Airventure 2024 | Day 13

July 29 | Today will be the last day of my trip. I can’t wait to be home.

I am still on central time, so I’m awake at a little after four Pacific, which would be 6 am central. The breakfast won’t be ready until six, so I lie in bed for a while relaxing before getting up, getting dressed, packing and then filing my flight plan.

We file a flight plan so ATC starts looking for you if you don’t arrive at your destination while flying under VFR, or visual flight rules, and so you can fly through the air traffic control system in instrument conditions when you don’t have outside references. Much of the IFR flights are conducted in visual conditions to enable the controllers to track your location so they can keep you separated from other traffic.

Once I got used to working within the IFR ATC system, I found it much easier to fly cross country. Flying locally around home, there isn’t the same need to talk to ATC, although in a busy airspace like the Bay Area, it can be a useful resource for your own flight safety having ATC tell you about other aircraft flying in your vicinity.

But I digress.

I went down to the lobby to get something for breakfast, settling on a small cheese omelet and some fried potatoes. Again, I don’t have much appetite, so I don’t finish what I’ve brought back to my room, but I will be home soon.

The shuttle takes me back to the airport and I get the airplane ready as the pilot of the airplane tied down next to me does the same. I find out he and his passenger are headed to Reid Hillview Airport in San Jose, so I hear them talking to ATC along the route of my own flight.

The haze from the wildfires is thick enough that I can barely see the hills rising on each side of my route. My IFR flight will climb to 12,000’ again and will take me between those peaks. I finish my preflight, load the flight plan into my navigation radio, start up and taxi to the runway aiming west to take off.

As I climb, I am doing my first IFR hand flying of the trip. It takes a few moments to remember to scan my instruments, keep the wings level, turn to the direction of my route and continue a standard climb, all the while keeping an eye on the cylinder head and oil temperatures. It’s a bit sloppy, but as I settle down, the training comes back and I’m gratified that I can do a decent job of flying solely by instruments without depending on the autopilot.

I finally climb into thinner haze as I reach my flight level of 12,000’, turn on the oxygen and engage the autopilot for the last leg of the trip home. I know some people love this rugged country, but coming from Sonoma, with our lush, green spring and gently rolling hills, I would choose home over this stark but magnificent landscape. I know that as soon as I reach the Sierras, the landscape below me will become green and forested, with rivers running out of the mountain lakes into the central valley below.

My waypoints are Battle Mountain, Lovelock, Reno and Truckee, before descending out of the mountains to home. ATC calls and tells me that on my current course, I will need to climb to 14,000’ to clear the peaks around Truckee. The controller suggests an alternate waypoint and clears me to a point slightly south of my original route to keep me at 12,000’, then directly home.

As over Salt Lake, the airline traffic into and out of Reno is an amazing continuous flow of jets above and below me. The controllers let them know that a dinky, little Cessna if flying through the airspace and keeps them well away from me droning on toward home.

As I crest the peaks of the Sierras, the haze thins a bit, but the visibility is still very limited. I check my iPad running my Foreflight flight app to see if there are any other airplanes close or crossing my path. My first trips to Oshkosh were using traditional paper charts, with my route carefully drawn out in red pencil. Now my app has all the charts for the whole United States, I plot my course by touching, dragging and dropping, and I file my flight plan by tapping a few icons on the iPad, then uploading through an internet connection or my phone hot spot.

ATC steps me down to 6,000’ and I cancel IFR. They will follow me for another fifteen miles over the hills between Sacramento and Napa Valleys, then turn me loose. There is still some marine layer over Napa, but Sonoma Valley is clear. It’s bumpy as I come in over Skypark and check the wind direction, but I make a crosswind entry to left downwind for runway 26, go through my landing checklist, turn base and final, and set down on the runway at last.

I taxi up to the gas pump, shut down and climb out to be met by Robin, Bob and Piper the flying dog. After a masked hug and handshake, I refuel, taxi to the hangar, and Bob and Robin help me push the airplane inside after over 3200 nautical miles cross country.

COVID or not, it’s so good to be home.