Vance
03-31-2009, 05:31 PM
Ed and I decided to play hooky today and fly to Santa Barbara for lunch. Wind at SMX was calm and everything was going well.
I checked Santa Barbara ATIS and they had winds at 150 degrees at 14kts.
I called Approach on the frequency I was given by ATIS three times before I received this response, “inbound aircraft change to frequency 120.55.”
I changed frequencies and called twice and after getting my N number wrong twice I was assigned a squawk coed and radar contact was established.
I was to land on runway 7 and contact the tower on 119.7 when I was still 15 miles out.
When I was 5 miles out I asked for a wind check and it was still 150 degrees at 14kts.
I requested runway 15 right for safety and was told that runway 7 was the only runway available and I was cleared to land number two behind the Piper on left down wind and report in sight.
I asked how they would like me to approach 7 and they said straight to the numbers, a 30 degree turn to the right.
I did not see the Piper until he was over the numbers and when I reported in sight I was cleared to land. There were four aircraft behind me and the tower requested no delay.
The wind sock was out straight at 90 degrees to the runway and I did not have enough rudder authority to maintain runway heading. We were bobbing around and I pointed her across the runway and touched down. It was not a tidy landing.
Ground told us to taxi across runway 15 right and runway 15 left to Signature.
Before I crossed 15 Right I looked both ways and saw a fire truck and two police cars attending a Piper that looked damaged close to the center of the runway. I am sure I will read about it tomorrow.
A Grumman pilot parked at Signature couldn’t stop talking about how nice the Predator was and how nicely we had landed.
By the time we were done with lunch the wind had shifted to 250 degrees at 15kts. Clearance delivery gave me runway 25, maintain runway heading at or below 3,000 feet and squawk 0126. My read back was correct and we had a lovely flight back to Santa Maria.
Thank you, Vance
I checked Santa Barbara ATIS and they had winds at 150 degrees at 14kts.
I called Approach on the frequency I was given by ATIS three times before I received this response, “inbound aircraft change to frequency 120.55.”
I changed frequencies and called twice and after getting my N number wrong twice I was assigned a squawk coed and radar contact was established.
I was to land on runway 7 and contact the tower on 119.7 when I was still 15 miles out.
When I was 5 miles out I asked for a wind check and it was still 150 degrees at 14kts.
I requested runway 15 right for safety and was told that runway 7 was the only runway available and I was cleared to land number two behind the Piper on left down wind and report in sight.
I asked how they would like me to approach 7 and they said straight to the numbers, a 30 degree turn to the right.
I did not see the Piper until he was over the numbers and when I reported in sight I was cleared to land. There were four aircraft behind me and the tower requested no delay.
The wind sock was out straight at 90 degrees to the runway and I did not have enough rudder authority to maintain runway heading. We were bobbing around and I pointed her across the runway and touched down. It was not a tidy landing.
Ground told us to taxi across runway 15 right and runway 15 left to Signature.
Before I crossed 15 Right I looked both ways and saw a fire truck and two police cars attending a Piper that looked damaged close to the center of the runway. I am sure I will read about it tomorrow.
A Grumman pilot parked at Signature couldn’t stop talking about how nice the Predator was and how nicely we had landed.
By the time we were done with lunch the wind had shifted to 250 degrees at 15kts. Clearance delivery gave me runway 25, maintain runway heading at or below 3,000 feet and squawk 0126. My read back was correct and we had a lovely flight back to Santa Maria.
Thank you, Vance