Home again

We could not have had better weather for our flying days. The weather and schedules even cooperated to let us hop down to GA to see my family for the day on Thursday -- something that wouldn't have been possible if we were visiting by automobile.

It was a fabulous trip. Good family time, good food, good rest.

Since this blog is about flight training, I'll briefly state what I remember off the top of my head... I did all of the flying, from the left seat, with the exception of the return trip from SC to VA because I wasn't feeling so hot that day (I did the communicate tasks, however, so it wasn't a wasted 2.25-hour trip as far as training goes) and the times when we were carrying family passengers since Husband had to be up front!

1. Flying down last Sunday it was so smooth that I set the elevator trim, sat back, and enjoyed a little under 3 hours of sight-seeing, scanning for traffic, petting the dog, and enjoying the time with Husband. Occasionally a retrim or a nudge of the yoke to correct a drift was required, but it was a very easy trip.

2. At KUZA I had one of my best landings ever, and Husband was genuinely impressed :).

3. KUZA-->18A with a fly-over of Clemson University (that's Death Valley at left) was a nice trip down to see the folks with a few minutes of "where's the airport?" at the end -- even with the GPS, we couldn't visually find it until we were almost right over it. My landing there was firm, but no bounce or control issues. Just after landing, my dad met us at the airport and we talked him into taking a short flight over the lake with two big circles over his house and a quick jaunt over Hartwell Dam -- yes, the lake level is unusually low, and thus the large bright orange ring of Georgia clay along the shorline. Husband was PIC for the tour with dad, and his landing at 18A was similar to mine; must be something about the airport! ;)


4. 18A-->KUZA later that day was good, too. We snuck into the pattern between a cute little red low-wing that was doing pattern work and another fella coming in for a full-stop. I held my flare a few inches high and after drifting with the stall warning on for a bit it plopped down; firm, no bounce, but not one to be proud of.

5. KUZA-->KJGG was Husband's leg. Various ATCs pointed traffic out to us, two of which were aircraft passing left-to-right of our path directly in front of us, with less than 1.5 nm separation. This was (1) a little unsettling (but not really) to see other planes that close without it being the usual pattern kind of close, (2) good to know ATC had our backs (and nose), (3) neat to see other planes that close in flight, (4) good to see what other traffic really looks like -- I've been a little anxious that my scanning technique is ineffective due to how little traffic I see when VFR all by myself (it is a big sky, isn't it?!), but every time ATC has pointed it out, it has been obvious and these that were in close quarters were quite obvious, and (5) proof of how flight-following is a super service but also a warning that it's an as-time-and-workload-permit service that is no substitute for pilot awareness. We saw some very odd low thin clouds, all roller-coastery, as seen in the pic at right...

6. The night before we returned home, we spent some time weighing our Christmas booty (gifts, silly!). Husband had the forethought to email our W&B spreadsheet to himself so we sat down and worked it out. Even with 60 lbs of gifts, us, the Dog, luggage, etc., there was still plenty of room for another full-grown adult. The catch the next morning would prove to be organizing those inconsistently shaped boxes in the limited-sized spaces under and behind seats.

A great trip, and perfect proof positive of why having (a share in) a plane makes traveling easier! Had we driven, we wouldn't have gotten to GA, and all useful time in the day Sunday going down and Friday coming back would have been spent driving instead of enjoying time with family or settling in at home.