”

“That’s why it’s really important to stay on your altitude,” Greenwell commented.

A fuel stop was planned for Auburn, Alabama. Eventually it became clear the flight would not arrive before the terminal closed at 8 p.m., leaving only self-service fuel. After another discussion, the group decided to stop in Columbus, Georgia, instead. The lessons continued for the remaining 143 nm to Panama City, where a sailing adventure awaited (see “Flying Through the Water”).

Heading home

Three days later, Stephens climbed into the Cessna’s back seat. The previous day Millard and Greenwell sat poolside at the hotel and plotted the return flight. Millard had done some cross-country flight planning before—but she had never used the Direct User Access Terminal system (DUAT), so Greenwell introduced her to that process.

Millard had not been exposed to other tasks, such as identifying a VOR station by its Morse code identifier, or transmitting to flight service on one frequency while listening to a VOR to hear the response.

Greenwell coached her on VOR navigation. “The needle represents the course we’re flying,” he said. “If it’s off to the left, we need to fly to the left to catch it.” He guided Millard through a variety of tasks—holding the wings level, intercepting a new radial, checking in with Atlanta Center on a new radio frequency, and resetting the heading indicator, which has been precessing. “We’ve got to keep flying the airplane while we do all that.”

Millard struggled with some aspects of flying the Cessna 182, which is more powerful than the Beech Musketeer she’s used to. For example, she applied left rudder while turning left in the climb—but the airplane still needed pressure on the right rudder pedal, to offset the left-turning tendency resulting from the high climb power setting. “You need to get used to just easing up on the right rudder,” Greenwell suggested.

Clouds appeared at Millard’s altitude. “We can go over them or go below them,” Greenwell said. “Since Chattanooga is reporting 5,500 broken, let’s start a slow descent and get below them.”

Millard landed smoothly at Lovell Field in Chattanooga, but lightning was visible to the northwest. Another airplane from the Aero-Tech flight school heading back from Florida was already tied down. Millard and Stephens were introduced to the concept of a crew car—a courtesy vehicle pilots can borrow at many airports, generally to grab a meal in town. Heavy rain fell during the group’s dinner, but it was ending when they left the restaurant.

Last leg

After dinner, the weather at the airport was better—but more storms lingered along the route. Eventually they dissipated. Greenwell talked with his students; until the moon rose, it would be a dark night and it could be difficult to spot clouds. He filed an instrument flight plan to ensure the final 182 nm were covered safely.

As it turns out, the IFR plan wasn’t really necessary; the Cessna remained in good visual conditions for the remainder of the trip.

Circumnavigating weather “was a brand new experience” for Millard. “I was fine with the weather until we were at Chattanooga. Then I wavered back and forth between being completely confident and being concerned. But then I realized I could be confident because you can make decisions as you’re flying, when you encounter something,” she said. “I feel that I was strengthened in building those decision criteria. It was a spectacular experience, watching the decision making with some very experienced people and learning from that.”

The weather delays surprised Stephens, who thought the schedule would be rigid. “That wasn’t the case at all,” he said. “You can go whenever you’re ready.” Touchdown in Lexington was just before 11 p.m.

Reflections

Millard and Stephens had similar reasons for making the trip. Stephens signed on for the cross-country experience. “This was my very first dual cross-country. I could have done it locally, but for a little extra money, I could spend three days on a boat. I believe that a long cross-country is more beneficial than a short local one.” The opportunity came at a good time in his training, he added.

Several lessons will stick with him, including how to find VOR intersections. “I didn’t understand how to do that before,” Stephens said. “I didn’t understand how I could be on a radial that was perpendicular to me.”

He also hadn’t spent much time finding points on the ground. “On the way back, when I wasn’t in control of the airplane, I was able to look out the window and pretty much always knew where I was.” During a regular lesson that might combine hood work and stalls, “There’s so much going on. The next thing you know you’re at the Frankfort airport and you don’t know how you got there.”

The trip was a great opportunity for Millard. “It fits with my goals in flying. I’m flying for a couple of purposes—I have family that’s a couple of states away, and I have business reasons.”

A lot of learning just happened in the course of the vacation, she noted. “That was an unexpected benefit. There was a whole lot of training that happened that wasn’t formal or stated; you just gleaned it from being around other pilots,” she said. “My confidence level has just blossomed from this trip. It was well worth the investment of time and money. It’s like I grew by several weeks’ training.”

She also learned by watching Stephens fly. “I learned a lot by watching him interact with Nick. He was very precise with his headings and his altitudes, and did a very good job staying on course.” Greenwell reminded Millard several times to stay on heading. “That was instructive, to learn where I need to improve and grow. Because I haven’t done much of that, that was my weak point—and I learned that.”

Stephens also learned by observing when Millard was flying. “I could pay a lot more attention when we were picking up flight following,” he said. “It’s just a lot easier to pay attention when you’re not flying the plane.”

Instrument training, too

Don Morgan, a 500-hour private pilot starting on his instrument rating, also went on the trip. He flew a Piper Arrow with flight instructor Chris Warren; Morgan’s wife, MaryMajella, was a passenger. “It sounded like something that would motivate me to start the instrument training,” he said. “I enjoy boating, and it’s something I could involve my wife with.”

Morgan said he approached instrument training a little backwards. “Usually you don’t do a lot of approaches at the beginning of the training, but we got four approaches in,” he said. “I thought I would be better at holding altitude on the approaches than I was, because I’ve been flying so long.”

He said he really enjoyed the sailing. “It was a good mix. You don’t want to fly that far and fly back the next day.”

Aero-Tech typically offers four adventure vacations per year—sailing in Panama City; snow skiing in Colorado; trips around aeronautical training, such as high-altitude physiology or survival training in Oklahoma; or flights to aviation events such as Sun ’n Fun or EAA AirVenture, said Arlynn McMahon, the flight school’s chief instructor.

One objective is to teach the amount of preparation that goes into a trip. “We want students to understand that it’s not just a matter of filling in a bunch of numbers in a nav log, like they might be doing in flight training—this stuff really matters. A lot of safety, in our opinion, is having the preparation—and having the Plan B.”

She hopes weather will be a factor. “We really hope that there’s an opportunity to circumnavigate some weather, or change altitudes because of weather, or land for additional fuel because of weather. Weather is one of those things that you look at as best you can, and plan for as best you can—but once you get [airborne], the weather is what it is.” New pilots are reluctant to change their plans after investing all that effort in planning, she said. “The preparation and the execution go hand in hand. So many times, pilots don’t think about taking off early or taking off late—different options that allow them to complete a trip.”

More learning occurs when students plan together, and talk, resulting in a more robust and enlightened planning experience. “[Student pilots] tend to look at things in black and white—‘I can do this, I can’t do that.’ When they engage in those discussions they realize there are other options. ‘How can I do it and do it safely?’ is a more realistic question to ask than simply, ‘Can I go or can I not go?’ ” Most trips can be made safely if the pilot is willing to change schedule, routing, or altitude, she explained.

The result is more confident pilots. “By the time they’ve taken a couple of trips, by certification they’re very confident to get in an airplane and go somewhere with family or some of their friends.”

Mike Collins is technical editor of AOPA Flight Training and AOPA Pilot magazines.