Tonight we're doing a nighttime dual cross-country from MDW to Pontiac (PNT). The trip is 60 nautical miles, and after I've performed a stop and go landing at PNT, I will hopefully have completed my night flying requirement.Tom and I meet up in the Atlantic FBO lounge to look over my flight plan. I wanted to avoid mixing up my planned flightpath with other trips I have taken, so I used red pen to make my route easily distinguishable from others. There are a few airports we will be passing near on the way to PNT: Joliet (JOT) and Dwight (DTG). Tom advised that the only way to find airports at night is to look for the green and white flashing airport beacon; runway lights are practically useless unless the airplane is pointed straight toward the runway on final. DTG doesn't have a beacon, so it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to spot. I explain that most of the trip to PNT follows I-55, so I should have no trouble picking out my checkpoints in relation to the highway.
Just before we head out to the aircraft, I realize that I've forgotten my flashlight! When I flew with Kevin, he brought along his flashlight and it was instrumental in flying the airplane. I vowed that I would bring my flashlight tonight, but alas, I left it on my dining room table! Tom, thankfully, has an extra flashlight in his flight bag, and graciously lends it to me. We head out to the plane, good ol' 737ME.
The sun hangs low in the twilight sky as the fuel technician tops off the tanks. Preflight is uneventful, and the air is cool and calm as we roll out to Runway 4R and take off into the darkness. We've requested a heading of 220, but Tower can't give us the turn right away to ensure that we won't wind up in the approach path for the 4's. Tower initially gives us a heading of 240 and instructs us to remain clear of the approach path of the 4's. Within a few minutes, we overfly a stadium where some sort of live event is running. I can see magenta stage lights flashing; it looks like a rock concert. From what I can ascertain, I think this was a concert at Toyota Park in Bridgeview. Tom hoped that we hadn't missed a TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction), because aircraft are usually prohibited from flying over live events. If there were a TFR, I would have been informed of the restriction during my weather briefing. Of course, Tom called the briefer as well, and he wasn't informed of any TFR, either. Also, it is doubtful that Midway Tower would give us a heading of 240 if that heading put us in danger of busting a TFR. Perhaps they're just practicing down there... it's a little difficult to determine if there are people in the seats from this altitude. Shortly after passing the stadium, Tower gives us our desired heading of 220, and within five more minutes, we are clear of Midway's airspace. Tower tells us to squawk VFR and gives us permission to change radio frequencies.
"Squawk VFR" means to set our transponder to 1200, which is the code used for all VFR aircraft. When we squawk VFR, air traffic controllers are able to see the location of our aircraft and our altitude. The radar controllers are able to keep their aircraft away from our aircraft even though they are not in direct radio contact with us.
Climbing to our cruise altitude of 4,500 feet and scanning the ground for I-55. Within five minutes of expecting to see I-55, I still don't have it in sight. Did I pass it?
"I thought I would be able to see I-55 by now," I say to Tom.
"It's right down there!" Tom replies.
I look down where Tom is pointing. Well, I see a few headlights travelling on a road down there, but it isn't nearly what I expected a major interstate to look like. I continue looking at those lights, and then just next to them, I see some red brake lights travelling in the opposite direction.
Wow, I guess that's I-55. I thought it would be a lot easier to spot!
"It's so dark!" I exclaim.
"Don't forget that the highways aren't lit once they get out of the city. It's a divided country highway. You're not looking for streetlights; you're looking for headlights!"
I-55 was much more difficult to spot than I thought it would be. Within minutes of finally spotting the highway, I lost sight of it again. Two of my three checkpoints on the way to PNT are dependent on my ability to find I-55. This is going to be tricky.
"At night, towns make much better checkpoints than highways," Tom advised. "And you can pretty much forget about spotting railroads and rivers. It's just too dark down there."
We pass over the town of Braidwood, and I take out the flashlight to pick out my next checkpoint. It's the town of Dwight, right next to Dwight Regional Airport (DTG). After I finish looking at my sectional, I leave the flashlight on.
"Can you turn that flashlight off for awhile? It's really bright!" Tom asks.
I turn off the flashlight, and instantly see that Tom is right; it is much easier to see the lights of Braidwood with the flashlight off. However, when I attempted to check my VFR sectional for the frequency of the PNT VOR, I realized that I had made a terrible mistake! I had drawn my flight path on my sectional in red pen, and when my map was bathed in the red light of the Cessna cockpit, the flight path line was completely invisible!
"I guess red pen was a bad idea."
Thankfully, I do have Tom's flashlight to double-check my flight plan. If the flashlight were to go out, however, I would be unable to read my map! In aviation, it is very important to always have redundancies in place so that if you lose some sort of aircraft component, you can rely on its backup. I already have a handheld transceiver just in case my radio fails, and I always bring extra pens in case I drop a pen on the floor. And when I fly at night, I'm going to be sure to mark my sectional in black pen, and I'm going to bring not one, but two flashlights!
According to the time, I should be right near Dwight airport. Tom and I both look for it, and try to pick out the town of Dwight, but we just can't find it. I can tell from the VOR indicator that we are tracking the 220 inbound radial to PNT, so we are definitely in the right place.
"Some towns, even big ones, just aren't well lit," advises Tom. "Always have a backup plan in case you can't find the checkpoint you're looking for."
We continue on, and according to my flight plan and my checkpoints, I should be within 10 miles of the airport. PNT is an uncontrolled field with pilot-controlled lighting, so I tune the CTAF and click the microphone seven times to turn on the lights. I'm scanning the darkness ahead, but cannot see anything.
Finally, after a few minutes, Tom says, "I think I see the airport beacon. It's almost straight ahead."
I can see the lights for the town of Pontiac straight ahead, but I can't make out the airport beacon. Then, Tom starts calling out the colors of the airport beacon as he sees them to help my eyes focus in.
"Green. White. Green. White."
Finally, as Tom said "white" for the second time, my eyes catch the flashing white beacon in the distance. The town of Pontiac isn't very well lit, but the lights are enough to draw attention away from the extremely important airport beacon. Just as soon as I claimed to see the airport beacon, I lost it! But luckily, within a few seconds I was able to find the beacon again, and as I got closer, the beacon became clearer and clearer. And soon after that, I could make out the green runway threshold lights marking runway 6/24.
"I have the runway in sight," I say.
"Good. Me too. Make left traffic for runway 6," Tom instructs.
Descending to traffic pattern altitude, keeping an eye on the runway threshold, and when it passes, I begin my preparations for landing. As I turn final, however, I am greeted with a surprise.
"Whoa! I am way high!" I exclaim.
"I saw that coming," smiles Tom. "Your downwind was way too close to the runway, and you didn't have much of a base."
It's dark, I'm unfamiliar with the area, and I'm not sure exactly how long this runway is. The decision is simple.
"I'm going around," I say.
"Okay!" Tom replies.
As I turn crosswind, I make sure to go further out before turning downwind. And as I turn final, the sight picture looks terrific.
"Much better," Tom approves.
Throttle to idle, flaps to full, roundout to flare, and within a few seconds, the tires make a very satisfying squeak as they touch down on the runway. I'm right on the centerline, within a couple hundred feet of the threshold. Awesome.
"Come to a full stop on the runway. Don't use up more runway than you have to."
Steadily slowing down, and as I come to a stop on the runway, Tom asks, "How long did it take us to get here?"
"About 35 minutes," I say.
"And how much night flight time did you get with Kevin?"
"1.7 hours."
Tom does some quick mental arithmetic.
"Well, you need a total of 3 hours of night flight, and I don't want you to come up short. Do you want to do a couple takeoffs and landings in the pattern?"
"Sure!" I say.
"Good! Let's go around again. Carb heat in, flaps retract, and throttle to full!"
Two more landings in the pattern, both of them very good. I tell Tom that I need a minute to get my paperwork in order before we head back home. I pull off of the runway and taxi to the ramp. After a few minutes of flipping pages on my kneeboard, I'm ready to go. We backtaxi on Runway 6, and depart to the northeast.
I really enjoy the trip back to MDW because I am able to pick out my checkpoints from the other direction. I was never able to pick out the town of Dwight, but I had much more luck following I-55 to the northeast. Found Braidwood, and after what seemed like only a few more minutes, I noticed an airport beacon straight ahead.
"What beacon is that?" I wonder.
"What do you think it is?" Tom asks.
"Well, it's flashing green and white, so it's a public civilian airport."
"Yup," Tom agrees.
"But I don't see an airport at this point on the route."
"Well, what town is that?" Tom asks, pointing forward out the window.
I have no idea.
"Wow... that can't be Joliet... can it!?" I ask.
"Sure is! That's Joliet! And that's the city of Joliet to the north!"
That was fast! I check the clock, and sure enough, my flight plan verifies that we are approaching Joliet. I guess time flies when you're having fun.
We head straight to the east to ensure that we will remain clear of Midway's airspace until we can be sure to enter it directly from the south. We definitely don't want to approach the airport from the southwest because all of the arrivals are being vectored to Runway 4R, and it would be horrible to approach the airport directly underneath those arrivals. We contact Midway Tower, receive our squawk code, and turn toward Midway. Heading home.
I ask Tom about the "Nike Swoosh" that Kevin talked about, and Tom said that he has heard of the group of yellow streetlights that seem to make a large Nike swoosh symbol that points to the airport. However, Tom isn't exactly sure where it is. I never was able to find the Nike Swoosh.
Midway asked us to make a right base for Runway 4R, and keep our speed up. Just like last lesson. Descending to traffic pattern altitude with the throttle to full, pulling back to 2,100 RPMs in time to slow down, deploying flaps to full on final.
"This is going to be a short field landing," I say.
"Okay," Tom says.
None such luck. My speed was very good for the short field landing, but I was high on the approach. I touched down on Runway 4R about 500 feet further down the runway than I wanted to, and slowed down to exit right at F.
"We've got to work on your short field and soft field landings," Tom advises. "You're just not being precise enough."
We taxi to parking, and I shut down the aircraft. Tom reads the Hobbs clock (the meter which reports how long the plane has been running).
"2.4 hours. Just a tenth over."
My mind does some quick arithmetic. Something isn't right.
"Uh, Tom? I had 1.7 hours last time. 2.4 hours more equals 4.1 total. I only needed 3."
Tom freezes for a moment and looks at me in disbelief. It's not very often that Tom looks perplexed.
"Oops... you're right. I guess we didn't need to do those go-arounds in the pattern!"
Apparently Tom was thinking that I needed 2.3 hours, when in fact I only needed 1.3. It's not really a big deal. Before I can meet my long range goal of earning the Certified Flight Instructor certificate, I'm going to need 250 hours in the airplane and I'm going to have to earn my Commercial certificate. After tonight's lesson, I have a little bit less than 50 hours. 200 hours to go, so it doesn't really matter whether I earn them now or later.
And with that, my night requirement is complete! I don't really feel comfortable flying a cross-country at night by myself, and I confessed this to Tom.
"Oh, I didn't feel good about night flying until well after I got my license. The trick is to make night flights to places you are familiar with until you become more comfortable with it. Once you have your license, you'll be legal to fly at night, but you better be careful and avoid biting off more than you can chew."
Another example where "legal" doesn't necessarily mean "safe".
I enjoyed night flying, but I'm going to need more experience before I can claim to feel comfortable. Next lesson, we're going to do one more dual cross-country, and if all goes well, I'll do my first solo cross-country soon after! Every lesson brings me closer to the ultimate goal!
- Airman Eric
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