Dual Long Cross Country (day) 3.4
Dual Long Cross Country (night) 2.0
Total Time: 54.9
Landings: 171
The weather gods opened a window of near perfect VFR conditions, thankfully, it coincided with the planned date of our trip. We decided in planning this trip that we should bring along our better halves (my wife, and my FI's girlfriend) as potential future pilots (and good company). Our goal, to fly from Ann Arbor past Lansing and Grand Rapids to land at Muskegon on the west coast of Michigan. Once refueled, we would fly up the coast to take in the sights and geology of the area on our way to Traverse City. After spending the day in Traverse City, we would hop back in the plane as the sun set and fly back at night to take care of my long, dual, night cross country.
Our flight routing: ARB - Lansing VOR - direct MKG - up the coastline to "Sleeping Bear Dunes" - then direct TVC. On the return: TVC - direct Grayling - direct Houghton Lake - direct Y31 - Direct Saginaw - Direct Flint - direct ARB
Total Trip Distance: 465nm
Squawks for the trip: The pilot's PTT (push to talk) switch went INOP upon arriving at Muskegon, my FI made excellent radio calls for the remainder of the trip. It ended up being a great learning experience in how I am making my calls a bit wordy! The only other issue was a mag that needed clearing during the runup prior to departing Traverse City.
We got excellent service wherever we went, and in the spirit of recognizing good service:
Aviation Center in Ann Arbor (home of C172SP "N857SP")
Executive Air Transport in Muskegon
Harbor Air in Traverse City
and a convenient $20 flat rate shuttle from the airport to downtown Traverse City provided by "ByTheBay" transportation.
We got marginal service from Minneapolis Center on our flight home, but that was the only low point... everyone else was very accommodating and helpful. Lansing FSS helped us file our VFR flight plan in the air, after the one we filed via DUATS mysteriously "vaporized".
Flying home we had a speed boost tailwind for a good portion of route and we recorded 136kt groundspeed as our max. This translates to about 156 mph, not bad for a Cessna 172.
This trip was meant to represent an example of "learn by doing". Part of the allure of flying is going places, and in that sense the trip was a complete success. Navigating to new places, landing at unfamiliar airports, dealing with weather, tackling real issues of weight and balance, calculating and confirming fuel burns, are all things I will be doing with my Private Pilot License. The fact that I was able to tie in the night cross country was a bit of planned "icing on the cake".
My wife thought the trip was alot of fun, so I think I may have signed up my first (post checkride) passenger!
Here are some pictures from the trip:
The plane:
The panel:
These next three images are the Sleeping Bear Dunes, a big sand dune that rises at what looks like a 45 degree angle out of the waters of Lake Michigan. The dark brown stripe on the left side of the first image is a path where you can walk down the sandy slope to the water. My FI said that to get back up you need to crawl on all fours. This is a wilderness preserve area which is why the pictures are taken from a much higher altitude.
The beach, downtown Traverse City
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