Flight to Long Island: Farmdale Airport KFRG

For the most part departure and on-route is easy.  You copy and read back instructions on the ground, depart, switch over to the on-route frequency and get handed off from ATC to ATC enjoying the privilege of not having to drive eight hours.

 

 

However, always think ahead with arrival procedure and airport charts out as soon as you are on-route so you can figure out what to expect on arrival as this is where things can get tricky.

For the flight into Farmingdale our departure clearance was as follows:

Cleared to KFRG
Route Direct
Altitude 7000 feet
Frequency 124.87 upon departure
Transponder 5453

The route isn't that straight forward as you enter busier airspace. When over Connecticut we got routed to LOVES intersection then V44 to DPK direct KFRG.  Victor routes can't be put into the GPS so you lookup waypoints and enter those manually. The key is to know your GPS system inside and out so you can readily punch those in (and update it with modifications when ATC issues you a new waypoint).

Hint: You can download GPS simulators and practice at home on your PC.) This way you can enjoy the views instead of being head down and trying to figure out the GPS...

 

When we got to DPK we got vectored to the final (with three planes ahead) and landed with a stiff strong cross wind.  (So it's important to keep the cross wind landing techniques sharp!)

KFRG FBO was terrific with making the crew car available for us (with bagels and coffee in the pilots lounge).

On departure, we called clearance delivery to get our clearance.  Our clearance went as follows...

Cleared to CYGK
Farmingdale Four Departure
Bridgeport
SAX
T218
LAAYK Intersection
T221
CFB
V29
ART
Direct
Climb to 3000
Expect 8000 after 10 minutes
Contact 125.87
Squak 7112

Long clearance, but okay except when you take a closer look it seems unreal that when they say the map isn't to scale, they should also add that the map way points aren't where you expect them to be.

Also, the cleared route takes you over a few states! (the other issue is having to manually enter the waypoints where the T or V routes are).  If you are unprepared to manage these complex routes, IFR can be tough in busy airspace. An app where you can get these entered is a must otherwise you'll end up spending a lot of time trying to find these on the charts.

We then had to wait for at least six inbound and four aircraft in front of us (including jets!) which delayed us by 15 minutes (Friday evening departures out of New York - 15 minutes is way better than hours of inching along traffic out of the freeways in New York City).  

Copying the instructions I should have cross checked the frequency on departure as I copied it wrong (and read it back but didn't get a correction).  So on departure I couldn't get raise the frequency so I switched back to a very busy tower who gave me the correct frequency.

The flight back was longer than it needed to be (2.4 hours rather than 1.8 hours) because we got routed over Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and back over New York before heading into Ontario due to a busy Friday night airspace over New York.

Great flight - just a couple of lessons on being prepared to work the GPS and to ensure that the departure frequency is cross checked with the departure procedures.