Yesterday, I rented a Cessna 152 (that's three different ones I've flown now) and flew up to Portland to pick up my sister.
I took off from 77S (Creswell, OR) and headed due north. I hadn't done a full flight plan, just fuel calculations and distance calcs. I flew direct to Salem, then towards Portland. All the way I had flight following, so it was cool having an extra pair of eyes helping my watch for traffic.
Cascade approach handed me off to Portland Approach, and they vectored me over downtown. As I was approaching the downtown area, they handed me off to PDX tower. I switched over to the closest I could get to the frequency and transmitted. No respones. I got rid of squelch and tried again, no luck. This time, I'm flying straight ahead because I'm out of contact and want to be as predictable as possible while I troubleshoot. I switch back to approach.
"Portland approach, Cessna 6442 Mike. I was just handed off to tower, but I'm not getting a response. Can I have that frequency again?"
My logic path here is that if I'm causing problems for them, this will give them a chance to vector me out of their hair, and also lets them know that I'm actively trying to contact them. I've already confirmed the frequency from my airport guide that I have handy (I figured having a map of an airport as big as PDX might not hurt). The guy gives me the frequency, and I try it again, this time on my other radio. Still no joy. So I tune into the alternate tower frequency (there's one for north and another for south approaches). "Portland tower, Cessna 6442 Mike. I can't contact the tower on XXX.X, I think I have an equipment problem." The controller says it's no problem and vectors me in over the tower, then has me do a left 270 and clears me to land on runway 10L. I'm awful embarrased, but the approach is smooth and my landing is great. I get off the runway at A4 and tower clears me to taxi direct to Flightcraft, the FBO.
I pull in, not sure where to park, and notice a guy doing the traffic direction thing. He waves me over to a parking spot and I shut it down.
I look up, and my sister and her husband are waving from the lounge. They come out and snap some photos while I did a quick preflight. I ordered 3 a side of gas ($4.10 a gallon, yikes!) and called clearance delivery, then ground. During this, I realized that the radio 'problems' I had earlier were because this radio I used had a toggle that halved the last digit on the display to give me frequencies in-between what was dialed in. Whoops! They handed me off to tower after putting me at A4 again, and they cleared me to get outta there.
I took off, turned south, and reintercepted I-5. My sister took a bunch of pictures, and I let her fly the plane a little. She was really timid with the controls but seemed to enjoy it.
I managed to get a headwind both ways, so we landed about 20 minutes late, but the guy at the FBO told me not to worry.
It was a great flight. A couple of dumb mistakes, but I feel pretty good about my troubleshooting and work-arounds. I learned a lot without dying, and that's gotta be worth SOMETHING, right?
but anyways, I'll be sure to include radio-ops in my 'ground flying' of any new plane.
