Headin' to Missourri

So, there's this new plane I've been meaning to buy. It's called a Rockwell Commander, built by Rockwell back in the 70's, after which they sold the design to Gulfstream who sold it to someone else, etc., etc. Currently the rights are owned by Commander Premier Aircraft Company, located at Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, in Missourri, south of St. Louis. CPAC, as it's called, is owned by a group of Commander owners and provides support, spare parts, etc., but has fallen on hard times such that its plan to start building new Commanders has thus far not worked out so well.

Of course, the Commander I want to buy is the FSX version, made by Carenado (same company that made my Skylane), but I thought it would be neat to fly out to Cape Girardeau just the same. Once I download the Commander, I can fly it back to Dalton.

This was going to be a longer trip than usual, and actually turned out to be my longest flight yet at two hours and thirty eight minutes (previous record was two hours and ten minutes). It's 325 nautical miles from Dalton to Cape Girardeau as the crow (or Skylane) flies, so I decided to study my GPS a bit more:

I haven't learned all the in's-and-out's, but I can select an airport to fly to and then use the GPS to determine my course and stay on it. The purple line running up through the middle of the screen is the desired route, so you just have to fly along it to stay on course. The unit tells you the distance to the airport (in nautical miles), your speed over the ground (in knots), and your ETA plus other info. You can actually program in way points with turns to go around areas you don't want to fly over, but I just did a straight point-to-point route as that was easiest.

I also relearned the Skylane's autopilot. Once I got to altitude (6500 feet), I trimmed out for level flight and then used the autopilot to hold a steady heading (based on what the GPS was telling me). At that point, all I had to do was monitor the aircraft (engine, etc.), keep a look out for other planes and just enjoy the ride.

My route took me through Tennessee and then over the boundary between Kentucky, Illinois, and Missourri, at which point I noticed this bridge:

(click to enlarge)

It's the Cairo Ohio River Bridge, which according to BridgeHunter.com is a "Cantilevered through truss" bridge over the Oio River on US 51/60 between Cairo, Illinois and Wickliffe, Kentucky.

I also crossed paths with a couple of other small planes during the trip. Still climbing out of Dalton, I contacted Chattanooga and requested a "flight following" where they assigned you a transponder "squawk" code and track you by radar during your flight. Along the route you get handed off from one control area to another and they alert you to other air traffic that's near you. Near Nashville, I had a Beechcraft cross my path heading south, but he was a good 2500 feet below me.

A bit further on, I was running into some turbulance at 6500' and decended to 5500', which was a mistake. I had forgotten the rules about altitude. If you're heading west, as I was, you fly at an even-thousand foot plus five-hundred, so 2500, 4500, 6500, etc. Flying east, you maintain an odd-thousand foot plus five-hundred (3500, 5500, etc.). North/South traffic stays on even/odd thousands without the five-hundred. That way, the only planes at your altitude should be going basically the same direction you're going, so risk of collision is minimized.

Well, at 5500' I noticed a speck headed my way several miles out. About that time, the air traffic controller alerted us to each other's presence. The other plane was a Maule Orion (see my Darthe Maule post from last month). We ended up passing with a couple of miles between us, but at a closing speed of over 250 knots, so it was still pretty exciting. Had I been at the correct altitude, we would have had 1000' altitude difference so it would not have been as dramatic.

Anyway, I continued my flight and finally made it to Cape Girardeau. I was pretty tired, so unfortunately my landing was pretty sloppy. No excuse, that's just what happened. I didn't trim my plane down to the right speed, so I ended up coming in fast and shallow and when I flared, I ballooned up and then came down on all three wheels at once, and way off center on a runway that's 150' wide! I was embarrassed and don't plan to let that happen again.

After the landing I did manage to taxi back to the parking area and shut down. This airport has a major highway next to it, so I was able to see the ground traffic from the ground, and at a closer range than normal:

(click to enlarge)

As penance for my sloppiness, I'm going to do some touch and go practice in the Skylane this weekend and delay the Commander purchase a bit longer. When I feel that I've earned it, I'll get the new plane and show it off in my next post.