At least according to Microsoft Flight Simulator it is. I decided to give up on the Mooney Bravo, switch back to the Skylane, and go ahead and start my long journey westward. First stop - Huntsville, Alabama.
Taking off from Dalton the weather looks great (better than it does looking out my window at least). No sign of any snow on the ground but we probably got less than an inch last night, so no big deal. In the picture above, you can see I-75 as it zig-zags through the gap in the ridge-line at Rocky Face.
As I crossed the larger mountains between Georgia and Alabama though it got cloudier and cloudier. My flight planned called for a 6,500 feet cruise altitude to clear all mountains comfortably, but that put me right in the clouds. Rather than climb (given that I was nearing my destination), I decided that once I was over the worst of the mountains, I'd dropped down to about 5,000 feet and try to get below the clouds. As I did, I found that it was snowing down there.
Yikes! This was a VFR flight plan (visual flight rules), which requires better visibility than this. I don't even know how to fly IFR (instrument flight rules) yet so that's no help. Hopefully closer to the ground and closer to the airport it will clear up enough for me to land. Otherwise, I suppose I have enough fuel to make it out of the storm and find an alternate airport.
Forgetting about the hills to the east of Huntsville, I continue to descend down to 2,500 feet at which point I looked down and saw the tops of trees not far below me, maybe 500 feet. I was flying over one of those ridges that's almost 2,000 feet above sea level. Good thing I didn't smack into a radio tower and instead was able to throttle up and climb back to 3,500 feet for more comfort but less visibility.
An IFR flight plan would have been nice, but at least I know VOR navigation. That got me to the airport (Madison Executive), where visibility was about 2-miles, not great but good enough to land. You can just barely see the runway and landing lights in the image above, at my 11:00 position. Or maybe you can't, but I could at full screen and with the light blinking.
An IFR flight plan would have been nice, but at least I know VOR navigation. That got me to the airport (Madison Executive), where visibility was about 2-miles, not great but good enough to land. You can just barely see the runway and landing lights in the image above, at my 11:00 position. Or maybe you can't, but I could at full screen and with the light blinking.Lining up would have been harder, but fortunately most of the roads in this area run north-south or east-west, not at angles like in Dalton, and I knew the runway ran straight north-south, so that helped with the turns.
On final approach I got too slow with full flaps deployed and set off the stall alarm. I was able to go full throttle for a few seconds though and hold the nose level or slightly downward to recover and continue my landing. The landing itself was a little choppy as you can see above, with my right rear landing gear touching down before the left. I made it down in one piece though, which is more than I can say for my last landing.
On final approach I got too slow with full flaps deployed and set off the stall alarm. I was able to go full throttle for a few seconds though and hold the nose level or slightly downward to recover and continue my landing. The landing itself was a little choppy as you can see above, with my right rear landing gear touching down before the left. I made it down in one piece though, which is more than I can say for my last landing.
Anyway, here I am parked at Madison Executive Airport. Watching it snow.
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