Vectors To Final

I went out to the airport today hoping to get some flying in, but with a heavy fog settled in and not going anywhere fast, I decided to just test out a battery powered tug, the Redline Sidewinder . I've always had a hard time pushing the airplane back into the shadeport, especially after a long tiring flight. The plane weighs nearly 3,000 lbs so even though the slope into the parking spot is only 1-2 degrees, it's quite a tough bird to push. Add in slipping feet, no great place to push against, bad angles for applying force, and a squirrelly castering nose wheel (doesn't like to go backwards) and it's a great recipe to hurt my back. Thankfully the Redline did a great job with the task. It's designed to have minimal weight, yet still be strong. It is powered by a heavy duty drill that drives gears and chains to apply rolling force to the nose wheel, moving the airplane at a nice slow pace. Hooking it up to the airplane is not much harder than hooking up the basic ...

This weekend I made my longest airplane trip to date - from KUZA in SC out to KCFD in TX - about 850 miles. The trip was for our quarterly ForeFlight strategy meeting, where the company gets together to plan out the next 3 months of work. Leaving KUZA I took off and picked up my IFR clearance in the air. Sometimes, like this time, the Charlotte controller knows what I wanted before I can even ask. After I called in with my tail number he just automatically gave me a transponder code and told me to standby for the clearance. Very nice, makes you feel almost welcomed. :) I made a fuel stop at KMEI in Meridian, MS. It's a great little towered airport with plenty of young navy pilots stopping in for a break from various practice missions in the area. My stop was a short one - I got the tanks topped off, grabbed a free hot dog and drink, filed my next leg on the iPad via ForeFlight Mobile, and went out to the airplane to blast off again. The next leg was also uneventful, and aft...