Flying - A Good Flight To Bad Axe

In my continuing quest to build hours and cross-country time, I had a nice flight planned to Bad Axe. Skies were supposed to be clear up to 12,000 per the weather briefing. Not so much. There was a pretty much broken layer between 3,000-3,500 the whole way there and back so it was a relatively low level flight the whole way.

I had booked N8570F but for some reason they moved me to N1869H.

N1869H has received a new paint job and new Garmin heading and attitude indicators, getting rid of its rather unreliable vacuum system. Pretty cool new stuff.

Unfortunately, she would not start.

So I had to move my stuff to N8570F and of course it started with no problems.

A good and smooth takeoff and I was on my way.

On the way to Bad Axe there was still a fair bit of snow on the ground as I flew north.

You know Bad Axe is near when you can see the many windmills and the Lake Huron in the distance.

A nice landing on Runway 35 with a bit of a crosswind from 330 at 9 kts. Then taxi back on taxiway Alpha to the start of the runway, takeoff and head back to Pontiac.

On the way back, I overflew Lapeer Airport.

It's a nice airport to fly into, but I did not have the time to stop so I simply flew over and took a picture.

Then it was back to Pontiac and per the tower entering a right base and doing a very nice landing again on Runway 27R with winds from 300 at 12.

I averaged around 120-130 kts per hour during the trip using full rental power as I had to make up the time lost that was involved in switching planes and doing two full preflights, and it was a nice quiet and relaxing time flying.

1.8 Hours and 2 landings.