This is a story of a trip with two surprises, one with ATC and one with the airplane. Both resulted in momentary confusion, but they taught me two important lessons.
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After graduating from college, my younger son settled in southern New Jersey, southeast of Philadelphia. To visit him and his growing family, I flew my club’s Piper Cherokee 235 from upstate New York. I’d land at the Camden County (N.J.) Airport and he’d pick me up. This meant transiting Philadelphia’s Class B airspace—always a real thrill. I filed VFR flight plans going down and back. Departing Camden required patience, circling and climbing to the south after takeoff while trying to get my flight plan opened and a clearance to transit the Class B
On this particular trip, my older son was with me, having fun following our flight with the sectionals. As we approached the Philly area, ATC tersely announced I had flown past my destination and terminated flight following. I immediately began circling to figure out what was going on, thinking it would take me forever to get a Class B clearance.
My son suggested ATC must have transposed our destination airport’s identifier, presuming we were landing at the one right beneath us. Fortunately, I was able to quickly sort out things. Lesson # 1: ATC is not always correct; don’t be afraid to question.
On departing, I was circling and climbing, but the frequency was very busy, so I elected to travel north to the east of the Class B airspace and below its 3000-foot layer. I was kept busy staying clear of the towers and outside the airspace. After 20 minutes or so and clearing the airspace, we climbed to cruising altitude. I engaged the autopilot and did a systems check. I’d left the fuel selector on the left tip tank when I sumped the tanks before takeoff. Not thinking, I moved it to the left main position, where it should have been at takeoff.
After ½ hour, I moved it to the right main, then, ½ hour later, back to the left main. When we began our descent to home plate, I went through the checklist, figured all was well and turned off the autopilot. The 235 banked immediately to the right.
“Oh-oh,” I blurted. “DAD??!!” exclaimed my son. I easily leveled the wings and then looked at the fuel gauges, which told the story: a heavy right wing. The landing added to the excitement: With the wind out of the northwest, we landed on Runway 28, holding in plenty of left aileron and rudder to stay aligned with the runway at touchdown.
Lesson # 2: Even though I always fly fuel by the clock, the gauges help to keep track of where the stuff really is. Oh, and hand-fly at least once every half hour. — Art North
