Today was my first day back flying! There is a sense of déjà vu since about 10 weeks ago I was doing exactly that: stepping back in a plane after a long time away. The program was supposed to be the traditional slow flight, power-off stall, steep turns… but we had 2 passengers. It is Christmas vacation and Michael and I had to bring our kids to the flight. I was happy my daughter was here but we had to limit the maneuvers. Instead, we decided to work the navigation and some landings. More quiet flight in perspective.

The flight was planned for 4:00pm and the sun was starting to come down. I got all my gear and brought also a new toy in the plane: the GPS logger. I do not have the new camera for the moment so it will have to wait for new footage…

Departure from Bentonville

The preparation for the flight went pretty smoothly. I called Razorback Approach, our local traffic controller, to request a flight following. Since we are in a controlled airspace, it is more prudent to do so. We got approved for  flight following and asked to contact them once airborne on a different frequency.

But unlike the usual calls, we had an altitude restriction that was imposed on us of 3500 feet. This is of course to accommodate some traffic. We climbed to that altitude and stayed for a few minutes until we got a chance to actually cross the plane that was preventing us to get to the higher altitude. We received the release from the altitude and got authorized to climb above.

The GPS is showing clearly our step climbing from 1,300 feet to 3,500 feet and after the release to 4,500 feet.

A different view can be obtained using Google Earth to visualize the path taken.

Revisiting navigation

Navigation has always been a strong suit of mine in the plane. I find it easy to understand and navigate using it. But a review while in flight is not a waste of time and we will see if I’m measuring up. Immediately after take off, we started to get into the navigation.  Michael asked me to perform a couple of navigation related action, like getting on a radial for the Razorback VOR and maintaining the heading. He wanted to teach me a method called bracketing. Getting on a radial for a VOR is fairly easy, you set the moving card on the radial that you want to follow and you bring the plane on that radial once you are over it. But the difficulty is to be able to deal with the wind. It will push you of course and you have to compensate. The difficulty is to find the wind and therefore the wind correction angle to maintain the position on the radial.

The method to achieve this is called bracketing and is simply the implementation of a dichotomial approach. The principle is the following and assume that you start on the radial with the heading equal to the radial. The first increment should be 20

1. If the needle is pushed to the left (right), it means that you are pushed away by a wind coming from the left (right) side.
2. If you are pushed away on the left (right) side, remove(add) the increment to your current heading.
3. Aim the plane at the new heading obtained.
4. Is the needle of the VOR stays in place?
   1. No, the needle is still moving and most likely the other way. Take the increment and divide it by 2 and repeat the operation from the first line.
   2. Yes, you are done! You have found the Wind Correction Angle (WCA = Radial heading - Current airplane heading). Just bring back the plane to have the needle centered and you are done!

Let’s look at an example:

Your current heading is 340 and the radial is 340. But  the needle keeps going to the left. This means that you have a wind coming from the left side and you have to compensate…

So first, we remove 20 to the current heading: 340 – 20 = 320. Then we head the plane to that new heading. At 320, the plane once stabilized on a straight and level flight is now pushing the needle to the right. This means that we went too far in the correction by applying 20 degrees of correction. so we divide the increment by 2 and add the result to the current heading.

20 / 2 = 10. then 320 + 10 = 330. With the new heading calculating, we are aiming the plane to 330. Here the plane is still pushing the needle to the left. This means that 340 was too much but 330 not enough.

So let’s apply the method again. increment /2 = 10 / 2 = 5

330 - 5 = 325. We put the plane on this heading and it seems to maintain the position. This means that to fly the 340 radial, we have to aim the plane at 325 or to have a wind correction angle of 340 – 325 = 15 degrees.

After the exercise in the air, we decided to go land at a near by airport: Huntsville.

Landing at Huntsville

The sun was starting to come down, it was still shining enough to have great visibility but not enough to be blinded. The good part of it is that as it was settling down, we were blessed by a few variation of warm color. It is one of the reward of aviation, you can actually chase the sun and enjoy the colors of the evening a little longer than pedestrian can and with a vista that car driver can not match!

I’m setting the GPS to H34, the ICAO code for Huntsville and decipher the information that the GPS is giving back about our destination. Michael is telling me that it is the highest airport in Arkansas. It is located at 1,700ft on top of a hill. A mere 500 feet above Bentonville.

We are about 6 nautical miles from the airport and I should be able to see it. But like many time before, I fail to do that. The airport is new to me and I’m not sure where to look. I know the direction and the distance but I fail to recognize it. I’m thinking about a way to cheat, finding something to highlight the airport in the middle of all the greens. It is a hard surface runway to a black strip should be visible by now. We are now at 3 nautical miles from the airport and I should be able to see it but I don’t. I’m getting frustrated at that point! Then a little idea pop in my head: I should trigger the lights of the runway on. This should help. But once again, I’m failing to locate it! Now I have some memories about Turkey Mountain! The same thing happened! I was almost over it before I finally saw it. This is now becoming embarrassing! But then out of nowhere, I spot the runway, well lighted, waiting for me to land. I’ve been monitoring the CTAF frequency and no one was around the airport.

Since this airport does not have any automated weather, we will have to fly over the runway to spot the wind and the preferred runway. Here it is waiting for us, telling us that we should use 12. But with all these searching maneuvers, I’ve neglected my speed and altitude. We are coming high and fast for a landing. Of course, I can extend my downwind and use the time to waste the altitude and get into a more normal configuration but instead, we are using the mistake as an exercise.

Let’s review the GPS data to visualize the path taken.

The path shows crossing over the field and turning downwind then base from mid-field to finally land. We could see that I’m overshooting slightly the runway during my turn to final and that I’m recovering pretty quickly but as I’m approaching the runway, I’m too fast and I need to bleed that speed. The maneuver is a forward slip and I’m entering in it a little too slowly, which ended up bringing the plane off center of the runway. The recovery would be done completely at then end…

Let’s review the video now to see what happens in the cockpit!

One good news out of that: I landed the plane properly and I had a new learning opportunity. Bad news is I wanted to do the landing properly since I have done it several time before.

After a quick debriefing on the runway, we are taking off for a new destination. One that I have always wanted to go back since I was able to land the plane properly. A place where the big boys are playing: XNA! The Northwestern Arkansas Regional Airport and I’m lucky because the sun is going down fast and we will be hitting XNA at night!

Reference

• SkyVector information on Huntsville Municipal : http://skyvector.com/airport/H34/Huntsville-Municipal-Airport
• Google Earth full path flight: