bluer than all of my troubles
* * * * * *
Finally got up in the air today. Couldn’t have been a better day for flying. The air was glass-smooth at our cruising altitudes of 5500 and 4500 feet (depending on the leg of the trip).
Mr. Parrish preflighted the plane while I completed the rest of the flight plan and called the Flight Service Station to file it. I can only plot so much out before the day of the trip–intended courses I can figure out but the actual heading of the plane (where I point the nose) depends heavily on the prevailing winds at altitude that day. Today up at cruising altitude the winds were 25 knots out of the south-southwest, so I added a correction factor to each of the legs of the flight.
I didn’t get lost once. Used a combination of pilotage (flying by reference to landmarks on the ground) and dead reckoning (computing time & distance) and I always knew right where I was. My instructor said that if I do this well on my next XC (flying east through some pretty busy airspace) he’ll have no qualms about signing me off for my solo XC. My landings weren’t that great but they weren’t the focus of the flight. I’ll be soloing on Monday while Rick flies his XC with Mr. Parrish and I’ll practice copious numbers of landings then.
Anson County Airport, our first stop, was a sleepy little airport just north of the South Carolina border. There were a smattering of small planes parked quietly on the ramp. We had the place to ourselves, really. Hickory, on the other hand, was a hotbed of activity. It’s controlled, so I had to call the tower and get vectors from them instead of just self-announcing what I wanted to do, as is usually the case. The controller, who sounded a bit overworked and flustered with the amount of traffic, put me in a long final for the main runway while she routed everyone else in sequence. Did a decent landing, turned off, got clearance to taxi back to the head of the active runway, did a mini-runup to check the magnetos, and waited at the hold-short line. And waited some more. Put the parking brake on and waited. After about 5 minutes I called her back, “86 Golf, holding for takeoff runway 24, departure to the east.” That seemed to jog her memory and she cleared me for takeoff.
Most of my pictures came out with a bluish tint. It wasn’t that blue up there. I think I had the wrong camera setting. In any case, Mr. Parrish took these on the last stage, as we were flying from Hickory to Sugar Valley. I had just crossed over I77 and knew where the airport was, so I was in a cruise descent. Workload was low so I fished out the camera.
My Christmas presents, the headset and the kneeboard, were absolutely invaluable for the flight. They made life 100 times easier.
On short final for runway 20 at Sugar Valley. I’m flying the plane; Mr. Parrish is in the right seat taking the pictures. We affectionately refer to the runway as “the toothpick.”
Landing 20 is always fun. I’m coming over the 50-foot trees at the north end of the runway. You can see another plane heading up the taxiway toward the ramp on the right.
All in all it was a good day.
i am glad to hear that someone else was taking the pictures while you were doing the flying. i got worried that you were insane there for a sec. ;)
the blue looks really cool.
YAY! Beautiful day alright!! Wow! Great pictures too… love the first one! Makes me think of the lyrics,
I guess you really get to live it! : )
So glad to hear it went well… definitely a step closer to transatlantic aviationary adventures! Just let me know when I need to check on procuring that Gulfstream! ; )
Actually I did take the second picture myself. Along with a few others. It’s not as if the plane would suddenly stop flying if I let go of the control yoke. But I would have been insane indeed to snap the last two myself. Landing takes all of one’s faculties.
I’m glad you like the blue :)
:)
I’ll let you know about the Gulfstream. Just so you can plan ahead, I’ll take a G550 with a blue stripe, please.
Have a wonderful weekend!
very, very cool
Well, as much as I would love to accommodate your aerodyne desires… we’d kinda have to just go with whatever they already have—blue stripe or not! (And it may just be a G350 or a G450… sorry!) : P
Hope you have a great birthday and a safe trip back to Chapel Hill!
i thought of you yesterday… haha… will tell you later
*amazing* pictures!
its like an Imax movie… only, um, with lots of skips and pauses and none of the motion sickness ;)
Awesome pics, Matt. It’s so cool being able to actually *see* you in your (relatively) new environment and chosen field. It fits you. Not that i ever thought it didn’t, but seeing it in these pictures further confirms what i knew to be true. Pilot Matt…so cool. ;) (Speaking of cool, i noticed you wore a leather jacket to church today. Very classy. I dig it.)
It was good seeing you today, if only for a second. I guess i haven’t really seen you since the holidays. Doesn’t seem like it was so long ago, but i guess it has been. Ah well. I would have liked to stop and chat, but yg stuff has been changed to Sunday, making my after-church time very limited…especially when you’re trying to go to lunch with people. Actually this whole semester’s gonna be crazy in a way i haven’t yet known…but i trust it will all work out. Hope you’re well and we get a chance to catch up sometime soon.
Cheers! ;-)
Hahaha
If the opportunity presents itself next time you’re in the area I shall give you a ride.
Thanks John :) The leather jacket was a Christmas present. It’s all to further my goal of actually looking like a pilot, you know… Must fit the image :)
I want to come back in town for a weekend and hang out with the Car Guys again. Maybe in February sometime. I’ll keep you in the loop.