Today was the day! My first landings at another field. My CFI informed me we would be heading to Dutchess County (POU) today. We headed to the classroom to brief for the flight.
We broke out the sectional and examined our route of flight. I was told we would be departing DXR to the west and intercepting the Carmel VOR’s 340° radial. This would take us more or less direct to POU. On the way back we would tune the Kingston VOR and fly the 150° radial back to Danbury. We also discussed pilotage options — basically, following some prominent interstate highways that led from Danbury to Poughkeepsie. I was excited — I had been planning for this flight for a few days now and felt like I was ready.
The mood was lighthearted as I taxied out to runway 26. It was a frigid day so we were expecting good climb performance out of ol’ N1727V. I lined up on the runway and performed the takeoff, holding runway heading until 1,500 feet.
I turned on a heading of 300° and continued climbing to our planned altitude of 3,000 feet. Once we were out of Danbury’s airspace we tuned Dutchess tower and settled into cruise. I was happy to have some time flying (mostly) straight and (mostly) level — all of this rapid fire action in the pattern recently had left me yearning for some cruise flight. I worked on keeping the plane in trim and pointed somewhat on course.
As the CDI needle crept towards center I started turning to intercept the radial. We flew the 340° radial until we were getting close to the airport — it’s only about 25nm from DXR so it didn’t take too long! I called POU tower around 10 miles out and they told me to join a left downwind for runway 24.
We started our descent to pattern altitude of 1,200 feet and my instructor pointed out some ground references to keep me on track. We entered the downwind, slowed the plane down, and turned to base where we were given clearance to land. I turned on final and was presented with a PAPI (precision approach path indicator) — a visual indicator of proper glide slope that sits to the side of the runway. I tried to adjust my descent to keep the PAPI lights in the proper configuration. There are four lights on a PAPI — two white and two red mean you are on a perfect glide slope. If you get three or four white lights it means you are above the slope, three or four red mean you are below. We came in for a rather sloppy landing as I still have some issues keeping the plane centered on final.
After landing we turned off the runway and cleaned up the plane. We taxied back to runway 24 and I requested permission from tower to takeoff. I had a momentary bout of confusion on the radio — I am so used to flying out of Danbury the different taxiways and runway numbers threw me for a bit of a loop. Soon we were taking off of 24 and flying the POU pattern.
We did another landing, this time a touch and go. I can’t say this landing was any better than the first. Another lap in the pattern — another touch and go and we were back in the air. My instructor told tower we’d be coming in for one more landing and then heading back to Danbury.
One last sloppy landing later and we were heading home, tracking direct to the Kingston VOR. I got my first view of a VOR station from the air. We overflew the VOR as my instructor pointed out the cone of confusion, that area where the CDI needle can’t be trusted as you come directly over the station. I used line of sight to estimate where the 150° radial would take us and held the plane on that track. As we came out of the cone of confusion, I was pleased to see the needle center, confirming I was on the right course.
We called Danbury tower and were given a right traffic pattern for runway 26 as I brought us back to our home turf. I got a bit disoriented approaching the airport as my normal points of reference were all mixed up. Eventually I had us back on the ground with another crappy landing and we taxied back to the ramp.
My landings still need a lot of work, but I felt pretty good about navigating to a different airport and logging my first non-DXR landings. I left the airport today feeling a real sense of accomplishment — even though it was a very short trip, I had successfully navigated to another airport and back! Another five takeoffs and landings for the logbook.
Flight time today: 1.2 hours
Total flight time to date: 18.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 40
Total landings to date: 36