Pilot Life: Night Cross-Country Flight to Ogden

One week ago, I flew my first cross-country flight during daylight hours. Earlier this evening I flew my first cross-country flight, at night, into Salt Lake City's Class Bravo airspace, to do many touch-and-go landings at the Ogden-Hinckley Airport. Being my second night flight AND second cross-country flight overall, this was one of the coolest experiences I've had in flight training to date. Not only that, but I'm off all week this week for the Thanksgiving break and this was a great way to spend one of my days off just prior to the start of the holiday season. In complete honesty, this was almost last minute because my flight instructor and I were supposed to do this flight a few days ago but bad weather prevented us from going when scheduled. So we had to jump at the opportunity when it presented itself and tonight was the perfect time to go.

The only problem was that my regular flight instructor had another student who had to do his night cross-country flight as well. As a result, I ended up flying with another flight instructor employed at UVU. This worked out well because that way, my flight instructor didn't have to do two night cross-country flights in the same day and save him some work and a lot of hassle. This also allowed me the opportunity to broaden my learning and receive instruction from a different instructor; it was great for him too, because he didn't have much going on and him agreeing to take me up was a good excuse for him to go flying! It was a win-win situation (no pun intended!)!

After my temporary instructor and I got acquainted, we went out to the airplane and conducted the preflight checks; we elected to split preflight duties between the two of us in order to save time and get airborne sooner. After we were done, we hopped in the airplane, went over the crew briefings, got the engine turned over and started up, and we began taxiing as instructed by the ground controller. My instructor would handle the radios for the flight so I could focus on the flying and see how flights into Class Bravo airspace was like. We taxied out to the run-up area and did the usual run-ups. After the run-ups showed the systems looking good, my instructor called the tower and requested takeoff clearance. We were cleared after my regular instructor, who was flying with another student in another DA-20 got airborne. I taxied onto the runway, lined up on the center line, throttled the engine power forward and we got rolling.

N879CT, "Wolf 08," the DA-20 that I went up in with my temporary instructor.

Once at rotate speed, I pulled back on the stick and got the airplane airborne. After passing the end of the runway, we made a right turn and flew the right-traffic pattern and headed north towards Salt Lake City. My instructor then contacted the approach controller in Salt Lake on the radio in order to receive clearance into the busy Bravo Airspace surrounding the Salt Lake-area. In the United States, as well as throughout the world, airspace is divided into certain classifications depending on whatever criteria or stats they have. Class Bravo (written as Class B) Airspace usually surrounds the busiest airports in the country based on the number IFR operations and passengers served, and Salt Lake is one of them. Other Class B airspace in the country I can think of are Seattle, and Los Angeles. For those of you who were wondering, Provo is Class Delta (Class D) airspace! In order to legally fly into Class B airspace, the approach controller has to clear you (in other words, grant permission) to enter (and they have to say the word "'clear' into Class Bravo airspace."). My instructor made the request and we were cleared to enter the Salt Lake Class B airspace and we proceeded into the busy airspace. I was in full control of the airplane but at the same time, I also observed what my instructor was doing with the radios and I was listening carefully to what he was saying during transmissions between us and the ground controllers during our transit through Class B airspace.

En route to Ogden, we overflew downtown Salt Lake City and passed the Salt Lake City International Airport; we flew north while staying east of the Interstate as requested by air traffic control so we wouldn't interfere with the commercial traffic flying into and out of the major airport. Once past the major airport, we eventually descended out of Class B airspace parameters and we were quickly approaching Ogden. My instructor then walked me through the approach and he made radio contact with the tower controller at Ogden-Hinckley Airport, who set us up for pattern work and cleared us for a touch-and-go for Runway 16, which is the second-longest runway there out of three runways. We made multiple rounds in the pattern for Runway 16; seven approaches to be exact! We initially shared the pattern with my regular flight instructor and his student in the other DA-20, but they eventually flew back south to Provo while we stayed in the pattern. We were alone in the pattern at that point, and every time we made our approach, the tower controller at Ogden cleared us for a touch-and-go; we didn't even have to report mid-field downwind in the pattern!

Flying over the Salt Lake area on the way back to Provo.

After we made our seventh touch-and-go landing, we decided to head back south towards Provo. That also meant navigating through Salt Lake's Bravo airspace again. The tower controller at Ogden then handed us off to the control tower at (wait for it!) Hill Air Force Base, much to my surprise. The way I figure it, we needed to contact them to let them know we were in the area passing through. My instructor made radio contact with the Air Force controllers and we were directed to remain above or west of the Interstate while we passed Hill Air Force Base. While in the area, we were cautioned regarding wake turbulence from an Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker that landed at Hill.

This is what I love about flying, especially when you see nothing but gridlock on the Interstate!

Eventually, we got handed off to the approach controller at Salt Lake and once again, we got clearance to enter Class Bravo airspace from said controller. Again, we passed through the area by staying east of the Interstate, especially when we were by Salt Lake City International Airport. We also passed by downtown Salt Lake City again, where I attempted (but failed) to get descent night shots on my cell phone camera after handing over control to my instructor momentarily. At the altitude we were flying at, we weren't in Class B airspace parameters for a long time. We were then directed by the approach controller to navigate to the point of South Mountain located between Draper, Higland, and Alpine. As we continued southbound, Provo eventually came into view and we got approval to change radio frequencies over to the tower there.

Glad I was up there rather than down there!

My instructor contacted the Provo Tower controller, who cleared us to land on Runway 13, the same runway we departed from earlier in the evening. We made our approach from the north over Utah Lake, in essence one of the longest final approaches I've made since this was just straight in. It was a routine approach and landing for the most part. We made this a touch-and-go and decided to fly some pattern work in Provo as well so I could earn enough night flying hours, which were required in preparation for my upcoming second stage check; my understanding is that in order to be eligible to take the second stage check for the private pilot course, I needed a certain number of flight hours as well as a certain number of landings to perform at night.

We ended up performing three more landings at Provo, for a total of TEN night landings for this flight! And I was fine with that. It was close to the end of an incredible flight experience and I was starting to feel tired, but I kept going. So on the long approach with a little coaching from my instructor, I throttled back the power when prompted and I lowered the flaps as necessary, dropping in altitude along the way. Utilizing the Precision Approach Path Indicator (PAPI) lights, I established the airplane on the proper approach path towards Runway 13 all the way until touchdown. Back in familiar territory, I confidently brought the flaps back up, lined up on center line, and throttled forward and got back up in the air to start a brief round of pattern work in Provo.

Following, the first touch-and-go, I made one more touch-and-go landing followed by one more circuit in the pattern (with similar results) before we went to full-stop. My instructor was keeping track of the number of landings I did tonight in a very ingenious way; he used the the VOR Omni Bearing Indicator instrument as a counter! Since we weren't navigating with VORs tonight, he figured it could be used by turning the knob and use the tick marks on the outer edges of the indicator as a crude counter to track the number of landings I did.

After making my third landing in Provo which was a full-stop, we taxied back to the UVU ramp, where we shut down the airplane and I called it another flight. I logged a little over two hours of of night flying tonight. And by far, this was one fun night to spend a portion of my Thanksgiving break! Special thanks to my temporary flight instructor, Ross for taking me up tonight and showing me the ropes of operating an airplane in Class Bravo airspace at night!