Since Josh was still gone, I was to fly my second solo cross-country, the long one. The standard is it must be at least 150 nautical miles and there must be landings at three airports. I needed 3 more hours of solo cross-country time and I felt the best way to make sure I had the hours, since my initial planning suggested I would be very close, was to add a destination that was only slightly out of the way.
My planned trip would leave from McGhee Tyson and I would make stops at Greene County Municipal (GCY), Lee County Airport (0VG), and London-Corbin (LOZ) before returning to McGhee Tyson. It would take me through 3 states and as planned should take just over 3 hours. I got to the flight school right on time and it was crowded. There was all sorts of stuff going on. Unfortunately, this meant that I was going to get a late start. I didn’t mind I had planned plenty of time. After pretty much clearing the room, Nathan signed off on my trip and checked out the plane. He remarked that he’d never had anybody do a long cross-country with more than 3 points, but said that if I wanted to do it, his only concern was that Lee County Airport wasn’t way up in the mountains. I showed him where it was and I was on my way.
Other than being about 45 minutes later than expected, preflight went according to plan. I was ready to go, but I wasn’t sure if ATC would be able to handle it. There was a ton of traffic and they seemed to be having tons of confusing situations all at once. It was a near constant stream of radio chatter. I did however manage to slip in and get off the ground. After my initial call up I didn’t speak to the departure controller again until nearly to my first stop, Greene County. My route of flight took me right past Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, which both look exceptionally interesting from 5500 feet up.
When I got on downwind for GCY, I noticed that there were a bunch of people mowing right around the threshold. I made a mental note to come in a little high and land further down the runway. They were a little closer than I would have liked them to be. I had plenty of runway so I figured I would just use a little more. Unfortunately, I came in higher and faster than I expected and I bounced the landing. I made a quick recovery and the second landing was much better, but there were witnesses. I set the next leg into the GPS, taxied back, and took off for Lee County, VA.
As I was departing the area, I glanced at the GPS to make sure everything was good and discovered an issue. On the one leg I wanted to have a GPS backup, I had no GPS. It turns out that what I had interpreted as the GPS having no location data, was actually me having put in the wrong airport identifier. It now thought I was headed to Greene County and that it was K0VG…I turned down the brightness and left it. I would just have to make sure I stayed on course.
Once I got close to 0VG, I started looking for it. It wasn’t hard to find, but there is not much to it. The runway is usable and pretty long, but it is rough. The airport itself is in a hilly area and it is a little hard to judge the pattern. I entered a downwind for the active runway (I was the only one there, so whatever I chose was the active) and heard a Cherokee was headed into the area. I flew the pattern and made a high and long, but nice landing. Just as I was rolling out, the Cherokee announced he was on downwind. I elected to take the taxiway back. I stopped, set up the GPS (discovering my earlier mistake), and watched the Cherokee land. He made a great landing and did just as I had done. I announced I was taking the runway, and that I would be departing to the north.
En route to London-Corbin, I decided to play with VOR navigation. There is a VOR very near the airport and I had the frequency. I dialed it in, found the radial I needed, and lined up the arrow. On the whole I would say it is easier than I thought. In preparing for landing at LOZ, I was surprised not to hear traffic. The last time we were up here, there was plenty of traffic. This was a nice day and I just new there would be plenty of traffic on the CTAF. Unfortunately, as I noticed about two miles from the field looking at a full pattern, I forgot to switch the frequency to the active position on the radio. I quickly flipped it over and turned away from the field and announced my position. Then I set up for a 45 degree downwind entry and slipped in behind a Diamond shooting touch-and-goes. I had planned to stop and eat dinner, but looking at the crowd ( and sure that they knew about my mishap) and the time, I elected to proceed home. It was nearly the time I had initially planned to get home. I decided I should come back – maybe I can take someone there with me after I’m certificated. Something I didn’t think about except during planning the wind was supposed to be working against me on the way home. This was in fact the case, and I was fighting about a 15 knot headwind all the way home. I was averaging about 80 knots ground speed.
By the time I got back to McGhee Tyson, it was starting to get dark. I was quite alarmed when I saw the sun setting at 3500 feet because I knew it would be dark at the ground. I pressed on, hoping to catch a break. In the end they started vectoring me for landing and I knew that I would be making my first “night” landing. So, I flipped on the lights and went for it. This was the worst part of my flight training so far. I did fine right up until final. Even final wasn’t too bad, but there was a police car at alpha 1 waiting to do a runway inspection and of course he had on his bright blue flashing lights. The lights totally destroyed my ability to see and focus on landing and I made the single worst landing I’ve ever made. It was terrible and it made me feel terrible about the entire trip.
In total I logged 3.4 hours of solo cross-country time which put me well over the required 5 hours. I was happy about that and I was happy, for the most part, about the trip. I did however make a few mistakes that could have been prevented. Most of all, I couldn’t quit feeling terrible about my landings for days after my trip. It was the one in particular, but they all ran together in the end and formed the low point in my training. It’s going to take a while to get out of the funk the end of this trip has put me in.