Day 3 began with a cloudy morning once again, so the 8 am session became a ground lesson on flight planning. We planned a theoretical flight to Fleming Mason airport (FGX) in Flemingsburg, Kentucky. We went through calculating weight and balance, cruise performance, and compass headings. This took up a good part of the first session, and the rest was spent checking the weather.
The second session was at noon, and this time I was flying with a different instructor, Ken. Our mission was to learn how to take off and land on soft runways and short runways. Ken's teaching style is much different than Matt's and it took some time to learn what he expected from me. It was more stressful trying to learn with a new instructor, but at the same time, it was a good thing. Learning the same thing from two different teachers gives you two different perspectives, which can lead to a better understanding of the subject. One teacher's explanation may make more sense to you than the other's. We didn't have much time, so we only got in 3 landings, but I fly with him again tomorrow, so it's likely that we will practice more.
The final flight of the day was at 4 pm with Matt. He gave me a choice on what to practice. We could fly out to the practice area and practice stalls, slow flight, and ground reference maneuvers; we could stay at the airport and practice landings; or we could fly that theoretical flight we had planned earlier. I chose the last option, because I had not yet flown to another airport. After preflighting the aircraft, we took off and headed south. We navigated using pilotage, determining our location by using landmarks on the ground. Everything went well, and we passed each checkpoint right on time.
Once we were about 10 miles out from Fleming Mason, we tuned the radio in to the weather broadcast at the airport. As we switched on the speaker, we caught the tail end of the broadcast, "...closed for construction from Thursday, August 18 at 8 am until Friday, August 19 at 7 pm."
"What was closed?" Matt asked.
"I didn't catch it," I replied.
The broadcast started again, beginning with the weather information and continuing with an announcement. "The Fleming Mason airport is closed for construction from Thursday, August 18 at 8 am until Friday, August 19 at 7 pm."
"It's the whole airport," I said.
"We probably should have checked the NOTAMs."
Matt pulled out his phone and checked the latest NOTAMs, which are the Notices to Airmen. "Yup. There it is."
"We have to land somewhere for it to be a cross-country flight, don't we?
"Well this wasn't technically supposed to be a cross-country, because the destination has to be at least 50 nautical miles away. Want to make it a cross country?"
"Let's do it!"
"Alright. How much fuel do we have?"
"Let's see. 15 gallons in each tank, so 30 gallons total, 7 gallons per hour, so we have a little over 4 hours of fuel left."
"I like it. Put KSYM in the GPS."
I dialed in KSYM, the Morehead-Rowan County Thomas Regional Airport in Morehead, Kentucky, and we continued south. The GPS not surprisingly led us right to the airport, where we landed, turned around, and took off again. We simply retraced our path back to Clermont County airport (I69) where we started. It was about a 45 minute flight one way, and soon we were back on the ground at Clermont County.
A few things about this flight really stuck out to me. First, I'm pretty sure I'll remember to check NOTAMs before I fly somewhere now. Second, I learned how lowered visibility can affect navigation, since the visibility was only 5 miles or so. Third, and lastly, I learned just how busy the pilot can be on a cross country flight. Navigating, scanning for other traffic, managing the radios, and most importantly, flying the plane does not leave much time for anything else.
Today's flying added 2.4 hours and 5 landings to the logbook, which brings the totals to 14.2 hours and 38 landings.
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