A Trip to the Castle

Castle Airport in Merced, CA.

Working on Myself as a Pilot and a Person

Yesterday, January 31st, I finally was able to get back in the skies. It’d been a month since I’d flown last (on my 30th birthday) and after three trips (to Tahoe, Mexico City, and Vegas) and what seemed like a full month of rain, I was able to get back in the cockpit. My flying goal this year is to spend more time flying cross countries (flights over at least 50 nautical miles) and gain more hours. However, one of my personal growth goals this year is to learn to trust myself more. I worked on this from a language standpoint a couple of weeks ago on my trip to Mexico City and I decided to try something different yesterday to work on it from a pilot perspective.

Generally, several days before I go flying I already know exactly where I want to go or what I want to do. If I want to get my flying fix in but the weather doesn’t cooperate outside the Bay Area, then I generally just hang around the airport or do Bay Tour flights. But even those flights have been a little stressful for me. So yesterday I decided to book the plane and decide where I wanted to go by the time I got to the airport. My only goal was to fly somewhere for about an hour (one way) and fly back. So my options were Santa Rosa (STS) 71 nm, Merced – Castle (MER) 79nm, or Fresno (FAT) 120nm. I’d already been to STS and my college roomie wasn’t free to meet me there, so I had to choose between the last two. I eventually chose MER and performed all my preflight planning once I arrived at the airport.

While this may not seem like a big deal, generally I start all my preflighting the night before or the morning of my flights. And to be honest, I think I tend to overthink the whole experience. Granted, if I was going on a major cross-country down to Southern California then I would have taken this a bit more seriously, but the weather was perfect almost everywhere and I knew the route in my mind. So I didn’t need to spend so much time planning and overthinking.

The Arrival

I arrived at the airport at 2:30p, grabbed the keys, checked the weather, and penciled my map. After my preflight, I called Flight Service and received an abbreviated briefing. Now I thought about filing a flight plan, but I figured that I’d just use Flight Following so there wasn’t a need for the extra paperwork. My other goal on the flight was to get used to using the GPS 430 in the Archer III. So rather than wasting gas (and money) trying to figure it out, I used a few minutes prior to engine start to get comfortable with the flight planning setup. Then I was off…well not quite!

Sunday afternoons at Palo Alto Airport (PAO) are just crazy. It took me about 15 mins after completing my runup to get clearance to takeoff. At the time, there were eight of us aircraft on the ground and 4 in the sky….so the controller was definitely earning his paycheck. As I rolled onto the runway to position and hold, I asked the controller if he would provide the standby frequency for NorCal and he basically said, “I’ll get it you on the roll….Go!” Well I never quite got that handoff…even after climbing to 2500ft and being about 7 miles south of the airfield. As soon as I was able to get a word in, I requested a frequency change and switched to San Jose (SJC) Tower. They eventually cleared me into their airspace and switched me over to NorCal for my flight over South County (E16) and then to Merced.

Cruising at 6800ft and doing about 110 kias.

Above the mountains east of San Jose heading into the Valley.

I calmly climbed to about 6800 ft and cruised above the few scattered clouds that were hanging around 5000ft. It was such a nice day!  Not long after hitting my cruise altitude, NorCal cleared me direct to MER and headed over the mountains for a bit slightly north of the San Luis Resorvior before hitting the valley and the town of Gustine.

San Luis Resorvior - Near I-5.

It took me forever to locate Gustine airport but I finally did and began my descent to 2000ft prior to contacting MER tower. At MER, I was cleared for a left traffic approach to runway 31 and landed like I’d been flying everyday for the last 30 days. My approach was so smooth and landing was sweet. The runway at MER is 11,800ft and 150 ft wide, and this was the first time that I’d landed on a such a large runway, without flaring too high and sinking 2-4ft at landing.

Unlike PAO, Castle airport was pretty dead. I left PAO around 4:05 and arrived at MER at close to 5pm. So rather than shutting down and hanging around, I decided to just taxi back and head back to PAO. While taxiing, I told the controller that it was such a beautiful airport to be so empty and he radioed back and said, “Well, it was 1/8 mile visibility about six hours ago and that wasn’t so pretty.” Ha! Well it was gorgeous to me and definitely an airport I like to visit again to practice some landings.

Heading Back Over the Beautiful City

Runway 31 at Merced - Castle.

After departing runway 31, I headed back to PAO and requested flight following for the return leg. Now here’s something I learned on this flight. I told NorCal that I’d be heading back to South County and then to PAO, but as I approach Gustine I decided to climb to about 7000ft and fly direct over the mountains instead. However, it didn’t occur to me to tell NorCal of my change until he called me about halfway towards South County and asked when I’d be turning towards the airport. I politely said that I was just going to fly direct to PAO and asked if that’d be a problem. He didn’t seem bothered at all and said that I was cleared direct to overfly SJC at 3000ft.

Heading back into the Bay Area after sunset.

Now unfortunately, the only pictures I have of the flight back into the Bay are etched in my mind, but it was ABSOLUTELY BREATHTAKING! The sun had already gone down and the city lights were gleaming. On my left side, I was tracking a Southwest Airlines 737 flying final appraoch into SJC and at my 2 o’clock, I had a Gulfstream climbing through his departure. And there I was in my little Archer III with the cabin lights and instrument panel all lit up, while I was descending calmly through 5000ft down to 3000ft. I must have timed my descent perfectly, because I set the descent rate about 15-20 miles out and hit 3000ft right as I passed over SJC. I then radioed Moffett Tower and received clearance to descend to 1500ft. And as I reached Moffett, I was handed off to PAO and cleared for a straight-in approach to 31. I must have been in a zone, because I flew the glideslope nearly the whole way down at a constant approach speed of 70kts and was white on red until about the last 1/8 mile. The approach was so smooth that I even had the time and comfort to peak at the wing and view the approach as if I was passenger. And again the landing was like silk.

Until Next Time

2.2 hours later, I was back at PAO (around 6pm) and just felt so relaxed and rejuvenated. It was a great flight and I’m looking forward to my next excursion. Either I’ll fly down to the Central Coast and meet friends for a Saturday/Sunday overnight trip, or wake up one weekend and pick a spot on the map and fly to it. Either way, I feel like yesterday I become a much more comfortable pilot and took a large step to trusting myself more as a pilot and as a person. Gotta love it!