Saturday Flyday - Operation Archer Retrieval

Unfortunately we're going to be waiting even longer for the Archer's autopilot to be done, as the avionics shop can't get to it right now for reasons, namely they are swamped and don;t have the techs available to get it done right now. Argh.

So, the plan was to pick it up this morning at 9am at KADG and bring it back for now.

So I got up early to meet with James and make it happen by flying the Dakota there and he would fly the Archer back. We got to the airport at 7:30, and James had brought his son along, nice kid.

Plan was to get over there and get back quick as the winds were going to really pickup today.

We then ran into a key problem:

Namely, our keys didn't work in the Dakota.

The Dakota has just come out of annual, and as part of that, the lock cylinder was changed as it had deteriorated to the point where you could remove your key in an other than the off setting, which could be potentially bad.  Bad because you could leave the magnetos hot that way and someone turning the propeller could find the engine starting up on them.  Not good so it got changed,

Problem was, they didn't leave the new key behind.

So we had to wait a bit and finally we managed to get in contact with who had the new key as their phone was apparently on Do Not Disturb, and James drove off to get it. We lost a bit over an hour of time with that issue.

I had already done the preflight so we got in and got going.

Called Ground, got flight following, did our run up and I took us off for Adrian and after clearing Pontiac's airspace was directed to contact Detroit Approach.

Used the autopilot and it both connected and disconnected just fine.

Wind had already picked up a bit and we would be having a 22 knot headwind on the way there.

It was a smooth flight there, and since I had another pilot with me I put the foggles on and did the RNAV 23 approach. Detroit Approach was very cool and had us fly direct to a middle fix on the approach, and cleared us into the Bravo to do so, which saved us time.

I then did a great approach and a nice landing as the wind, while gusting was straight down the runway at 230.

We then met with the avionics shop and got the Archer.

We then flew back to Pontiac, James and his kid in the Archer, and I was in the Dakota, and things started getting a tad interesting.

After passing the Ann Arbor  airport, we both hit some decent wind shear and turbulence to bounce us around a fair bit. The turbulence continued towards Pontiac.

Even with the turbulence, I managed to snag a nice shot of The Big House from 3,500 feet.

I had to slow down to remain in safe maneuvering speed, but I was still moving pretty good. A ground speed of 151 knots or 174 mph is rather nice.

Got to Pontiac, and first they had me do a left downwind for Runway 27L.

They then had me turn a tight base and moved me over to 27R which got a bit challenging in what was a gusty crosswind of 10-18 knots from 220 degrees.

I almost had to go around as the wind was pushing me past the run way rather nicely,  but I managed to salvage the approach in good order. I was then lined up on short final, started to land, and then one heckuva gust made it not super pretty.

The wind, just as my wheel started to touch decided to kick up to 25 knots.

Not my best landing, but the aircraft was and is fully usable, so it still counts as an excellent landing, doesn't it?  Had we been back as planned the winds would have been far better.

James arrived awhile after, and also had a fun crosswind landing too in the rather gusty conditions, but they sent him right to 27R and didn't do a last minute switch.

We then put the planes away and that was a rather challenging 19 knot crosswind factor, but I did it, so I'm rather happy about that.

Winds are currently16-30 knots and really whipping around, so glad we got back when we did.

That's 1.7 with 2 excellent landings and one approach in the books.

Speaking of books, I've now filled up my first logbook completely, and these two entries were the first ones in my new logbook.