Flying - A Jaunt Around The Pattern

I had planned to fly a friend up around Saginaw Bay so he could see from the air some vacation property he was planning on buying.

The weather had other plans.

Saginaw was reporting low IFR conditions and Pontiac was showing MVFR going to VFR later.

So instead I took an early lunch and headed to the airport to get some practice in. Clouds were still low at about 2,500 so just pattern it would be. Might as well take the opportunity to keep the daytime currency up.

Everyone else seems to have the same idea and the pattern was quite busy with airplanes from DCT and Crosswinds and others flying around.

This started to settle down and thin out a bit, mainly because the winds began to pick up. While starting at about 6 knots from 250, they quickly began gusting 9-17 knots from 210-260. I certainly got some decent crosswind practice in.

I began with a takeoff from 27L the nice large runway and then did a right pattern for 27R to land. Not a bad landing. Next one around they had me do an early crosswind turn from 27R so a Cessna on 27L could slip behind me into the 27R pattern. Yes it was busy. Then following another Cessna I did a nice landing with a fun gust as I was flaring to land to make life interesting. Not a bad landing as things go, but I didn’t want to leave it at that not perfect landing.

So up I go again, lots of gusting crosswinds, come in and I have to extend my downwind for a Cessna turning a wide out base to land. I see the traffic and let tower know I’ve got them in sight and then continue outward on the downwind leg until they’ve passed me heading in. Then I do my base turn afterwards for good separation and follow them in to land for a very sweet crosswind landing.

That’s 0.8 and 4 landings.