Lesson #17: Cross country flight to Oakdale

Although we did check the ATIS before we flew, I didn't need ATIS to tell me today was a very hot, very windy day. Landings, takeoffs, and the flight itself would be interesting at the minimum.

So, I was told last week to plan a flight to Oakdale Airport (O27), a small untowered airport southeast of Stockton, and about 70 or 80 miles away from Oakland. It's a 1.75-hour drive and a 45-minute flight. Because this is my first cross-country, and because I would be practicing pilotage, not dead reckoning, Stephen told me not to calculate courses or wind speeds or anything like that.

Pilotage is the art of looking out the window, noticing significant landmarks like lakes and cities and freeways, and then using those landmarks, in combination with a map, to determine where you are and to follow a course. Pilotage is a much more easy skill to comprehend among the navigation methods pilots use, but as I would soon learn, it's not an easy skill to master.

Pilotage flyers like to call themselves IFR pilots: I Follow Roads.

Dead reckoning is the art of navigation using hard, cold, unrelenting mathematics. You plot a course, and figure out exactly which direction to head based on wind speed, magnetic variation, and magnetic deviation, then determine what speed you'll fly at, and finally figure out exactly how long you must fly that course and speed.

Dead reckoning's name seems somehow apt for the scary difficulty of the method.

So, I'm to practice pilotage. I had been confident at first -- how hard could it be, anyway? -- so we hopped in the plane. With my kneeboard, my Pilot's Guide, my flight plan, and the two maps I'd be using, my knees were completely covered with navigation information. No stretching on this flight, I see.

I got clearance to Oakdale, some simple departure instructions, and took to the sky. The plane climbed slowly to 5,500 feet in the hot air. I'd never flown up so high before. Five thousand five hundred feet looks very different from the lower altitudes I was accustomed to flying.

So the first VFR checkpoint was an easy one: Mount Diablo. A blind monkey could point out Mount Diablo, the towering peak, anywhere in the Bay. I passed south of Mt. Diablo, heading eastwards, and then turned to cross over the Byron reservoir and just north of Tracy.





Riiiiiight about there is where I got confused and lost. In fact, it happened just about when I had to switch from the San Francisco TAC to the Northern California sectional. I started looking and looking for clues as to where I was, but I was unable to find myself. Finally, I tentatively deduced that a city to my left was Stockton, and I was just south of it.

Stephen had brought along his own handheld GPS, which he shielded from me. He allowed me to continue this assumption until it took me so far off course that he had to rescue me. "That's not Stockton. That's Manteca. That giant city off in the distance is Stockton."

"What? Really??"

"Yep."

"... Oh."

"My advice is to head directly to the Modesto airport, regain your bearings, and fly to Oakdale from there." He pointed to show me where the Modesto airport was.



So, I was able to pick out the airport, and I headed directly to it. I plotted a course from Modesto to Oakdale -- 25 degrees magnetic -- and estimated how long it would take to get there at my present speed: around 7 minutes. (A little bit of dead reckoning.)

Stephen started his timer while I attempted to maintain a fix on where I was. As the timer counted slowly down towards zero, I realized the wind was blowing me off-course.

"Don't fret," Stephen said. "Just use your head. The wind is blowing you to the southeast, so the airport will be to your left somewhere."

I scanned for the small airport, but even as the clock reached zero, I couldn't see it. Moments later, I saw it plain as day. It was directly below me, a blatantly obvious municipal airport that had "OAKDALE" written on a taxiway in bright white paint.

Guess my dead reckoning is better than my pilotage.



I began descending turns over the airport and entered into the traffic pattern. Coming in on final, I realized that Oakdale has a deviously thin runway. I was used to getting coddled by Oakland's expansive asphalt oceans. The Stockton ATIS (the nearest ATIS there is) noted winds of 20 knots gusting to 28. Stephen was very unsure about the landing.

"With winds this high, I wouldn't recommend landing here."

I was infused with the foolish bravado of inexperience, however, and I further thought Stephen was saying that partially to trick me into practicing in-flight course changes. I figured I'd give the landing a shot anyhow.

I had remembered that all of my supervised landings were supposed to be short and soft from now on. "What kind of landing should I do?"

"Um ... a safe one." Stephen looked at me like I was crazy. Winds at nearly 30 knots and I was asking if I wanted to practice an emergency landing?

"Well, I guess 'safe' is a type of landing."

Coming in on final, it was obvious the strong gusts would pose a problem. Stephen was still pushing his concerns at me. "If you don't feel like you can make this, I want you to go around. No doubts."

"Yeah, I got it." I continued in to the runway.

Floating above the runway, crabbed into the wind, I realigned the nose with the centerline, tilted the plane, and landed on my left wheel. The right main touched ground shortly afterwards, but gusting winds pushed the airplane sharply leftward. The left wheel let out a horrendous screech as the plane listed strongly to port, the left tire moving uncomfortably close to the left edge of the runway. I put in full right rudder, as much as my leg could muster, and the right wheel slammed its disobedient ass back on the runway where it belonged. The full rightward rudder deflection solved the airborne tire problem, but yawed the airplane to the right as it continued down the runway, both tires now screeching as the airplane slipped down the asphalt. Running out of runway and lateral space, I pumped the brakes as efficiently as I could and brought the plane to a tentative halt in the center of the runway.

As the dust settled, Stephen gave me his usual dry appraisal. "Well, if I could turn back time, I'd have forced you to go around. But as usual you miraculously skirt death."

Oakdale is a sleepy airport, so there wasn't much to do except take off and head back to Oakland. Stephen had checked the guidebook to see where the fuel pump was located; he wanted to fill up if the gas was cheaper out here in the boonies.

We pulled up the pump. Stephen read the price from the meter: $3.65 per gallon. Three sixty-five!! Jesus, at Oakland it's like $4.75 per gallon. Stephen looked at me with eager eyes.

"I have suddenly decided we have an unacceptably low level of fuel for the trip back. Refuel the plane."

Sitting in the fuel console was the receipt for the previous customer, who had purchased $365 worth of fuel. Stephen thought it would be funny to submit that to the club with my name on it, and get it reimbursed.

"Hell, if they credited you the $365, you could fly out the rest of your lessons on that. Give it a try."

Ultimately we decided that the club's accountant wouldn't see the humor in the joke.

After refueling I brought the plane back up to cruise altitude and back to Oakland. Navigating to Oakland is easy. You locate Mt. Diablo, fly to it, then locate Oakland, and fly to it. We got a flight following from NorCal, who then sent me to Tower, who cleared me for a long straight-in to 27R.

Passing over the mountains in the Outer East Bay is always very bumpy. I'm used to it by now, but if you plan on flying with me to the east, be warned: Mountains do nasty things to the air above them.

After landing at Oakland and returning to the Old T's, Stephen talked more about that upcoming ground school I have. Shannon and I will be practicing plotting and filing complex flight plans. I would have to know how to get a weather forecast, so Stephen showed me how to dial a Flight Service Station and ask them for the weather.

Stephen dialed the number while warning me that their quality of service has declined lately.

We were put on hold.

There was no hold music. Only utter silence. A deadpan silence ... I drummed my fingers. Stephen played with his pen.

Time passed on and on. Finally, twenty minutes later, a man asked what he could do for us.

Stephen told him we were planning a flight to Oakdale. (We weren't, but let's pretend.) The helpful man told us about the weather and winds we would expect along the way, gave us advisories about construction at Oakland, and other helpful information. If you ignore the hold, it was actually an impressive service. You actually talk to a real person. Hell, that alone is unusual.

I showed him a website I usually go to for these sorts of things. We both agreed a website is probably easier.

Next Sunday I have another solo, assuming the winds are feeling generous. At some point in the very near future, I should do my phase check with Joel. And finally, for my next (as yet unscheduled) lesson with Stephen, I'll be practicing dead reckoning.

Stephen believes students should learn dead reckoning in a trial-by-fire method. Before the flight, I'll do my calculations, determine the directions to fly and the times to fly them, and all that jazz. Then, when we take off, Stephen will slap on the hood, and tell me to fly my course. I'll fly it blind, and when I finally arrive, he'll take off the hood and ask me to find the airport and land there.

We'll see if I'm even close.

Cost so far: $4,888.21
Time so far: 58 days
Hours so far: 23.1

Projected certification date: July 27, 2007
Projected total cost: $10,600