If birds don’t fly…
Keeping current on a C-172
It’s almost two years ago that I wanted to take a Cessna 172 Skyhawk up for some traffic patterns at EDXR to keep current on the type.
I preflight the plane, start the engine and let Rendsburg Information know that I intend to shoot some traffic patterns.
There’s an ultralight airplane in the run up area adjacent to the threshold of active RWY 21, still warming up his water cooled Rotax engine. Apparently this is going to take a bit longer, as the pilot kindly suggests that I use the runway to taxi to the engine run-up area for RWY 21. I gladly accept his offer, release the brakes and let the engine rev up a bit to get us rolling. Shortly thereafter we’re at the engine run-up area.
While I check my engine and clear the rest of my checklist the ultralight departs. In retrospect, I should have taken a minute or so to monitor his climb out. Instead I continue with the things a pilot does to get ready for departure…
Taking off…
After lining up I jot down the take-off time and check the gyro compass one more time; then I gently push the power lever forward. After releasing the brakes the C-172 rolls forward, slowly at first but accelerating quite nicely. RPM max is there, oil pressure is still in the green, the airspeed indicator is alive so I continue with my take-off roll. At 55 kts I rotate. The plane continues to accelerate and rolls on its main gear for about a second and a half, then we’re airborne.
… and getting back on the runway in one piece
Just when I tell myself that it’s nice to be back up here, visibility reduces dramatically. The altitude at that moment is a bit over 300′. Forward visibility is next to nil and I’m trying to make a futile guestimate as to what kind of ground visibility might be left.
I realise that I’m on instruments now and that flying any lower is not really an option. I push the timer and decide that very moment that I will be flying timed legs back into the traffic pattern, one minute on a continued runway heading, after that another one-minute leg 90° to the left, then one more 90° turn to the left and a one-minute leg should get me back to the traffic pattern. Good that there’s virtually no wind today.
Meanwhile I make a call to the departed ultralight to check whether he left the traffic pattern or not. He did… which is good - at least so for me, as now I don’t have to worry about that one in the pattern. I keep my speed down at 80 kts, so that the one-minute legs don’t take me too far from the pattern downwind leg entry point.
For safety reasons I let the plane climb a bit higher and level off just shy of 400′. Anything above that reduces ground visibility to the extent that I wouldn’t be able to make out the runway when on my downwind leg. The IO-360 is purring nicely, which is comforting.
The three one-minute legs take me to the pattern downwind entry all right, which was nice as I hadn’t seen the field the prior three minutes. I report entering downwind and announce a full stop. No point in shooting more patterns in these murky conditions.
During the downwind leg I get a call from a pilot flying east of Rendsburg city, asking me what the weather is like at the airfield. Apparently he doesn’t like what he sees in front of his windshield. I tell him that I aborted my plans and that I’m flying downwind at half the normal pattern altitude. Somehow this puts him off and he decides to remain clearly east of the airfield.
Abeam the threshold of RWY 21 I set the plane up for final, better get that out of the way early today. As I expect to lose visual contact with the field again, I decide to repeat the three one-minute legs, this time to get lined up with the runway. In this instance, there’s also a canal (parallel to the runway) that I can use to help me to determine when to turn to final - or rather to signal that I’ve turned a bit late.
After my turn to final, I could not see the runway just yet, so I decide to initially descend to 200′ only. With full flaps at 80 knots, I flew with a high drag / high power configuration so that I would have the option to either retract the flaps for an easy and safe go around procedure or to just cut the power to get a viable glide path onto the runway. The one minute legs indeed put me in a good position for a landing, so fortunately there was no need for a go-around.
After I tucked the Cessna Skyhawk away I made a stop at the airport restaurant, ordered a cappuccino, blew off some steam and thought about what the heck just had transpired….
Lessons learned:
- Weather forecasts sometimes don’t correlate all that well with what’s really happening out there. Based on forecasts I had expected to find a cloud base at around 1200′ with moderate forward visibility; not good by any standard but adequate for some local traffic patterns - or so I thought.
- Ground visibility during the car drive to the airport was rather good. This seemed to confirm the weather forecast - which lulled me into a false sense of security.
- The information from the plane flying east of Rendsburg suggests that the lower cloud base and reduced visibility might have been a local issue only.
- The departing ultralight would have given me a visual cue about the current cloud base altitude, had I taken the extra minute needed to monitor his climb out.
- If birds don’t fly, neither should I…