Flying Across America - Practice Approaches

Today's flight was all about flying instrument approaches. With the president coming to town, the airspace around Seattle was scheduled to close at 11:15 am. We decided to get an early start and be back well before the restriction took effect; I'm not ready to be escorted back to the airport by F-16s. We filed a flight plan for a 9:00 am departure, but didn't get airborne until about 9:20 due to departing traffic from nearby Boeing Field.

As seen on www.flightaware.com

Once up, we flew the Renton Two Departure, which is a left turn to a heading of 130 degrees after climbing to 1,000 feet on the runway heading. As we climbed to our assigned altitude of 4,000 feet, the controller turned us north. Eventually, we were turned directly towards the PAE VOR. We flew outbound from the VOR for about 5 miles, then did the published procedure turn and headed back toward the VOR. The autopilot did a fantastic job keeping the needle centered, as the plane and pilots got bounced about in the turbulence and 30+ knot headwind. At one point, I glanced at the GPS display and our ground speed was only 55 knots! As we crossed the VOR, we announced our missed approach and turned west over the Puget Sound. As we turned north, the 30+ knot wind turned to a tailwind and we cruised smoothly along. The controller called our turns and directed us back toward the localizer. Once on, the autopilot again flew a very precise approach while the plane was tossed about the sky and I struggled to maintain the glide slope. As we approached the shoreline, I told the controller that we were done and wanted to head back to Renton.

The most striking sight during this flight was Paine Field. There must have been 50 brand new Boeing 787s parked there. Everywhere there was space, there was a plane. And the most impressive thing I saw was the autopilots ability to hold the needle in the center of the gauge. After those two approaches, I'm ready for anything we might encounter on our flight across America.