Aviator90 Episode 34

[Sound effects and music play.]

Chris Palmer: [0:31] Welcome to another episode of Aviator 90 from Angle of
Attack. Today we are doing our fourth cross country flight. We’ll
be hopping around some islands in Northern Washington. Today we’ll
be starting at Sierra 31, and we’ll be going to Bellingham in
Northern Washington.
[0:51] So let’s dive right into the cockpit, and we don’t need to
look at maps or anything. I’m going to show you how to set it up.
So as always, we’re going to start out turning on the battery and
alternator. It looks like the magnetos are already on. I’m also
going to turn on the nav and beacon, and it looks as though the
avionics are off, so that’ll do it for that.

[1:16] And I’m going to make sure the mixture is full rich because
we are at sea level, and then again I’m just going to crack the
throttle. Prop will always be full forward for startup. Then we
will go to the switches after we look around here, and we’ll start
the aircraft. The area is clear. It means we’re not going to chop
anyone’s head off with the prop. So let’s start the aircraft.

[1:47] And there we go. We have a good start.

[Engine noise]

Christianity: [1:54] And then we can bring it down to 1,000 rpm as we’ve
discussed before, and that’ll make sure that the engine can warm up
if it’s not already, and everything can be stable. Usually for
Cessnas of this size, that power setting works better, at least for
the Lycoming engines. So now we are going to try to get the weather
but we can’t.
[2:25] So just press B on your keyboard, bravo on your keyboard,
and that will get you the current altimeter setting. And you can
just look at the wind sock to determine which runway you’ll want to
take. I can tell you that today that we’re going to take runway 16.
And that will take us to the southbound departures, so we have to
turn back to northbound after we take off. And I am just going to
set the frequency here for the local area [pause] .

[3:00] The avionics switch was on when I started, that’s not good.
So don’t forget to do that. It’s kind of interesting because the
landing lights are pointed upward on. So on is up, on the landing
light switches but apparently the avionics up is off, which is
quite confusing, and I didn’t know that so that’s not good. I also
turned up my transponder to standby.

[3:29] I ‘m going to look around here then I will begin to taxi
out. So now we clear of the area, I’m just going to push up the
power a little bit and we’ll get moving here. And at the time you
can also check the brakes to make sure they’re operable.

[3:49] You shouldn’t have an issue, at least the police that are
flight simulator. But it has been those incidences where my flight
control has being reset, and the brakes didn’t work. So it’s
actually isn’t a completely unrealistic thing to check that because
sometimes the controls can get messed up with whatever you’re
flight control program, whether that be F-S-U-I-P-C, whether you
have your flight controls map through the flight simulator control
stuff.

[4:23] Whatever it is, it can be important to you to check the
flight controls and I always do in flight simulator. Just because
there’s been times where I’ve loaded up right on the end of a
runway, and I’ll power up fine, and then just to find out I can’t
pull off the runway because I don’t have any elevator control. I’ve
had it happen many times, so even in a flight simulator it’s
important to check that. In fact, I would think it’s more possible
for that sort of thing to happen in a flight simulator than it is
in real life. Those types of incidences in real life are pretty
rare.

[5:02] So as I said, we’re going to be taking off runway 16 which
is generally a southbound departure. We have very light wind today
so we could actually choose runway 34 as well. That may have been a
better decision because it’s straight out on our northbound
departure. However, this particular runway end was closer to us and
it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just going to come down here
and stop before the hold short lines and make very sure that I do
not pull on the runway without clearing the area first, and that’s
always very important.

[5:39] Now we’re going to do our run up and right here on the RPM
indicator I’m going to push this up to around 1,700. I’m not
completely used to this engine so I’m not too sure where the power
setting is. I’ll just play with it here until I can find 1,700 RPM.
That’s 1,700 RPMs. That will generally work for now, and that can
change depending on the aircraft.

[6:08] Now I’m going to check the magnetos left, then I’ll look
back at the tachometer and see what the RPMs are. We’ve got a
little drop…it rose a little bit, and now back to check the
right. We’ve got a little drop. OK, good. So I’m going to make sure
to turn that back to both. And that does it for that part of it.

[6:41] Now, I am going to cycle the propeller. You just want to see
a couple hundred RPM drop once you do that to ensure that the oil
is cycling through the prop correctly. That will make sure that
that system is all set. Especially during a cold winter day when
the oil can be pretty thick and less viscous as they call it, or
more thick, it can be very important to push some warmer oil
through the propeller before you start your takeoff.

[7:20] So we’re going to do the lights, camera, action. Lights,
We’ve got the landing lights and the strobe lights. Camera, we turn
the transponder to altitude. And then for action I’m just going to
look around, there’s not enough room to turn on the ramp. We are
good there, so we can get out of here.

[7:39] Lopez traffic, Cessna 6508 kilo is departure 16 and we’ll be
a turn northbound.

[7:53] Now we’re just going to line up with the runway here as
always and keep it rolling and introduce our power and listen to
this thing come alive. Very high performance engine. So airspeed is
alive, engine is in the green, and just keep maintaining center
line we’re looking for that rotation speed of about 65 knots in
this aircraft.

[8:12] There we go, we’re off. We’ll track the center line of the
runway. And this thing just performs like a mad airplane. We are
getting a really good climb out of this aircraft today. It is a
high performer as I said before. Now we’re going to turn left and
northbound.

[8:36] Lopez, traffic 6508 kilo turning on northbound off the
departure leg.

[8:49] And now we round this out. We’re going to be headed north
just a few miles to Orcas Island. This is basically just our visual
check point. From that point we turn westbound and we’ll go to
Bellingham. This is a short flight. It’s only about 15 to 20
minutes in the air. That will give us a short little nice flight
here.

[9:12] You can see that the aircraft is just climbing like crazy.
We’ve got 2,000 feet per minute. We’re climbing to 3,500 feet today
because we’ll be on an easterly heading which means, as you
remember, we are at an odd thousand plus 500 cruise level. Although
we’ll only be in cruise for a few minutes, it’s still important to
make sure you are diligent with that altitude. So, today it’s
really not going to take a lot in order to climb the aircraft and
get to 3,500 feet. It’s just going to take a couple minutes. And
this thing just wants to perform.

[9:57] So right now we aren’t at Vx or Vy. In other words, we’re
not doing a specific climb profile, but we are doing more of a
cruise climb profile, where we’re sacrificing a bit of lift for
some extra air speed which will get us to our destination a bit
faster. We still get a good climb rate out of it. It just gets us
there faster, which works. Real pilots use it. Airlines use it.
It’s definitely something that is used in the real world.

[10:35] Just going to continue on and cruise here. All right, so
I’m 100 feet away from 3,500 feet so now it’s time to shallow out
that ascend, and I really need to start being commanding with the
controls. Make sure that I level off that altitude and then I’ll
begin to bring the trim in, to make sure that we can level off at
3,500 feet.

[11:02] In the meantime, it’s also important to change power
settings, make sure that we’re set for our cruise power. Basically
what you want to do is make sure that everything is in the green,
and that the aircraft is set up for nice and fuel efficient cruise.
You could technically and safely run the aircraft at full engine
power for the entire cruise. However, that would not be fuel
efficient and it just doesn’t make sense to go that fast.

[11:35] Now, say that we were going to Orcas Island. You know even
Bellingham today, because this isn’t a long flight. And say we
wanted to get there quicker than usual, we have a deep pocketbook
and we were willing to pay for that extra fuel. We can technically
put the throttle to the wall, as they call it, and we can just get
there at full engine power.

[11:57] Most engines are rated these days to be full engine powered
for their entire life. So you can safely operate them within their
engine lifespan, which is anywhere from 1,600 hours to 2,000 hours
for piston driven single driven aircraft. So that can be pretty
important. So now that we are out of the immediate area of Lopez we
can turn to our common traffic advisory at 122.8 and I’m struggling
a bit here with all these bumps but I will get it eventually.

[12:44] We are active and then I can make a radio call. Orcas area,
Orcas-Lopez traffic Cessna 6508kilo is 3,500 Northbound 10 South of
Orcas and will be turning Eastbound after Orcas.

[13:21] So you can see Orcas Island up ahead. It’s basically on the
northern tip of this island. It’s the little lights there.
Basically, from there we will turn eastbound and the Bellingham
International Airport is essentially Eastbound or directly east of
that airport and that will get us there nice and easily.

[13:45] So we’ll just bump along here, keeping 3,500 feet all along
the way. Right now, believe it or not I am hardly touching the
controls. If I need to make any adjustments it’s simply with my
index and thumb.

[14:05] So, it’s that easy, where you can just use two fingers to
basically control the aircraft. It’s that sensitive to where the
trim is just perfectly set up. And trim can be difficult to get,
but with Flight Simulator, you basically use visual tools rather
than the actual feel of the controls pressuring either a climb or
descent.

[14:26] And so we are all set up for 3,500 feet, and like I said,
I’m not even touching the controls. It’ll even fly in a straight
line, for the most part. Some aircraft even have aileron, and
rudder trim just in case there is a slight turn in your aircraft,
and can trim those up, in order to fly straight, which is pretty
dang cool.

[15:01] Now, I’m going to look up the weather frequency for
Bellingham. Like I said, this is a short flight, so I’m going to
look for the Bellingham frequency. Then we will get the weather
there, and make sure we’re all set up, we know what to expect. And
then we will call tower, once we are close. Still don’t find it.,
I’m doing airports farther from you until I find it. All right,
there it is, it’s number seven.

[15:31] So, looks like, looks like we’re 134.45.

Radio: [15:40] Bellingham Airport information outlook, 2332, winds, 332
and poor visibility greater than 20 miles. Sky and in departing
runway 16 VFR aircraft make a right. All aircraft [Inaudible 16:05]
direction, [Inaudible 16:03] control or unofficial contact
[Inaudible 16:05] alpha. Bellingham information alpha….

Chris: [16:13] All right, that does it for that. We are over Orcas island
now, or at least over the airport. So, I’m going to turn,
essentially, directly eastbound, and we will fly up here and give
Bellingham tower a call, once we get pretty close.
[16:31] We’ll call about 15 miles out, just to be safe.
Technically, we only have to call 10 in, but I usually give them a
little extra time. I see the tower frequency is 124.90, a very
quick and easy way to look up that frequency is simply just by
bringing up the local frequencies with the tilde key on the
keyboard.

Then we, I’ll just dial it in for you guys here. We could
technically just press 1, or whatever frequency, or whatever number
is next to the frequency, to quickly dial that frequency. But, I’m
just going to do it, man, here, even though these bums are being a
pest. It’s kind of difficult to get in those close spots.
[Inaudible 17: [16:56] 21]

[Radio continues in background]

Christianity: [17:26] 123.9, where’s the negative, where’s the negative? Where is
it? So close. OK, there we go. [Inaudible 17:39 24, OK.
[17:37] So, switch that already active, and we are on Bellingham
tower. And I’m going to wait just, actually, I’ll give them a call.

Bellingham Tower, Cessna 6508 Kilo 15 to the west, inbound landing,
Bellingham. We have [Inaudible 17: [17:49] 58] .

Radio: [18:00] Cessna 6508 Kilo, roger, make a left turn at 034, call the
airport in sight.

Chris: [Inaudible 18:06] [18:05] left base runway 34, I’ll report the
airport in sight, Cessna 08 Kilo.
[pause]

[18:12] All right, so, I was just looking at the airport there, I
zoomed in a little bit. I spotted the hangars out in the distance,
so I now have the airport in sight, and I can give him a call back.

[18:58] Bellingham tower, Cessna 6508 Kilo airport in sight.

Tower: [19:04] Cessna 6508 Kilo [Inaudible 19:08] five miles, Runway 34.

Chris: [19:10] We’ll call five out at the left base 34, Cessna 6508 Kilo.
[pause]

[19:15] Now, you may have noticed that I was a bit cavalier with my
air traffic communications there. I used words that were necessary
there like “we” and “we are” and “we’ll do this” or “we’ll do
that.”

[19:45] Essentially, you don’t have to say any of those words when
you are in more of a busy area. Those types of things can go right
away. You don’t need to use extra words that will plug up the
frequency.

[19:58] It’s essential to be short and concise in those situations
and simply communicate exactly what you need, in short terms, which
will help out a lot. And this, we actually talk about quite a bit
in our e-book called “Pilot Speak,” where I teach you some of the
words that you should use, some of the words that you shouldn’t use
and some other techniques, in order to communicate effectively with
air traffic control.

[20:23] So if you guys haven’t checked that out, it’s simply on our
blog. You can find it on various links and especially the products
link. And you can download a sample of that and check it out and
see if it’s for you. It will help you get started with air traffic
communications.

[20:39] I, for one, don’t think it’s too difficult to communicate
with air traffic control. You just got to be short. You’ve got to
be confident, once you learn.

[20:51] But you’ve also got to realize that you are open to
mistakes. And there’s going to be a time where you say something
stupid, you sound stupid. It’s just the way it is. It’s how
aviation goes. We’re all learning.

[21:05] So just keep that in mind and don’t be afraid to key that
mic and speak up. And say what you know and learn from what other
pilots have to say as well, just by listening to the frequency.

[21:18] All right. So, enough of that chit chat. We were told to go
left base for runway 34 which we are doing now. You can see that
we’re just coming up on the airport. It’s just off to our left. I’m
set up for a nice left based turn inbound which will just give us a
nice left turn into runway 34.

[21:40] Essentially, how you set up on the runway is you just see
what heading you’re on and then basically visualize the line on the
heading 34, and that will kind of give you an idea of where runway
34 is. Then, if you ever get an instruction for runway 34 left or
right, make sure you land on the correct one. And when you say it
back, make sure that you remember left or right. It’s very
important to land on the correct runway, especially when multiple
approaches are going on.

[22:17] Billingham Tower, Cessna 6508 kilo five miles left base 34.

Radio: [22:24] Cessna 08, roger. You’re cleared to land runway 34, wind 60
at four knots.

Chris: [22:30] Cleared to land runway 34, Cessna 08 Kilo.
[22:43] All right. So, we’ve been cleared to land, and we are lined
up on the runway, well, not necessarily lined up. But now is a good
time to start the turn. All right, well, maybe, a little too early.
Now, we’re really high. I should have started descending sooner,
and basically right now I am idling power just to get down.

[23:05] While I was chit chatting there, I went through the slow
down of the aircraft. I pulled the power back all the way, got in
that safe flap operating range and put the flaps down full because
we really need to drop in here. So, full flaps, idle power. This
will give us one heck of a descent, if we want it, and now we’re
going to drop in.

[23:29] One thing as a pilot you need to do is make sure that you
learn how to multitask when it’s important. So, now we’re coming in
on final, and this can get pretty critical. Do not forget to add
power, because we’re going to come down in a shallower descent here
once we get on glide path.

[23:46] You need to make sure you add power again because it’s been
out for a few minutes. So we do our gas, good, undercarriage, none,
mixture, good, prop is full forward, and switches we’ve already
done. So we’re clear to land.

[24:02] And I’m coming on down on speed. A little bumpy today.

Over the threshold, now I can pull power. Just work it on down
here. Getting a bit of a weird [Inaudible 24: [24:07] 18] settle on
ground effect. Pull it up, pull it out. All right, we’re down.

[24:22] Now I’m going to pull out the power all the way. Oh, it
already should have been. But I’m going to pull back on the yolk
and I’m going to apply brake pressure to try and slow down. Pulling
back on the yolk deflects the elevators and causes more of a
resistance to airflow that can assist in slowing the aircraft down.

[24:41] So, we’re going to turn off here to the right.

Radio: [25:00] Cessna 6508 Kilo for Bellingham. Turn right when able. Taxi
ramp, remain this frequency.

Chris: [25:06] Cessna 6508 Kilo, right when able, and we’ll stay with you
for ground.
[25:15] All right, we’re just going to get clear of the runway
here. [sings] Da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da.

[25:25] Anything you need to do at this point, say, turn off the
lights, like your landing lights, strobe light, put up your flaps,
other various post-flight items that need to be taken care of, you
can do that. Make sure that you’re all set up as far as that is
concerned. And I will continue to taxi over to the ramp.

[25:59] We’re just enjoying this little thing that we have going on
here. I’m going to turn right. All right. So, I didn’t do what I
preached. I didn’t turn off my landing lights, so there we go. OK.
I’ll power up. Let’s continue this turn. Man, I am squirrelly
today. I am not doing good on a nice and straight taxi here. So, I
don’t know. Slap me or something.

[26:43] We’re just going to taxi straight ahead here. We’ll go up
and park next to that green Cessna on the ramp. Then we will get
some fuel, get a snack, take a potty break, get a drink of water,
close our flight plan, watch some planes fly by, go to the Angle of
Attack blog, make some comments, subscribe, who knows, something
crazy like that.

[27:24] So we’re just going to continue to taxi up here, and we
will line up. Obviously, I do not want to hit my wing on that
airplane, so I’m going to make sure that I’m very careful here when
we get closer and make sure I have plenty of clearance. I’ll get
lower here to make sure I’m not…oh, OK, plenty of clearance.
We’re good, and we’re stopped. Pull the mixture. And lights off.

[Engine stops]

Chris: [28:01] So beacon, nav. We can turn the magnetos off now. We can
turn the alternator and battery off, and we’ve cheated death once
again. And that does it for this episode. Thanks for joining me. I
hope you guys had fun, and I’ll see you next time as we do another
flight again. I’m not sure what it will be. It will always be
interesting and fun and beautiful in the Pacific Northwest scenery.
[28:24] So until next time, throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords