XC Babbles

I recently finished a two day solo XC trip PAO-OVE-RDD-WLW (~250 miles), overnight at WLW, then WLW-PAO (123 miles). The following are some of the observation I had from the experience.

1. Parking – if you go on an overnight trip there is a special parking lot at PAO that you need to use. Continue past the WVFC parking area, past Sundance and you’ll find three small lots on the right side. The middle of the three seems to be optimal since it has an opening in the fence for direct access to the field. Also, you need to have a parking pass on your dashboard. You can get this from the front desk at WVFC. They have pre-printed forms. If for some reason you forget or the office is closed I think you will be ok to make up your own as long a it says something like “ West Valley Flight Club – Overnight Parking Pass – Date of departure, Date of return, tail number”.

2. Google – I really like Google maps. I use it to view the airports where I will be landing. It comes in handy to view the surrounding terrain features, i.e. is the airport in the middle of a town or by open fields, is there another landmark nearby that may not be big enough to show up on a sectional. The other thing is I check out the runway. I usually look for the segmented circle, check out what type of wind sock, wind T or other wind indicator may being used. It is also good for checking the taxiways and intersections. It is just another way besides the AFD to get familiar with the airport.

3. On this trip and a previous one, I would use www.airnav.com to find the phone numbers of the local businesses. Often there is a flight club listed or some other FBO. I’ll call them up and ask to speak to a pilot and then ask them the questions I might have such as are there any unusual approach or departure procedures. The people I have talked to are always friendly and more than willing to talk.

4. Fueling – my plan was to fuel up at WLW between day 1 and day 2. The plane I usually fly is not on an automatic fueling list so quite frequently I am calling for fuel when I get to the plane. I can’t call ahead because you have to pay the fuel truck guy on this particular plane. …. So while I haven’t received the full Patti fuel lesson, I have seen a fair number of people fuel the plane so I kind of knew what to expect. It was a good experience however when I got to WLW to go through the process especially using the automated fuel pump which wants you to: a. confirm that you have grounded the plane b. enter in how many gallon you are going to pump – which means you have measured the tanks, c. entered in your tail number, d. flipped on the pump handle, e. pat your head and rub your stomach…. Yea I may be making this sound more complicated than it really is… thankfully I was the only one getting fuel when I started so there was no one else standing over my shoulder… however by the time I was in the middle of fueling 2 other planes were waiting…. BTW the pilot of one of the planes walked over to me and asked me if I found a fuel cap… apparently he forgot to secure his cap after fueling so he was missing one… I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. Lastly, print your fuel receipt and turn it in to the front desk. Put your member number of the fuel slip before you turn it in. They will credit your account for the price of the fuel.

5. Transient parking at WLW – one of the things to deal with on an overnight is where to park the plane. It sounds simple … park it in transient parking. At a towered field, you can always ask the tower/ground for taxi instructions but at a non-towered field like WLW you are somewhat on your own. I wasn’t looking forward to taxing around the field trying to locate some sign for transient parking… as near as I can tell there is no standard AIM airport making for transient parking. Sometimes it is painted on the ground, sometimes they use special objects like old tires around the tie down chain to indicate transient parking, and sometimes you just need to make a good educated guess. What I have found in all of my trips I have investigated (all of 2 times) is that they are often times near the fuel island. To take some of the guess work out of this I often will call the airport manager. The numbers are listed in AFD as well as airnav. Every airport manager I have talked to has always been helpful. The other thing to find out is if there is a fee for overnight transient parking. At WLW, it is $4 but you have to mail it in to the county since there is no one to collect it at the airport and no place to drop it off.

6. Patience – a solo XC trip does need to factor in a lot of dependencies on the WX. Plan to go to the airport ready to fly but willing to not fly if WX is not perfectly good. Also be aware that the departure time you anticipate may be pushed back if the WX hasn’t fully cleared. Know your latest departure time that will allow you to complete the trip to your final destination with plenty of time before WX or daylight adds complexity to the situation. I ran into both of those situations.

7. Pacing – because a multi-day trip adds additional planning steps (plane availability, WX, personal schedules, work schedules…) there were times I was contemplating trying to make the trip in a single day. For this trip that would have been about 4 hours of flight time not counting all the additional time for flying over the field, taxing, run-ups, …. I am sure glad I only hypothetically considered that option. At the end of my first day I was glad to not have to fly the last leg from WLW to PAO. It was probably a combination of the warm weather (at altitude the temperature was low 80s and at the surface it was low to mid 90’) and the hours of flying as the airplane seats become more uncomfortable over time… I was tired and ready for a break after landing at WLW.

8. What to bring – the place I stayed at had WiFi, a couple of computers and a printer. So I was able to do my normal pre-flight planning, update my NAV log with wind forecasts and print up a new NAV log. I was staying about ¾ mile away from the airport and ended up walking to/from the airport/hotel. I did call the hotel and they gave me the number of the local taxi service, a guy by the name of “Smitty” that drives for tips but I ended up just walking back and forth… However if it was any longer than ¾ of a mile I would seriously rethink about all the stuff I would haul around… I ended up lightening up my flight bag leaving some of stuff in the plane.

9. Checking NOTAMS – I ended up doing my flight planning a couple of times and found this useful. It made it easier to scan through all the information when I had previously seen it. One interesting thing I found was the day before my flight while I was checking I found a NOTAM posted for no fuel service at WLW… egads… this was where I was planning to fuel. I called the airport manager and although he wasn’t there I left him a vmail asking if he knew the details of the NOTAM. About an hour latter I got a message back from him that said they had a problem with the communication equipment that validates the transaction for the fuel pump and it might be a couple of days before it is fixed… now what was I going to do… as it turned out, he gave me another call back a few hours latter and said the problem was fixed and fuel was available again. Like I said before, everyone I have called or talked to has always been very happy to help out with my questions.

10. Multi-day minimums – one thing to keep in mind if you do an overnight trip is the WVFC policy on multi-day minimums. You are charged a minimum of 2 hours per weekday and 3 hours per weekend day. My trip was one weekday and one weekend. When planning the trip I estimated I would probably not have a problem with meeting this minimum based on the estimated flight times and previous experience of how much extra time to add for taxi… as it turned out, my total flight time was 5.1 hours…. And as I was taxing back after landing at PAO it was reading 5.0 and just flipped to 5.1 during the last stretch of the taxi to parking… now I wish I could say that is exactly how I planned it but that would be stretching the truth a bit. But this is something to keep in mind especially if you do an overnight involving two weekend days.

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