Agua Dulce - LAX / Cessna 152 (N705YL) / VFR

This was a very short flight that took a long time, thanks to the fact that I was flying a pokey little Cessna 152. One thing I can say about this aircraft is that you have plenty of time to plan ahead. It's really hard to “get behind” an aircraft that is only making 90 knots on a good day. You can see the field for hours—days—before you reach it, like a picture on a wall.

As I'm accustomed to flying something a bit more performant, I often make things worse in the 152. For example, several miles from the field, I'm at full flaps and Vref—the only problem is that this configuration has me flying at about 50 knots, and it takes forever to reach the field at 50 knots. So I'm puttering along and looking at my watch and wondering when I'll actually get close enough to land. I need to remember to keep the gas pedal floored, so to speak, until I'm practically on top of the airport, and then slow down for landing.

Most of the ATC I deal with only sees a 152 once in a blue moon, so they probably are surprised by its slowness, too. VFR is much less common on VATSIM than in real life, and Cessna 152s are perhaps the least common of relatively recent GA aircraft to be seen.

Anyway, I finally got into LAX, drifting downwards onto the runway while big iron roared around me in every direction. The landing was glassy smooth and took place at just over walking speed. I'm sure the overpowered jets around me were grinding their teeth with impatience. At least in the USA tiny planes still have the right to land at big airports. In snooty Europe the controllers would probably just laugh at a Cessna 152 asking to land at CDG or Heathrow (in fact, Heathrow, at least, specifically prohibits it).

Aspen - Phoenix - Sedona - Scottsdale - Montgomery / Cessna Citation X (N725YL) / IFR

Yup, I've been all over the place in my various Citations lately, testing things out, getting used to the aircraft, etc. I find myself mostly flying the Eaglesoft version of the Citation, for various reasons. N725YL is one of the Eaglesoft variants.

The flight from Aspen to Sky Harbor took longer than I anticipated, mainly because of strong headwinds at altitude. I know I should have checked the winds before departure, but I loaded so much fuel (more than twice the amount I thought I might need) that headwinds were nothing more than an extra expense. I had to put up with 70-knot headwinds practically the whole way. They were present from FL190 up to FL420 or so, so it was hard to fly above or below them. Even at the impressive speed of the Citation, it still took two hours to get to Phoenix, which is more than twice what I could expect under ideal conditions in still air.

Later I flew from Sky Harbor up to Sedona. That was quick and easy. Landing went okay. After a short time I flew back to Scottsdale. I was surprised when the controller at SDL had me enter the pattern, since I was IFR, but that's okay, as visual conditions prevailed.

From Scottsdale I finally flew out to Montgomery, not realizing at the time that the Citation exceeds the published weight limits for the airport. I managed to escape any penalties, but I haven't yet moved the aircraft from that field. The runway is a bit on the short side so it may be a challenge to fly out of there.

Latest flights

These past days I've not had as much time as before to log my flights. As you might expect, my first priority is to fly, and then log when time permits. So I've done a lot of flying, but not much logging. I guess it's not too much of a problem, given that nobody reads this blog, anyway. But I'll try to summarize recent activity.

I've been practicing a lot with both the Eaglesoft Citation X and the Wilco Citation X. These are two very excellent add-on models of the legendary Cessna Citation X business jet, which is the fastest civilian aircraft in the world right now. Flying both of the add-ons gives some interesting insight into what's realistic and what isn't. That is, both models follow the real aircraft slavishly, but there are tiny differences in the implementation that reflect development choices and/or specific information sources.

The add-ons have their differences, but overall they are so similar that it's hard to call one better than the other. The Wilco Citation has throttles that are very difficult to set to fuel cutoff, for example, but the Eaglesoft Citation has tiny controls on the pedestal that are hard to manipulate. Both models, though, simulate the behavior of the real aircraft—the differences are often just in the ergonomy of the model. Another example of this is the availability of “pop-up” displays on the Wilco model, whereas they are not available on the Eaglesoft model. There are differences in the details of how the FMS behave on each model, too—but then again, that can be true from one revision to another on the FMS of the real Citation, too!

Anyway, I've been flying these all over the place. Most of my time so far is on the Eaglesoft, but I'm trying to build some up on the Citation. Both are fun to fly, and since they are modeled after the real thing, they both behave in pretty much the same way, except for the sim-specific ergonomics that I mention above. Time will tell which one I prefer. I rationalize the two models by pretending that they are two slightly different revisions of the real aircraft (the differences between them are so small that this is entirely plausible).

I've been doing a lot of flights in the Great American Southwest, as usual. The Citation X fills an important niche, so I've been putting a lot of hours in with this aircraft. I do occasionally fly my Dakota or Baron, too, as well as the Bonanza (although it's been a while for that aircraft—I should take it for a spin), and my three Cessnas, the 152, 172, and 182. Not much big iron lately, though.

Individual flights lately have been too numerous to describe individually here. Overall I'm still improving at hand-flying the larger aircraft; I don't have any trouble at all with the prop aircraft, even without an autopilot. Large aircraft are different beasts and you really have to stay ahead of them, but to some extent they all resemble each other, so skills transfer reasonably well.

My fleet has grown to the point that I can constantly rotate through different types of aircraft, which gives me broad flying experience and lots of interesting variety. And I've become quite an old hand at ATC communications, so that goes pretty smoothly. Simulation gets better every day!

Catching up

I'm very much behind on logging flights, but I'm definitely not behind on flying. Lately I've been flying all over the place, mostly in one of my Piper Dakotas, or in one of my Cessna Citation X bizjets.

I've lost track of the places I've been, I'm afraid. I've been around Wickenburg and Phoenix a lot with one of the Dakotas (N9708W), then up to Sedona, down to Phoenix, up to Payson, and so on. Right now that Dakota is parked in Phoenix, after a flight up to Payson and back. The flight up to Payson was a bit awkward, as I ended up following I-17 at dusk, instead of Highway 87, and got way off track. The trip back down to Phoenix was easier, mainly because I decided to just make a beeline to PXR at 8500 instead of bothering with pilotage in the darkness.

I've been around a bit in another Dakota (N9706W), too, and it's currently parked in Van Nuys after a short trip from Santa Paula.

Most recent activity, though, has been in one of my Citations, N7446A. Eaglesoft came out with its much-awaited FMS update, and now the full FMS works in the aircraft. I've been flying my virtual family to and fro for several days.

For example, I picked up my parents at Montgomery, then flew them up to Van Nuys, where we met up with my aunt and uncle. From there it was off to Sin City—fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada—where we picked up another aunt and uncle. Then I flew them all down to Phoenix. The Citation is so amazingly fast that this was practical in just one day. I then flew the Citation to San Diego, picked up my sister and brother-in-law, and flew them to Phoenix as well. Then, last night, I flew everyone to Las Vegas (the Citation will hold eight passengers). So I've been putting a lot of hours on that airframe. There are still a few bugs in Eaglesoft's model, but for the most part it flies really well, and is a pleasure to pilot.

I tend to reserve the daylight hours for VFR flights, and evenings for IFR. Yesterday afternoon, I took one of my Cessna 152s back to Phoenix from Lake Havasu. Talk about contrast, after flying the Citation! I planned the shortest route I could, essentially east to Highway 93 and then down through Wickenburg and back to Phoenix … and it still took nearly 2 hours, at an exceptionally lame 80 knots. And with no autopilot I had to keep my eyes out the window and/or on the instruments. The few times I looked away to check a chart, by the time I looked back I was well into a slow left turn.

Then in the evening it was back to the Citation, for a trip to Las Vegas. That took only about 40 minutes, and went very smoothly. I sometimes reach 650 mph over the ground in the Citation—about seven times faster than the 152. Amazing that both aircraft were built by Cessna!

I have more trips in the Citation planned for the coming day or so, as I redistribute family members back to their homes. But during the day I plan some VFR and pilotage … I'm getting better at it all the time.

Phoenix - Sky Ranch - Wickenburg - Phoenix / Piper Dakota (N9708W) / VFR

At the request of virtual friends who needed a lift, I made a very short flight from Sky Harbor (KPHX) to Sky Ranch (18AZ). Sky Ranch is a small, private airpark in Carefree. I've been there several times so I know the way: unless traffic dictates otherwise, it's usually just a matter of turning north after departure and crossing Scottsdale Municipal, then going up a bit further to Carefree. It's a lot faster in the airplane than on the ground.

From Sky Ranch, I then flew northwest to Wickenburg, sliding beneath the Class B and then following Highway 60 up to E25. Then, in the evening, I returned to Phoenix, landed long on 26, and parked on the northwest ramp instead of at Cutter.

Marcus (Ajo) - Phoenix / Piper Dakota (N9708W) / VFR

I decided to return from exciting Ajo to only-slightly-less-boring Phoenix, via a southerly route that avoided the restricted areas on three sides of Marcus airport, the airport that serves Greater Ajo. As it was, my left downwind departure was perilously close to these areas, although I think I managed to stay clear of them.

I proceeded back down to Ajo, only a short distance from the airport, then turned to 079 or so to head east. When I intercepted the 198 radial out of Stanfield (TFD), I turned onto that, went to TFD, then contacted Phoenix Approach and turned towards PXR. ATC gave me vectors and altitudes before I reached the Class B, which is a bit odd, but VATSIM controllers handle such a preponderance of IFR traffic that they seem to forget VFR procedures. Similarly, I was cleared for a visual approach to 25L, whereas strictly speaking I should have been directed into the pattern instead. I didn't say anything, as I got safely down onto the ground either way.

I landed a bit long to save time, but then drove past the taxiway to Cutter while I was trying to set my trim back to neutral, so I had to make a U-turn on Hotel to get to the FBO. Other than that, all went well. When I parked, the last bits of light from sunset were disappearing from the sky to the west. The weather was good, apart from intense heat.

Tucson - Ajo / Piper Dakota (N9708W) / VFR

(I've skipped a couple of unremarkable flights.)

After having come down to Tucson earlier in the day, I decided to go wandering along Highway 86 to the west, through parts of Arizona I've never been to before. The highway passes through some towns with really bizarre names, like Haivana Nakya, Chiawuli Tak, Vainom Kug, Maish Vaya, and Wahak Hotrontk—I assume these are aboriginal American names (Tohono O'odham?), since they don't look like any European languages I'm familiar with. The first part of my route also took me just north of Kitt Peak, with its 23 different telescopes.

There wasn't much to see, which is typical of all southern Arizona, but at least it was scenery I had never seen before—a different expanse of dirt and cactus, in other words. Following the highway was pretty easy, except in a couple spots where several roads split off in different directions.

I considered landing at Sells for a stopover, but ultimately decided to just continue on non-stop to Marcus Airport just north of the exciting town of Ajo, Arizona. I had to be reasonably careful when approaching the airport because there are restricted areas on three sides, including R-2301E and R-2305, which are only a bit more than a mile from the airport.

Landing was uneventful, as you'd expect for a deserted airport just north of Ajo, Arizona.