July 1, 2007
Cross-Country Solo
Worcester, MA to Concord, NH
The first checkpoint after
takeoff from Worcester Airport... 10 miles to the Northeast...Sterling
Airport...the runway at Sterling, 16/34 is 3,086 feet long.
Flying now, just past Sterling Airport, the
view out the left-hand window looking at Mt. Wachuset...
Once past Sterling Airport... off in the
distance in the middle of the picture, Fitchburg Airport, 8 miles beyond
Sterling comes into view... its our next checkpoint...
Here we are, still closing in on
Fitchburg... Fitchburg has two runways, 14-32 and 02-20, 4,510 and 3,504
feet long, respectively.
Almost there...
Now past Fitchburg Airport, another
important landmark, Mt. Monadnock is in the distance out the left-hand
window.
Here's the view inside the cockpit...
flying at 3,600 feet, on a 20° Compass heading, flying to our next
checkpoint, Brookline Airport... 12 miles past Fitchburg... note the timer
on the yoke - I've calculated the expected time of arrival at Brookline and
we'll continue flying this course-line to Brookline..., expecting to see
Brookline in 4.8 minutes.
Still at 3,600 feet on the way to
Brookline... Mt. Monadnock is still ahead of us and off to the left...
Now, things have gotten a little busy in
the cockpit, clouds are lowering a bit and the ride is choppy. We've
passed Brookline Airport and now, off our right wing we can see Manchester
Airport, whose Class C Airspace we must remain clear of. We give
Manchester a wide berth... the little white dots to the left of center
are an important checkpoint - radomes at the New Boston, NH Tracking Center.
Those radomes are inside Manchester's airspace so we've got to continue to
remain west of them. We are now 43 miles northeast of Worcester.
While we've been steering clear of
Manchester Airport's Airspace, we have been closing in on Concord NH
Airport, behind our left wing now. The river in the foreground flows
From Manchester to Concord and beyond, so its another good landmark.
We've got some time to kill, so we're going to fly a 360° around the airport
and come back almost to where we are and land on the same runway we've just
flown past, (Runway 35).
Here we are, still on our way around
Concord Airport...
Now we are parallel with Runway 35, going
to continue around the airport. If you read the previous day's log...
the "saddle" - a dip between two mountains which is a checkpoint for finding
Concord - is barely visible behind the left wing as we look south.
Now we have entered the left-traffic
pattern for Concord, and have done a touch and go landing, (sorry no time or safety margin
for photos), and have taken off again... Now we are heading home...
Mount Monadnock is visible ahead of us. Note the Nav 2 radio tuned to
the Gardner VOR 110.6 and the needle is centered, showing we are "to" the
Gardner station. Com 1 is tuned to 122.7 the Concord CTAF, monitoring
local traffic as we exit the Concord airspace.
Still heading to Gardner, some clouds are
coming in... flying in and out of cloud shadows...
As we continue to fly Southwest towards
Gardner, we spot Manchester Airport off our left wing... still being
careful to avoid that Class C Airspace.
Here's our pilot... note the reading
glasses and the reflection of the outstretched arm taking the photos...
Somehow the pilot looks better when the
photo is fuzzy..., 'doncha think?
Now we're closing in on Gardner Airport,
Monadnock is off the nose to the right...north of us now ... as we continue
to fly southwest.
I KNOW that the Gardner airport
is around here somewhere...
Ahhh, there it is... got it spotted?
You see it now.... 'doncha???!
OK, we're closing in on it... we're pretty
high, so we're 'gonna slow down, and circle around the airport before
entering the traffic pattern on a left-downwind for Runway 36.
Looking out our left window... continuing
on our 360 around Gardner...
Here we are, continuing our approach to
Gardner.
Now Gardner is off to the left (center of
the photo), and ahead of our left wing as we
circle around, getting lower.
Continuing around Gardner, note Com 1 is
tuned to the Gardner CTAF 122.8 as we communicate our intentions and listen
for other traffic in the pattern.
A little time for a few more photos while
we get lined up...
Now we announce entering the left
downwind for Runway 36. Hmmmm... there's some activity at the far
(opposite) end of the runway (where we'll be landing)... can't quite see it clearly yet, so we're
intent and very focused on seeing what's going on there...
Now, we've landed and have taxied into the
ramp area. We want to exit the ramp, back out onto the taxiway, but
there are two gliders blocking us - one on the taxiway, one at the far end
of the runway, and look - another aircraft is just now touching down at the end of the
runway.
We're continuing a slow taxi roll down the
ramp towards the taxiway...and the parked gliders.
After a few minutes delay, we've taken off,
this is looking at the Gardner Airport again as we turn south after our
takeoff from Runway 36. Now we're heading back to Worcester Airport.
Ok, its been a little busy in the
cockpit... we've tuned Com 1 to ATIS to get weather and altimeter info...
we've established contact with Worcester Tower and they have cleared us on a
right downwind approach to Runway 33. We contacted them at midfield as
directed and have been cleared to land. Here we are turning our base leg ...
soon we'll turn final and line up for landing.
Another few moments and we'll turn onto the
final approach.
Here we are lined up on final approach for
Runway 33... the VASI lights tell us our glideslope is good, the descent
continues normally.
One last quick photo before landing...
its very busy now and all attention has to be focused outside...
After landing, Worcester Tower clears us to
exit the runway at taxiway Foxtrot, and tells us to contact Ground Control.
We've changed from the Tower frequency to Ground Control frequency, and have notified Ground
we're clear of Runway 33.
Ground tells us to taxi via taxiway Foxtrot to Bravo to the Ramp... here we
are, taxing on Bravo towards the ramp.
Safe and Sound back at Amity Flight School.
Now all we have to do is park and tie down the aircraft.
Here's the aircraft we just flew, exited and tied
down.... 72-Zulu, a 4-place, 160 horsepower Piper Aircraft Cherokee Warrior.
And our proud and happy pilot... safe and sound after
a great trip!
To view a PDF
of Worcester Airport's runways and taxiways, click here... |
