13th first-time passenger

Today I took up 2 friends from college, Phil and Chrissy.

Phil was my roommate for a number of years (one of the few people that could tolerate living with me for any length of time) and Chrissy was a neighbor of ours for a year or so. The two of them eventually realized they should get married, so they did that a year or so ago. They came up to visit K and I for the long memorial day weekend.

We flew 99A out of Newport News. Chrissy was a little hesitant about the flight as this would be her first time in a small airplane, but after a bit decided that she would go with us. There were about 10 kt winds almost right down runway 02 which was nice, but I was a little worried that we'd have a bumpy ride since the sun was out and the temps were getting high.

It turned out to be relatively smooth in the air, so we went to around 3000 and just cruised across the peninsula for 0.7 hours. We ended the flight with a view of the "ghost fleet" that resides in the James River.

I ended with another soft landing, which told me I may have finally figured out how to coax 99A down gently. I need to polish my flare, because I tend to pitch up and down a bit in the flare as I try to find that perfect descent rate. Ideally I would be able to just set one pitch angle and keep it while still getting a soft touchdown, but that might not be possible for me. I plan to try though. :)

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