A hot and quick flight
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 logging.
After that I just cruised up the the VOR with the airspeed showing 103 kts the entire time. Over the transmitter I did a 180 and headed south. I decided I might as well get some slow flight in so I pulled the carb heat on in preparation to throttle back.
Just then I glanced up and saw a white C-172 coming in my general direction, roughly head-on, about 100' above me at 2,600'.
I had been looking for traffic pretty intently this flight since it was very very hazy, but this guy had managed to sneak up on me. After the 0.25 seconds of surprise went away, I could tell that we were in no danger of rubbing paint. I decided a right hand turn away from his flight path was still prudent though - I hoped also that he would see me better with my wing up. I watched him closely as he flew by. He was close enough that I could read his N-number (which in my book is way too close), but he never reacted like he even saw me.
After that I went ahead with the slow flight ending that with a power-off stall. Only managed to lose about 200 feet during the stall.
I ended the flight with a nice soft landing on 13 but didn't have an especially pretty flare before touchdown.
By the time I got suited up to get back on the bike for the trip home I was sweating like a pig. My only leather jacket is really a winter coat, so that and the helmet only made things worse. But once I was on the road doing 45 MPH I felt just fine!
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 logging.
After that I just cruised up the the VOR with the airspeed showing 103 kts the entire time. Over the transmitter I did a 180 and headed south. I decided I might as well get some slow flight in so I pulled the carb heat on in preparation to throttle back.
Just then I glanced up and saw a white C-172 coming in my general direction, roughly head-on, about 100' above me at 2,600'.
I had been looking for traffic pretty intently this flight since it was very very hazy, but this guy had managed to sneak up on me. After the 0.25 seconds of surprise went away, I could tell that we were in no danger of rubbing paint. I decided a right hand turn away from his flight path was still prudent though - I hoped also that he would see me better with my wing up. I watched him closely as he flew by. He was close enough that I could read his N-number (which in my book is way too close), but he never reacted like he even saw me.
After that I went ahead with the slow flight ending that with a power-off stall. Only managed to lose about 200 feet during the stall.
I ended the flight with a nice soft landing on 13 but didn't have an especially pretty flare before touchdown.
By the time I got suited up to get back on the bike for the trip home I was sweating like a pig. My only leather jacket is really a winter coat, so that and the helmet only made things worse. But once I was on the road doing 45 MPH I felt just fine!
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