Through the Bravo

At the start of today's lesson, Tommy, my CFI, asked me what I wanted to do. Always refreshing to have a say in one's training and since we seemed to be covering the basics of flying at a pretty rapid pace, I thought it might be time for a new challenge. "What about going through the Bravo?" I asked.

Thanks to many, many years of flying online with VATSIM, I have been fairly comfortable with talking with air traffic control (ATC) for a long time. As a VATSIM ATC myself for several of those years, the pilot in me became accustom to thinking of and reacting to what ATC might ask of me at any given moment. That's not to say it's a life completely devoid of surprises, but it does give you a certain easy feeling of familiarity when talking to the guys and gals behind the scope.

A couple of lessons back, Tommy and I had ventured over to Rocky Mountain Metro Airport, KBJC, and its associated Class D airspace. I found communicating with the tower there to be a non-issue and it actually made me a bit more comfortable than plain old VFR CTAF comms.

So, with renewed confidence, I figured taking a chunk out of Colorado's busiest airport would be a good challenge. So, with that, off we went into a bumpy, June Colorado sky. Our route took us east from LMO to get up to altitude and get settled and then we cut south and picked up flight following with a transition through the Bravo from Denver Approach. After some maneuvering around a TFR for the Rockies game, we were cleared direct to Centennial (KAPA).

Our route: LMO -> APA -> FTG -> LMO

The actual process of getting flight following and a Bravo transition was all pretty straightforward. A call up to ATC, an immediate reply with a squawk code, and we were on our way. Honestly, I think I prefer this way of having a second set of eyes helping you watch for traffic as well as being there if you need them.

After a quick turn around at APA, it was back in the air and eastbound to Front Range Airport (KFTG). For this leg, we decided to go straight VFR without flight following, essentially jumping from Centennial tower to Front Range tower when we were a few miles south of the airport -- all the while dodging a large dissipating thunderstorm southeast of the Denver metro. 

As you can see from the chart above, Front Range Airport sits in an interesting little cutout of the greater Denver Class Bravo. You go from an 8,000' MSL shelf above you to a 7,000' foot shelf and once you get near the airport and into FTG's class Delta. It all makes for some pretty tight maneuvering - and also makes you thankful for Foreflight and the Garmin 430 both depicting the airspace boundaries. We entered on a right base for runway 8, did a touch and go (horrible landing, by the way, thanks to some nice wind sheer on final), and then continued east, staying below the 8,000' MSL Bravo shelf all of the way back to LMO. We dodged a couple more cells using the poor man's data link (aka Foreflight's cellular data weather radar on Tommy's iPad) and made it back to LMO after a mere 1.8 hours on the Hobbs.

Here's a video of the first leg, LMO -> APA with flight following:

Training has been going great, I really enjoy flying with Tommy and the camaraderie we have. After today's flight, here's where I'm at:

Total Logbook Time: 25.5 hrs