… well not exactly the infinity but Forth Smith or about 50 nautical miles! But this is so far away from the usual training ground. This should be fun. Technically, this is enough to call that a Cross Country flight!

Checked the weather

After yesterday’s weather, it was a little bit of a concern for today and it is not exactly right: low ceiling with some winds. Nothing too bad though and definitely good enough to fly. So decision is taken to start the flight.

Preparing the cockpit for the cross country flight

I have all my usual gear: headset, kneeboard, camera and camera holder. But for the cross country, I need to have some extras:

• Sectional charts: That’s the map with the milestones of the flight plan. to go to Forth Smith, I would need 2 of them:
• The Kansas sectional that covers the Bentonville Area.
• The Memphis sectional that covers Forth Smith.
• Airport/Facility Directory (aka. A/F D): contains the list of all the airports of the region with all relevant information (frequencies, airport diagram,)
• Flight Plan: The flight plan that we have crafted yesterday. I’ve put it on a plastic board to get some rigidity and to be able to write on it easily.
• EAB: … or flight computer. This would be used to calculate the progression during the flight in relation to the estimate on the flight plan.
• Extra information that I had printed for the flight including the relevant radial for the VOR that should help me evaluate my position as I have used.

These extras have to be accessible but, of course, you can not take off with everything on your lap. The center console is there and it has a tendency to get caught with the seat. Its position was very forward and it was bothering me a little to have it so much back but I can reach everything so I thought that it might not be a big deal and that I was just a whiner. I’ve organized all the elements for the flight in the center console. I think I’m ready to take off. Everything seems to be in place. I’ve been looking for the cross country for quite sometime and it is now happening.

From Bentonville to Fort Smith

If only I knew what was waiting for, I would not taken that flight. This is by far the worst flight I have done. The winds was shaking the airplane. Nothing to be sick about but it made the airplane very difficult to trim. I can usually do an Ok job at trimming the plane for a straight and level flight. But here, I had to readjust the trimming every 2 minutes. The plane was all over the altitude. Sometime 200 feet below the assigned altitude and sometime 200 above. A 400 feet amplitude is way too much and it should have been contained within 100 feet max. This is bad airmanship to not control the plane. I was so busy piloting the plane and trying to maintain the altitude that the navigation got a little neglected. First I had some issue getting the maps out of the center console. Too far back, I was having issue getting the maps in and out. Same thing with the board with the flight plan. I couldn’t use it properly. Too many things were frustrating me and as a ripple effect, Michael got really annoyed also. Of course, I had taken a few milestones on the ground that I have completely missed to check visually but since I had done the planning using VORs, I was able to bring the plane to the proper location but it has been way more painful than it should have been.

Is that English on the weather report!?

But the problems did not stop there as I was reaching the Fort Smith airspace, I was trying to prepare for talking to the tower and the first step is to get the weather. And here, I draw a blank! The guy who did the weather announcement was talking so fast and so unarticulated that it makes it impossible for me to understand anything beyond the identification of the weather and the wind. I’ve listened to the announcements at least 4 times. Michael was wondering what was going on and thought that I couldn’t write the information fast enough when in fact I could not understand what was said at all! This just compounded to the problems of the flight. Needless to say that none of us were really happy. I look like a stupid idiot that could not understand a few numbers and I do not like that at all.
Michael took over the communication and let the tower know our intentions. After reaching the VOR, we turned towards the airport and received the clearance for landing at KFSM!

Landing at Fort Smith

So we just got clearance for landing to the Fort Smith airport. As we were entering downwind, we got a call from tower: "Three Victor Romeo, can you extend downwind and report when turning base?". Answer: “Three Victor Romeo is extending downwind and will report on base”.

First guess is that another airplane probably faster or in better position wants to land. But then over the radio, we can hear the call for authorization to take off. Since we were downwind (ie: parallel to the runway), we could see perfectly the entire runway and here big surprise, we can see not 1 but 2 Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt also known under their not-so-friendly nickname: Tank killer!

This is a strange view to think that you are going to land right after a military plane that’s actually active! The last time I saw a real A-10, it was most likely at an air show in Florida a good 16 or 17 years ago!

I’m looking at them taking off and it didn’t took very long for them to disappear and for me to come back to the reality of having to put the plane down on the runway.

I did the approach without any problem but once again a bad landing. As usual for now, nothing really bad but not very smooth. I can definitely put the plane down, it was just not pretty.

We then cleared the runway and got into the next frequencies on the radio leaving tower and joining Forth Smith ground. There, we were instructed on the taxiway to use to get to the FBO. Once at the FBO, we took a little break of a few minute and restarted the procedure to get in the air and on our way to Bentonville.

Departure from a control airport

Departing from a control airport start like the departure from the non control airport: by checking the weather. And, of course, this is the same announcement than checking the weather from the air so needless to say that I could not catch a word! It was bad! than having explained to Michael my difficulty (“No it’s not my writing skills! ”), he mentioned that I should not be worried too much about it and actually ask for the weather to the ground or to the tower when in the air! I then called ground and got my complete weather report in an English that I can understand. We got the clearance for taxiing and asked to report on the threshold of the runway to the tower. We did just that. Once I reach the threshold, I’ve realized that I was followed by a regional jet. I was once again holding a regional jet from departing. The last time was when we did the touch and go at the Northwestern Arkansas Regional Airport. So as soon as we had starting to gain some altitude, we started to turn left before the top of the climb to free the path. This allowed the airliner to take off.

Flying back to Bentonville

I was expecting the flight back to Bentonville to be like the one to Fort Smith but in fact it went pretty smooth. We were facing winds but it was not as bad. The only thing is that we were not going as fast as needed to we were getting late. I’ve tried to make a point on the way back to identify a maximum element on the ground to show Michael that I can locate myself and navigate using dead reckoning. As we were coming closer from Bentonville, we had to switch from the Memphis approach to Razorback approach and we got informed that Razorback Approach was having some difficulties with some of the frequencies. They therefore would not be able to provide flight following for us.

To compensate as we were approaching the different airports on our way to Bentonville, Michael called each airport on the radio to let them know our intention.

Did a direct approach to 36

As we were coming from the south, we had a natural alignment with Bentonville and the winds were favoring the use of the runway 36. So we did a direct approach. It was the second one and I have to say that I really like it but it  estimating when to start the descent was not easy. When using the pattern, as you are turning final, you know you are starting the approach but here, you have to judge right to avoid coming too low. For airport with precision approach devices, it’s easy, you look at the lights but for airport like the one in Bentonville you are on your own!

Time to finish it with this bad trip

Well, it is a strange thing when you have prepared so much for something and you ended up not performing properly and suddenly something that you had difficulties before then happen without a glitch. This is exactly what happened with the landing. It was very smooth to the point that I did not even hear the wheels touching the ground. It was a very pleasant surprise that made me forget about all the bad time I just had. It is to date the best landing I’ve ever done!

Lessons learned

One of the lessons that I have learned the hard way is that cockpit management is critical. You need to have everything EASILY accessible. I can not stretch the word easily enough. One thing during the flight that was bothering me is that I couldn’t take and put the chart down easily and they were getting caught each time I was trying to put them back. With the plane being shaken I couldn’t spend anytime on this. Same thing with the board with my flight plan. I couldn’t take it out and back in easily. It was getting caught and my arm was not doing a very natural movement each time I wanted to get it out and put it back.