PIC time logged this flight: 1.7
Landings: 178
Had a lesson scheduled, instead my FI and I agreed that it would be a shame to waste such perfect weather and so I flew a solo cross country. After reviewing my logbook after my short and long solo cross country, it added up to 4.8 hours (the requirement is for 5 hours total). I chose to fly to Fitch Beach airport (KFPK), which is an uncontrolled field southwest of Lansing.
I decided to call up Lansing approach and request traffic advisories soon after passing my first checkpoint. Here is a picture of that checkpoint, Cackleberry, which is a grass strip with two runways.
The next checkpoint was the city of Mason, and it's airport. The airport is visible a third of the way down from the horizon, slightly left of center.
The navigation planning for this trip was totally reliant on pilotage and deduced reckoning, as there were no navigation aids that corresponded with the path of flight. I did bring my toy along, and I must say that it is a great backup to a map.
I got this Garmin Geko 201 as a "gift" from Bose for buying their Aviation X Headset. The picture shows the "Navigation" page, and that I am tracking direct to KFPK, 18.1 nm east of the field, traveling at 108kts. The window that shows groundspeed, can be cycled to show other info like, bearing, heading, time to destination, etc. The other useful page is the "Trip Computer" which I have customized to show Speed (kts), Elevation (ft), Vertical Speed (feet/min) and Time of day (24 hour clock). Adding waypoints such as airports and navaids is relatively simple... just mark your current location, then edit the GPS coordinates and elevation to match the target and rename it and you are set. The Geko 201 can hold 500 waypoints, store 20 routes, records 10,000 data tracking points, and 10 saved tracks.
The benefits of GPS are well documented, I will add that as a student pilot, being able to put together a distance shown on the GPS and then correlate it to what I see outside is a HUGE learning tool. I hope to have my tracks overlayed onto Google Earth soon.
Another shot of Mason Airport (KTEW)
Here is my view looking westward, lots of sunshine and bug guts.
My proof that I landed at the correct airport.
Birds on or in the vicinity of the airport is no joke. These two cranes(?) were on the taxiway as I was exiting the runway. The sound of the plane made them move just a bit faster, so I called clear of the runway and snapped a picture.
As I was lining up for takeoff for my trip back home, I watched as four young deer ran into a swampy patch about 400 feet to the side of the runway. I lined up for a short field takeoff, applied full brakes and full power... sure enough as soon as I start my takeoff roll, the deer re-appear this time playing tag and one actually knocked another one over. One eye on the airspeed, another on the deer as they run closer to the runway, I begin to contemplate my options. Airspeed is building rapidly to my short field rotate speed, I can abort and risk running into Bambi and friends if they continue on course or hope they stop and continue with my takeoff. I rotated at 60 kts and executed my short field takeoff without a hitch, the deer stopped short of the runway and bolted in the opposite direction as I climbed for altitude.
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