In Flight

Learning to fly: August 2001 - ?

Saturday, October 27, 2001

A few flights to catch up with.

Back on Tuesday I went up a couple of times. The first was a dusky practice between CLL and Navasota. Two touch and back-taxi and go's in Navasota and one at Easterwood were great if only because they were uneventful.

Later, John R and I made a run to Coulter under low skies. Technically the clouds were broken at 1300' with a ceiling much higher. Trouble was, it was impossible to see where the clouds were and weren't, so I ended up shooting back and forth at little over 1000' MSL. As usual, I misplaced Coulter (thinking it more North than it actually is) so had to cross West-to-East over midfield before landing on 14 after a left pattern. We then scooted back to Easterwood the same way. Winds were close to 10 kts at from about 180, so there was a slight xwind, but the biggest challenge was the cloud cover.

Today I made a night flight to Caldwell and back in 5452D. I really wanted to practice navigation, and got a good opportunity as I approached CLL from the West and was directed to radio the tower from 2 miles SW for a left base to landing on 34. I think my communications have improved a lot in the past few weeks, and tonight presented no problems on that front.

Oh yes, and I was directed to take off from CLL on RW 28, which was a first for me! I asked the tower for directions to the runway, and he was very helpful. First time I was acceleratiing with McKenzie Terminal on my right for a change.

I notice the last 4 flights have all been in C172's. Those two (52D and 5400J are really comfortable. I wish they were a little cheaper, but for an extra $10/hr I expect I'll continue to fly them when I can.