Pickep up N9566H from Mckinney, Tx Aero Country airport Sat morning. I posted earlier about the purchase, backed out and back back in, now I'm really in. Prebuy annual complete, no major squawks - replaced the rudder peddals on pilot side and one set brake calipers worn. Instruments all checked out, and supposed to be working. 1976 172M Air Planes 180 hp conv. The previous owner had hung a "tweety bird" air freshener above the baggage compartment couple years ago, and the name stuck with him and his buds that flew her-- tweety bird still hangs out back there. And the way she flies, I can't change that name! Pulled out on the runway, slowly put the power in, and she seemed to say "I thought I saw a puddy cat!"
Was flying 5 miles west to Collins county for fuel, called up tower and clear to land. Look down and I'm 4000'! Yip, she climbs. Tower: Six hotel, do you have the field in site" (thought I did....). "Tower, I picked the wrong runway, looks like cars on it" Tower: "Roger, look 3 degrees left" Ooops. My dumb move for the day -- All that turnin' and slippin' to get down, kinda lost track of the runway. Radios work great 2 king flipflops, glide slope, stormscope, ADF(...), autopilot wing leveleler. Instruments actually in the "right" place....ready to complete instrument training. Best landing I've done in a while...man this thing does exactly what you tell it.
Turned off, clear to taxi. "Six hotel taxi to parking this freq...are you the fella taking tweetie bird away from us?" "That be me, tell (the prev owner) he can't have 'er back now." (It's hard to say six six hotel, so I started going 'sasix hotel" then just six hotel as long as there wasn't nothin' else close to that number -- no controller complained, am I doing a real bad thang?) Get fuel and several envious inquiries from locals (the plane was leased back there for 1 year), and I'm back off.
Man this place is a bit busier that 45R. One plane is holding, one landing, one in the runup area. I stop on the taxiway and do my runup, before takeoff. The hold short aircraft departs. The runup aircraft sits. I wait for a minute or two and then go head and pull to the hold short and call ready to go. Is this bad etiquite? Can I spell etiquite??? There's alot of flight training here. Anyway, I assume they wan't traffic to keep moving. Climb out and let tower say goodbuy to tweety bird. Call approach for following out of this class b mess. First checkpoint is Mesquite NDB. Well, dang, it don't seem to be working. Oh, well, GPS is working. Not too upset, prev owner never used it, but knew others listened to radio on it...but I did pay to have instruments checked out. First joy of ownership, I guess. Out of class b, "Approach 6 hotel out of 3500 for 5500". Scattered to broken at 1500 below. Whoa! Look at Dallas skyline! Man I don't deserve this! Even if I convinced myself I do. Out of Center range, following cancelled, climb on up to 7500. Showing about 123 kts with a pretty direct 10+ kt headwind and about 2500 rpm. 95 on the ground, but it is so cool and peaceful here. Man them clouds ain't breakin up. This wasn't forecast. Oh well, still can get thru them.
Can't seem to raise FSS over radio, decide descend thru clouds and land at Lufkin. Not quite as good a landing. Tweety bird did what I told her instead of what I wanted her to do. Call FSS and unforecast clouds still predicted to burn off. Yea, just the 15 minutes on the ground there breaking already. Back in the air 50nm from new home. Get to Woodville 25 nm from home. What the devil? This stormscope thing has little plusses all over the nose. I do the clear thing and it ain't lyin' cause I see it. 'Bout a level 3 storm right off my nose! I call FSS...yea, one storm in all of southeast texas. Only one spot of red in it, and its located....let's see...yip right smack dab over 45R sitting basically still.
First lesson in patience with my new toy. Land in Woodville, better, and there's a softball field next to the airport. Watch the softball game and the storm to the south rain itself out for 1 hour! Don't move an inch. Back up in the air and itty bitty bounce at 45R and Tweety Bird is home! Grandma and grandkids out to greet 'er! 'Course grandma is quick to point out that I only beat the drive time by a hour......oh, well. She's been good about it.
Sorry bout this ramblin' I just feel like the kid in the candy store! I know I'll probably come down when the bills start comin' in, but I hope not! So far, all I can say is "the Joy of ownership"!
Merf
PS. from AOPA board reply --- i messed up. I descended through the holes in the widely scattered cloud bank....not gonna' break it on the first day.
Was flying 5 miles west to Collins county for fuel, called up tower and clear to land. Look down and I'm 4000'! Yip, she climbs. Tower: Six hotel, do you have the field in site" (thought I did....). "Tower, I picked the wrong runway, looks like cars on it" Tower: "Roger, look 3 degrees left" Ooops. My dumb move for the day -- All that turnin' and slippin' to get down, kinda lost track of the runway. Radios work great 2 king flipflops, glide slope, stormscope, ADF(...), autopilot wing leveleler. Instruments actually in the "right" place....ready to complete instrument training. Best landing I've done in a while...man this thing does exactly what you tell it.
Turned off, clear to taxi. "Six hotel taxi to parking this freq...are you the fella taking tweetie bird away from us?" "That be me, tell (the prev owner) he can't have 'er back now." (It's hard to say six six hotel, so I started going 'sasix hotel" then just six hotel as long as there wasn't nothin' else close to that number -- no controller complained, am I doing a real bad thang?) Get fuel and several envious inquiries from locals (the plane was leased back there for 1 year), and I'm back off.
Man this place is a bit busier that 45R. One plane is holding, one landing, one in the runup area. I stop on the taxiway and do my runup, before takeoff. The hold short aircraft departs. The runup aircraft sits. I wait for a minute or two and then go head and pull to the hold short and call ready to go. Is this bad etiquite? Can I spell etiquite??? There's alot of flight training here. Anyway, I assume they wan't traffic to keep moving. Climb out and let tower say goodbuy to tweety bird. Call approach for following out of this class b mess. First checkpoint is Mesquite NDB. Well, dang, it don't seem to be working. Oh, well, GPS is working. Not too upset, prev owner never used it, but knew others listened to radio on it...but I did pay to have instruments checked out. First joy of ownership, I guess. Out of class b, "Approach 6 hotel out of 3500 for 5500". Scattered to broken at 1500 below. Whoa! Look at Dallas skyline! Man I don't deserve this! Even if I convinced myself I do. Out of Center range, following cancelled, climb on up to 7500. Showing about 123 kts with a pretty direct 10+ kt headwind and about 2500 rpm. 95 on the ground, but it is so cool and peaceful here. Man them clouds ain't breakin up. This wasn't forecast. Oh well, still can get thru them.
Can't seem to raise FSS over radio, decide descend thru clouds and land at Lufkin. Not quite as good a landing. Tweety bird did what I told her instead of what I wanted her to do. Call FSS and unforecast clouds still predicted to burn off. Yea, just the 15 minutes on the ground there breaking already. Back in the air 50nm from new home. Get to Woodville 25 nm from home. What the devil? This stormscope thing has little plusses all over the nose. I do the clear thing and it ain't lyin' cause I see it. 'Bout a level 3 storm right off my nose! I call FSS...yea, one storm in all of southeast texas. Only one spot of red in it, and its located....let's see...yip right smack dab over 45R sitting basically still.
First lesson in patience with my new toy. Land in Woodville, better, and there's a softball field next to the airport. Watch the softball game and the storm to the south rain itself out for 1 hour! Don't move an inch. Back up in the air and itty bitty bounce at 45R and Tweety Bird is home! Grandma and grandkids out to greet 'er! 'Course grandma is quick to point out that I only beat the drive time by a hour......oh, well. She's been good about it.
Sorry bout this ramblin' I just feel like the kid in the candy store! I know I'll probably come down when the bills start comin' in, but I hope not! So far, all I can say is "the Joy of ownership"!
Merf
PS. from AOPA board reply --- i messed up. I descended through the holes in the widely scattered cloud bank....not gonna' break it on the first day.
I know you have GOT to be kidding, that's about the most pimped-out 172 I've ever seen! Though it lacks a GPS, it does have dual f/f, DME, digital transponder, Stormscope (!!)... Heck, a 396 is all the pimping this hawk will ever need.
