Sunday, August 20, 2017

Flying Lesson #145 - Alone Again

Today after the range trip I took Leah home, had a quick lunch and hopped in the car for the airport.

The weather was far too nice to not fly today. Sky clear up to 25,000 feet, winds light and variable around 5-7 knots eventually blowing up to 10 knots variable as I was flying.

How could I not go up?

Apparently a lot of other people thought the same way as the airport was all sorts of busy with tons of planes taking off, landing, and flying the pattern.

Even better, this was to be Solo time again.

After my standard careful pre-flight and run-up I headed off to the to the practice area climbing to 3,300 feet.

Arriving in the practice area I snapped a quick picture of the Ford Proving Grounds at Romeo.

The proving grounds offer an easily identifiable landmark and make for an excellent emergency landing spot should something go awry.

I then did some clearing turns and then did slow flight, a power off stall, and steep turns, and then just had some fun flying around.

I then headed back to Pontiac for some pattern work.

Coming in, I initially got told to prepare for a 2 mile right base entry but the controller then changed it to a straight in but I was told to keep my speed up. Final was a tad faster as a result and I did float a bit in ground effect but made a nice landing anyways as the speed bled off.

Then up to do it again in the pattern and an even better landing.

While taxiing back to take off again, I saw this nice looking Bonanza in the run-up area and grabbed a quick picture for Murphy's Law as he likes Bonanzas:

I did a couple more patterns with some good landings and called it a day.

1.2 solo and 4 landings.

If y'all would send some kind weather thoughts consisting of clear skies and calm winds for this week, that would be appreciated as something quite good may just finally happen.

4 comments:

drjim said...

Do the V-tails still have a reputation as "Doctor Killers"?

juvat said...

Best of luck to you, Aaron. You'll do fine.

Aaron said...

drjim: Yes that fork-tailed doctor killer moniker still lingers, but the title is rapidly being replaced by the Cirrus.

juvat: Thanks, we'll see what happens.

jon spencer said...

Wonder if some of the Cirrus owners have that parachute in mind when they saw the limb off the good decision tree.