Can you place the title? I know a few of my readers will be able to. The song came into my mind as I was landing on my final cross country of stage 2. I needed 3.7 hours to finish up and as I shut the engine down, I smiled to myself as I noted I had completed 3.8 hours flight time. I also had completed my 5 additional stop-and-go's at a towered airport at night. I was all set to jet! (That is a figurative form of speech, I will not be able to fly jets for another few years.)
I had planned a flight to Hays, Hutchinson, and back. I have attached a photo on the bottom. As you can see the red line was my planned flight route, and the blue was my actual route of light. And that yellow box that is smack dab in the middle of where I was planning to fly? That is an MOA (Military Operations Area), or Monkeys On Assignment. As I took off into the sunset, I did my regular routine of filing a flight plan and contacting Wichita Approach who then handed me off to Kansas City Center (KCC).
"Niner Hotel Charlie, the Bison and Smoky MOA's are active including the Restricted Airspace west of Salina, were you planning on going through that?" I now had a choice. I could fly through the MOA but I wouldn't receive any radar service because KCC didn't want to be responsible for any abrupt encounters with an F-18 or two. Or I could go around north of the MOA to Hays, which I chose to do because it would add some time to my flying, time I needed to get done. I did some rough fuel calculations and determined I had enough for this detour and back to Newton with remaining reserves to spare.
The detour was pleasant enough, and included flying over a huge wind farm. I always find wind farms interesting at night. All of the windmills have red blinking anti-collision lights on top of them, and they all blink at exactly the same time. It looks like a pulsating field of red orbs. I did some stop-and-go's at Hays and then headed to Hutchinson. I pulled out my AF/D and realized that, with the time change, the tower at Hutch was now closed. Angry at myself for not realizing this, I informed KCC I wanted to head to Salina and do some stop-and-go's there. I headed back around the Big Blunder of an MOA (BBOAMOA) and did my 5 at Salina. As I landed the first time, I smelled jet fuel. As I was taking off again I noticed two F-18's sitting on the apron taking on fuel. So you are the guys who were hoggin' the airspace. I thought to myself. However, in the long run I wasn't too upset. These series of events turned a supposed 2 hr flight into a 3.8, just enough for what I needed. I was glad I didn't need to fly another one and was able to now move ahead.
In the coming days I will be flying lots of dual flight with my instructor to finish up stage 2. Some of this will include flying actual IFR with my instructor for more practice. Stay tuned for more posts!
