Ghery
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2005
- Messages
- 10,903
- Location
- Olympia, Washington
- Display Name
Display name:
Ghery Pettit
Well, it's been 2 months since I've been able to get up, so I grabbed the Arrow for some quality time this afternoon. Shot a few touch and goes and then departed to the south with the intent of looking at Mt. St. Helens.
As you are certainly aware, we've got a few fires burning up here. I checked the locations of the TFRs before departing and knew I didn't have to worry about any where I was going (other than the usual 1.5 nm radius one around the mountain. Climbed up to 9,500 MSL and headed to where I know it is hiding. Flight visibility was severely impacted by smoke. I got within about 15 nm of the mountain, still couldn't see it and decided that the photo ops probably weren't going to be all that good anyway.
So, what do you do when you've got a plane and nowhere in particular to go? Airport hop, of course. So, I diverted to KLS and landed. Taxied back to the runway and went to an airport I hadn't visited since I was a student pilot. SPB. Took off again and thought, "gee, I haven't flown into HIO as PIC in a few years" (a number of times as self loading cargo in the company shuttles, however) so let's go there before going home. Popped over the hill, called the tower for a T&G and looked hard to find the airport (lousy smoke!). Glad I had the GPS looking, too. Found the downwind for rwy 30, shot my T&G and headed home. Cruising along I looked at the clock, and thought that I was going to do a lot of T&Gs when I got home (goal was to get anything over 3.0 on the Hobbs to reset the insurance clock), so I tuned in the ASOS at HQM. It was reporting clear, so I headed over there. Clouds coming in from the coast and as I approached that "clear" went to "1100 few" and I could see that "1100 overcast" was not long in the future. So, head for home, stay in the pattern for a while and then put it away.
Two goals met. Reset the insurance clock by logging at least 3.0 on the Hobbs (got 3.1) and see if the new seats were an improvement. They were.
Before we put a new interior in that bird 3 hours would kill your seat. Now, no problem. It looks a lot nicer, but the important thing is that it is much more comfortable.
Sorry for the ramble, but it felt really good to get back up. Now to find out if I dodge the widely reported (in the media) layoffs that Intel will likely announce tomorrow. Do that and I'll get serious about the IR. Fail that and, "anybody need an experienced EMC engineer?"
As you are certainly aware, we've got a few fires burning up here. I checked the locations of the TFRs before departing and knew I didn't have to worry about any where I was going (other than the usual 1.5 nm radius one around the mountain. Climbed up to 9,500 MSL and headed to where I know it is hiding. Flight visibility was severely impacted by smoke. I got within about 15 nm of the mountain, still couldn't see it and decided that the photo ops probably weren't going to be all that good anyway.
So, what do you do when you've got a plane and nowhere in particular to go? Airport hop, of course. So, I diverted to KLS and landed. Taxied back to the runway and went to an airport I hadn't visited since I was a student pilot. SPB. Took off again and thought, "gee, I haven't flown into HIO as PIC in a few years" (a number of times as self loading cargo in the company shuttles, however) so let's go there before going home. Popped over the hill, called the tower for a T&G and looked hard to find the airport (lousy smoke!). Glad I had the GPS looking, too. Found the downwind for rwy 30, shot my T&G and headed home. Cruising along I looked at the clock, and thought that I was going to do a lot of T&Gs when I got home (goal was to get anything over 3.0 on the Hobbs to reset the insurance clock), so I tuned in the ASOS at HQM. It was reporting clear, so I headed over there. Clouds coming in from the coast and as I approached that "clear" went to "1100 few" and I could see that "1100 overcast" was not long in the future. So, head for home, stay in the pattern for a while and then put it away.
Two goals met. Reset the insurance clock by logging at least 3.0 on the Hobbs (got 3.1) and see if the new seats were an improvement. They were.
Before we put a new interior in that bird 3 hours would kill your seat. Now, no problem. It looks a lot nicer, but the important thing is that it is much more comfortable.Sorry for the ramble, but it felt really good to get back up. Now to find out if I dodge the widely reported (in the media) layoffs that Intel will likely announce tomorrow. Do that and I'll get serious about the IR. Fail that and, "anybody need an experienced EMC engineer?"
