Friday was a beautiful day! I couldn’t believe it when I woke up and looked out the window. Clear blue skies and a light wind. I thought to myself, I’m definitely getting my cross country in today!
Unfortunately, Friday was also a somewhat crazy day at work. I was told the night before, just before I left work, that I had to do some regulatory testing on Monday at a location on River Road. I was also told that I needed to get the equipment gathered together and tested before it was shipped out to the location on Friday afternoon. That meant a lot of running around and no time to do my pre-flight planning that was necessary. Not good. I did manage to get some of it done, but not everything. In the end, turns out that the testing got pushed back to Thursday so I was able to leave without any worries. Whew!
I arrived at the club just before 12:30 and set to work on finishing my planning. Brad looked over my work and then I called and filed the flight plan. By this time it was already 1330 or so. Brad wanted me back before dark which was around 1630. That didn’t leave me much time.
I went out to the plane to do the walk around and noticed that it was low on fuel (probably somewhere around 1/2 tanks). I went back inside to let someone know that I needed fuel. Problem: the old fuel tanks were shut down and the new one was not operational yet. Not good. After waiting around for some more time, eventually it was decided that I would fly down to Cornwall, as planned, but that I would fill up the plane there. Sounded good to me so I jumped in the plane and started her up.
By the time I got off the ground in Ottawa it was about 1355 or so. I headed down to Cornwall and found the airport without too much trouble. I opted to make my landing a short field one so I could turn off at the taxiway without having to backtrack the runway. I parked the plane by the pumps and then headed inside. I couldn’t figure out how to get inside so I ended up going in though the hangar and ended up behind the desk. Oops. They didn’t seem to upset about it though. Nice people down there in Cornwall.
I got the plane filled up and headed off towards Brockville without too much delay. Made it up to St. Andrews without any trouble and then followed my track towards Brockville. At my first ground speed checkpoint, I noticed that I was only doing around 63 Kts, rather than my expected 74. That wasn’t good since I was dealing with less time than I would have liked to begin with. Went by Morrisburg (was tempted to do a touch and go on that runway) and Iriquois and did another ground speed check. This time I came up with 64 Kts. I decided that since my time was limited and there was a warm front approaching from the south that when I came up to the 416 that I would simply turn North and head back to Ottawa. So that’s what I did.
Getting to the north field (runway 22) from the south west side of the airport was interesting. Originally they cleared me into the circuit for 32. I asked if I could get a landing on the north field so they told me to b-line it for the threshold of 25. Well I guess I was going too slow because they eventually told me to make that a downwind for 25. Eventually they told me to turn base for 22, but I was quite far out. Not long after they told me to turn base, they told me to make it a downwind for 22. Well, me being the novice I am was thinking that since they were talking about 22, it HAD to be a right hand downwind for 22 since circuits on 22 are right handed. Turns out I was wrong and it didn’t take long for the tower to call me up to ask me where I was going. I explained that I thought I was supposed to head for a right hand downwind on 22. Nope – they wanted me to do a left hand downwind on 22. Ok, a 270 degree turn later and I’m heading left downwind on 22. Soon enough I was able to turn base and then land. I landed before sunset (well before) so all was good.
I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see the Brockville airport but I’m sure I’ll be flying down there again soon enough.
Although I didn’t fly all the way to Brockville, I still got the required time in that I needed. I’m sitting on 5 hours of cross country time now which is the minimum I needed for my license.
Good for you Kev! Sounds like you had a good trip, even with the craziness at the end. I’ve done a left downwind for 22 once before as well, it’s not all that unusual if you’re coming from the south and there’s not much traffic in the circuit. It saves you the trouble of overflying the field and joining the mid-right downwind.
Morrisburg is a nice little field, it sits on a golf course. Too bad you can’t fit two sets of clubs into a 150 :)
I guess we’ll have to take a 172 then. :)