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Editor’s Note: Can you imagine flying a 16.5 hour cross-country? How about flying it under VFR from the East Coast to West? That’s exactly what the legendary Bob Buck did 55 years ago in his Cessna 182 Skylane as he enjoyed the sights and sounds of low altitude flying and the freedom that only general aviation affords—a relatable sentiment to the Air Facts community. Originally published in September 1969, enjoy Buck’s account of flying coast to coast with some pointed advice along the way.
A Pleasant Time
by: Robert N. Buck
A Pleasant Time, by Bob Buck, was published in September 1969.
In June I made a transcontinental flight in Big Sam, my Cessna Skylane. It was interesting and a lot of fun for a lot of reasons, with most of them having to do with not flying a jet and not being restricted by ATC and all the regulatory stuff that makes an airline pilot feel like he’s roped and tied.
It’s a paradoxical kind of thing because in one way flying a 707 and flying a Skylane is the same thing. As the old saying goes, “Pull back to go up and pull back further to go down.” It works on both airplanes.
Looking out a 707 window you see the same things. You feel them too and I can sense a strong thermal in a 707 just as I do in a Libelle sailplane. I get the same kick pouring on the coal and taking off in any airplane and feel just as good when I slick one on, or just as unsettled when I klunk one.
So they are both airplanes. Then where’s the difference? It’s in freedom. I’m free in the Skylane and I’m not in the 707. That’s why so many airline pilots are private pilots too and own airplanes. It’s too bad more people don’t realize that about 99% of the airline pilots are very much on the private pilot’s side of things and often envy him considerably. They don’t feel he’s their problem in life.
That other 1%, and what group of people doesn’t have a 1%, have made a few uneducated statements which certain elements of the press and industry have grasped and waved around. It has resulted in friction that shouldn’t be there. It’s unfortunate, but fortunately thinking people aren’t taken in, they know the facts and know, too, that by cooperation the problem can be licked.
Which is getting away from the Skylane and freedom. Why am I free? Well, for one thing, I can go VFR, which I did coast to coast. I can’t do that in a jet. And I can land when I feel like it and generally where I feel like it.
For example: I come into Kennedy’s area, via 707, on a CAVU day from Paris. It’s 5:30 in the afternoon. I’ve had more headwinds than forecast and my fuel has been used up so the reserves aren’t abundant. ATC says my delay will be 40 minutes. So there I am circling in clear weather with a frown on my face. Silly isn’t it? I could land at Peconic, go to Westchester or a lot of places.
But it isn’t that easy. The fields aren’t approved alternates and FAA would frown. They don’t have customs facilities either and I’d inconvenience my passengers to say the least. If I have to go to an alternate it’s a long, trying proposition.
In my Skylane I just dump it into any handy field, get some fuel and am up and away.
So lifting off Van Sants, in eastern Pennsylvania, and just heading west is a great relief and flying is flying again.
The weather was good with scattered cumulus floating around. It was bumpy underneath, but I just stayed down there and let her bounce because I was alone and for once didn’t have to worry about passenger comfort and it was sort of a defiant pleasure.
I landed at Pittsburgh. The airport they use for airliners. I wanted to see what it was like.
About 30 miles out I called Approach Control, told ’em I was VFR and squawking 0600. They picked me up, told me to get the tower closer in. I landed without being in anyone’s way and then !axied about a thousand miles to FACTS the General Aviation parking area where I got gas and looked over the weather. Essentially it was CAVU With full tanks I’ve got over hours range. I didn’t know how far I’d go before landing or when I’d feel like landing, so I just taxied out and after waiting on three airliners to take off or land, got in the air myself. “Who wants to land at big airports if he doesn’t have to?” was my thought as I climbed away.
It was fun to realize that I hadn’t filed a flight plan, I didn’t have a release signed by a company dispatcher and me, and I really didn’t know where I was going and didn’t care except that it was west.
I climbed to 6,500 feet, got all set up and let her go down the route I once flew in DC-3’s to Kansas City by way of Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis and St. Louis.
I had prepared myself with a briefcase full of maps, but was amazed how little I needed them. The many hours of plodding over these routes had put the towns, rivers, railroads and other features firmly in my mind and, like riding a bicycle, you never forget. The only changes are the super highways which ribbon across the land and make navigating easier.
My true airspeed, 68% power, 6,500 feet, was 161 mph. The winds were light and I was making about 150 ground speed. There wasn’t much to do except renew friendship with the country below.
I would tune in the radio now and then to see if the weather was doing what it was supposed to do. The radio was a discord in my pleasant world. The terrible squalling and squealing on 122.6 and 123.6 is appalling. I listened at various periods and in its annoying way, it was fascinating.
First, these two frequencies, backed up by 122.1 and listening on the omni, certainly do not seem to be enough frequencies for all the General Aviation airplane needs.
The frequencies would do a lot more work if there were better usage of the radio. Some of the messages were awful and it was evident that the person talking had not given a thought to what he needed, if he needed it, and then how he would ask for it. I heard one chap ask about an airport’s size, runways, etc. All this the FSS finally read back to him right out of the FAA book. Now why couldn’t the pilot look that up in advance in the same book? Why didn’t he carry it in the airplane? Lots of us do.
Then I listened to a gal ask each station she passed for the weather ahead. I certainly don’t object to people being weather watchful, but this was silly. It vas good in all directions, but each station she passed she’d ask for a string of weather, and always the same string.
Then there’s the don’t-think-before-you-talk pilot. The one who decides he wants something so picks 19 up the mike and before his brain has decided what to tell his mouth to say, he starts talking. This results in lots of, “Uh…Columbus from Uh…Firefly..uh and then the number and a message interrupted by the Uhs while his brain works on the message.
And his close relation, who not only doesn’t think about what he’s going to say, but doesn’t listen before he starts talking to hear if anyone else is talking. These people get an inspiration, grab the mike, push the button and start talking. Loud squeals and squawks as he breaks up the entire circuit. Then it takes lots of calls to get it all organized Despite the fact these kinds of people are in the minority a few can do a lot of harm. It’s too bad we can’t bring about good radio usage and discipline; it would help the frequency problem a lot this goes for some airline pilots, too.
Of course a lot of the problem comes because airplanes flying high cover a wide area and bust up conversations many miles away.
The big problem seems to be weather. Everyone wants weather and it’s obvious that our weather reporting isn’t good enough or the requests wouldn’t be so high.
I noticed an almost lackadaisical attitude about the weather broadcasts on omni frequencies. I’d often be poised at 15 or 45 after the hour waiting for the weather and then it wouldn’t be broadcast. Sometimes, it seemed, because the station was busy right then giving information to the aircraft.
The stuff being put out on beacons in the 200-400 range is good, but if there are any thunderstorms or one is flying in static conditions, it’s not readable.
What we really need is a weather frequency on which weather is broadcast periodically and on which a pilot could ask for weather or, very important, give weather to the meterologist. With such a frequency, or frequencies, only for weather, a person could generally simply listen and get all the weather he wanted. In the case when he wasn’t satisfied only by listening, he could ask. Hopefully he’d be asking right into a weather office, too.
With this, our present frequencies could be for all the other messages, flight plans, etc.
We also need high and low altitude frequencies. Just like jet airwyas, why not frequencies for those above, say, 18,000 feet? Then some guy over Chicago in a jet or pressurized twin wouldn’t knock out some one near Indianapolis in a Beechcraft.
Right now people wanting weather could do a better job of shopping around for it rather than constantly asking for it. There’s nothing wrong with asking if one needs it, but often you hear one person ask for certain weather and a few minutes later another person ask the same place for the same weather. Just monitoring the omni stations or the 122.6/123.6 frequencies a person can pick up lot of weather and information by listening to all the other folks’ requests and the answers they get.
Considering that more airplanes are added to the fleet daily, it’s evident the radio situation is getting worse, not better. We need some new ideas, additional frequencies and better radio usage — now!
Everything went smoothly and at St. Louis I cut directly for Wichita. I knew I wouldn’t make it by dark so I looked over the map for a likely place to bed down and decided that Jefferson City, Missouri might be it. It was. Good service, an airport handy to town and no traffic. To heck with airline terminals.
The next morning I found scattered to broken stratus with a couple of thousand foot base. I check the weather, and Wichita and its area was down in stratus. It was plain from the synoptic setup that it was a cloud deck caused by the up slope conditions as warmish air crawled up from the Gulf of Mexico. It would lift during the day and lift into scattered stratocumulous. The tops wouldn’t be high.
I filled her up again which gave me enough for about Albuquerque, although I wanted to go to Wichita on business.
I took off and flew contact for awhile, but it was evident the bases were getting lower as I went west. I found a big legal sized hole and augered up through and there I was, 6,500 feet again, well on top in sunshine.
I figured I’d stay up there and by the time I got to Wichita the bases would be pretty good and if the stuff was still solid I’d get Approach Control and set up an instrument approach.
Flying in the sunshine, looking down at the white blanket below, I listened to the various frequencies and picked up the weather I wanted. It was starting to improve and the ceilings at Wichita and around that area were up to 800 feet.
About 30 minutes out, the clouds started breaking up and finally were broken and getting scattered. I found another big legal hole, augered down through that and saw the flat Kansas land stretched out all around with good visibility and the early morning sun sparkling on the ground which was pretty wet from a long period of spring rains. I landed at Cessna’s field and stayed for two •days while the airplane got its annual inspection.
Later that month I’d be going to Marfa, Texas where my son would fly in the National Soaring Championships and I was interested in the ground north of Marfa and west from there too in case he would go in either direction on long distance flights. I’d be chasing him with an automobile and trailer and I wanted to see what the country was like and what sort of roads went along the courses he might fly.
So I drew a line from Wichita to El Paso. This would go over ground he might cover on a distance flight north from Marfa (which he did flying about 380 miles to near Amarillo, Texas).
The ground along that route was soaking from spring rain and this says, to a soaring pilot, that the thermals will not go very high and that they’ll start late in the day and end early. All that water kills the heating needed to pop off good thermals.
Because of this the cloud bases and tops were low as I flew. They were scattered cumulus. It was fine for me. I flew 6500 feet on top for a long time which, in that country, is unusual. Around Amarillo I climbed to 8500, but that was as high as I had to go to stay on top of the bouncy convective layer. The area certainly would be a no-no place for a glider during the contest uless a lot of hot weather dried it out within the next 10 days.
On this leg I filed a VFR flight plan for protection. To an easterner the wild west begins just out beyond Wichita. To back up the flight plan I also had my emergency kit, which is always in Big Sam and has things to eat, protection from the elements and lots of water.
I lucked out to El Paso with a slight tail wind that got me down there in nice style.
One of the pleasant things I find flying privately is the gas stop. Everything is so well organized, with prompt service and generally nice pilot lounges where one can get some sort of refreshment, look at the merchandise and have a place to get one’s maps all set for the next leg. It’s a long road of improvement from the 30’s when often it was a hand crank for gasoline out of a funnel with a chamois in it to filter out the dirt.
Well El Paso impressed me extra much because the lead-in boy was a girl, and a cute one too. The sun was shining, the visibility was that western kind that goes on forever, the airplane was working beautifully and I wasn’t worrying about making schedule or being kind to 145 passengers. A pretty nice way to spend a vacation, and not a “postman’s holiday” at all.
But the day wasn’t over said goodbye to that cute in girl and took off for Tucson. I was back in the western rough air with moments of zooming airspeed as I pushed the nose over in strong lift and then soggy periods when big down drafts made me pull the nose up to hold altitude. The top of this was too high to reach with. out oxygen or pressurization so I sat in it and played with it. I tried to time these sinks and zooms to see how wide the sink areas were. Doing it roughly these areas could be 7 miles or more across. The sink might be 800 or 1000 feet per minute so even in a good glider you could loose three or four thousand feet crossing one of those sink holes — very interesting.
It was late afternoon when I got to Tucson and I taxied right up to the RON-TEL motel which is handy because you park your airplane right by your’ room. It’s really a great setup and I wish there were more of them. The proprietor told me he hadn’t had an over night vacancy in three months, so they must be good business.
I had a lovely dinner at the airport terminal, got to bed early and slept peacefully knowing the airplane was right out the window all tied down securely.
The next morning another VFR flight plan to Santa Monica, California. The weather was beautiful except, of course, the Los Angeles area with its overcast and fog. It was about 300 feet. I decided to worry about that when I got there because I had plenty of fuel to go in there, mess around awhile, and if I couldn’t land, fly back to the desert where it was clear.
It was a simple flight, just omni hopping when they were on course and cutting north or south of them when they weren’t. I was still amazed by the lack of needing a map. All those places were so well in mind, like Blythe, Thermal and Palm Springs.
I kept listening for weather and it was CAVU until about Ontario where the coastal junk started. They had 1,500 feet broken with poor visibility. I could visualize the smog and gluck.
I was at 8,500 feet and could see the stuff ahead and finally the clouds and smog rolled in under me. I was well on top in the clear so I just plugged on toward Santa Monica.
I was a little troubled by thoughts of airliners letting down and going in on the LAX ILS. Even though I was VFR in excellent visibility it was a back-of-the-neck crawling feeling knowing they were letting down somewhere around me.
I swung a little south to get out of their course. I also decided it was time to say something, so I looked around the Jepp charts for a frequency. I decided on 124.9, as I remember, which was LAX approach. I told them I was VFR on 25 top squawking 0600 and headed for Santa Monica. Despite a lot of traffic, he was very pleasant and relaxed and suggested that he vector me around their ILS. This was fine with me and he did. I tuned my ADF on the LAX outer locator to keep track of how I was progressing in regard to the ILS. I also tuned the Santa Monica omni and kept track of the radials I was crossing. On my other transceiver I put Santa Monica tower to hear what they were up to. Almost to my disappointment, I found they had gone VFR with scattered clouds, haze, but legal visibility Santa Monica style.
LAX approach vectored me right over the middle of his airport because that’s the place to be out of the way of taking off and landing airliners since, as yet, they don’t go straight up or down.
He told me to change to Santa Monica and I said good day and signed off. I called Santa Monica, got on downwind in the shiny, grey smoggy air and shortly was on the ground.
As I filled in the log book—16 hours 33 minutes coast to coast which was better than DC-3 schedules used to be—I thought what a nice trip it had been. VFR all the way in the quiet comfort of a modern airplane. No one held me up, except at Pittsburgh, and I didn’t hold anyone up. There’s a lot of sky left and it’s fun to fly in it. What’s the problem?
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