Denver to Seattle

Departing Denver International for Seattle's Sea-Tac International airport. This seemed like a nice long flight, which would give me some time to become familiar with the cruising behavior of this amazing airplane. I've read that it can cruise at very high altitudes and speeds. There's a low overcast in Denver, so I'm going to be IFR shortly after departure.

Airborne and climbing fast! I'm glad to be done dealing with the simulator's experimental model problem with this aircraft. The overcast layer wasn't very thick, or at least the SR-71's fast climb made short work of climbing through it.

Looking back at the Denver area, from above the clouds. The SR-71 sure does have a distinct cross-section.

Still climbing, and not very high yet, but the profile view of the SR-71 in flight, with the afterburners on, looks so cool. I was treated to a view of an SR-71 in flight below me one time, when flying to Fox field in Lancaster, CA to visit family. While descending into the area, I overflew Palmdale airport just above the airport traffic area, and was so excited to see an SR-71 taking off below me, with a T-38 chase plane flying formation.

There must be a trick to getting the SR-71 to go high and fast. While attempting to climb, I couldn't get this beast much above 40,000 feet, with the airspeed hanging in the range of 300-400 knots. There's an old saying about being "behind the power curve," and I learned exactly what that means, in my Commercial Pilot Ground School class at Mesa College back in the late 70s. It seemed clear that was happening, but I wasn't sure how to safely get past it, so I contented myself with cruising to Seattle at 40,000 feet and 400 knots, while experimenting with the autopilot, and setting up the NAV and COM radios for a possible instrument approach.

Descending toward the Seattle area, over the Cascade mountains. The broken cloud layer will require an instrument approach, after all. I'm planning the ILS approach to Sea-Tac runway 16L. This aircraft doesn't have any sophisticated avionics, which takes me back to the IFR basics. I guess I'm lucky, to have a single VHF navigation receiver, that is capable of receiving and displaying the ILS localizer and glideslope signals, so I can navigate myself safely down through the clouds to the airport, while carefully watching the power setting and airspeed. This speed demon does slow down eventually, after power is reduced, by the delay is so pronounced, it's easy to get distracted by flying the approach, and lose track of the fact that it's finally slowing, and needs power added back in, to avoid getting too slow.

Safely on the ground at Sea-Tac airport. Whew! I'm still not used to landing this aircraft. I know I need to pop the drag chute after touching down, but touching down smoothly, moving the throttles to idle, and keeping the plane lined up with the runway, while reaching around for the drag chute handle, will take a little more experience in this plane than I currently have, before it feels comfortable.

I taxied around the airport a little, until I found a cool spot by some hangars, where there were some rolling ladders arranged perfectly, to allow me to climb out of the plane, and carefully snuck in between them. Hooray - a successful flight!

Learning the SR-71

I've seen the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird model in the X-Plane simulator's airplane menu, and I really wanted to try it out, but I was having too much fun with other fun aircraft and missions. Also, I wondered if I would ever be able to even get the engines started, much less fly it. Then when I finally got up the courage to try it, they gave it to me with the engines running, haha! This is such a cool-looking airplane, and has an amazing history in the surveillance aviation business. Here I am, lined up for takeoff on one of Denver International's nice long north-pointing runways.

This is my default forward-looking view. Lots of gadgets to see inside. Visibility out the front isn't that great. with a few aircraft structural components blocking the view. The instrument panel is somewhat disorienting, with its many old-style round dials and red instrument lighting. There are several unusual instruments and controls - things like face heat, suit heat, and spike settings - but also a lot of things that you'd see in many sophisticated aircraft.

The good news is, five of the familiar six-pack instruments are right up front and center for basic attitude flying - Airspeed, Attitude, Altitude, Heading, and Vertical Speed, are right where you'd expect to find them. I have yet to locate a turn and slip indicator, although I'd expect there to be one, somewhere. I suspect in the real aircraft, the slip ball would be in that curved tube below the primary attitude indicator, but for some reason, the author of this simulated SR-71 model didn't put it there.

I programmed this wide look-down view, so that I could see the COMM (lower left) and NAV (lower right) radios, as well as the autopilot controls (right side just forward of the NAV radio).

Full throttle also lights the afterburners for takeoff.

And we're off! As it turns out, I was immediately in over my head, because of a problem with X-Plane's "experimental flight model" that I had enabled a few months ago, while flying a different airplane, so things degenerated quickly, and I didn't catch any more pics on this series of familiarization / training flights - well, mostly crashes.

What I learned the hard way, was that with the experimental model, the SR-71 could barely get off the ground, after using all 16,000 feet of the longest runway at Denver. And even after getting off the ground, the plane was barely controllable, and couldn't climb much - it was virtually unflyable. I had to investigate online, and finally found a discussion on the X-Plane forums, where they talked about how badly the experimental flight model affects the SR-71 model. Once I turned that off, all of a sudden I could get this plane off the ground with lots of runway remaining, and it would climb well and respond quickly to the controls. It was a completely different, very fun airplane!

My next hurdle was getting the SR-71 safely back on the ground. That was an overwhelming challenge at first, because I couldn't get the plane stopped on the available runway. With the high approach speed, and no reverse thrust, the brakes weren't enough to get it stopped, before running off the end. Then I realized that this airplane has a special parachute for drag, which is typical on fast-moving military jets. I located the drag chute control on the panel, and tried it after landing, and voila, the plane easily stopped in the available runway.

With the worst lessons learned, I felt I was ready to try a cross-country trip in this plan. Next stop: Seattle Sea-Tac airport! 

Trip summary - Fun in the Baron

My "Fun in the Baron" adventure took me eleven days, and included twelve flights on nine days, with some non-flying days in the middle of the trip! I left my home airport in Centennial, CO on April 26, and stopped at Aspen, Rifle, Carbon, Moab, Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Silver City, and Amarillo, finally returning to Centennial on May 6.

Here's a link to my first blog post of this trip. Look at the bottom of that post, for the link that says "Newer Post," which will take you to the next post in the series for this adventure. After viewing all those posts, you'll eventually end up back here again. Have fun!

Amarillo to Centennial

Departing Amarillo, TX for the last leg of my Western USA tour in the B58 Baron, heading back home to Centennial, CO.

Climbing away from Amarillo airport, with a high cloud layer overhead.

Just about to cross highway C-470 before entering the downwind for Centennial airport runway 17L.

Flying the left downwind to runway 17L at Centennial. Just about to cross over runway 28, and the parking area for Aspen Flying Club, at the lower right.

On the ground at Centennial airport, parked in front of Aspen Flying Club.

Silver City to Amarillo

I've heard of Amarillo over the years, but never had any interest in visiting. Today, while I was wondering out loud about where to go next, a voice from the next room said, "Go to Amarillo." So I guess that will be my next flight. After looking at the complicated restricted airspaces of the White Sands Missile Range, I decided the better part of valor would be to choose a route that avoids the entire mess.

Nice open tiedown area at Silver City.

Lined up for takeoff from Silver City runway 26.

Lifting off from runway 26.

Approaching a high ridge of mountains in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness area.

Fun view out the left window, with the left engine in sight.

Approaching a thin layer of apparently scattered clouds, which at first appear to be above me.

Nope, not above me, and I entered the clouds at 10:40. I expected to break out of these "scattered" clouds after a few seconds...

And... another miscalculation, as I finally started seeing the ground again at 10:54. In real life, and not on an IFR flight plan, I wouldn't have allowed this to happen. I'd either have avoided the clouds, or asked for a popup IFR clearance, when I decided not to avoid the clouds.

Since I'm in the simulator, I just pretended I'd gotten my IFR clearance, and am setting up to fly the ILS runway 04 approach to Amarillo. This approach includes a DME Arc, flying a circle 14 miles in radius from Panhandle VOR at the airport, at 5500 feet, to join the ILS final approach path to runway 04. The ILS gets me down to within 200 feet of the runway, in case I were dealing with low clouds, which I'm not, as the airport is actually VFR, so this is just for practice.

I don't think I've ever taken advantage of the Vertical Navigation (VNAV) capability in the Garmin G530, so I decided to give that a try on this descent toward Amarillo. The VNAV guidance worked well, although, as handy as it is, it seems fairly primitive. The vertical guidance doesn't appear on the main moving-map screen. The only way I found to see the vertical guidance, was to leave the GPS unit showing the VNAV screen, instead of the moving map, so some situational awareness can be lost. Of course, it's not difficult to flip back and forth between those screens, but still...

And all of a sudden, I've descending to the right altitude to fly the DME arc to the final approach, and I'm now on short final approach to Amarillo runway 04.

On the ground at Amarillo.

Sedona to Silver City

Departing Sedona for Silver City, NM. I flew my good friends from San Diego to Silver City once, in a Rockwell 112, to visit her parents.

Doing the pre-takeoff runup in the Baron. The simulator doesn't volunteer failures, unless I program it to do that, so there's nothing to be gained with the pre-takeoff checks, but I'm trying to reinforce good habits by doing them anyway.

Climbing away from Sedona airport, and the beautiful surrounding countryside.

Approaching the traffic pattern at Silver City. Back in the day, we flew into a little airport just south of town - maybe it was Turner Ridgeport airport, but that one is apparently closed now, with a big X on my flying chart, so I chose the main Grant County airport this time.

On the ground at Silver City airport. This place has a much larger and better-maintained ramp area and terminal building, than the little airport we flew into many years ago.

Grand Canyon to Sedona

Departing Grand Canyon for Sedona, AZ. I've never been here myself, but I've heard some fun stories from friends about this area. This flight planned route doesn't include my planned deviation near Flagstaff, to avoid Sycamore Canyon Wilderness Area, a large protected area just north of the airport, that requires a 2,000 foot overflight clearance.

Climbing away from the Grand Canyon airport. You can still see the canyon on the horizon behind me.

Approaching Sedona from the northeast. The airport is on the right edge of the large reddish area in the upper left portion of the image.

View from inside the cockpit, while descending toward the airport. 

On the ground at Sedona airport. 

Bryce Canyon to Grand Canyon

Departing Bryce Canyon for Grand Canyon, AZ. I've flown to Grand Canyon a few times before. The first time was on our way home from the Experimental Aircraft Association's Oshkosh fly-in. After camping near West Yellowstone airport, we headed to Grand Canyon and camped overnight. The next morning, we flew around in the canyon a little, before heading west. That was exciting! This time around, I was careful to plan around the Flight Free zones they put in place many years ago, which now complicate the arrival from the north.

Climbing away from Bryce Canyon airport. 

Approaching the Grand Canyon from the north. It's always impressive to me, when approaching the canyon, how it first appears as a tiny line off in the distance, and gradually widens, until it swallows up the airplane with its ten mile width.

Parked on the ramp at Grand Canyon airport. 

Preparing to shutdown, after setting up the GPS for my next flight - to Sedona, Arizona.

Moab to Bryce Canyon

Departing Canyonlands airport for Bryce Canyon, UT. I flew here in a Cessna P210 one time, with four other people, for an overnight camping trip, as part of my 10 hours required flight time in the aircraft, to check out with the flying club.

Crossing a meandering river. Wondering if this could be Green River?

Crossing some high terrain on the way into the Bryce Canyon area.

On the ground at Bryce Canyon airport. Not much to see here on the ramp.