staying current
Visibility: more than 10 kilometers
ceiling: more than 5.000 feet
GAFOR: “C” clear skies!
Temperature: 24°C
Wind: 290°, 10 knots
QNH: 1027hPa
Location: EDAY (Strausberg)
Equipment: “Lima Juliet” (my old love)
On Saturday a friend took me up on the promise to take him up! Since “Lima X-Ray” is still in the shop and I have not had my check-ride on “Kilo Sierra” yet, I called my old flight school. They had a cancellation and “Lima Juliet” is available for two hours on Sunday.
We have had a rainy summer and this is one of the first hot and clear weekends in a while. The aviation forecast is perfect, visibility is great and there are pretty white clouds.
Staying current
Many of us hobby pilots don’t get above the ground as much as we would like to. In order to be able to take passengers with me in the light sports plane, I have to have a minimum of three landings in the last 90 days.
My last trip was in February! Ever since then I have been training for the private pilots license with larger aircraft. That means I have to fly three patterns on my own before we can go on our little trip.
So I arrive at the airport a bit before my friend for the obligatory abuse at the flight school (“so you are back to fly real aircraft, right…”) and to go ahead with the three landings.
It is good to be back in the light sports aircraft. I still feel very comfortable with “Lima Juliet”. At the same time, the much larger “Kilo Sierra” has grown on me with her stable handling and redundant instrumentation. We will see what kind of flying the future brings.
To be continued…
(originally posted on July 25, 2012 by tilbo at aloft.blog.com/staying-current/)