Elk Grove day trip
Flew to Elk Grove last weekend in the club's Cessna 152. This was my first cross country flight in the little plane and it worked out really well. The only thing wrong with the day is that the person flying the plane before me was an hour and a half late returning it. This turned my 1:00pm departure into a 2:45pm departure instead.
The left door is really hard/impossible to close from inside this plane and so I entered through the right door, climbed over into the left seat, and then Susanne got in after me - just like flying the club's Piper Warrior which has only a right door. The other interesting thing that happened while still on the ground is that I leaned out the engine too much after doing my run-up and the engine died before I could shove the mixture knob back in. Not a big deal this time but it wouldn't reflect very well on me if I was flying professionally and did this.
Once cleared for takeoff we rolled down the runway and took off uneventfully, got cleared for an early crosswind turn, and headed on course towards Elk Grove.
The climb performance of this plane isn't the greatest with two people and full fuel and it seemed to take forever to reach 2000 feet. Departing from Palo Alto puts you underneath the SFO class B airspace and as you proceed eastbound you can gradually climb higher and higher until you're out from under it completely. Well I came pretty close to clipping the class B on my climbout. Part of the reason was misinterpreting the roads drawn on the chart and thinking I was farther along than I was. Another contributing factor is that the sluggish climb performance lulled me into thinking I didn't have to keep an eye on my altitude as usual ("This plane climbs like such a dog there's no way I could possibly bust the class B airspace!"). Anyway I have flown this route enough times to not be making this kind of mistake and I will be more careful next time.
We initially climbed to 3500 and then, once clear of the hills near Mt. Diablo, dropped down to 2500 for the rest of the flight. There are about 6-7 very tall radio towers just north of this route. They stand about 2200' high and it's weird to be cruising over the flat, flat Sacramento River delta and be seeing almost eye to eye with the tops of the towers.
The landing at Elk Grove was a lot of fun. There was almost a direct crosswind of about 12 knots. The runway is only 35 feet wide. I landed very long, probably at midfield or so, and made sure to take my time get the plane out of a crab and into a slip. The long landing worked nicely because I didn't have to taxi as far since the parking area is at the far end of the runway.
Total time in the air was a quick 46 minutes and I even beat my parents to the airport by about 5 minutes.
Had lunch with the folks which was nice since I hadn't seen them in about 3 months. During the visit I was periodically checking the weather and watching the wind at Sac Executive airport (SAC). When it came time to fly back home the winds at SAC were 190 degrees, 12 knots gusting to 20. This sure felt accurate once we got to the Elk Grove airport. The runway there is 11/29 and so wind from 190 is almost a direct crosswind, just like when we arrived. Fun!
My takeoff was a little ham fisted and I launched a bit too early, lost some airspeed from a gust of wind dissipating, and had the stall horn give a couple blips. Nothing scary but a reminder to add in that gust factor during approach and takeoff.
The flight back was 52 minutes in the air due to the headwind. Coming across Fremont we could see that the entire north portion of the bay was covered in a low overcast. Nothing but clouds north of about San Carlos and Hayward. Flying across the bay to PAO we watched the sun sink beneath these clouds and then once on the ground Susanne noticed the full moon to the east, barely managing to hoist itself above the horizon. It was a good day for flying.
Date: August 16, 2008
Aircraft: N6334M - Cessna 152
Origin: Palo Alto (PAO)
Destination: Elk Grove (E27) (round trip)
Duration: 1.8 hours
The left door is really hard/impossible to close from inside this plane and so I entered through the right door, climbed over into the left seat, and then Susanne got in after me - just like flying the club's Piper Warrior which has only a right door. The other interesting thing that happened while still on the ground is that I leaned out the engine too much after doing my run-up and the engine died before I could shove the mixture knob back in. Not a big deal this time but it wouldn't reflect very well on me if I was flying professionally and did this.
Once cleared for takeoff we rolled down the runway and took off uneventfully, got cleared for an early crosswind turn, and headed on course towards Elk Grove.
The climb performance of this plane isn't the greatest with two people and full fuel and it seemed to take forever to reach 2000 feet. Departing from Palo Alto puts you underneath the SFO class B airspace and as you proceed eastbound you can gradually climb higher and higher until you're out from under it completely. Well I came pretty close to clipping the class B on my climbout. Part of the reason was misinterpreting the roads drawn on the chart and thinking I was farther along than I was. Another contributing factor is that the sluggish climb performance lulled me into thinking I didn't have to keep an eye on my altitude as usual ("This plane climbs like such a dog there's no way I could possibly bust the class B airspace!"). Anyway I have flown this route enough times to not be making this kind of mistake and I will be more careful next time.
We initially climbed to 3500 and then, once clear of the hills near Mt. Diablo, dropped down to 2500 for the rest of the flight. There are about 6-7 very tall radio towers just north of this route. They stand about 2200' high and it's weird to be cruising over the flat, flat Sacramento River delta and be seeing almost eye to eye with the tops of the towers.
The landing at Elk Grove was a lot of fun. There was almost a direct crosswind of about 12 knots. The runway is only 35 feet wide. I landed very long, probably at midfield or so, and made sure to take my time get the plane out of a crab and into a slip. The long landing worked nicely because I didn't have to taxi as far since the parking area is at the far end of the runway.
Total time in the air was a quick 46 minutes and I even beat my parents to the airport by about 5 minutes.
Had lunch with the folks which was nice since I hadn't seen them in about 3 months. During the visit I was periodically checking the weather and watching the wind at Sac Executive airport (SAC). When it came time to fly back home the winds at SAC were 190 degrees, 12 knots gusting to 20. This sure felt accurate once we got to the Elk Grove airport. The runway there is 11/29 and so wind from 190 is almost a direct crosswind, just like when we arrived. Fun!
My takeoff was a little ham fisted and I launched a bit too early, lost some airspeed from a gust of wind dissipating, and had the stall horn give a couple blips. Nothing scary but a reminder to add in that gust factor during approach and takeoff.
The flight back was 52 minutes in the air due to the headwind. Coming across Fremont we could see that the entire north portion of the bay was covered in a low overcast. Nothing but clouds north of about San Carlos and Hayward. Flying across the bay to PAO we watched the sun sink beneath these clouds and then once on the ground Susanne noticed the full moon to the east, barely managing to hoist itself above the horizon. It was a good day for flying.
Date: August 16, 2008
Aircraft: N6334M - Cessna 152
Origin: Palo Alto (PAO)
Destination: Elk Grove (E27) (round trip)
Duration: 1.8 hours