Why they make airplanes
We hopped in the 182RG Saturday morning bound for Milwaukee to catch a couple of Twins games.
I filed ONA-DLL at 7,000 to avoid the big MOA over central Wisconsin, got my clearance and was wheels up at 11 a.m.
Minneapolis Departure vectored us around a bit but soon turned us on course to Winona and cleared us up to 7,000. Center asked if we wanted direct Milwaukee Timmerman, which of course we did. The route took us almost directly over Volk Field and the tops of the scattered layer that was below us were rising.
I called Center and asked for 9,000, which he couldn't do because of traffic so we compromised on 8,000. That only kept us out of the tops for a few minutes and for the next 100 miles I was in and out of the tops. They were still pretty tame that early in the day, so the ride wasn't too bad and I was happy to log some actual IMC, albeit in 30-second to 1-minute spurts.
(Got Google Earth? Here's my .KML file.)
It would have been a tricky VFR flight: Either bounce around below the clouds or climb on top and hope they didn't close up on you while worrying about busting somebody's airspace.
IFR it was a piece of cake and I was glad to finally put my hard-earned instrument rating to use.
We had a nice tailwind (ground speeds were varying between 170 and 176 knots the whole trip) and landed on 22 at Timmerman with winds 270 at 25 knots, gusting to 30.
The nice folks at Gran-Aire had our rental car ready so we loaded the bags, signed for the car, double-checked that they'd hangar the RG and were on our way in 5 minutes.
Total time from engine start to shut-down, about 2 hours.
We got lunch, took a nap and met some friends in the parking lot of Miller Park for some tailgating.
They kept asking about the flight and I felt bad that I didn't have anything interesting to say about it at the time.
It was just that the whole trip was so routine, about all I could say was "Well, it took about two hours." "Yeah, we flew through some clouds." "About 200 bucks." "Nope, no traffic jams. You spent an hour stopped on I-94? Bummer."
The Twins beat the Brewers that night 16-10 so it was pretty much a perfect day.
We caught the day game on Sunday and watched the bullpen squander a good first start by the man with the best name in baseball: Boof Bonser.
The game ended a little before 4 p.m. And we were out of the stadium, through traffic and at the airport by 5. I checked the weather and filed direct back to Crystal. I figure if ATC has different ideas they'll tell me and there's not much sense in guessing.
I took my time pre-flighting the RG to give my flight plan time to get into the system and we started the big Lycoming at 5:35. I picked up my clearance from Timmerman Ground: Cleared to Crystal via radar vectors (sweet, I don't even need to navigate!), maintain 3,000 expect 6,000 10 minutes after departure.
Wheels up at 5:45 and the tower immediately cleared us to turn left on course and handed us off to Milwaukee Departure who cleared us up to 6,000 a few minutes later.
Milwaukee handed us off to Madison Approach who handed us off to Volk Approach (I didn't realize they had an approach control). Volk gave us some minor vectoring around some restricted airspace, had us climb to 7,000 and then turned us over to Minneapolis Center.
Center gave us a crossing restriction that I thought was interesting: Cross 50 miles east of Crystal at 4,000. Filing /G sure does open up all sorts of possibilities. The air was smooth so I just pushed the nose over and let the airspeed build.
Minneapolis Approach vectored us over the Lake Elmo airport at 3,000 then cleared us direct Crystal. We dodged some traffic that appeared to fly directly over or even in-between the Shoreview Antennas and then landed in the still evening air.
I tucked the RG into its hangar, wiped the bugs off and we were home by 8:30.
Airplanes really are time machines. I'm still fascinated by the possibilities they hold and awed when I get to fly them in a way that takes full advantage of their strengths.
I filed ONA-DLL at 7,000 to avoid the big MOA over central Wisconsin, got my clearance and was wheels up at 11 a.m.
Minneapolis Departure vectored us around a bit but soon turned us on course to Winona and cleared us up to 7,000. Center asked if we wanted direct Milwaukee Timmerman, which of course we did. The route took us almost directly over Volk Field and the tops of the scattered layer that was below us were rising.
I called Center and asked for 9,000, which he couldn't do because of traffic so we compromised on 8,000. That only kept us out of the tops for a few minutes and for the next 100 miles I was in and out of the tops. They were still pretty tame that early in the day, so the ride wasn't too bad and I was happy to log some actual IMC, albeit in 30-second to 1-minute spurts.
(Got Google Earth? Here's my .KML file.)It would have been a tricky VFR flight: Either bounce around below the clouds or climb on top and hope they didn't close up on you while worrying about busting somebody's airspace.
IFR it was a piece of cake and I was glad to finally put my hard-earned instrument rating to use.
We had a nice tailwind (ground speeds were varying between 170 and 176 knots the whole trip) and landed on 22 at Timmerman with winds 270 at 25 knots, gusting to 30.
The nice folks at Gran-Aire had our rental car ready so we loaded the bags, signed for the car, double-checked that they'd hangar the RG and were on our way in 5 minutes.
Total time from engine start to shut-down, about 2 hours.
We got lunch, took a nap and met some friends in the parking lot of Miller Park for some tailgating.
They kept asking about the flight and I felt bad that I didn't have anything interesting to say about it at the time.
It was just that the whole trip was so routine, about all I could say was "Well, it took about two hours." "Yeah, we flew through some clouds." "About 200 bucks." "Nope, no traffic jams. You spent an hour stopped on I-94? Bummer."
The Twins beat the Brewers that night 16-10 so it was pretty much a perfect day.
We caught the day game on Sunday and watched the bullpen squander a good first start by the man with the best name in baseball: Boof Bonser.
The game ended a little before 4 p.m. And we were out of the stadium, through traffic and at the airport by 5. I checked the weather and filed direct back to Crystal. I figure if ATC has different ideas they'll tell me and there's not much sense in guessing.
I took my time pre-flighting the RG to give my flight plan time to get into the system and we started the big Lycoming at 5:35. I picked up my clearance from Timmerman Ground: Cleared to Crystal via radar vectors (sweet, I don't even need to navigate!), maintain 3,000 expect 6,000 10 minutes after departure.
Wheels up at 5:45 and the tower immediately cleared us to turn left on course and handed us off to Milwaukee Departure who cleared us up to 6,000 a few minutes later.
Milwaukee handed us off to Madison Approach who handed us off to Volk Approach (I didn't realize they had an approach control). Volk gave us some minor vectoring around some restricted airspace, had us climb to 7,000 and then turned us over to Minneapolis Center.
Center gave us a crossing restriction that I thought was interesting: Cross 50 miles east of Crystal at 4,000. Filing /G sure does open up all sorts of possibilities. The air was smooth so I just pushed the nose over and let the airspeed build.
Minneapolis Approach vectored us over the Lake Elmo airport at 3,000 then cleared us direct Crystal. We dodged some traffic that appeared to fly directly over or even in-between the Shoreview Antennas and then landed in the still evening air.
I tucked the RG into its hangar, wiped the bugs off and we were home by 8:30.
Airplanes really are time machines. I'm still fascinated by the possibilities they hold and awed when I get to fly them in a way that takes full advantage of their strengths.
posted by Will at 9:51 AM
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