We have just landed at Huntsville and we debriefed the landing while back taxiing. As we are asserting our next move, I’m hoping that my earlier suggestions would be adopted. For a very long time, I had wanted to land at XNA at night.

Why XNA?

My prior experience of landing at XNA was during a session where we landed at four different airports as a training for landing. We dud a touch and go in XNA as part of the exercise. My last night landing was in Bentonville at the end of July and it was about learning the specific of night landing. XNA happens also to be a controlled airport and I have not landed at a controlled airport since we landed in Fort Smith. So it is time to bring everything together again in a single landing…

It is also the playground of the big boys (and gals…)! This is a regional airport with airline traffic and I wanted to get more experienced with the specifics that comes with having larger, faster jets around me.

Michael agreed that we should try to get one touch and go there! So as soon as we took off from the Huntsville again, I’ve prepared the plane and myself to go for a touch and go.

Approach to XNA

As soon as we got off Huntsville, I contacted Razorback Approach to let them know our intention and request flight following around the route to XNA.

As we were coming closer from XNA, I’ve followed the usual procedure:

1. check the weather automated system to know the winds at XNA and to make sure that I had the right information for the altimeter settings.
2. call Razorback Approach as soon as I have the airport in sight.
3. wait for the transfer from Razorback Approach to the Tower of XNA.

We are now under the control of the Tower and we are slowly approaching. We have been cleared to land on runway 16, which means that we are approaching correctly and that we will be able to enter the pattern in a traditional way.

The night is now completely established and we will perform a night landing. I’m thinking about the last one that we have performed and how fast the ground was coming…

Regional Jet on the departure

I had just turned into the downwind and was getting myself ready for the landing, I’m hearing on the radio the tower talking to a regional jet and clearing them for take off. I know the jet will have ample time to take off but there is a new parameter that I need to consider. Since I have planned a touch and go and not a landing to a full stop, that regional taking off is not a good news. The reason is actually fairly simple. Any airplane generates vortex at the end of wings. These swirling winds forms what we call the wake and the bigger the airplane, the bigger the wake. Also the wake is starting from the moment, you leave ground effect or more simply a few feet above ground. When in the air, the wakes are “falling” to the ground. Of course, wakes are bad news for any airplane but is a bad news for a small plane like my Skyhawk compared to the regional jet.

Does this means that the landing is touch and go is compromised? No. This is a situation that can be dealt with if only I do everything right! No pressure here! This means that :

1. I need to see where on the runway is the regional jet taking off.
2. I need to flight above the jet. This means that at the same position on the runway, I should be at an higher altitude than the jet was. In other words, I should take off earlier and maintain a climbing speed higher than the jet.

This should be possible if only I succeed in doing the touch and go. This means no floating over the runway or bouncing around. The touch and go would have to be pretty good. But I have another advantage to the jet, entering the runway, I would have more speed than him and I will have also a shorter take off distance so this should give me enough margin to get up in the air.

And a regional jet approaching for landing…

As I’m watching the airplane taking off, I’m also realizing that there is another plane approaching. I show the plane to Michael and we dimmed it far enough to not be an issue and since we are  under the control of the tower, the separation is going to be maintained. From a safety point of view, we should be correct.

But as I’m turning final and be ready to do the touch and go, we can hear a request from the tower to the plane that we saw. For one thing, if there was any doubt about the type of airplane, it is now confirmed but the news are not very nice. Since we are on final approach and we have been granted clearance for a touch and go we have a priority.

Let’s have a quick video review of what happens to that point!

Now I can start feeling the pressure. I have one jet that just took off in front of us and we need to be not off the ground but above his flight path to avoid what would be deadly wakes… Now I have another one right in the back pushing for a landing. While the one in the back is not too much of an issue, after all I have the priority . I would still hate to delay a commercial flight too much! So let’s continue to see what happened!

I’m sure you heard it like me. The tower just asked the regional jet behind me to do S’es! This procedure is meant to make them loose some time and extend their final. They are making a direct approach and their higher speed means that they break the horizontal separation. In other words, I’m currently holding a commercial flight for the benefit of my training! While I do appreciate having the priority maintained, I surely would like to avoid doing mistake that would slow everything even more. This brings a little more pressure. Of course, at that point, I want to do everything back the book and I’m watching my speed carefully, trying to maintain it at 65 knots to make a short touch and go and to be able to get out of the runway as soon as possible. Michael asked me to maintain the speed to 70 instead of 65. As a result, the landing was not great. I’ve bounced a little on the runway because of the extra speed and probably a couple of other mistakes. We, then reapplied the proper procedures as we touched the ground to go again. The take off was good and we got up in the air in no time and way ahead of the previous jet that took off before us.

Looking at the GPS information, it is very obvious that we did not loose much time on the ground. We stayed approximately 8 seconds on the ground before climbing again. The speed dropped only to 42 knots.

Going to land in Bentonville

Shortly after getting airborne following our touch and go, we explained the tower of XNA that we were returning to Bentonville. He advised us to stay on the same frequency and that his radar has enough coverage to do the flight following for us without having to talk to Razorback Approach. We quietly headed towards Bentonville where after an uneventful landing, we taxied to the hangar to store the plane for the night.

The video shows the landing. The camera got knocked off  its base so that’s why it’s seems that the plane is banking on the approach… Also I had the batteries of the voice recorder that died on me shortly after getting airborne in XNA… The cockpit was not that sterile!

Conclusion

It was a very nice flight back and we had some interesting situation. We covered about 100 nautical miles, practice some landings night landing at a controlled airport. Overall, I’m very happy of this flight! I got to experience not only a landing at a “big” airport but do it at night!