A Flight to Remember
The weather has been bad for the past week and that hass killed some of my flight time. We've been planning to get one of my cross-country flights in for a while (and for those of you who are wondering, a x-country is just a long flight away from home base) but the weather hasn't been cooperating with me one bit.
I woke up this morning early to finish off my flight plan (I still needed to grab the weather forecast for the day and finish off our estimated time en-route/ ground speed/ fuel burn/ ect.) I got online and pulled up my weather sites and looked outside. Not looking good. The ceiling was at 1,900 and I our flight plan needed us to climb about 5,000 feet above that. I scrapped finishing the plan and left it as it was (our route was still a valid route). I drove to class looking outside at the gloomy overcast with disappointment.
I get inside the office above the hangar and Pete gives me some interesting news. I knew that Scott and Colton were going to make the flight before I went up but I figured that, with the weather looking like it did, they scrapped the flight too. Scott did allot of studying the weather and decided that they could make it so the went for it. That meant that I needed to get our flight planned and filed with LA Center. Luckily, in a sense, Scott had left 2 hours later than planned so I had plenty of time to finish the plan. We got it done and I came back home to eat lunch and check up on the dogs.
I'm waiting on the recliner and I get a call from Pete.
"Hey, Scott just texted me. He said they are coming back and are at Temple Bar." [a little airport on the AZ side of Lake Mead]
I got back to the airport a short while later and Pete was on the phone filing our flight plan. I start getting nervous. This isn’t just another flight. I'm working on my instrument rating [I fly based of instruments in the cockpit only, I don’t see outside at all] and this flight is part of our required hours (100 nautical mile cross country flight that includes three instrument approaches).
As a helicopter, we fly close to the ground, 1000 feet above ground level (AGL) at the most. The difference between this flight is were going to be 7-8000 feet AGL. We're also going to be flying along the routes that commercial airline pilots use. We're going to be flying with the big dogs... I'm okay with sounding stupid in front of some bush pilots at a tiny airport but dealing with traffic moving between Dallas and LA and Las Vegas on airlines like Virgin is different story. They know what they are doing... I'm a low time 150 hour heli pilot who has no business getting in their way... Great...
Scott finally gets back. We ask him how it goes and he didnt even open his flight plan or shoot any instrument approaches... wimps lol. I go out to the bird and start pre-flighting her and trying to calm my nerves. I get done and I'm waiting for the fuel guy to top us off. I look at my phone. Great, its 1 o’clock and we are supposed to be off the ground by now. 20 minutes go by and Pete comes out after I get topped off. I start her up set our GPS and instruments and get ready on the radios. I'm nervous as hell, I just don't want to sound like a complete dumbass in front of all these professionals. I realize I'm not even a commercial pilot yet but I don’t want THEM to know that. I brace myself.
"Cedar City Radio, Helicopter November seven four four November Charlie, with you on one two two point five"
"November seven four four November Charlie, Cedar City Radio, Number two for service."
I look at Pete.
"What'd she tell me?"
As soon as I asked what she said clicked in my mind and I felt dumb for asking the question. My mind was just in overdrive and I was jumpy.
"She told us that there's someone she's helping before us."
A few more calls between other pilots leaving and CCR and they finally come back to us.
"Helicopter November seven four niner November Juliet, Cedar City Radio, what's your request?"
She got our tail number wrong but we figured she was talking to us.
"This is Helicopter seven four four November Charlie, I'd like to open a flight plan."
Silence.
"[standard call back using our tail number] we don’t have a flight plan filed for that Tail Number. Would you like to file on now?"
Great... this is getting off to a good start.
"[tail number] Affirmative."
Pause
"[tail number] Go ahead."
"744NC IFR from St George to Bullhead Laughlin International, R-44 equipment uniform, 90 knots, niner thousand feet," I pause and release the mic hoping that I don’t have to tell her our route cuz of the time.
"744NC I do have an IFR flight plan already filed. Is that all?"
Of course... I should’ve said IFR flight plan...
"Great, can we open the flight plan with an amendment, we are leaving twenty minutes later than filed? 744NC "
"744NC flight plan amended. You are cleared IFR to Laughlin International niner thousand feet as filed squawk 4791 Clearance void time 2027 zulu Contact LA Center on 135.65. Check local AWOS for Altimeter setting."
Pete is writing down what I need to copy back since my hands are busy hovering the helicopter. We need to repeat back every thing the controller says back (or the important things at least) so easiest way to remember all that info is to have you or your copilot write it all down.
"744NC checked local altimeter setting, cleared for departure at 8900 feet as filed squawk 4791, contact LA center on 135.65.”
“Negative on the altitude, 9000 feet”
“Roger that 9000 feet, thank you very much.”
Pete had wrote down the wrong number…
We take off and avoid the clouds. Although our flight plan is IFR our helicopter isn’t IFR certified so we need to avoid the clouds still. We start our climb to 9000 feet (pretty flipping high for a dinky helicopter) and around 6000 I’m not paying attention to my climb rate and I kinda level off. I still hadn’t contacted LA center like I was supposed to have because, frankly I was really nervous to. They are the guys dealing with all the traffic flying around in the Southwestern United States. The radios come alive with traffic from Sky West, Virgin Airlines, South West Airlines, ect. ect… I didn’t wanna step over any of the other pilots by opening my mouth. Suddenly:
“Helicopter 744NC squawk 1417 you have traffic 5000 feet 2 miles to your six o’clock [static and I cant quite understand]”
“744NC squawking 1417, traffic behind us 2 miles”
I didn’t quite know what else to say so, rule of thumb, repeat whatever you heard.
“44NC verify climb and maintain 9000 feet”
I look at my altimeter and vertical speed indicator and realize I leveled off at about 6000 feet. I was supposed to maintain my climb and I slowed that down… I understand what he wants now.
“4NC climbing and maintaining 9000 feet”
These guys get very upset when their directions aren’t followed. Understandably, too… It’s their jobs on the line if something happens. They are responsible for traffic separation and getting everyone to where they need to go in the safest most efficient way possible.
We keep flying along I’m keeping my scan on the instruments (I cant see outside because of my “foggles”) and Pete makes a comment about how high we are. As I start to relax a little bit and listen to the radio, I begin to see there really isn’t all that much to worry about. Just listen repeat and do what I’ve been trained to do. The flying is easy and I’m able to keep within my standards I need to pass my check ride (practical exam) down in LA so I just listen to the radio. Pilots are a getting vectored and handed over to other approach centers and being told to climb or descend to speed up or slow down to this or that… it’s a system that’s working flawlessly (one of the reasons for my previous nervousment [is that a word? Well it is now]).
We’re getting close to Las Vegas and McClarren’s class bravo airspace (basically, heavily controlled airspace with tons of rules and regs and such). I get a call on the radio that lets me know that I am being handed off to Las Vegas approach and to contact them. Again I’m slow on the contacting because of the other pilots non-stop communication but they finally contact me and verify radar contact. I’m just hoping they let me stay on the flight plan I filed and not vector me off my course to make room for other traffic… Luckily it goes off without a hitch and we are handed back over to LA center with only a minor call about verifying that we have a huge Boeing 747 in sight.
We are coming up on Bullhead/Laughlin International and the Pete wants me to request radar vectoring to our final approach fix for the RNAV GPS 34 Approach (how we are going to land without me seeing outside). They deny our request and ask me if I can fly direct to Needles. I say yes and we continue as told. I look down at our fuel gauges and see that we are at a quarter tank on both our main and our aux. We still have at least 40 more miles to travel if we are going all the way out to the needles waypoint so we make the decision to cancel our flight plan and just head direct to Bullhead. (apparently our fuel boy didn’t top off both our tanks like he was supposed to have)
I take off my foggles since we are going to fly visually for now and ask Pete put the tower frequency into our radio. I make a call.
“Bullhead tower, helicopter 744NC 7.5 miles to the south at 5000 feet request straight in for runway 34.”
Silence
“Aircraft trying to reach tower, this is the wrong frequency”
Pete messes with the radio again and as he’s doing it start to just circle and descend so I don’t get into the delta airspace without contact. Pete tells me to keep flying forward and call again on this new frequency.
“[Same call]”
Silence
I look at Pete and he’s playing with the radio some more. We’re now 6 miles and I start to circle because we are not supposed to enter the delta airspace without radio contact and we haven’t established that yet. Pete tells me to stop turning… we are cutting it really close… he doesn’t seem to care. he tells me to try it again and before I get a chance to he makes the call himself.
“Bullhead Tower, helicopter 744NC request straight in runway 34.”
Wow… wrong call Pete. We need to give them our altitude and location so they know whether or not to clear us. They call back and ask and Pete makes the call back with the info.
“Helicopter 44NC cleared for 34 report 2 mile final.”
I jump on, “Report 2 mile final, 744NC.”
We report and get onto the runway and Pete is trying to tell me which taxiway to get off of and the tower comes back on since we are just kinda air taxiing down the runway.
Pete: “We’re going to get some fuel at the helipads off alpha three”
“Contact ground on 118.25”
Pete: “Contact ground on… 122.35?
/facepalm
“Negative 118.25”
We get to the taxiway and I tell Pete to tune in ground control. He says wait. I just froze at that… We are at a controlled airport and were not allowed to move on the taxiway without clearance… We get to the helipad with a bad crosswind, nothing I can’t handle but Pete is over riding the controls on me… we are still on frequency with the tower and they contact us.
“Helicopter 744NC you are supposed to contact ground”
Pete: “Sorry I have a student with me and I wanted to get the helicopter down”
“You are supposed to have contacted ground when requested”
Pete: “I apologize, I just wanted to get the bird down”
“Contact ground”
We get frequencies switched over and contact ground… and proceed to get chewed out by the controller… Pete becomes stupid about the situation and obviously doesn’t understand what rules are. Luckily they only gave us a warning. They threatened next time we’d be dealing with the FSDO (Flight Standards District Office) and see if they think that we had a good excuse. We get off and Pete goes on about how the guy has a stick up his ass ect. ect. and how its aviate navigate communicate… I swear… what a dumbass move. He can be so thick headed and idiotic about those things… Pete keeps going on about me following rules then he disregards them because it makes his life easier… I wouldn’t be surprised if he lost his license… I’ll so throw him under the rug if he drags me in because of his stupid decisions… We refueled and headed back to St. George without a hitch. Smooth flying on the way home.
We landed and saw an Astar on the ramp, a gorgeous bird. We talked to the pilot and he gave me new hopes about my future as a pilot. Things aren’t as abysmal as a lot may think… tons of opportunities and he definitely pointed me in the right direction. But that’s another story for a different day… I’m tired of writing.