Thursday, January 28, 2016

Flying Lesson #38 - Short, Sweet, And Soft At Linden

Due to weather and airplane issues, we did not do a cross-country flight today.

Instead we flew from KPTK to 9G2, Linden Airfield for the first time, a single runway strip 3,999 long by 75 wide complete with a displaced threshold about 10 minutes away.

I flew there by dead reckoning and the map only, flying over the now inactive Pontiac VOR site, which is a pretty neat landmark, then on to Holly and then to Linden.

There was a low broken layer so we were at 2,500 on the way there and visibility was pretty sucky complete with an impressive crosswind of a gusting 15 knots.

I eventually found the airfield after quite a bit of looking as it was quite hard to pick out of the background clutter all around it.

I setup and did a short field landing complete with cross wind adjustment, then back taxied and did a short field takeoff. Then we did a soft field landing and a soft field takeoff followed by another short field fielding and a soft field takeoff and then headed back to Pontiac.

I found Pontiac without any issues and entered the downwind for Runway 27R and followed another aircraft that was doing pattern work and then did a soft field landing that had lots of float and a nice soft touchdown.

Then I shut the plane down and that was it for Lesson 38 - 4 landings and 1.2 more hours.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

Keep practicing, and never forget you have a 'window' for navigation! :-)

Aaron said...

Old NFO - Yes, it was all map and windows for navigating on that hop. But, that airstrip was ridiculously hard to pick out. While I knew theoretically that it was there and based on the map and landmarks I should have been right on it, finding it was another matter entirely.