Route: 40I, Local
Weather: Partly cloudy, 75 degrees, wind 040 degrees at 6 knots
As nice as the weather has been these past few weeks, I simply haven't had time to fly. During the prior two weeks I spent literally every night after work out in the yard until past sunset. The positive is that we now have a nice new wood planter and all the landscaping is done; the negative is that I was stuck on the ground.
Today looked to be the nicest day we're going to have in quite a while - temperatures in the mid 70s, moderate to light winds, and awesome visibility. Perfect weather for a Piper Cub! Gina and I drove down to Stewart after dinner and hopped in to 77500, got a prop, and launched into the gorgeous summer evening sky.
A decent chunk of tonight's flight - at 7.5x speed!
Visibility truly was spectacular - at least 40 miles. We could see the Dayton and Cincinnati skylines and I think I may have even seen Columbus out on the horizon. It was a flight with no plan whatsoever so we just kind of flew around the area. I circled over a coworker's house (he was mowing) and we flew out over the lake, descending via steep spiral for some added fun. As the winds were probably at least 10 knots up 1,000 feet or so, I practiced a couple turns around a point for good measure.
Perhaps the only less-than-great thing about flying tonight were my landings. I think the month away may have resulted in a little rust. My first landing resulted in a little bounce so I just elected to go around. The next three (I actually landed each time) were all decent if not great. I think all the dry weather has resulted in a bumpier-than-normal grass runway, though pilot performance certainly played into at least some of the bumpiness. Still, it was some classic fun in a Cub - and what's better than that?
Today's Flight: 1.0 hours
Total Time: 219.2 hours
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My landings have suffered from not enough flying too. I made an embarrassingly bad one when I was giving a ride a couple of days ago - I insisted that we taxi back and make another trip around the pattern to prove that I wasn't completely ham-fisted. The second one was, fortunately, a keeper.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've certainly done the same. I've also learned that, if you're trying to impress, to always be finished after a perfect greaser on the first try - rarely do you repeat such perfection, at least when a passenger's on board!
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