Flying - First Flight As Member Of The Club

Today the sky was pretty clear and the plane was available in the afternoon.

My fellow student pilot from Flight 101 days, Peter, is also looking for a club to join and I told him about this one. I took him to the hangars and showed him the planes and we got the Archer ready to go.

He's only flown Cessna 172s so far, so the Pipers are new to him.

We decided to take a flight to Jackson and hit the restaurant there. A good practice flight for my planned trip with Leah next week.

He noted this would be his first trip as a passenger since getting his license. No pressure.

I showed him the preflight and the minor differences between it and the procedure for the 172s. Took the plane out of the hangar and got it fueled up and I then started it up and taxi'd to the run-up area. I did the run-up and showed him the differences there from the 172 as well. Not much, manly the fuel pump and tank switching.

I then got a takeoff clearance and we headed west.

At 4,500 it was a little bumpy but not bad, there was also a 25 knot headwind to slow us down. The headwind would make for a nice tailwind on the way back though.

Getting to Jsckson, instead of a straight in approach to Runway 25, which I kinda expected as we were lined up right for it, they had us enter a left base first, which was fine. Winds were gusting 15-20 knots from 230 degrees, so a little bit of a crosswind but nothing major. I landed just fine.

Then we taxi'd to the terminal and parked and headed for the Skyways and Spirits restaurant.

I had their $100 burger (which was only $7.50 when you take away the flying time) - two 1/4 lb patties of Angus beef cooked to perfection. Pete had a BLT. The $100 Burger mission was met most satisfactory. We looked around the small terminal for a bit and then headed back to the plane.

I did a preflight and then we got clearance to taxi back to Runway 25 and were cleared for a right turn after takeoff towards Pontiac. Jackson tower courteously asked if we wanted flight following and, why not? So I received a squawk code and first ws told to contact Lansing Approach who quickly passed me off to Detroit Approach and we had flight following until we were 12 miles from Pontiac and had the airport in sight and they then ended it and had us contact Pontiac tower.

On the way back the cloud base had lowered a bit and I flew at 3,500. With the tailwind we were making over 130 knots ground speed at cruise RPMs.

Pontiac tower initially put me on a left downwind entry for Runway 27L, but since the plane lives on the north side of the field, the tower had us continue the left downwind but land on Runway 27R. It made for a longer base leg crossing 27L to get to 27R but that was fine - just a very atypical approach to 27R. I then did an even better landing than the one I did at Jackson, again with a bit of a crosswind and gusts as well. Then I got to contact ground and taxi to the hangar.

We then put the plane away, wiped it down and got all the bugs off, locked the doors and turned out the lights and that was that.

Here's the plane parked at Jackson. The cone shaped building in the background is Jackson's VOR.

1.7 hours, 2 landings, and 1 $100 Hamburger.