What a crappy day

The weather was down right HORRABLE!! Blue Skys, Few Clouds up at about 4,000ft, and winds from 360 at 15 on the AWOS.

I know what your thinking.... "How is that horrible weather?'"

It's horrible weather when you had to cancel your Flight due to allergies kicking your read end.

Flight Lesson: 02-19-10

Once again it was a bad Weather Day for Flying, so we just did some Ground School today.

Weather not looking good...

Well, I have a Flight lesson set up for tomorrow but the Weather looks like it won't be favorable for Flying. We have a 30% change of rain tomorrow so I doubt we'll go wheels up.

Oh well, we will do some Ground School.

Flight Lesson: 02-12-10 - XC

The weather was quite scuzzy, but it was good enough to allow us to make a XC Flight to VCT. It was a fun flight.

I got to the airport early only to find my CFI already there. So we went in to his office and did some Dead Reckoning. My Flight Planing skills were quite rusty as I had not done a Flight Plan since October with my first CFI. After getting both Flight Plans together we headed out to the plane to Preflight. Once that was complete we taxied down to Runway Three One. After Take Off, we established Cruse and called the FSS to activate the Flight Plan. On our Flight Plan we had the Cruse Altitude at 1,500ft because the AWOS at BYY was reporting 1,600ft Overcast. We quickly found out that 1,500ft was just barely in the Clouds so we had to go down to 1,400ft to get below them. The Cloud Layer kept coming down as we flew farther and I stayed at 1,200ft for most of the Flight. As we flew on, my CFI turned on the LORAN to show me how to use it. After playing with it for a a little while it would not Display the info, so we just flew on using VOR and Pilotage to Navigate (Remember this part). I had some trouble staying on course, but found the Airport just fine.

This is where it got interesting, as VCT is Tower Controlled, and I had never talked to ATC before. I feel sorry for the poor guy sitting in the tower having to talk to me. I botched up the Calls pretty good till I got the hang of it. lol

About 5nm out from VCT I found out that I had forgot to finish up getting the headings for the return trip. So we got what we needed by navigating from VCT to the PSX VOR, then from the PSX VOR to BYY (This is where the LORAN would have been a big help lol). I made sure I was even more strict on keeping the needles on the VOR centered up, as well as knowing where I was on the Sectional at all times than normal. I stayed dead on course the whole time, and got to BYY with no problems.

Despite the Scuzzy Weather, and messing up the Flight Plan it was a great Flight, and I would not change it if I could. A few lessons Learned, that I'm glad I got with a CFI on board.

I logged 1.8 Hours, which brings me up to 35.3 Hours.

Flying Tomorrow Morning...

If the weather holds out I'll be flying tomorrow morning. As far as I know we are still shooting for a XC to VCT, but I guess that all hinges on how the weather is. The forcast from NOAA is as follows.

"Mostly cloudy, with a high near 49. North wind around 15 mph."

Flight Lesson: 02-05-10

I had a great Flight Lesson today. Had the set back the flight due to Weather. It was foggy, and had a quite low ceiling for most of the morning. I was flying the old bird, 1964 Cessna 172E. We were planing to do XC work today, but we did not have time for the flight due to the weather setting us back. So, we did some VOR work, Steep Turns, then came back to the Airport for some Stop and Goes.



After Pre-flighting the Plane we pulled her out of the Hangar and taxied down to Runway Three One. Did our run up and took off with a West Departure. As we turned West you could see the sun reflecting Orange off of West Bay. A pretty sight. then, we did some Nav Work to the PSX VOR, then did some Steep Turns. After we did that we headed back to BYY for some Stop and Go Take Off and Landings. I was amazed at how good my Landings were as I have not had much Flight Time in the past while. My flying was close to being how it was back when I flew the C152.

we did some Short Field Take off and landings, some Soft Field Take Off and Landings, then normal landings. On the third Normal Landing my CFI told me to taxi back the the hangar. Then told me to Turn Right, rather than Left like normal. He then opened the door and said, "Ok, I'll let you solo. Do me Proud!" So I taxied back down to Three One, did all my checks while my CFI got his Hand Held Radio.



I took off and went one round in the Pattern. Boy did the 172 Climb like a fighter without my CFI next to me (Just as the 152 did when I soloed in it). My landing was good. Tad bit high over the Numbers, though. Second one was a lot better, We made the Third one my last. It was good too.



It was a great Lesson. I now have 33.5 Hours logged.