poadeleted3
Pattern Altitude
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2005
- Messages
- 2,055
Well, I had a fantastic weekend. Saturday, flew Cathy to Altoona to see her Dad for Father's Day weekend. It was yuckily hot here, and we didn't break ground until 3 pm, so I was wondering if we were going to be hammered by thermals all the way. It didn't look awfully hazy from the ground, but once I was up vis turned out not to be the greatest, which killed my plans of climbing out of the thermals if I needed to. However, the haze meant nice, stable, smooth air, so that part was nice. I could only climb to 4500, any higher and I was going to lose the horizon 
I actually could see some things on the ground about 10 miles away, but the horizon was all fuzzed out, especially westbound into the sun as we were. Farts... I hate flying like that, but evaluated whether I was letting last week's debacle push me into a flight I wasn't comfortable with. The "out" was easy... decend if I had to, so I decided I was just expanding my comfort envelope a bit, not pushing it. Glad I did. We all really enjoyed the flight, the picnic with family at the park just off the airport was great fun, and members of the family that hadn't seen us in a plane before were suitably impressed. I'd told Cathy to have them listen for "Skyhawk 18E" in case they could hear the FBO's radio. They could, and Cathy's aunt seemed to think listening to me give a pirep to Altoona FSS, and our calls in the pattern, was the greatest thing since canned beer. My landing was good, which was nice with Cathy's whole family watching and taking pictures, and I was, of course, as humble as always as I accepted their compliments on it.
The flight back was even hotter, since the haze was, if anything, worse. I climbed to 4000 and stayed there until I was clear of the mountains, then dropped to 3500. 75 OAT, nice and toasty in the cabin, but with plenty of air from the Skyhawk's vents everyone else voted against me and we left the windows closed. I had even more fun on the way back, since I abandoned the VORs and flew back via pilotage. Did a bit of sightseeing on the way back and over our neighborhood, Cathy got decent pic of our house (which I'm attaching, but you'll never figure out which is ours LOL), and finished up with another good landing just before sunset.
Score one for the plane, btw. It's not a trip we'd have made in the car. 5 hours each way, vs 1:20 or so in the plane. Door to door with the plane, 7 hours, with 2 1/2 hrs picnic time with the family. In the car... 12 1/2 hrs, and we'd have been beat.
As for Father's Day itself, Cathy and Sean treated me to the airshow at Willow Grove NAS, which was fantastic. Cathy and Sean had never seen modern (or old, for that matter) fighters in the air. The noise and power of the F-18 Super Hornet left them awed, Sean Tucker and the other airshow pilots had them both telling me "don't try that at home!!" and the Thunderbirds had them both gasping. Sean got his pic taken in front of some of the WW2 fighters and bombers he's always been fond of. Tons of fun
I actually could see some things on the ground about 10 miles away, but the horizon was all fuzzed out, especially westbound into the sun as we were. Farts... I hate flying like that, but evaluated whether I was letting last week's debacle push me into a flight I wasn't comfortable with. The "out" was easy... decend if I had to, so I decided I was just expanding my comfort envelope a bit, not pushing it. Glad I did. We all really enjoyed the flight, the picnic with family at the park just off the airport was great fun, and members of the family that hadn't seen us in a plane before were suitably impressed. I'd told Cathy to have them listen for "Skyhawk 18E" in case they could hear the FBO's radio. They could, and Cathy's aunt seemed to think listening to me give a pirep to Altoona FSS, and our calls in the pattern, was the greatest thing since canned beer. My landing was good, which was nice with Cathy's whole family watching and taking pictures, and I was, of course, as humble as always as I accepted their compliments on it. The flight back was even hotter, since the haze was, if anything, worse. I climbed to 4000 and stayed there until I was clear of the mountains, then dropped to 3500. 75 OAT, nice and toasty in the cabin, but with plenty of air from the Skyhawk's vents everyone else voted against me and we left the windows closed. I had even more fun on the way back, since I abandoned the VORs and flew back via pilotage. Did a bit of sightseeing on the way back and over our neighborhood, Cathy got decent pic of our house (which I'm attaching, but you'll never figure out which is ours LOL), and finished up with another good landing just before sunset.
Score one for the plane, btw. It's not a trip we'd have made in the car. 5 hours each way, vs 1:20 or so in the plane. Door to door with the plane, 7 hours, with 2 1/2 hrs picnic time with the family. In the car... 12 1/2 hrs, and we'd have been beat.
As for Father's Day itself, Cathy and Sean treated me to the airshow at Willow Grove NAS, which was fantastic. Cathy and Sean had never seen modern (or old, for that matter) fighters in the air. The noise and power of the F-18 Super Hornet left them awed, Sean Tucker and the other airshow pilots had them both telling me "don't try that at home!!" and the Thunderbirds had them both gasping. Sean got his pic taken in front of some of the WW2 fighters and bombers he's always been fond of. Tons of fun
