More flying!

Weather: Stunning (and hot) = Flying.

I rented a C-172 (the four seater), and struck off north with a freind from work. We set off from KDWH at 10am local, and headed through the murk up to 5,500 feet where we could see miles ahead, but not more than 10 miles of ground. Weird, but common in summery Texas. Unfortunately this meant that photo opportunities were somewhat restricted.

80.1 nautical miles later we landed uneventfully on runway 33 at Lufkin (KLFK), were met by a lineman who waved us to a stop on the ramp, refuelled us and provided us with the crew car for a trip into town to get a sandwich. Great fin this flying lark. With the sandwich mission accomplished, we came back to Lufkin for departure to find a woman drawing a picture of our plane. Unfortunately, we had to head off fairly quickly, so within ten minutes, I imagine her watercolour was blurred as we rolled off down runway 7, taking to the skies once more. We turned south, and climbed to 4,500 feet for the return trip, havng to stay low because of the building clouds. Flying under the clouds is always quite bumpy due to the turbulent air, so we bounced are way back to Hooks, which thanks to the GPS (and my superb pilotage of course) emerged from the murk just about where it was supposed to be.

Our controller switched our runway at the last minute, which I'm going to use as an excuse for the shocking landing I made, involving two bounces, a seaplane planding strip, a puzzled golfer and a bemused farmer from Idaho (complete with potato). In fact, I am exaggerating, but I did bounce once, which I don't like to do... Ah well. More practice! One of the problems is that I have done most of my recent flying in the smaller 152, so I feel I'm closer to the ground than I actually am when flying the larger 172, resulting in slightly harder landings.

It's still great fun to be able to buzz around Texas, without talking to anyone if you so wish. When the Yanks talk about freedom, this is it.

posted by Sam @ 17:11