Route: 40I, Local
Weather: Few clouds, 73 degrees, wind 220 degrees at 6 knots
Summer mornings with a full blue sky and a light breeze only make me want to be one place - in the air. I got my wish today and went up for a little over an hour, starting off with two takeoffs and landings before venturing out. Then, along with practicing all the same maneuvers I worked on last night, I did a little bit of sightseeing. Instead of heading East over the lake where I usually practice I flew off to the West after working on S-Turns. On my way towards the water tower I used to practice turns around a point, I came across a field with a pretty cool maze or design cut into it.
It felt like most of my maneuvers were a little tighter this morning. Looking through the Google Earth track after the flight, it looked like I made some great S-Turns. They actually felt a little off up in the air but the track shows them being pretty darn symmetrical across the two roads over which I practiced. Same goes for one of the turns around the water tower.
After going in many circles doing steep turns (which felt alright, on par but not necessarily better than last night) I headed off over Caesar Creek Lake before returning to the traffic pattern. There were lots of boats out there and I flew a circle around the beach area to watch all the folks 1,000 feet below me enjoying the sunny day.
I brought my camera along again but took some video today in addition to the usual photos. It sat nicely on the glareshield (dash) so I decided it was safe and not distracting to leave it there. One of the results of flying coordinated is that you do not slip (slide to the inside) or skid (slide to the outside) around turns... so I must be flying well since the camera stayed in place the whole time! My first entire trip around the pattern is below along with my descent and flight around Caesar Creek Lake on the way back to the airport. I added a few captions for the non-pilot folks reading this too - enjoy!
A Trip Around The Pattern:
Over Caesar Creek Lake:
Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File
Today's Flight: 1.3 hours
Solo/PIC Time: 3.3 hours
Total Time: 23.4 hours
Posts
Steve--
ReplyDeleteLooks like an AWFUL lot of fun! Very jealous over here.
I'll try and do some video in the future, so you can see what things look like on my side of the state of Ohio.
You can't see a thing!!! I couldn't fly like that so it's a good thing you are :-) Now I know why you can't hear anything ;-)
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