A fine day for flying

[DaleB]

Well, the club 172 is back with a fresh engine, and after a few days of high winds I got in a couple of hours this morning. It had been almost a month since I flew a rented Cherokee, and two months since I had the 172 up. At less than 65 hours total in my logbook, I was a little nervous this morning. I paid extra attention to preflight and checklist use.

My plan was to do some airport hopping to practice flying into unfamiliar strips. I mapped out a route last night to hit 4 places I'd never been, 2 of which were unclaimed on Operation Fly. I took off from Millard and made the short hop to KSCB (Scribner, NE) where I just greased the landing. Turns out there were people there for an EAA Ultralight chapter fly-in, so I met some people and learned the interesting history of this old P47 and bomber training field.

From there I flew to David City, 93Y. The only remarkable things I noted were the lack of a taxiway and they have a mogas pump on field. By now it was later than I planned; SWMBO wanted to pick up something before the football game and I had the truck at the airport. I decided to hot-foot it back to KMLE and hit my other two destinations another day. By the time I got back there was a mild crosswind, which was not a problem.

After flying the Cherokee last month I was afraid I'd just lost my feel for flying, but climbing into the 172 this morning was like being home. No sweat, and my landings have improved a lot since I adopted my new technique. All three were quite nice. I met some good people, learned things I didn't know before, and overall had a great time. I'd honestly been a little hesitant to get back in the cockpit, and I'm glad I waited for a nice calm morning... but it feels so good to be back.

 

[Datadriver]

In the fall sometimes you can do that mid day flying that was more uncomfortable in the hot weather.

 

[jFlight]

Sounds like a great day!

I just did 1.1 on the Hobbs. Been 3 weeks since I've been up, when I last wrapped up the last of my dual required for my checkride. (Solo hrs already taken care of as well.)

Initiated flare too low on my first landing. The three extra knots I was carrying didn't help me, as I bounced, and then tried to recover...bounced again... Told myself, this is stupid. "Tower, 3-4-Victor goin' round."

The other 4 landings were pretty darn good. Whew... My steep turns were better than last time out. Maybe those are easier in teh dark?

 

[jesse]

I put 7 hours on the Flybaby today: KCEK - KSWT - KMCW - KAUM - KBTA - KCEK. I'm feeling pretty comfortable in it now - which is about when I should start to get worried

 

[Clark1961]

'Twas a fine day which for the most part is describable by one word: smokey!

DWX-DIK-FTG which was about 6.5 in the air. Only a couple hours on the ground at DIK to check a location and get a bit of lunch.

The smoke, apparently from fires in western Wyoming and Montana, was thick enough that I had to descend out of it to remain VFR on the DWX-DIK leg. By the afternoon the smoke had thinned enough that visibility was always greater than three miles so flew the DIK-FTG leg at 12,500 with a tailwind most of the time. ATC played nice on the flight to FTG but they apparently didn't want to do hand-offs in the morning since both CPR approach and Denver Center dropped me rather than pass the baton.

A few "interesting" views in the smoke: Devils tower shrouded in smoke and bathed in early light, a red sun with tendrils of smoke on the edges of the main plume, my "own" traveling circle of blue sky in a thin plume of smoke.

Dunno how to share this other than just blurt it out so here it is: if you're planning a night flight east (downwind) of lots of fire TFRs, just file and fly it IFR. At night the smoke will just as bad as clouds.

 

[Mafoo]

I flew from KLEB - KHIE - KLEB. Was a nice flight over the White Mountains.

5500 there, and 6500 back. The flight was as smooth as it could be.