09-20-96
1979 C-172P
TEB-TTN-TEB
2.1 dual
2 landings
"X-country, pilotage, dead reckoning, diversions, VOR"
Sunny, warm; high scattered cumuli; light winds
This entry is being made about a month after the flight, so the details may be a bit hazy...
The plan today is to fly direct to Allentown, transiting the Class D airspeces of bith Caldwell and Morristown. This poses an interesting conundrum as far as the nav log is concerned: I sit in the classroom puzzling over how (and why) I am to enter the data for time to climb, complete with checkpoints, when I am going to have to first climb to 1000, then pop up to at least 1500 to clear the patterns at the other two fields... all within less than 15 minutes!
This is aggravated by the fact that I must , while doing all this, get my handoff frequency from TEB Tower, immediately get CDW's ATIS, contact CDW Tower, request another immediate frequency change for MMU, get the MMU ATIS, call MMU Tower... damn!
And I've forgotten to mention that I also have to keep track of a series of checkpoints, spoaced a few minutes apart.
I am fairly certain I will be unable to do this smoothly. And as it turns out, I am correct.
It's enough just to concentrate on flying the airplane and talking on the radio. I never get to find out if I could handle the frequency changes- C. immediately commandeers the radios. Oh well.
The checkpoints are ignored, but I know where I am throughout, and arrive at MMU more or less on time and in position. Onward!
I climb to 3500 and try to salvage the rest of my flight plan. It goes pretty well, with only a minor course deviation (about which C. is not pleased).
We arrive at the last checkpoint before the boundary of ABE's Class C, and I am presently speaking with the Tower controller, who asks me to wait outside. I circle once, happy to have a chance to practice turning around a point. Before the second circle is completed, c. grows impatient and calls the tower. there is no response. Another circle, and I feel I'm making real progress with that maneuver.C. calls agin, and again there's no reply.
"The hell with this", he snaps. "Let's get out of here."
"Where to?"
"Well... whaddya say I divert you for a while?"
"Sounds good to me."
He vectors me southeast towards Trenton, and I shoot a touch-and-go there. On the way there, I embarrass myself by misjudging our distance to the field when he asks- I blurt out "three or four miles" when in fact it's more like eleven. I'm still not used to prolonged flight at these slightly higher altitudes; my perspective is off.
Doubly embarrassing is the fact that I haven't caught on immediatley to why C. asked me to guess our distance in the first place: the radius of TTN's Class D is five miles... I should report at at least six miles, not three or four!
The awkward moment soon passes,but I am still not sure if TTN is the clear patch that I think it is... we get a little closer, and it is confirmed. With a clearance to do a touch-and-go, I set up a fine approach (with C. offering landmarks to use; he knows this airport well, having started his training there ).After we touch down, I actually remember to reset the DG to match the compass before urging 23F skyward again.
"Where to?" I ask as we climb away from Trenton. C. directs me towards a cluster of large structures in the distance; he'd asked me earlier if I could identify them, and I couldn't. Dead ahead at four miles, it appears that this is the Great Adventure theme park. The roller coaster had been very mysterious from a distance; its framework had appeared solid.
C. is getting a kick out of flying over the park... it's amusing, but not as amusing as the story he recalls at this moment:
"See that over there?" he points to a vast clearing. Obvviously it's an airfield, and I guess correctly that it's MacGuire AFB.
"Back when I was working on my solo cross-countries", he continues, "I was just flying over Great Adventure when I saw a C-130 coming right at me! I never made a steep turn before like i did when I saw that guy! Man!!"
It's not really funny, but pilots have a way of laughing at such near-disasters. It's also possible he's exaggerating a bit- another tendency of pilots.
Still chuckling as I take up a heading towards the Colt's Neck VOR, I keep a sharp eye on the sky between us and the base, just in case.
I do a damn good job of flying to the VOR- it slips by almost directly beneath us.C. is satisfied with my work, and we consider heading home via the Hudson River VFR corridor. I've flown down it from the north before, turning around at the Statue of Liberty, but never crossed the harbor before.
"Should I just fly straight out over the water?" I ask, nervously eyeing the ten miles of water between Keansburg and Brooklyn. It's bothering me because we must stay low here to avoid the Class B (we could ask to go in higher, but they'd likely refuse), and should anything happen over that water, we'd be going for a swim.
"Do you really want to go all the way around?" he asks, pointing towards the shore of Staten Island. He doesn't seem worried.
I decide I won't worry, either, but of course I experience my first taste of "automatic rough" as we leave the shoreline behind; the engine suddenly sounds odd. But it's all in my head.
We overtake a sailboat dawdling on the shimmering water.As we approach the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, I report our position on the corridor frequency and start scanning for traffic. Nobody else around... good.
Abeam the twin towers of the World Trade Center, I consider again the wisdom of flying low here with such limited emergency options. At least the river is less than a mile wide here- if one had to ditch, it would be easy to do so close to shore. The only advantage to trying to land on terra firma here- which would mean a busy highway or the top of one of the enormous covered shipping piers- would be that the plane would end up in many easy-to-transport pieces.
I decide that if I ever get into trouble here, I will ditch without hesitation.
C. is happy with my handling of the diversions, but he wants to do one more cross-country through the Caldwell and Morristown airspaces, just to be sure I can handle it.
Next: flight 57- a good solo flight
