Lesson 31 - Night Cross Country to Lake Elmo!

Tonight was our night cross country to Lake Elmo. This was such a fun, but a bit nerve-racking experience. As beautiful as it was, I am not too enthusiastic about night flying. There is a whole lot of darkness below you, and in the event of an engine failure, although you might be able to set it down on an interstate, there are things like power lines, overpasses, cars, that are darn difficult to see until you are right on top of them. This experience has taught me that in an event of an emergency, your options are very limited. And we all know in my experience, engine problems CAN happen.

Keeping that in mind, we planned accordingly for our flight. We flew directly over I-94 all the way to Lake Elmo and back. So, we always had an option underneath us. I arrived at the airport early at 8:00 pm. That gave me plenty of time to preflight the plane (in the daylight), get an abbreviated weather briefing, finish out my flight plan calculations, and chat with Chris about what we were doing this evening and what to expect. We were going to be picking up flight following from Minneapolis Center right after exiting the Eau Claire pattern. This was neat, it's been a while since I have interacted with ATC radar services. We finally took off around 9:30 pm, there was an inbound medical flight on the radio passing in front of us right before take off. We then contacted ATC, so they looking after us on our way over to Lake Elmo. That paid off right away, we had traffic below us heading right at us, i.e. they were doing exactly what we would be doing on our return flight home. They advised us, we were able to locate them, and confirm it wasn't an issue. It's very nice having those extra set of eyes looking out after you. The first 15 minutes, I think I was a bit nervous, and it showed. I really wasn't overwhelmed with work, but I felt behind the plane, and it really showed when I busted my assigned altitude and flew way past it. Chris corrected me, and quickly pushed the plane back done to altitude. I had trouble maintaining altitude the rest of the leg, not sure exactly why, it was calm winds but I was drifting up a lot. The rest of the trip went by uneventful... Menomonie, Baldwin, Hudson. Around Hudson, ATC passed us off to approach control, which is on a different frequency, that caught me a little unprepared, but adjusted. I was able to pick out the Lake Elmo beacon a good 15 miles out. Did a simple downwind pattern entry, and a decent landing, but not great. At night, your vision really messes with you and it's difficult to judge when you should flare, so I landed with a bit of a thud. So, back taxi, and off we go again.

Again, pick up flight following. The return flight I was more comfortable. I felt much more ahead of the plane and nothing came as a surprise and I was prepared for each step. I seemed to have a much easier time holding the exact altitude too. The whole return trip was more relaxing and enjoyable, I felt much more in control. Until at least we were trying to spot Eau Claire Airport. I think part of it was that Chris was trying to point to the location. Having somebody point to a location while in the plane is nearly a fruitless exercise, your brain gets in the way. After trying for almost 5 minutes, we finally got close enough to flick on the runway lights, and the airport was a good 40 degrees left of where I was looking, no wonder why I couldn't find the beacon. Another complication of flying at night.

So, we landed on runway 4 to a full stop. We had 1.6 hours in for the cross country. Chris asked if I was up to do a few more stop-and-gos, and get another 0.4 so I can finish my night requirements. Absolutely! So, we did another 4 landings. Ticked over 2.0 hours total night time, and I have met the requirement. Woot!

We got some good weather ahead of us this week still, hoping to get a few cross countries done soon! Then onto test prep!