DaleB
Final Approach
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.
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.