Night Loop
Tonight I took my wife and Maciek up for a little over an hour for night recurrency. I filed an IFR flight plan to get some more practice with that stuff. I filed for an 8:15 departure (sunset was 8:20) leaving PHF for ORF and then back to PHF. FlightAware has some of our track for the IFR portion.
We had a leisurely dinner at good ol' Schlotzsky's and made our way over to the airport. We went through the new Mercury Air Center building; it's quite an upgrade compared to the old facility -- very nice. After checking with the nice lady at the desk to get the key and book for 99A, we walked out across the tarmac, up past the Cirrus (drool, drool), and on to our trusty conveyance.
Since I wanted to get the requisite three takeoffs and landings in before Mercury closed at 10 pm (in order to return the key/book) but they wouldn't count until 9:20, I took extra time on the preflight, talking Maciek and K through everything as though I was an instructor and having them do some of the steps along with me.
That was actually pretty interesting; I think I'd like to do instruction some time in the future, and getting that kind of practice shows me (1) that I enjoy it and (2) I'll get better at teaching others with more practice!
During the preflight we noticed an AWACS turboprop plane repeatedly doing touch-and-gos, not leaving the pattern. It was a military plane (surprise, surprise in Hampton Roads!) and we figured it must be a new pilot getting in some training. He probably did at least ten while we were preflighting.
The rest of the preflight and initial contacts with ground control and ATC were mostly normal, except that the gentleman on the ATC end of the conversation was not so gentle; he seemed to be in a pretty bad mood, and that wasn't helped when I asked for the departure frequency after realizing it hadn't been included in the initial clearance.
Also, he gave us departure procedure Henry 1, which I didn't pull from the plate set during my flight prep earlier in the night. K couldn't find it in the plates, and then I discovered that it was on the backside of one of the plates I had pulled and expected to use. A minute or two later, I was all squared away and we taxied out to runway 7, where we waited for the incoming AWACS to do yet another touch-and-go. By this time it was quite dark so the cockpit lights were turned up.
Normal takeoff and we were vectored out over the York River and the Chesapeake Bay. Tiny dots of boats lights could be seen in the vast blackness below. Before long we were vectored into ORF along the softly lit bridge-tunnel with pin-prick-sized car lights (which K really enjoyed).
It took a while to distinguish the runway and airport lights from the city, but the instruments confirmed that we were on the ILS so it was ok. Soon I identified the runway, and noticed the large boat in the small bay to the side of the airport; not an obstacle, but neat.
We were cleared for the option so I executed a stop-and-go. Upon takeoff, they sent us back west over the city. It was a great view and seemed peaceful from up high. Eventually the city lights faded into the southside countryside
and we started looking toward PHF again.
As we came in for the ILS 7 we canceled the IFR flight plan and were cleared for the option. All went as expected on the approach and landing for another stop-and-go though the autopilot was tracking about 2 degrees right of centerline when coupled for the approach. Still good enough to get to where you need to be, but not perfect.
We took off again and stayed in the pattern. Just as we were turning base, the tower called to let us know that a 717 was on a long final to come in behind us and to hurry along. The guy in the tower seemed a little put off that I did a stop and go the last time - or maybe that I was staying in the pattern with him. Not sure why he was annoyed but I tried to be nice to him anyway.
We did a quick stop-and-go for one last trip around the pattern and were nearly on base leg again when we saw the 717 landing. The final landing for the full-stop was decent, the taxi back to the apron was as straight-forward as night-taxiing is (makes you glad to know your home airport(s) thoroughly!), and that's when we realized it was pushing 10:00 pm!
As efficiently as possible, I went through the post-flight shutdown procedures and K started packing things up while Maciek ran ahead to the Mercury building to make sure someone would wait for us. The lady at Mercury was gracious when we interrupted her shut-down routine at 5 after 10, and we called it a night. It was a good flight, the goal of night currency was satisfied, and my landings weren't half bad!
Here is the video of the last landing we did:
We had a leisurely dinner at good ol' Schlotzsky's and made our way over to the airport. We went through the new Mercury Air Center building; it's quite an upgrade compared to the old facility -- very nice. After checking with the nice lady at the desk to get the key and book for 99A, we walked out across the tarmac, up past the Cirrus (drool, drool), and on to our trusty conveyance.
Since I wanted to get the requisite three takeoffs and landings in before Mercury closed at 10 pm (in order to return the key/book) but they wouldn't count until 9:20, I took extra time on the preflight, talking Maciek and K through everything as though I was an instructor and having them do some of the steps along with me.
That was actually pretty interesting; I think I'd like to do instruction some time in the future, and getting that kind of practice shows me (1) that I enjoy it and (2) I'll get better at teaching others with more practice!
During the preflight we noticed an AWACS turboprop plane repeatedly doing touch-and-gos, not leaving the pattern. It was a military plane (surprise, surprise in Hampton Roads!) and we figured it must be a new pilot getting in some training. He probably did at least ten while we were preflighting.
The rest of the preflight and initial contacts with ground control and ATC were mostly normal, except that the gentleman on the ATC end of the conversation was not so gentle; he seemed to be in a pretty bad mood, and that wasn't helped when I asked for the departure frequency after realizing it hadn't been included in the initial clearance.
Also, he gave us departure procedure Henry 1, which I didn't pull from the plate set during my flight prep earlier in the night. K couldn't find it in the plates, and then I discovered that it was on the backside of one of the plates I had pulled and expected to use. A minute or two later, I was all squared away and we taxied out to runway 7, where we waited for the incoming AWACS to do yet another touch-and-go. By this time it was quite dark so the cockpit lights were turned up.
Normal takeoff and we were vectored out over the York River and the Chesapeake Bay. Tiny dots of boats lights could be seen in the vast blackness below. Before long we were vectored into ORF along the softly lit bridge-tunnel with pin-prick-sized car lights (which K really enjoyed).
It took a while to distinguish the runway and airport lights from the city, but the instruments confirmed that we were on the ILS so it was ok. Soon I identified the runway, and noticed the large boat in the small bay to the side of the airport; not an obstacle, but neat.
We were cleared for the option so I executed a stop-and-go. Upon takeoff, they sent us back west over the city. It was a great view and seemed peaceful from up high. Eventually the city lights faded into the southside countryside
and we started looking toward PHF again.
As we came in for the ILS 7 we canceled the IFR flight plan and were cleared for the option. All went as expected on the approach and landing for another stop-and-go though the autopilot was tracking about 2 degrees right of centerline when coupled for the approach. Still good enough to get to where you need to be, but not perfect.
We took off again and stayed in the pattern. Just as we were turning base, the tower called to let us know that a 717 was on a long final to come in behind us and to hurry along. The guy in the tower seemed a little put off that I did a stop and go the last time - or maybe that I was staying in the pattern with him. Not sure why he was annoyed but I tried to be nice to him anyway.
We did a quick stop-and-go for one last trip around the pattern and were nearly on base leg again when we saw the 717 landing. The final landing for the full-stop was decent, the taxi back to the apron was as straight-forward as night-taxiing is (makes you glad to know your home airport(s) thoroughly!), and that's when we realized it was pushing 10:00 pm!
As efficiently as possible, I went through the post-flight shutdown procedures and K started packing things up while Maciek ran ahead to the Mercury building to make sure someone would wait for us. The lady at Mercury was gracious when we interrupted her shut-down routine at 5 after 10, and we called it a night. It was a good flight, the goal of night currency was satisfied, and my landings weren't half bad!
Here is the video of the last landing we did:
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