Mountain Flying Training and Fly-Camping - Columbia, CA Weekend (Flight 17)

A camping weekend in the mountains!

My flying instructor Patti suggested it would be good if she could get her current students and other flying friends up to Columbia for a weekend of camping, flying, oh and her birthday celebration.

I'm pretty new to flying but so far Columbia is the only place I know where they have a campsite right next to one of the runways. Specifically it's next to the grass runway (which is less used) and the only campers permitted are those that fly in. Check out this aerial picture on google maps, the campsite is the area north of the grass runway.

I flew in as a passenger in a Cessna 182 Skylane, N2463S, which is a significantly different plane to the Cessna 152 I've been learning in. It's much bigger (4 leather seats!), much newer (2005 vs 1978), and much much more high tech with its computerized G1000 Glass Panel cockpit. This glass panel tells you everything, maps, weather, traffic, GPS, engine data, you name it! Oh, and it's also got autopilot :)

The plan for the weekend was to fly in on Friday night, have a BBQ, do a flying lesson on Saturday, then head back some time Sunday. In between we'd spend some time exploring Columbia State Historic park which is a downtown area that has hardly changed since the gold rush in the 1860's.

Flying Lesson

The flying lesson part of the weekend was short but very eventful. My first taste of an untowered airport (yep, no control tower to tell you and the other planes who's turn it is on the radio), first time flying in the mountains (well at least the foot hills), first time landing on a runway that's not flat, and first time to land on a grass runway.

There were three things that affected the way the plane few in the mountains, firstly Columbia Airport (O22) is at an elevation of 2118 ft above mean sea level, secondly the weather was hot, and thirdly there was quite a lot of turbulance around mid day. The extra elevation and hot both impact the air density and make it thinner. For example, 90F would increase the Density Altitude from the 2118ft elevation to 4546ft! As you can probably guess, the high density altitude (thinner air) means the plane doesn't fly as well as it would at sea level on a cooler day because: 1) There is less air molecules for the engine to combust with fuel and hence lower power, 2) There are less air molecules to react with the wings to create lift.

From Columbia we flew to Pine Mountain Lake (E45) which is a tiny little airport in the mountains south east of Columbia. This small town is just north of Groveland which is on the 120 highway a number of miles outside of Yosemite. The are a number of interesting views including this canyon with a river a long way down at the bottom. At the airport itself there is little to see except some of the neighbours that live around the airport have a few hangers with an interesting collection of planes and cars.

Radio Comms at Non-towered airports

For radio communications at a non-towered airport you need to announce every turn you make in the pattern, as well as your arrivals, departures and sometimes ground manaevers (especially if they involve crossing runways). The standard phrase would be something like: "Columbia Traffic, Cessna xxxxx, where I am or what I'm doing, Columbia". You need to mention the airport name at the start and end so as it's possilbe there are nearby airports with the same frequency! Approaching and landing at an airport would be something like the following for runway 17 ("one seven"), right pattern. Note it's recommended to fly over the airport at 1000ft above the pattern altitude to get a view of the airport and check for any traffic in the pattern before a standard 45 degree entry into the downwind.

• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, inbound from 10 miles south, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, flying overhead at 4200ft, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, on right 45, runway one seven, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, turning right downwind, runway one seven, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, turning right base, runway one seven, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, turning final, runway one seven, Columbia
• Columbia Traffic, Cessna X, clear of runway one seven, Columbia

It sounds simple, but for my first time landing at an unfamiliar airport and with turbulence I already had enough to concentrate on without the extra radio calls and I found it difficult to remember everything in the moment.

AOPA have a good guide to non-towered airports here.

Landing on a grass runway

Patti said if my landings at Pine Mountain were good and straight down the center line then my prize would be to land on the grass runway on return to Columbia. Luckily I did a good job on the landings and I was rewarded! The grass had been recently cut and actually the landing was much smoother than I expected. The difference between this and a normal runway is that you keep the nose in the air for as long as possible so that you can steer with the rudder, and you don't have issues with the nose sticking into the mud.

Night time lighting adventures

As we were so close to the runway we went and explored later that evening. It was interesting to see just how big the runway numbers are. Also it was possible to remotely turn on the lights with three clicks of the transmit button on a portable aviation radio. Quite an experience!

Heading home

On the way back Robert and I took a little detour and flew over Yosemite Valley before returning to the bay area. It turned out to be a great choice, the weather and views were stunning - subject for another post!