Logged: 2.7 hours
Fuel: 95 litres
Massena was pretty deserted, certainly the main terminal was, so we mounted up and taxied across to the hangars on the other side of the airfield. Here we found a self-service fuel pump, so I pulled alongside to top up as the next leg was a three hour one.
I was trying to understand the instructions when a very helpful guy wandered over from one of the hangars and explained it to me. I topped up with about 35 litres (in US Gallons of course) and paid by credit card at the automated pump.
Dan discovered a PC and a telephone in the office of another hangar and I made my way over there to get a brief for the next leg. Sure enough, this was the briefing station and I got through immediately to 1-800-WX-BRIEF. Here I got a full set of NOTAM’s, a weather brief and filed a flight plan – what a fantastic and simple service. The guy said he would set the flight plan to activate automatically in 15 minutes to save me activating it once airborne.
The weather was good except for the last 50 miles or so where they were forecasting a 60% chance of thunderstorms (not good!). I decided to give it a try and at least see how far we got as I had plenty of divert airfields all along the route.
As we were starting to mount up, someone wandered over from the hangar and said they had just had a phone call asking if we had arrived from the previous flight plan – lesson to learn – always close your own flight plan over the phone when you land! My mistake for the trip (I always seem to make one).
We climbed on board and checked the windsock. It still favoured 05, albeit with a healthy crosswind from the left (I guessed 350/12G17). Still nothing on the radio waves, so I self-announced and made a crosswind take-off heading broadly east towards Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.
The route I planned took us initially ESE towards Lake Champlain, then virtually due south for the rest of the flight initially following Lake Champlain, then picking up and staying to the eastern side of the Hudson Valley all the way into Westchester.
I tried to contact Boston Centre on 135.25 but had no luck until I climbed to my cruise altitude of 3500’. When I asked for Flight Following they transferred me to another frequency, they in turn suggested someone else etc. I was getting the run-around. So I called up Flightwatch on 122.0 and asked them for a suitable frequency for flight following. They gave me Burlington on 122.2 and I got good FF from them.
We were heading towards the Adirondacks (the home of Lake Placid of winter Olympics fame) and crossed the ridge at a lower point with the heavily forested ground coming up to meet us a mere 600’ below, despite our 3500’. There were few if any places to set down in the event of an engine failure, except maybe one of the lakes. I could only imagine how beautiful this countryside must look every fall when the Maples change colour.
We crossed the ridge and saw the huge Lake Champlain running north / south in front of us. We turned en-route at Plattsburg VOR and instead of slavishly following my pre-planned ‘straight-line’ route to the GFL VOR, I followed the reasonably straight I87 freeway so that at least I would have somewhere to land if the engine quit. The mighty Garmin Pilot 3 GPS was providing sterling service as there were gaps in the VOR reception at this height. I could easily have gone up to 5500’ and even now wonder why I didn’t.
Then around Lake George, I got handed off to Albany approach on 122.95. They could hear me but couldn’t get my squawk and advised me to call them again closer to the GFL VOR when they should be able to see me. I was beginning to wonder of this flight following was as wonderful as I had been lead to believe (but I decided it really was the business later in the trip).
By now, Dan and I had noticed that the radio transmissions were very loud in our headsets, but the intercom was fairly quiet. So to hear each other on the intercom, we had to put up with a very loud radio. I searched in vain for a way of adjusting the intercom and decided that it must be such an early model that it was ‘built-in’ somewhere without controls to adjust it (an assumption that later returned to mock me). Still we chatted away while Dan took turns at playing ‘auto-pilot’ with myself.
I called Albany again about 10 miles north of Glen Falls and they were now getting my squawk. So we settled down to FF from them. They were an incredibly busy frequency with lots of commuter traffic and ‘heavies’ coming and going from Albany. The land below started to thin out now with significant clearings in the forest giving way to open land with small woods. You could almost see the money from this altitude on the small villages on the lake with large marinas.
We routed directly overhead Albany without a comment from ATC. What a HUGE and very busy airport it was as well – easily the size of Gatwick in the UK and try routing overhead that!
We continued with Albany FF en-route to IGN VOR. The weather was still with us, with scattered cumulus with bases at maybe 4500’ and nice and sunny in between. As we approached within 50 miles of our destination, we could see the visibility begin to drop and a more solid wall of cloud ahead – this must be the promised TCU’s!
At about 30 miles to run, we were handed off to New York Centre on 126.40. At the same time, we had to drop altitude to remain VMC. Initially to 2500’, then to 2000’. The visibility had dropped to probably 5 miles. The ground was still remarkably hilly and wooded, but with many large and imposing houses and country clubs – clearly an upmarket area. At 20 miles, New York handed us off to Westchester tower, by which time we were back up to 2500’. We got a warning of a converging Citation at the same level from our right. We heard his transmission that he had us on TCAS, then we saw him and called no conflict as he pulled ahead of us, clearly also headed for Westchester.
We spotted the airport and were given a right-hand downwind join for the runway in use 34. I dropped height to the required 1500’ QNH as we joined ‘American style’ (i.e. diagonal and converging to the downwind line) and called downwind.
With such a busy frequency and airport, I was surprised to be given an immediate ‘clear to land’. We also heard transmissions to another Citation on long final asking him to slow up to let us in front of him. I gathered this and started a ‘military style’ descending turn from the end of the runway on the downwind leg with a curving approach to very short final. As I was on short final, I heard the controller give the Citation a ‘clear to land’. This got my attention – two people cleared to land on the same runway? So I called short final and I also got an unconcerned ‘clear to land’. Maybe this is how they do it in the US, but I found it pretty worrying knowing I had a Citation breathing down my neck, so I landed long-ish trying to aim to stop by a likely exit, which I just managed.
We were cleared to vacate left and change to Ground on 121.82. I asked ground for progressive taxi instructions to a flight handling outfit. I was offered two and opted for Million Air (having heard good things about them at OFC). I was patiently directed to the correct hangar. I queried the fact that it had ‘Westair’ on the hangar, but was told that this was Million Air. I saw a guy appearing to be marshalling someone, but as he wasn’t looking at me, I assumed a business jet would appear from around the corner so held position. Only after a minute did he gesture me and I realised he was trying to marshal me – ooops! So I followed his directions, parked up and switched off. We were greeted by helpful guy who held doors open and asked how long we were there. I told him the driver’s side door needed to be closed from the other side and he indicated where he would park it and that it would of course be chocked and tied down. I asked for it to be fuelled to the brim.
We unpacked and headed to the airside entrance of Million Air (hoping that the name was not an indication of the handling fees). We arrived and they told us that they would close the flight plan for us.
So there we are, in matching red ‘look at me’ trip t-shirts, in a very classy lounge with complimentary everything (yes, probably even that too), including showers and very nice toilets. There were some passengers and pilots (with four wanker bars on their shoulders) who had clearly just dis-embarked from a Citation already in the lounge. Well - they looked at us like we had crawled out from under a rock! I have to say I found this very entertaining, especially as Dan had located a beer with all the precision of a JDAM homing missile and proceeded to demolish it with relish and a loud show of appreciation – their faces – what a picture!
We asked about transport to New York and were immediately offered a ride into White Plains where we could catch one of the two trains every hour into Grand Central. The trip was easy as we wound around country roads between the states of New York and Connecticut looking in awe at the huge houses and country clubs. Apparently, this is a very classy ‘commuter town’ for New York. It too about 20 minutes to get to White Plains train station where we bought a one way ticket to New York for some $10. There are two trains, one on the hour which is virtually non-stop and takes 30 minutes and the other on the half-hour that stops several times and takes 45 minutes.
Well, we had made it, despite the weather forecast. The flying was very easy indeed and the radio work although initially challenging because it was so unfamiliar, was easy in the end (apart from the scare of clearing two people to land at the same time). The route and flight planning I had done in the UK certainly paid off. The flight handling and progressive taxi request at Westchester took a huge amount of stress out of the arrivals process at such a large and complex airport and I would recommend it for all but the simplest airports for the sake of a few bucks.
