Minimal P.I.C.

Today I tagged along with Krista while she practiced some landings. I took the reigns right around dusk to practice a right-seat landing. As we started to roll onto the runway, Krista pointed out a deer on the far end, just right of the pavement.

I continued the takeoff roll, feeling I could liftoff before that point. As we got closer and the warmer temps of the day kept us below takeoff speed, visions started flashing in my head:

  • the deer running right in front of us
  • the prop hitting it
  • the horrendous mess it would make
  • the airplane swerving from the impact
  • and, lastly, me, K and some other airport folks stand by the airplane in the grass looking at the damage


So when the deer darted out into the middle of the runway I was ready to abort. I yanked the power to idle, asked K to make a "Aborted takeoff" call to the folks waiting behind us to depart, and started to apply brakes (and air brakes in the form of full-back elevator).

We made the next taxiway, just in time to see the deer running away on the left side of the runway. K told everyone on frequency what the deer was doing and we taxied back for takeoff again.

This time we made it off without trouble. It was getting pretty dark now, so I had a tough time reading the dimly lit airspeed indicator from the right seat. I had K call out airspeeds for me and ended with a rather crummy landing (flared way too high). I was even crummy on the roll out - minor swerving due to a feeling that we were sliding right even when we were tracking just fine.

That's what I get for taking on two not-oft-practiced challenges at once - night flight and right seat piloting.

In other news, I passed 300 total flight hours recently. That's almost 13 straight days in the air. It's an artificial milestone to be sure, but still feels cool!

I'm well on my way to 50,000 hours now!!! :)

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