Flight to Watertown (RYV)

The trip to southern Wisconsin went smoothly. MDW to RYV by route of DPA and 68IS at 4,500 feet. The return flight was a reverse trip at 7,500—we kept climbing until the cabin was a comfortable temperature.

I picked 68IS, Casa De Aero, as a way-point while playing with the AOPA Real-Time Planner on my old (old, old) Windows box. I’m sorry to report that I’m not a huge fan of that flight planning package and will stick with my premium membership to AeroPlanner. But, as I said, I was laying out my trip in the AOPA software and looking for another way-point to use as a VFR reference when I saw that this private airport, 68IS, was just perfect. A moment later, I realized that 68IS is Casa De Aero, where Keith Peterson—of Cardinal Flyers Online fame—lives. My first experience flying an airplane was with Keith out of 68IS, so I smiled as I passed overhead. I thought to give Keith a call to let him know I’d be up there, but—it being an Oshkosh weekend—he wasn’t home.

On the train ride from downtown to Midway, I opened VFlite’s GNS 530/430 Interactive Guide to refresh my memory on entering flight plans, planning descents, and a couple of other topics. I’m glad I did—I was very rusty on entering flight plans.

I put my wife in charge of the charts, in part to keep her looking outside during the flight to combat motion sickness. I showed her the TAC pages of the AeroPlanner printout, then the sectionals and where we would transition from the TAC to the sectional. She was an excellent VFR navigator and always knew exactly where we were. The Garmin GPS’s served as a good cross-check, but weren’t required.

Due to a slew of little things, we didn’t get off the ground until 6:45pm Friday night. I recorded the flight there on my iPod using a Sigtronics intercom and a Belkin adapter, since 9DS doesn’t have a nice audio panel with direct plug-ins. I’ll extract the MDW radio calls—ATIS through frequency change—for your review, if you are interested. We spent an hour in the air, about half of it with the sun in our eyes. Not a fun way to fly.

We were a little lower on fuel than I would have liked, but not below my personal minimums (which are well above FAA minimums). Consequently, I chose a really low fuel-flow power setting; it was the first time I have ever set the constant speed prop to 2000 RPM while cruising. 2000 RPM is certainly quieter than 2200 RPM and 2400 RPM, which I normally use for cruise. We landed with 90 minutes of fuel remaining.

I listened to the WX as we approached RYV and selected the appropriate runway for the winds. Several of the runways have right traffic, so I had prepared a sticky note with the appropriate pattern entry information for each runway and stuck it on an open space on the firewall before take-off. That worked well—pattern entry was a no-brainer and I never second-guessing myself.

The FBO was amazing. Very friendly, very courteous, very attentive. I’m uncomfortable with people waiting on me to any significant degree, and since I’m new to this whole fly-in-to-a-new-airport thing, I really stumbled my way through the process. “Uhm, top off the gas, please. Yes, tie-down, please. Picking it up tomorrow at 10-ish. Uh, sure you can help with my bags.” The Enterprise rental car was ready for us and the lady behind the counter was very helpful with directions and printing out maps from the Web.

The bed & breakfast we visited, The Inn at Pine Terrace was very pleasant. The breakfast is continental, not cooked, but the rooms are very nice, the staff is knowledgeable, and the area has a lot to explore. We had an outstanding dinner at The Red Circle Inn, Wisconsin’s oldest restaurant.

The flight back had a couple of items to report. We climbed to 7,500 feet to find cool air. That put me 500-1000 feet above a broken layer of clouds. Being sensitive to VFR minimums, I flew through the cloud valleys keeping good separation on all sides, much like my first flight with Keith. Nice how things come full circle. Amy really liked that experience. As we got closer to DPA, there was a large break in the clouds and I started descending. The break in the cloud wasn’t quite big enough, so I started descending more than 400 fpm. Not quite enough. Down more. A little more… a little more… there! Er, 2000 fpm. Watch that yellow arc. Closer to the red line that the green line. Whoo! That was exciting. I gently leveled off at 3,500 feet and called DPA.