Day 4




		Yes it is Saturday it is 5 am and its time to finish the flight planning before breakfast. There is also time to make a quick call back home too. Once the flight planning was out of the way it was time to finish the quiz. Each evening Rich gives out a quiz and this is the breakfast discussion. These were the basis of the oral exam when Rich’s father Field used to be the examiner. Those areas which people got wrong were where Field tended to concentrate. The only thing left to pay for on the trip is the food and drink. The rest is all covered. To make life easier lots are drawn for who pays for what day. My day was today so breakfast was my tab. We ate heartily knowing it might be some time before we next had the chance to eat.


	By 7.30 breakfast was over the quiz reviewed and the hotel shuttle was taking us back to Rapid City Regional Airport. By 8 am we were on our way to Sheridan via Gillette, flying out of South Dakota into Wyoming. Sharon was at the controls and I enjoyed a tremendous view of the area as we climbed out.


	Rapid City with the Black Hills of Dakota behind


	Rich asked for a deviation from our clearance which took us past the Mount Rushmore National Monument. This was one of the first memorable moments built into the trip. Nearby was also the work taking place for the Crazy Horse memorial. We continued over the Black Hills and settled into a bit of steady cruising as we made our way to Gillette, Wyoming, just over 100 nm away.

As we progressed, the landscape changed to a bleak desert like wasteland. Looking down you had to wonder at who would live in a place like this. As we approached Gillette (GCC), it was clear to see what the main industry was here. We flew over an airport at Newcastle,Wy in the heart of coal mining country. Massive opencast mines dotted the landscape like great sores. You could see a train a mile long hauling its cargo. Not difficult to believe that alot of the people who emigrated to this part of the US came from the North East of England.

Sharon flew the VOR RWY 16 using the full procedure. All was going well until after the miss and her attempt at the hold entry. There was a bit of confusion over the turn and twist routine, turn on to the heading, twist the HSI needle, but with Rich’s guidance she made it in the end. The airport elevation at GCC is 4363’ but climbing out on the missed approach was no problem for the TR182. From there, it was off to Sheridan where I was to fly the following leg to Billings, Montana. All the airports were getting higher and it would be a couple of days yet before we would be lower.


	Sheridan was not much, a place to top off the tanks and visit the restrooms. The schedule today was a little lighter than the previous day. My flying only amounted to two and a half hours and I was glad too. However both legs were to be very testing, particularly the final leg of the day.

Sheridan to Billings was just an hour; “Just an hour”. A week ago that would have been considered to be substantial. Popham to Swansea was an hour. Approaching Billings it started to get hectic. Billings Logan International Airport is a busy place. A lot of airline and GA activity. My mission was to fly the ILS RWY 28R. As is usual where radar is about, I was vectored giving me a heading to catch the final approach course when the controller reels of his spiel. Rich whispers “PTAC”, Position relative to FAF, Turn 30° to intercept Final approach course, Altitude until established, cleared for the approach.The controller has been good to me and given me enough time to get established on the localiser before I had to worry about the glideslope.

Wheels and flaps were already down and we were in the approach dirty configuration. As the glideslope came in I reduced power to 15” and slid down at an even 500fpm. It was a bit bumpy but the approach held together. Getting to decision height Rich said “remove the hood”. There I was 200ft above and half a mile from nearly 2 miles of tarmac looking down the centre line. It had all happened a bit faster compared with yesterday. We had only done 88 miles and there had been a lot of work to do in that distance. The landing was itself was an anticlimax.


	Lunch was taken in the airport passenger terminal. It was as satisfactory as regular airport food can be. It was cheap though and as I was paying then I could live with it. Finishing lunch, I realised how much this type of flying takes out of you. We were flying at about 9000 ft; I am sure the body uses more energy than at 2000 ft.

Sharon took us from Billings to Helena the state capital of Montana. Watching our progress on the enroute chart reminded us of all the various questions on the written exam. We were flying the exam routes. Helena has an awkward airport and as you can see from the NDB approach plate it is challenging. Apparently only two people in all of the West Coast trips had managed to do the NDB approach correctly. Today Sharon did the ILS RWY 27. This was awkward because we arrived along V2 and as we passed SWEDD we descended towards the 15 DME Arc. We were literally on that for a couple of minutes before we were turning to join the final approach course. Needless to say Sharon had her hands full with turning and twisting.


	By the time we got to Helena the weather was getting murky. When we landed the air was heavy with moisture and it was really chilly. Rich refuelled whilst I went and filed my flight plan.

Ten minutes later I was taking down the clearance with a departure procedure, HLN2 . It may not look much but when you get into IMC 500 ft above the runway and it starts to get bumpy you can forget about the view. Basically we climbed to 8000 ft going up the valley then we turned back on ourselves, climbing further to 10000 ft to Helena before setting off on course for Missoula. Once on course, Rich let me put the autopilot on and relax a bit. This was accompanied by another “Nice job” from Rich. “Nice Job too “ I thought.

This brought us some new challenges. Ice started to build up. Light rime ice and it did seem quite pretty. Rich told me to keep a good look out on the ASI; the needle dropped from 140 IAS to 70 before he told me to put on the pitot heat. A couple of minutes later the airspeed returned to normal. We also decided to put the prop heat on too. So the next half hour was spent learning about ice. As we approached Missoula, Rich had me disengage the autopilot at 10000 ft and go into a power-off stall. We were well covered in ice. Back came the control column and as I kept an eagle eye on the ASI the stall came at 70 kts. I recovered, losing 300 ft. The purpose of the lesson was to demonstrate the effect of ice on stalling speed.




	Rime ice starting to accumulate


	Our approach into Missoula soon began and as we descended the ice started falling off the aircraft. Rich asked me to take the hood of for a minute and I saw a windshield all iced up. As the ice came away from the windshield I returned to the hood feeling glad I had not been looking at that for the last fifteen minutes.


We were back at 10000 ft on Victor 2 and cleared to join the 16 DME arc for the VOR DME into Missoula. As you can see, it is a bit hilly here so we had to be careful. I joined the arc and flew it well. As you can see from my plate I was well prepared and as necessary descended. I was the lucky one, under the hood I could see nothing; Rich and Sharron had alternating views of mountains, clouds and a valley. Having an HSI makes all the difference. Of course in VOR mode, the needle is less sensitive than in ILS mode. I got a bit impatient waiting for the needle to come in and when it did start to move went too soon.

It’s not an ILS murmured” Rich. My brain comes back into gear. No stopwatch to set this time either, DME distances for the step-down and the MSO VOR as the MAP. The descent was at 675 ft/min which is quite steep as we belted down this valley. Passing the FAF, we switch over to tower and they clear me to land on 29. I am still 10 miles out. At 5000 ft Rich pulls the hood off and says I can land. I can see the runway and it is offset. So it’s a quick turn to the right to set up a base leg onto final half a mile out and we are down. After tying down the aircraft and all I can see is cloud shrouding the hills. Not a day for VFR and for the first time I got the fleece out of my bag and put it on. We were in the mountains; we were 120 miles from the Canadian border; home felt a long way away and, I was really hungry again. There would be no holds barred at dinner tonight.



	Arrival in Missoula - did we really fly through that?

This time Rich picked up a hire car. In no time we were at the hotel and as we were checking in, Rich handed out the next quiz. Fifteen minutes later, after a quick wash, we were back in the car off to the dinner. As ever the restaurant was good. It was also packed – thankfully Rich had booked the previous day. The portions were enormous. Rich went for the pork chop but only one chop, I had the beef. I could see why Rich only wanted the one chop. The meal was accompanied by Moose Drool but this time only one glass. This meant that I was able to get finished with the quiz and the flight planning before crashing into bed at 10.30. What a day of contrasts!



		Rapid City to Missoula 505 nm


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