Did my first cross border flight last week
Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2020 11:13 am
We transferred a plane for repairs, so the first leg was a two hour cross border formation flight with me flying as lead, doing the navigation and working the radios. I had quite the jitters before takeoff, our club’s chief coach flew the second plane. However, once in the air the nervousness quickly went away and I enjoyed some fantastic views over the Erzgebirge and in the Czech Republic
This first extended cross country tour added 4:15 h of flying time to my logbook. It was a great experience although I didn't realize it at the time, I was way too focused to notice it.
As expected I made a couple of mistakes, mostly radio related things. One of them was an incorrectly preset tower frequency for the destination airfield, off by one decimal place. After wondering why no-one answered I fixed it but then my call came way too late. To add insult to injury I promptly forgot to mention that we are a two plane formation.
This led to some confusion after the first german had landed and left his plane while I was still in the air talking to them. The tower must have missed the brief exchange in german about our landing order. We quickly resolved the situation, I had to fly a couple of 360s outside of the pattern to let a third plane land and vacate the runway.
Another slip was pressing the transmit button while chatting with my copilot on the way back. Somehow my brain went into Teamspeak mode, I had a headset, I was flying and there was a push to talk button, just like in TGTCWTF.
Here are two pics I took after landing at our destination:
The white/blue plane on the left is a Let L200 Morava, she is a real beauty. Right next to it sits a Zlin Z 526 Trener Master. I had my first aerobatic flight as a passenger in one of those in 2014.
Back to the AAR.
My tablet quit on me, probably due to overheating in the sun, halfway into the first leg. Luckily I was prepared and had my phone running in parallel, I could switch over without fiddling around. Yes, I had a paper backup plus I always knew my speed AND my position.
Actually, I had prepared two map sets, just in case one of the maps fell under the seat.
The flight controllers from the Praha FIS were very helpful. Soon after we crossed the border they gave us a direct to the destination airfield, which suprised me a bit. I had to throw away my carefully planned route avoiding all the temporary restricted areas/dropzones and start from scratch.
I hadn't practiced using the "Direct to" functionality of SkyDemon. It would have been next to impossibe to find that button on a phone display in bright sunlight when you don't know where to look for it. Another lesson learned.
So from then on I navigated by compass combined with the GPS heading from my phone for regular gyro drift adjustments. Also I learned to appreciate the prolonged heading indicator of the little yellow plane in SD. A moving map, even on a small display, makes avoiding TRAs and navigation by eye ball so much easier.
SD recorded both flights and I exported the data into Google Earth. Since I don't want to bore you guys, here is short 3D FlyThrough of the best part of the outbound leg, aside from crossing the Erzgebirge of course.
The tour starts shortly after we received our direct to destination from the Praha Filght Controller. It doesn't compare to the real live view but it is close enough. Just download Google Earth Pro (the free version is sufficient) and open the file.
For hardcore slow TV watchers there is also longer version, starting at the czech border and ending at the destination field.
This first extended cross country tour added 4:15 h of flying time to my logbook. It was a great experience although I didn't realize it at the time, I was way too focused to notice it.
As expected I made a couple of mistakes, mostly radio related things. One of them was an incorrectly preset tower frequency for the destination airfield, off by one decimal place. After wondering why no-one answered I fixed it but then my call came way too late. To add insult to injury I promptly forgot to mention that we are a two plane formation.
This led to some confusion after the first german had landed and left his plane while I was still in the air talking to them. The tower must have missed the brief exchange in german about our landing order. We quickly resolved the situation, I had to fly a couple of 360s outside of the pattern to let a third plane land and vacate the runway.
Another slip was pressing the transmit button while chatting with my copilot on the way back. Somehow my brain went into Teamspeak mode, I had a headset, I was flying and there was a push to talk button, just like in TGTCWTF.
Here are two pics I took after landing at our destination:
The white/blue plane on the left is a Let L200 Morava, she is a real beauty. Right next to it sits a Zlin Z 526 Trener Master. I had my first aerobatic flight as a passenger in one of those in 2014.
Back to the AAR.
My tablet quit on me, probably due to overheating in the sun, halfway into the first leg. Luckily I was prepared and had my phone running in parallel, I could switch over without fiddling around. Yes, I had a paper backup plus I always knew my speed AND my position.
Actually, I had prepared two map sets, just in case one of the maps fell under the seat.
The flight controllers from the Praha FIS were very helpful. Soon after we crossed the border they gave us a direct to the destination airfield, which suprised me a bit. I had to throw away my carefully planned route avoiding all the temporary restricted areas/dropzones and start from scratch.
I hadn't practiced using the "Direct to" functionality of SkyDemon. It would have been next to impossibe to find that button on a phone display in bright sunlight when you don't know where to look for it. Another lesson learned.
So from then on I navigated by compass combined with the GPS heading from my phone for regular gyro drift adjustments. Also I learned to appreciate the prolonged heading indicator of the little yellow plane in SD. A moving map, even on a small display, makes avoiding TRAs and navigation by eye ball so much easier.
SD recorded both flights and I exported the data into Google Earth. Since I don't want to bore you guys, here is short 3D FlyThrough of the best part of the outbound leg, aside from crossing the Erzgebirge of course.
The tour starts shortly after we received our direct to destination from the Praha Filght Controller. It doesn't compare to the real live view but it is close enough. Just download Google Earth Pro (the free version is sufficient) and open the file.
For hardcore slow TV watchers there is also longer version, starting at the czech border and ending at the destination field.
