Sometimes it just all goes right

[Keith Smith]

Had a quick trip from NJ to FL for a demo with a prospective client. I thought I'd share some of the high points since I haven't maintained my flying blog in ...well, forever.

Trip 1: N07 (Lincoln Park, NJ) to KSFB (Sanford, FL)

Leg 1: N07-KHRJ: http://skyvector.com/?ll=37.26093814080 ... :A.K7.KHRJ

Picked up FF with New York Approach, and quickly got the hand off to Philly. Requested and received Bravo clearance overhead the airport. Zero drama. Approaching HRJ, was greeted with "Hi Keith, welcome back!" on the CTAF. They're just lovely there. It's my go-to fuel stop on the NJ to FL trips.

Leg 2: KHRJ-KSFB: http://skyvector.com/?ll=32.14833118243 ... :A.K7.KSFB

The direct route would involve a massive over water portion. Clearly not the best idea with a piston single if you can easily avoid it, so I picked a route that was easily within gliding distance of the shore. I enjoyed many tunes and some wonderfully smooth air. Two items of interest at the tail end of the flight:

1) ATC asked if I was familiar with the parachuting operations at Deland (KDED). "Negative." ATC suggested I remain "4 miles east of that airport" due to ongoing parachute operations. Well, this was going to be interesting...how to remain 4nm east of this airport? I used the measuring option in ForeFlight (measure a point using two fingers and it draws a ruler, giving you distance and heading between the two points) to work out the distance between KDED and the existing course that I was following, which was going to have me passing east DED by around 2.5nm. So, all I had to do was offset by another 1.5nm and that would give me 4nm from KDED at my closest point. Enter the wonder that is Cross Track Error (XTK) on the Garmin GPS. I always fly with that field enabled on the NAV page of the GPS, replacing the BRG field. I point away from the field until the XTK field read 1.5nm (ie, 1.5nm laterally from the magenta line), and then flew a track over the ground that was parallel with the original track (ie, I made the TRK match the DTK field, just like I would during normal enroute flight, except I was offset by 1.5nm). As I approached the field, I asked ATC to verify that I was a sufficient distance from KDED and he said I was fine. I could've used the NRST page on the GPS to see my distance from KDED but asking ATC was a viable option, too, since he wasn't too busy.

2) For the arrival into KSFB, I had reviewed the airport for about 20 seconds the night before and noticed the VFR arrivals from the north and south (the Monroe and Jessup arrivals). I pulled down the AFD supplemental for the southeast region in ForeFlight and briefed the north arrival in detail. This came in handy when, after establishing that I was piston, not a turboprop, they asked if I could fly that arrival. Approach put me on the arrival and handed me over to the tower. The tower had me slow to approach speed and descend to pattern altitude (the Monroe arrival requires you to remain at 1500ft until advised by ATC). A MD-80 landed on 9L, then I was told to extend downwind for a Citation who was #2. I called the Citation in sight and was told to follow him. I turned base just at the Citation passed my left wing and flew a standard square pattern from that point.

The Citation occupied the runway for a bit longer than expected, but it all worked out. I exited at Lima and made my way to the ramp to meet with the client.


Trip 2: KSFB to 7FL6 (Spruce Creek): http://skyvector.com/?ll=29.00693933504 ... :A.K7.7FL6

I'd heard of Spruce Creek a few years ago, but didn't really think much of it. My client contact lives there and invited me to stay there so we could continue working throughout the evening. It's a private airport built around an air park. This means that many of the homes have hangars instead of garages, giving them direct access to the taxiways. This was my first experience with a private airport...and what a field it was.

It's hard to put into words what a special place Spruce Creek is. Here's a video of someone taxiing there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuYdmPFZl3c

They have 2 FBOs, fuel, several businesses on the field and hundreds of planes based there. There's an event schedule that would make your head spin. I lost count of how many formation flights were buzzing around during the evening and morning that I was there.

Trip 3: 7FL6 to Freeway (W00): http://skyvector.com/?ll=33.55238232667 ... T:A.K6.W00

This was a long one. In fact, when I was doing the initial planning, I had figured I'd be stopping for fuel and had already picked out the spot. However, the winds aloft were 240 at 40, giving me about a 28kt tailwind component for 2/3 of the trip and a 10-15kt tailwind component for the first third. So, I was able to complete it non-stop with groundspeeds of 230kts for most of the flight.

The routing was a fun one to plan. I opted for SSI CKI RIC.IRONS5 (the STAR). The ceiling was around 800ft upon arrival with winds being light out of the south. The circling minimums are the same as the straight in minimums on both RNAV approaches at W00, so I requested the RNAV (GPS) RWY 36 from OTT with a circle to runway 18. It worked out well.

It was a fun flight to plan the night before, looking at several factors regarding the weather and potential icing around Washington DC. I had Plan B & C alternates ready to go but didn't have to use them in the end. I used Skew-T/Log-P charts to predict the temps and cloud tops during several points along the route. Having the Stratus on board during the flight allowed me to monitor sky coverage along the way as well as the latest weather and trends at the destination.

Freeway is inside the DC SFRA and just a stone's throw from the Flight Restricted Zone (FRZ). It was neat to file and fly a STAR for once!

I landed at Freeway airport, rented a car, drove into DC to take care of some paperwork for an international trip that's coming up and then hustled back to the plane to see if I could make it home in time. Which brings us to...

Trip 4: W00-N07 (Freeway to N07): http://skyvector.com/?ll=40.30522394037 ... N:A.K6.N07

Rather than try to plan my own route, I looked for recently cleared routes in ForeFlight and saw something that contained a very familiar route segment, EMI MXE V3 SBJ PIYIN. So, I filed and briefed that pretty quickly. The temperatures looked ok but I knew this flight was going to be more work than anything I'd flown so far during the trip.

I was going to do it in any case, but the high tension power lines at one end of the runway and trees definitely served as a good reminder to review the ODP for the airport since I'd be departing in IMC.

Consistent with past experience, the moisture on my clothes from the light rain caused me to have next to no visibility during the taxi and literally zero visibility during the climb out. I was able to maneuver away from the power lines before they disappeared from view. I triple checked my altimeter to verify I was clear of the published close-in obstacles on the ODP (remember, the climb-out instructions on the ODP do NOT guarantee clearance from the close-in obstacles, you gotta plan for 'em), and then I flew the assigned heading and contacted Potomac Departure. They climbed me through a 360 degree turn and then sent me on my way.

The rain was light, along with the turbulence and I was IMC most of the way home. Outside temp was 4-6C with my carb temp being at -3. Given the rain, I had to kill the ram air and employ carb heat to get the carb up to ambient temperatures to avoid icing. I've lost the engine twice in the past due to carb ice, I don't intend for it to happen again.

Running with the ram air off and the carb heat on does some very weird things to the fuel distribution with a carb setup, so lean of peak was not really an option. I ran it as lean as possible, with two cylinders running ridiculously lean of peak (CHT around 315-320) and the other two still slightly rich of peak at a toasty 395 for the CHT. Ridiculous. Any leaner (to force those last two to join the LOP party) would've resulted in significant drop in power being produced by the two that were already lean which would've produced significant vibration. I was already dealing with some vibration as it was.

All in all, pretty miserable on the trip home.

The Stratus performed nicely, though, and for the first time, I got to use the radar view to get a strategic picture of what was going on with the precip on the radar. I ignored the temptation to request vectors to avoid any of the small yellow portions and instead relied on ATC (who has a real time view) to let me know if anything significant was there.

I was tempted, though, to request a 360 heading for 10-15 minutes to get me out of the rain completely, but decided to just weather the weather and build more experience. I was tired, this wasn't particularly where I wanted to be, and I had to monitor the OAT closely, but I opted to stay the course.

The rain ended pretty much on queue and I was able to get the carb heat off, ram air on and back to more reasonable temps. Within a few minutes, my CHTs were around 320-325 across the board. There, there little O-360...all better now.

Landing back at home was uneventful, I put my baby away in the hangar, patted her on the tail as I always do after a long trip and said, "thank you."

It's a nod both to the plane and the system which allows me the freedom to conduct flights which help the company keep running.

[kullery]

Your N number is still in my FlightAware app from tracking you into KOSH last year. Apparently you got entered as a LANC instead of a LNC2 on leg#2.

When that text alert came thorough, I was very anxious to see who was flying one of the 2 flyable Avro 683 Lancaster's!!!

[Keith Smith]

Yeah, that's not the first time. I overheard a point out to a Citation, "descend and maintain 10,000, traffic opposite direction level at 9,000 is....an...L...N..C....whatever that is."

I was also asked if I was a turboprop during the arrival at SFB. Lastly, during a quiet moment on one of the legs, the controller said,
"say indicated airspeed."
"165."
"Oh, and if I asked for your best forward speed, what would that be?"
"About the same."
"Oh, it's just that we're seeing you at about 230 over the ground and were just a little surprised."
"Yeah, that would be the tailwind, I'm about 192 true."
"Well, that's still pretty fast."

I later asked for a climb from 7 to 8 since the tops were creeping up from below. I think I did the climb in about 6-7 seconds (it's fun having energy in reserve...the only hard part is timing the level off without excessive forward pressure and unloading the airplane too much. It's good for -3G, but even so, I try to fly as though I have pax on board who wouldn't want to be disturbed just to make it more challenging). He said, "boy, that was quick!"

It's the little things that help pass the time with 3 straight hours of hand flying.

All the fund aside, if you're considering a high performance aircraft for long trips, it really is amazing to be able to cover so much ground in one day.

That said, I think I have now stumbled across an even better ride (there are several of these at Spruce Creek), the SX-300. These are good for 240-250ktas: http://www.sx300group.org/information/for-sale.html

However, $300k is more than 4x the cost of the Lancair. At that price, a 280ktas Lancair IVP might be the next logical step.

[kullery]

Among some other celebrities (i.e. retired NASCAR driver Mark Martin) Spruce Creek is the home of Bobby Breeden....

Bobby (20 years old) is the 3 time champion of the Valdez STOL competition. Watched these guys do a demo completion at Oshkosk last year. Amazing stuff.

Now if I could just get Bobby to fly in this Sunday night's competition he might be able to give Peter a bit of a challenge.

[Kerbo]

Great write-up Keith, thanks for sharing. I'm not a real pilot but find this real world stuff fascinating.

[Ryan B]

However, $300k is more than 4x the cost of the Lancair. At that price, a 280ktas Lancair IVP might be the next logical step.

Lancair Legacy is calling your name lol! Go with all those speed mods like they do at Reno, and get it turbocharged too! (ooops maybe now you'll need O2 to get that sweet spot of 300 KTAS!)

[Steven Winslow]

Thank you for sharing, Keith! I enjoy reading your exploits. Funny thing is, I actually hear it as I read it.

[gavink42]

Thanks for that great write-up, Keith! I've been to Spruce Creek a few times, and it is a wonderful place!

Here's a ForeFlight tip for offsets from map points... You can put "KDED/090/4" into the search box, and it will mark the point for you.

But, even better though, you can use that same method in your navlog. So, if your current segment was VPJMY KSFB, go into edit mode and tap KSFB in your navlog, tap "insert before KSFB", then type KDED/090/4 and tap insert.

This works with just about any identifiable point in FF. I've even built up arcs with that method.

Thanks again for your flight journal!

- Gavin