Oh Shenandoah!

Not the song. The park!

Today I chose Shenandoah Regional Airport as the destination of my second cross country trip. FYI, I will address the altered syllabus in another blog.

It was a great day for mountain flying. The small mountains were covered with a white coat of snow. It was a beautiful clear day with minimal chop. The East Coast hills are not as grandiose as their West Coast cousins. However, they have their own beauty and can be appreciated at lower altitudes with less wind.

Going to Shenandoah from Manassas, my instructor and I maintained 6500 feet on a direct heading from the Casanova VOR. I even did some simulated instrument time. Not enough to take away from appreciating the view.

Resting at Shenandoah

On the return flight to Manassas, I took advantage of my instructor's presence by releasing control of the plane to snap some pictures of the valley and the airport.
The mountains

The airport

Coming out of the valley, I climbed to FL055 to get over the mountains and then came back down to FL045 to make a parallel track along the mountain range so I could get a picture of Old Rag. I then resumed course, on the 259 degree radial, TO Casanova while descending to FL030. We followed much the same track as the outbound flight with a slight detour to Warrenton as Potomac Approach waded through the barrage of traffic calls and verified my SFRA flight plan. Old Rag


As any student adventure, today's journey was loaded with simple lessons. The biggest and most humbling lesson is to continue to prioritize and manage the workload.

Other lessons include:

(1) As part of cockpit management and crew work load, I began to announce flight level changes and communicate my intentions. For example, coming into Manassas, there was a Bonanza over taking us and a chopper at 12 O'clock holding 1200 MSL. I informed by instructor that I was heading for FL020 to let the faster Bonanza fly over us as the chopper maintained altitude and flew to the East.

(2) I still get a bit excited prior to take off once I land for a 'break'. Today, I forgot to put the mixture to full rich when starting at Shenandoah. I nearly forget to switch the transponder to Mode C when leaving Shenandoah. With all the excitement, I forgot to pull the Carburetor Heat upon approach to Manassas. Where are my check lists?

(3) I witnessed my instructor communicate with a plane leaving Shenandoah as we arrived. The conversation included items like location, intentions, visual recognition etc.

(4) My landings were OK. It is easier to land when focused on pattern work. Today, I did not hold the center line with the little bit of crosswind. It comes down to the fact that I begin to doubt and over-think my ability rather than just 'fly the plane'. I should not be analytically be saying to myself 'apply right rudder and bank to the left'.

(5) I failed to refer to my careful flight plan at times, forgetting that I do not need to rethink things. I did my homework, so use it! This includes setting flight levels and following compass headings.

I did not have the same anxiety coming into the SFRA. I was on top of all the conversation. The only thing I missed was the change of personnel at Potomac. My instructor picked up the voice change and new it to be a sign of overload even before the operator announced that he had five calls waiting for clearance and patience was required.

For the next time: check lists, check lists, check lists. I am going to be MUCH MORE VIGILANT about check lists on take off, approach and landing. I will not allow my self to forget anything even in a high workload setting.