Vectors To Final

I had ForeFlight Desktop running all day today on my computer. Every 30-45 minutes I would sneak a peak at the current weather over at JGG airport. Throughout the day the winds were "3 kts" or "calm" or "2 kts" and the skies were clear. Unfortunately each time I checked the temp had risen another 3-4 degrees. But the heat wouldn't stop me - I took the motorcycle out to the airport right after work. All by myself for the flight, I chugged through the preflight and hopped in for engine start. Today I'd only give the passenger briefing to myself. The plan was to head north and do a VOR check. I wanted to do this in order to get the airplane "IFR worthy" again (the last VOR check was a week or so expired). I pointed the nose to HCM, tuned both NAV radios to 108.8 and twisted the OBSs until they both read 005 degrees. They were in agreement (2 degrees off) so I made a mental note of the radial and distance from the station for later ...

With all apologies to the inventor who patented this new technique for crash landing , I'd rather take my chances without the explosive-induced high-rate yaw. I would figure it would make the airplane roll as well, but I am no aeronautical engineer.

A little lunchtime jaunt out to the airport was on order today. I had planned to play the IFR card and file a short trip to Richmond in order to get a little "time in the system". Instead, we decided to play the simpler hand - a VFR hop a few counties north. The winds were calm, the sun was out, and the skies were relatively unoccupied. Another goal for today was to try out the new video camera (a Panasonic PV-GS500). While I pre-flighted 738KR Krista had a little fun filming some other folks performing take-offs and landings. Soon we were taking off and heading NE. We made a straight-in landing at Hummel since it was deserted at the time. A quick taxi-back to runway 01 got us in position for our short-field takeoff (not that it was truly needed). We headed straight down to JGG and set back down on runway 31. I made a rather high approach that had to be corrected with 40 degrees of flaps (I rarely use more than 30). An uneventful and fun flight complete! Here are s...

Today was a nice morning for a quick 0.8 hour hop around the local area with Krista. I am plane-sitting for my friend Tom - he asked me to take his airplane up about once a week to give it some exercise. I did an extra-long preflight since this was the first one I have performed on Tom's airplane (738KR - slideshow ). There was nothing too unusual - this being a 172 I was quite familiar with the general design. Finding everything in excellent working order and the tank full of AvGas, we cranked it up (the engine started almost instantly) and taxied out to runway 31. The plan was simple - head north to West Point, do a touch and go, then head back, flying over our neighborhood along the way. I worked on making a more stable flare and did fairly well with that. The touchdowns were pretty soft too - it has an in-the-flare sight picture almost identical to the newer 172 I often fly. Below is a video from the last landing. Krista made this video with our still camera by holding ...