Flying - Today's Quick Cross-Country To Charlotte

The weather could not have been nicer - not a cloud in the sky below 12,000 feet, light winds and unlimited visibility.

You know its good when you give the flight briefer your route and he's like: "Its a perfect day, do you want a standard or abbreviated, as you've got no issues."

I did the standard anyways and it confirmed that the day would be great and indeed have no issues.

Everyone else seemed to think it was a great day to fly too as every plane at DCT was in use.

I got to the airport a half hour before my scheudled flight and the plane came back so I made sure it was refueled and I did the preflight.

Given the quick time slot it would be a get to Charlotte, land and come right back kind of deal, otherwise I would have met with a few bloggers I know over there, but the availability issue made that impossible. Starting to see if any local flying clubs have openings as this limitation is getting kinda old real fast.

I took off from runway 9L and did a downwind departure to the west.

It was indeed a beautiful day for flying:

I climbed on up to 6,500 feet and headed to Charlotte.

On the way there I passed the Livingston/Howell Airport, and their CTAF was crazy busy with traffic, including many pilots chiding other pilots for not giving position reports, cutting people off, or otherwise. I was happy to be far above the craziness.

Then on past Mason airport, just inside the 50 nautical mile limit for a cross country so I flew on by.

Then on to Charlotte, where my first approach quite frankly sucked - too high and too fast, so I did a go round. I then did a landing, and then took off back to Pontiac.

Pontiac when I returned to it was hopping, with lots of planes in the pattern and coming and going.

Coming in from the west, I was perfectly lined up for the runways so they had me do a straight in approach to Runway 9R, the nice huge runway, which was very nice. This was because as I was landing, another Archer was doing a pattern for landing on 9L. We landed at the same time and both stopped at the Kilo taxiway to exit, so I got to cross Runway 9L behind him as he cleared it and taxi back to the flight school.

1.7 hours, 2 landings, and it was a great day to fly.