Saturday Flyday To Mt. Pleasant

Today the weather started out yucky with low IFR conditions and low fog/clouds everywhere.

This all burned off by 10-ish am so we were good to go.

Mr. B. flew over, and while he was flying over to Pontiac, I did the pre-flighting of the Archer. When he arrived, I drove over to the South side of the airport and met him and we then drove back to the north hangars and took the Archer up for the trip.

We decided to head north and hit the casino at Mt. Pleasant, and Mr. B volunteered to be my safety pilot so I could get a couple instrument approaches in to maintain currency.

We took off from Pontiac's Runway 27R and the weather was excellent.  Nary a cloud in the sky, calm and clear. Contacted Detroit Approach and got handed off to Great Lakes Approach near Flint and we continued northward.

I then did the RNAV 27 approach into Mt. Pleasant.  It was a good approach although clearly I was a bit rusty, but the landing was a chef's kiss with the wheels just kissing the runway in a beautiful transition from flying to rolling.

We then got picked up by the shuttle and hit the Casino.

I proceeded to get slaughtered at Craps, and so we took a break and had a good lunch at the Casino food court.

We then played Mr. B's preferred game of Blackjack and we had a lot of fun.  My first time playing Blackjack in a casino, so I learned some of the game etiquette which was a bit different from what I expected, but it was a fun time. Nice dealers, and nice players, so it was a fun experience.

We then headed back to Pontiac, and I got in touch with Great Lakes Approach after we took off from Mt. Pleasant. Great Lakes Approach  was handling a few military flights and it was interesting listening to them. We got bounced around a bit by some wind and thermals. We then got handed off to Detroit Approach south of Flint and about 14 miles of so from Pontiac.  The wind had picked up slightly and shifted, so they were now using the 9-side of the field.

It was a bit busy so we were number 4 for the approach and got some spacing vectors to make for separation from other aircraft also coming in on approaches and landing.

I then did a really excellent approach, I man right on, and another truly excellent landing.

Much appreciation to Mr. B. for leaving the comfort of his air-conditioned and fast Cessna twin, and joining me in the Archer that goes half the speed of his aircraft (at, to be fair, less than half the fuel burn), and with no air conditioning either. The man didn't scream even once as I maneuvered and did the approaches under the foggles.

That's 2.2, 2 approaches, and 2 damn good landings.