Today at 2:00 I set out with my girlfriend on a flight to Tacoma Narrows Airport, 109 nautical miles from Hillsboro. We used Air Traffic Control’s Flight Following service to receive traffic advisories and altimeter settings en route to add an extra degree of safety to the flight. I planned a checkpoint in Olympia in order to avoid the restricted airspace over Fort Lewis.
The Tacoma Narrows ATIS reported the winds from 210 at 10 knots with gusts up to 14, and runway 17 was in use; a 40-degree, 7-10 knot crosswind. Tacoma Tower instructed us to enter right downwind for runway 17, and to report when we were 2 miles out on the 45.
Short final was pretty bumpy, so I held my hand on the throttle and prepared to initiate a go-around if it started looking iffy. I put in a side slip to compensate for the crosswind, and we were aligned with the centerline as the airplane entered ground effect, so I put it down on the runway. There was a tiny bounce on the touchdown, but it was under control and perfectly safe. It did get my heart beating a bit, though!
The goal of the flight was to eat dinner at the restaurant that sits directly on the general aviation ramp, but we discovered after landing that it closes at 3pm on Sunday! So instead we visited the pilot shop at the FBO, grabbed a couple of sodas, enjoyed the sun and the warm breeze for a few minutes, and hopped back in N478ER. We used Flight Following on the way back too, and received three traffic advisories. I fear that someday Flight Following may become a paid service (”user fees”), and the result would be that pilots would be discouraged from using ATC services intended for safety as a means to reduce the cost of flying.
Tammy took the controls for a good portion of the return flight, so although I acted as Pilot in Command for 2.9 hours (the entire flight), I only logged 2.4 hours of PIC time. See, you can only log PIC time for the time you are the sole manipulator of the flight controls. She did pretty good–we oscillated between 5400 and 5600 feet until we got to Longview, at which point she got it trimmed for level flight at 5500. I had her initiate the descent over Scappoose, enrichen the mixture, and level off at traffic pattern altitude in Hillsboro’s airspace. I took over the controls to fly the pattern and landed on runway 20 with a 4-knot crosswind.
After all that we were hungry, so we stuffed ourselves full of Indian food on the way home!
