My First Solo Cross-Country

Today was a pretty great day - and a long one, too. It started at about 6:00 this morning, when I woke up quite a bit earlier than normal for a Saturday so I could meet a friend for breakfast at the Experimental Aircraft Association's monthly pancake breakfast at Twin Oaks. The day started off pretty well, even at such an early hour. As I left my house, this was the view from my front porch:

We went to the breakfast, the first time for both me and my friend, then spent about an hour walking around in the cold air looking at the army of planes that had flown in for the event. The Van's Aircraft air force was on-hand, and it was true airplane geek's event. You see a whole lot of Van's RV's around these parts, since the factory is located over at the Aurora airport. We also got to see a bunch of other planes, from a couple Beavers to a World War II warbird and a whole slew of others.

After breakfast and airplane watching, it was time to get to work. I got a weather briefing on the phone from the flight service weather folks, and then I finished my flight planning for my first solo cross-country flight. There's a bit of math work that's required in order to complete the plan once you have the weather info.

I calculated I'd have a headwind that would require me to "crab" into the wind and would slow me down about 10 knots or so on the way down, and that if the winds stayed the same I'd have a bit of a tailwind on the way back. The weather forecast was pretty much perfect, a dry cool day with only thin clouds well above 12,000 feet. There was a ton of blue sky and sun, not bad at all for a Saturday in December in the State of Oregon.

As I already mentioned, this was my first ever solo cross-country flight. My route was to take me from Twin Oaks Airpark, my "home" airport, south to Lebanon, Oregon, which is located south of Salem and east of Corvallis. From there I'd depart and head to the Salem airport, which is a tower-controlled field, and make a landing there before taking off and flying back to Twin Oaks. I filed a flight plan with the FAA for the trip down, and made some last checks on my planning to make sure I had not made any errors.

My instructor, Kelly, met me at around noon and reviewed my flight plan. The Cessna 150 I had reserved - N66589 - was in use by some people who teach kids about aviation, and since I determined I had more than enough time available in the afternoon to make my trip I volunteered to let them have the plane for an additional half hour, so they could get all the kids' flights done. In the end, I got off the ground about an hour later than I'd planned, which meant I'd be back at Twin Oaks sometime around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. - Perfect.

I activated my flight plan with the flight service station on the radio while still on the ground, and then lifted off. I flew over the Newberg VOR and called Portland Approach to ask for flight following on their radar. I was soon handed off to Seattle Center for radar tracking, and they kept me advised of other airplanes near me almost all the way down to Lebanon. I flew past Salem and a number of other landmarks on my magnetic heading, which worked exactly as planned with my wind corrections: I was flying almost exactly where I'd drawn the line on the map by using the calculated heading, so the winds were pretty much exactly as they'd been forecasted - a 20-knot or so headwind quartering from the left and knocking about 10 knots off my speed over the ground. Once closer to Lebanon I was handed off to Cascade Approach for the last bit of radar tracking.

Before too long I was flying past Albany and a sawmill I'd noted on the chart. As I approached the area of the Lebanon airport (I'd never seen it before today), I found the airfield just off to my left and noted that it was close to the base of a small mountain that sticks straight up out of the flat ground. I overflew the airport at 1,000 feet above the traffic pattern altitude, saw there was no wind on the ground, and decided to fly a loop around the mountain and descend in the process, which would put me in a perfect position to enter the traffic pattern on a 45-degree line for the downwind leg, to land on runway 34. There was only one other airplane in the area.

I flew the pattern and put the Cessna down nicely just past the numbers, remembering to look all the way down the runway as I flared (and not stare at the pavement right in front of me). It's amazing how much smoother my landings are when I remind myself to do that.

Here's my transportation on the ground in Lebanon:

After closing my first flight plan and filing a new one for the return flight, I departed Lebanon to the south, and again circled the mountain while climbing out to my target altitude of 4500 feet. That's a bit extreme for the rather short trip to Salem, but it would be good practice doing a controlled climb and descent from that altitude. I activated my new flight plan from the air and set up the compass heading to fly to the Salem air field. Next I dialed in the frequency for the recording of Salem's current airport information. When I reached about ten miles out, I called Salem Tower and let them know where I was and that I wished to land there. I was given instructions to proceed to a right downwind leg for runway 16, and descended from my flight level of 4500 feet to the pattern altitude. I then flew a right pattern down to the runway for another decent landing. I parked on the ramp and ran into the restroom briefly before hurrying back to the airplane to leave. I'd need to get off the ground soon so I could make extra sure I'd be back to Twin Oaks with plenty of daylight left. Here's the plane on the ramp at Salem, and you can (probably) see the tower in the background over the wing (as with all the images, you can click for a larger view):

I started the airplane, ran through the checks and called the ground controller for permission to taxi for a north departure. After my run-up checks, the tower controller cleared me to take off on Runway 34. I pulled onto the runway, applied full power and lifted off.

I climbed straight out from Salem and headed directly for a large ridge off in the distance that Twin Oaks sits behind. It's recognizable because over on the far left end of the ridge (as viewed from the south) is Bald Peak, which is prominent and easy to make out from the air. I noticed while returning on this leg that the tail wind that had been forecasted had disappeared. My air speed and ground speed were pretty much exactly the same.

As I flew to the ridge, the sun started to get low in the sky. Mt. Hood was off on my left and glowing in the evening sun. I crossed the ridge and entered the pattern on the upwind leg, flew around the airport, noted the amazing sunset that was starting to form in the high clouds, and put the plane down on the runway. This last shot is my plane back on the ground at Twin Oaks after I cleaned my stuff out of it, framed by mother nature:

I really couldn't have asked for a better day, and I'm very pleased with how my first cross-country on my own turned out. There's still quite a bit more to do, learning-wise. I hope to be able to knock it all out this month. That's a pretty aggressive goal, so we shall see if the weather and schedules allow that, but hey - it's good to have a target to aim at. Onward and upward from here!