It's better to be lucky than good.

Yesterday was a good day of flying. And, coupled with some wonderful weather and lucky coincidence, it became memorable.

I flew for a half-hour at about 1:30, basically having time for a single T&L in 785 before coming in to share a lesson in 5452D with John R. 785 has been a pain lately because the radio is intermittent, and yesterday was no exception. After one or two suspected transmission misses I unplugged the phones and blasted the speaker. Not too much fun, but the practice was good. Landing was fair, one skip, but routine.

Taxied home to John and Andy preflighting the 172. It was decided that I would take off, and I was asked for a destination.

"Brenham," I responded, "because I want to get a solo there to open up my world." Everyone agreed and off we started. This particular 172 has a 180-hp Lycoming engine, and it climbed like a banshee. Before we knew it we were leveled off at 4500', heading 180 to Brenham at about 120 kias. At that altitude 11R was visible from 15 miles away, and as we tuned their frequency it became clear right away that something was up.

"Brenham traffic, we've got three military jets on final for runway 34."

Military jets? I become a little uneasy at the prospect of entering an uncontrolled pattern with military aircraft. Not my flying, but communications, has me very self-conscious at the moment.

About then John catches sight of the airport grounds. I'm too busy looking for traffic to notice, but from the back seat I hear "Hey! It's an airshow! Let's go down and check it out!" Andy (thankfully) takes the radio and we enter a left pattern for landing, which I manage (though once again I neglect to wheelie in and drop to three wheels right away. In my defense though, this plane is so smooth that I didn't even know my nose was on the ground.)

The Brenham Air Show to which we dropped in consisted of 3 or 4 Confederate Air Force planes (A 4-engine B-17 and a couple of fighter trainers). These were powerful piston engine craft, and they all burned oil like nobody's business. We also saw a Lake seaplane and a Pitts aerobatic. Saw the bomber and a trainer do a few laps around the sky, then it was time to take off.

John navigated to Navasota and did a go-around and landing, then I switched back to pilot. One go-around and three landings later I was soloing in the 172.

Man you've got to pull back to keep the nose-wheel up! I landed the first one fine with a little skip and the second one felt fine too, but the guys let me know that I nosed it. Damn! I have to get that plane again and practice...it feels so comfortable to fly that I want to get good, because that thing is made for cross-country! Headroom, legroom, power...$55/hour is a lot, but the extra $15 buys so much.

I hopped out, John and Andy hopped in, and they did two quick ones before Andy joined me to watch John do his solo. Two great landings later, we were all together again and speeding back to Easterwood.

"Those were the best two I ever did," John confided. He's right...they were good. One more solo and he's free.

As for me, I want to practice a little more. Maybe a round-robin of Coulter-Hearne-Caldwell-Navasota-CLL with two T&G's each is just what I need. Better set aside a couple of hours, but this'll be fun. We'll see what the weather holds this week.