A little time as safety pilot

Today I met a new pilot friend, Tom, out at JGG.

The goal was to let him get a few approaches in while I acted as safety pilot. For those not familiar with the concept, I would essentially act as his eyes looking for traffic while Tom shot the approaches under the "hood". This lets him get IFR current and me learn a few new things from him about how he likes to shoot approaches.

He shot the NDB into AKQ, which was the first time I have had the chance to see an ADF-based approach in action. Tom used the GPS as backup for the approach, which is certainly a good thing to do, being that ADF/NDBs are notoriously inaccurate.

After shooting a nice approach there we headed up the West Point for the VOR-A and then used the VOR-B approach into JGG to get back home. We had to stay below a very sparse cloud layer during the approaches but they proved to be little factor.

After we landed Tom was kind enough to let me take his airplane around the pattern to get some idea of how it flies. It flew great, like all 172s I've been in, and even though I ballooned the landing a bit I felt like the plane would be easy to get a feel for over time.

She sinks a little more aggressively than the 2001 model I have recent time in, but I prefer that since it lets me make a tighter pattern. I've gotten used to the extreme case of that, the Arrow, which drops like a rock when the power is at idle. The Arrow's nice for a tight pattern but would be very demanding in an engine out scenario.

As for my plans to get back in the air again (since the closing of my flight school) I hope to get checked out ASAP in a 1980 172 at PHF airport. After my checkout is complete I will try to convince Tom to safety pilot for me, as I need some approaches under my belt for my own currency needs. :)

Here's the Google Earth track from our flight.

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