The Sahara

Some of you may recall I did a cross country navigation a few days ago from Naples to Venice beach with my instructor. Well. Today it was my turn to do it solo. 2 hours of pre-flight planning and I had the keys to N954AC and the plane to myself. Flying somewhere sounds pretty simple. You would think you just get it up in the air , point it in the general direction and from that height be able to see relatively easily ahead of yourself to where you want to go. 

There is a bit more to it. Just a bit more. 

There are factors such as wind, fuel consumption , altitude, true course heading, magnetic course heading, wind variation component, other aircraft traffic, and correct radio frequencies, correct RPM, airpseed, ground speed, amongst others. In between all this it is not as though you have an instructor with 1,500 hours of flying time sitting next to you who can correct any mistakes. You can therefore probably understand why as I taxied down Alpha taxiway towards Runway 5 my knees had the shakes. Just smalls. My mouth was dry and trying to swallow was harder than trying to eat a Carrs water cracker in the Sahara in summer whilst standing in front of a air dryer. 

The flight was from Naples to Venice a distance of 65 nautical miles ( 76 miles ), a brief touch down, continue rolling and take off  and return. 152 miles there and back. 2 hours flying time or thereabouts.

The route takes you north from Naples and you follow the coast to Venice passing the main approach corridor for Fort Meyers International Airport where you get to communicate on the same frequency as the big boys in their 737 and 777's. There is something mildly amusing about being on the same frequency as a commercial jet liner descending from 15,000 ft at 400 knots while you putt putt along at 3,500ft at 102 knots. The heart goes up a bit when you see him straight ahead and level with you passing across your vision from right to left and Fort Meyers International Control asking you to descend to 2,500ft to give him some room. 

The return leg from Venice to Naples seemed to take half the time of the outward leg and it was not long before I was receiving clearance to land from Naples tower on the very same runway I had departed some 2 hours earlier.

I even found the time to take some photo's thinking that if they fished me out of the Gulf of Mexico at least there would be proof I went down enjoying myself !

Self portrait of boy with sh*t eating grin at 3,500ft.  If you could see my left hand which was clasped firmly on the yoke you'd notice the knuckles were whiter than a Utah salt pan. 

On the homeward leg I took this. (Below)

Do you think this property developer is re-thinking his idea that turning 2,000 acres of swamp into a residential development  was a money spinner ? My instructor later told me that those roads and subdivisions were all completed 3 years ago and not a sod of earth has been tossed since. I wonder which one of the many banks I see in Naples is holding the title deed to that development right now.

My pre flight planning papers (below)

The top paper is for the first leg from Naples (KAPF) to Venice (KVNC) and the second is for the return leg. You will notice the return leg is 0.5 mile shorter. That is because I took a more direct route home. I think !

Take the top sheet and middle row from N.I. to KVNC.  

N.I. is Naples Inlet and a starting point for geographic reference once I had climbed out of KAPF (Naples).

2,500 ft represents my cruising altitude. To the right, 060 represents the wind direction at that level and 19 represents the wind velocity in knots at that level. Under them is 9. That represents in degrees centigrade the temperature at that level. Moving to the right you see 104. That represents my true airspeed at that level. 327 represents degree of the true course heading I have plotted from N.I. to KVNC. Under it is 11. That is the amount of variation in compass degrees I have to take into account for the wind which is blowing from the right. I add that to my true course and it gives me true heading. I then have to add 4 degrees for magnetic variation and that finally gives me my mean heading. Some aircraft have a magnetic impact on their compasses so you would also have to take this into account (this plane did not) to finally give you CH . Course heading. This is the final heading you aim the plane along. 

57.5 represents the amount of NM form Naples Inlet to Venice and 103 represents my ground speed taking into account the wind. 33.5 is my estimated elapsed time in minutes for that leg and 5 is the amount of fuel in gallons I expect to burn during that time. All those numbers in the bottom right are various radio and navigational codes that I will also use. 

Remembering of course this is simply one leg of the outward trip

Easy huh ?

The good news is that tomorrow, weather permitting I get to do it all again but this time with multiple airports where I have to stop, get out, get some paperwork signed and then head off to another airport. I hope Florida SAR (Search and Rescue ) is up to speed with their locate and recover skills.