Finally!

Back in the air again... more than two months have elapsed since my last training flight, and it was a rather exciting afternoon, to say the least.

Our scheduled meet time was 4:30pm, and the skies over North Texas had begun to erupt with widely scattered showers and thunderstorms, with the bulk of the activity remaining well south of the area. Bob and I discussed the situation over the phone, and agreed that we could go ahead and meet at the airport, evaluate the situation, and likely go fly.

So, that's what we did. We took to the skies at about 5:00, with the agreement that, if any storms developed in the vicinity, we'd make our way back to the airport immediately. At the time, the only observed precipitation was off to the east of the airport, an area we would brush on departure out to the practice area.

As expected, heading northeast out of the field, we brushed the edge of a nice shower for about a minute, and headed further north to begin our work.

As this was a "refresher" flight, we worked on the basics. Partial panel turns, partial panel unusual attitude recoveries (fun!), radial tracking, and we started to work on a holding pattern. Outbound, inbound. Outbound, uh-oh...

"What do you mean you can't see the airport anymore, Bob?"

Sure enough, a quite a storm had erupted in the last two minute, dumping a rainshaft at least 4 miles across right between us and the airport. No option now doing the VOR/DME approach; ain't going into that rain!

So, we elected to fly to the Locator Outer Marker and fly the ILS in. Well, it was evident on the way in that the rain was getting closer .. closer ... and there's lightning in there. We had "adequate" visibility to maintain VFR, even in the rain. Tower says "Winds east at 8."

The crosswind was evident. In fact, MORE than evident. Likely much more than 8 knots.

Indeed, here's a SPECI METAR that was posted after our landing:

METAR KTKI 132253Z 21003KT 6SM VCTS -RA BKN018 BKN085 24/17 A3004 RMK AO2 PK WND 12026/2242 TSB25RAB43

Note the PK WND: The timestamp is about 2 minutes either side of when we landed. Out of the Southeast at 26 knots. That's about 30mph, folks... Almost double the max demonstrated crosswind! Now, I knew that it was likely to be gusty at the surface, so I elected to maintain about an 80kt approach as that offers much more control authority. My crosswind landing was fair to good, even though Bob couldn't keep his feet off the rudders trying to help me...

Glad I did. As it was, it was very difficult to taxi with my tail wanting to go to the west, and me wanting the NOSE to go west... We taxied verrry slowly back to the apron, and stayed in the plane with our feet on the brakes until the gushing rains abated about 10 minutes later.

So, before anyone gets too excited that we elected to fly, I haven't explained that we had plenty of options chosen for plans B and C (lots of other airports around), not the least of which had we been unable to land, circling a few miles north for 10 minutes would have resolved the weather. So, we weren't taking any undue risks... And, it's GREAT reality training.

Ok, Ok, Ok... I know, things have slowed down!!

(It's actually April 14 as I post this!)

But I did go flying today... There's still the matter of that last 0.8 hours of required Cross Country to go address. And, again quite strangely, today was a gorgeous day to go fly, and the planes were available! Weird how that happens. Must be the price of gas shooting up keeping the planes grounded...

Anywho, Dad was back in town this weekend to pick up Mom who stayed in town for several weeks helping us out during the weeks following the new baby's birth, and we thought it'd be a good idea to knock out the rest of the cross country.

We explored a couple of options, and settled on going out to Sulphur Springs, TX, a place I've visited on quite a few occasions. However, SLR is only 49.7 nm from TKI, which makes it 0.3 miles short of cross country legal. However, the basic rule for a flight to count as cross country is that one leg of the flight must be at least 50nm long, and a landing must be made at each endpoint. So, instead of round-tripping from TKI to SLR, I elected to go round-robin from TKI -> SLR -> ADS -> TKI. The leg between ADS and SLR is well over 60nm, so the whole flight now constitutes cross-country (for rating purposes.)

So, we took off in the late evening (around 6pm-ish) to head out to SLR. Landing there, we absolutely had to have our heads on swivels because some dude was flying around mute and deaf in a Piper Cub-like plane. Now, being deaf and mute at an uncontrolled airport (meaning no radios) is not illegal, or maybe even unusual. But, when I finally landed and exited the taxiway, I observed him doing something that, at the very least, was inconsiderate and dangerous:  He landed right behind us while we were still moving on the runway.

At any rate, we sat around at the completely quiet Sulphur Springs Airport for a good half hour until the sun began to hide behind the horizon, and then launched off to Addison, on a path that was only slightly further south of the way I had arrived.

By the time we got to within 10 miles of McKinney, the skies were suitably dark to treat us to a nice visual display, as intended. Then things started to get fun.

We called up the approach controller responsible for Addison arrivals when we were just shy of Lake Lavon, and started getting vectors. After a little bit of minor repositioning, "Addison is landing runway 15. Turn left heading 265, maintain VFR at 2000. That'll be good for your base. Report field in sight."

After several minutes of scanning the area, no luck.

Calling back, I advised that I didn't have the field yet. I had ADS as a Direct TO on my GPS, so I was confident I was heading in generally the right direction (it was heading off to my left, as one would expect for being on a left base leg.)

"Oh, I suggest heading 180." So I turned that way and then got, "737TY, Contact Addison Tower on 126.0, good day!"

Calling the tower, I advised that I didn't have them in sight, He gave me a few position reports, then I asked him to turn the ALSF Light System on. While waiting, I turned in the A/FD to get Runway 15's ILS frequency and punched it into the box.

"Light's are on. Can you see them?"

The ILS was showing me WAY left of course, so I steered right for a 45-degree intercept, anticipating I would just find the localizer and let it point me to the end of the runway. As I was turning, I FINALLY saw the MALSRs, about 90 degrees to the right of where I was being told to look. In fact, I had to maneuver quite a bit to get a long enough final to have time to descend. I told the tower, and got an immediate "Number 1, Cleared to land!"

After we touched down, tower asked, "Where'r'ya parkin' tonight?"

The A/FD states "No touch and go landings without arpt managers approval." At night, that would translate to "Stop and Go," which is what we wanted, so the only compromise was:

"We'd like to taxi back to the beginning and depart back to McKinney."

"Hold position there if ya want, advise when ready to depart."

Interesting!! We cleaned up the plane tout de'suite and told him.

"Greater than 3500 feet remaining at your position. Cleared for takeoff, left turn to the Northeast when able."

Cool!  We blasted out of there, turned left after getting a few hundred feet above the surrounding big buildings, and went direct back to McKinney.

On approach there, I requested a practice ILS from the tower, approved.

(Dad had previously inquired how the landing systems work on those planes, so TKI was a good place to demonstrate.)

We flew a few extra miles north of the airport, using the GPS to emulate FLUET LOM (since the ADF was broken) and intercepted the localizer, followed a few minutes later by the glideslope. Flew it nice and easy to a smooth, but long (3000+ foot) landing, and we were done for the night around 9:30!

CROSS COUNTRY: DONE!

POSTSCRIPT

So, why have I still been unable to fly? I have been stricken since a few days after our new Baby arrived with a rather annoying stomach bug which makes it perilous to cage myself up in a plane for ANY length of time.

Heck, with all these gaps, I may just have to start over!!!

Yes, I know! It's been a while since I've written!  (Or flown, for that matter...)

Something has been preoccupying me of late... My new baby girl.

I'm exhausted!

I spent more time flying today that I ever have before; over 6 hours!

Started an early morning by flying with my instructor. We're polishing up for the checkride, so we flew out to Addison to do the ILS for Runway 13. ADS is a favorite amongst most of the DE's, so familiarity with all of their approaches is a good thing. Today was the first time we've flown the ILS 13 approach.

On the way out, I intercepted a radial off the Cowboy VOR and flew to an intersection to practice holds with partial panel. That's good practice since it combines holds, timed turns, and compass turns all at once. Actually, the whole thing worked out fairly well except for the fact that I made LEFT TURNS the whole time!  That would have been a checkride buster; RIGHT TURNS are the standard unless otherwise told. I had a few altitude excursions, too, as a testament to the fact that it's been more than three weeks since I've flown under the hood...

After this, we did quite a few unusual attitude exercises, both full panel and partial panel. Full panel is no problem. Partial panel is gonna take some getting used to, and some more practice. Finally, we did the VOR/DME-A approach back to McKinney.

A quick 1.2 hour lesson, now I've got about 45 hours total instrument time. But, I'm still lacking the 50 hours of Pilot in Command Cross Country time. As a strange turn of events, the weather today was gorgeous, and the planes weren't booked, so I grabbed a six-hour block of time in 733NB, spread my charts out on the table in the FBO and worked up a LONG Cross Country.

I decided to fly from TKI to MLC (McAlester, OK) to FYV (Drake, or Fayetteville, AR) to FSM (Fort Smith, AR) to PRX (Paris, TX) to TKI, a total distance of about 440nm (give or take)...

I launched a little late because traffic at TKI was heavy (and thanks to the new rules caused after the crash in Lexington, KY, the controllers have to allow more spacing, can no longer issue Position and Hold instructions, etc at TKI) and headed out at 1:15pm. I could see a significant haze layer from far away, and on getting closer, could see it was actually smoke from wildfires around Atoka, where the smoke was rising to well above 6000 feet in the fairly calm air. Fort Worth Center, giving me flight following, was very interested in this condition and asked me to give them details like exactly where and how large it was, what the visibility through the smoke was (NIL in places) etc. Not sure what they were doing with the info I was giving them...

I rested at MLC for about 15 minutes and then headed to Fayetteville. En route, I could see that my cruising altitude of 5500 wasn't going to clear some oncoming cumulus, so I climbed to 9500 around soared around some beautiful towers for about 15 minutes until the skies cleared again. Good thing, too, cuz it was cold up there! I descended to 3500 until I could get a visual on FYV, and landed & refueled at the self serve pump.

After FYV, I took off for the "return" trip, headed to FSM. I was given a reminder about why VFR use of a GPS is a good thing. Nearing FSM, I was given an alert on the GPS:  "RESTRICTED AIRSPACE ALERT; NEARING R-2401-B"

Ack!! I looked at my sectional, and saw several restricted areas southeast of the FSM VOR, but couldn't make out 2401B. I called the controller and asked about it, she said "That airspace isn't active at this time, no worries." So, with that clear, I studied the chart more carefully and saw a teensy sliver of space with the name 2401B written well off to the side in the clutter as to make it hard to find. So, in short, while I was planning the flight, I was aware that my route didn't take me through but close to some restricted spots, but the GPS was still a good aid!

I elected to not land at FSM, because they were fairly busy. Just overflew the field at 4500 and on to Rich Mountain, which is 70 feet shy of the highest spot on the chart.

I also elected not to land at PRX, as I was getting tired. I just flew on to TKI and landed just as the lights came on.

Even after 4.9 hours of cross country, I'm still 0.8 hours shy of the required 50.

The instructor was called out of town on a family emergency this week, but I already had the plane booked, so I decided to expand my time block and do some cross country flying to build my time up (I'm still shy about 8 hours of Cross Country Pilot-in-Command time, so this is a good opportunity.

There's quite a few options for "short" cross country out of McKinney, either up north to Oklahoma (several airports in Ardmore) or east to Tyler, Mount Pleasant, Paris, etc. I elected to visit an airport I've only been to once thus far, Mount Pleasant (OSA.) It's a nice little airport and is the home base to Pilgrim's Pride's corporate flight department.

I expected to take off by 5:30pm, and be at OSA by 6:30, which would be a daylight (or dusk) flight, but the traffic on the way to the airport was the worst I've ever seen it for some reason. It took me almost an hour to get there, which meant I couldn't take off until about 6:15. Of course, the landing light STILL hasn't been repaired. (Just FYI, according to FAR 91.205(c)(4), a landing light is NOT required unless I'm flying for hire, which I'm of course not doing...

So, I took off, called FSS to open my flight plan, then called DFW departure for flight following. Now that was a bit of a trick! After giving the controller all the pertinent info, he told me, "Stand by for squawk code," which I did for about 5-10 minutes. After a bit I called him and asked, "Did you forget about me, or are you unable?"

"Ooops, sorry about that. Squawk 5161... Radar contact 5 miles north of Greenville."

And I continued on, listening to the litany of big iron flying in and out of the region. I lost all daylight assistance at approximately 6:45 with only a faint glow behind me to the west. There was a high overcast, and no moon.

After I had passed by Sulphur Springs, the radio traffic from the controller began to break up. I called, "Departure, sounds like I'm about to lose you on this frequency."

"Where are you??"

"About 5 east of Sulphur Springs."

"Well, YE__, you__bout to _ me out th__! Contact For_ __rth Cen_ on 1___2.0___." It took two retries before I could read the entire frequency assignment. Duh, guess the guy was busier than he let on to let me slip away unnoticed. No big deal, it IS just flight following... So, I changed freqs, and the next controller was unhurried and followed me the rest of the way in.

When I approached OSA (which I could see for MILES away), I began my descent and cancelled radar service, contacted the Common Traffic Advisory Frequency (CTAF) which was blissfully quiet.

Since I had no landing light, I decided I would overfly the field and look from above to see if I could identify the taxiways using whatever ambient light was available. The first half of the taxiway was indirectly lit by the hangars and structures nearby, so I elected to proceed with a full stop landing.

Had I not been able to see the taxiway, I would have just done a stop and go on the runway and headed back to McKinney immediately.

At any rate, my descent and approach were sloppy, which led to me to come in a bit high and too fast. I wound up using way too much of the 5,000 foot runway, and missed all the turnoffs that I saw from above. Given that there are no turnoffs between the midpoint and the south end of the runway, I was forced to slowly taxi down the runway to the end. My flashing strobes were the only source of light I had, and according to the GPS, I was going no faster than 5 knots back to the parking apron.

I parked, got out of the airplane, and went into the vacant terminal building to call FSS to close my flightplan.

After resting for 10-15 minutes, I climbed back in and started up for the completely dark flight back to McKinney. Taxiing to the approach end of the runway was a piece of cake compared to the other end. I departed at 7:30, called the Paris RCO to open my flight plan, and got flight following back in. The flight back was quicker given a brisk 10-15 kt tailwind, and I landed in McKinney about 50 minutes after takeoff.

I'm going to try to fly again Saturday, but the weather outlook isn't promising.

Ah, back to Night Flying! It's a shame, though, that I wasn't able to look outside very much... It's also VERY cold, expected to the the coldest night so far this winter, with lows forecasted to be in the low teens. It was about 28 degrees when we took off, and there's a darn air leak in the wing vent. So, even though the cabin heat was FULL ON, there was cold air pouring over my shoulder the whole flight. It's just too close in a C172 to wear a heavy coat, so I just had to suffer through it.

Tonight's exercise was a "simulated checkride," where the CFII queued up a set of exercises meant to demonstrate what would happen during my upcoming FAA Checkride. It went something like this:

• On departure, fly heading 270, climb and maintain 2500.
• Contact Regional Approach and request a practice ILS at Addison Airport, Low Approach Only.
• On going missed, cancel flight following and intercept and fly outbound on the Cowboy 046 Radial.
• Hold northeast of SLANT Intersection on the 046 radial of Cowboy.
• Depart the hold heading 360, vectors for the VOR/DME-A approach at TKI.
• During the vectors, go Partial Panel.
• Execute the VOR/DME-A approach. On the missed, you will be vectored to intercept the appropriate GPS approach.
• Do a touch and go.
• Go do some partial panel unusual attitude recoveries.
• Receive vectors back to the airport, full stop landing.

So, of course, during the preflight, we discovered that we were sans Landing Light. Oh Joy.

Anyway, it took a while for us to get out of the airport, as TI's big jet was on the approach. After they landed, we elected to do a slow roll to about the 2nd taxiway before accelerating to takeoff, to avoid the big Global Express's possible wake turbulence.

DFW Approach was busy tonight. After picking up the ATIS at ADS, it took about a minute before we could call approach to give them the request, they had no problem with the request and began giving us immediate vectors as soon as we were in radar contact. Some of the vectors were surprisingly minute. For example, while flying heading 180, he might say, "Turn right 5 degrees," or "turn left heading 175." I've never had a controller be that specific with headings, so it must have been a little crowded in the area. Of course, it probably didn't help too much the fact that ADS and TKI were operating northerly, so the approach path into the airport gets kinda close to Dallas Love's departure paths...

The ILS went really well. We were surprised, though, when we hit a wake at about 500 feet AGL that rolled us abruptly about 30 degrees to the left. I turned the yoke so hard to the right that my yoke clip came loose. That's why it's a good thing to memorize the DA and missed instructions!

We executed the Missed Approach, told the tower we were headed to intercept the 046 radial of Cowboy and were told, "No problem, maintain VFR clear of the Class Bravo Airspace. Squawk VFR, see ya later!"

It took some time to get to the radial, and when the CDI centered up, I flew the radial and immediately set up for the hold. Now, the hold is INBOUND on the 046 radial, and I was flying OUTBOUND right now, as we hadn't arrived at the fix yet. This meant the CDI was reverse sensing, which I fully knew when I did this. However, I didn't explain my process to the CFII, and he asked me what I was doing. When I explained, he said, "That's fine. But if you do that on your checkride, MAKE SURE you explain yourself to the examiner, because what you're doing LOOKS wrong, even though you're INTERPRETTING correctly." Good lesson!

The Hold at SLANT intersection was fairly easy. I used all the information I had at my disposal, the GPS (in OBS mode) which is very accurate, the VOR/DME on NAV1 (fairly accurate) as well as the crossing indication provided by Cedar Creek VOR (not very accurate) to indicate the location of SLANT. We did the holding pattern twice, and my timing and wind correction were decent.

Next up was partial panel. Out came the suction cups, and vectors were given to intercept the Bonham 212 Radial, which is the approach course for the VOR/DME-A approach. This required the use of compass and timed turns, which I'm still just a little too shaky with. My altitude holding suffered, and I wound up climbing to 2800 from 2500 before getting barked at.

The partial panel approach went fairly well, with the airport off to the side of my course when I reached the Missed Approach Point. Since we were out of time, the rest of the ride would have to wait. We did a circling landing, and parked at 8:00pm, in the 19-degree cold cold air.

Note to self: BRING GLOVES next time!

I officially got my ticket wet today, even though I don't really have a ticket!

What that means is that we flew almost the entire round trip to Denton, and back, in IMC conditions.

Thanks to our miracle-working maintenance staff, venerable 733NB was back on-line in time for the 1:30PM flight.

Meeting the CFII at the airport, he was disappointed that the promising IFR conditions promised in the forecast failed to come to play; the nearest IFR weather to the west was Abilene, and to the east, Tyler, both too far to fly. All of our "standbys" were also MVFR. While scanning the METAR map on ADDS I found a reasonable compromise, Denton, reporting 1800 Overcast, While still legal VFR, it was low enough that enroute would promise real IMC. So, we filed a flight plan in DUATS and got in the plane about 10 minutes later. Surprisingly, the tower had our clearance (I expected a delay since it was so recently filed).

We had to wait at the runup for about 10 minutes because we were #2 IFR in line for departure, and #3 was the big Bombardier Global ExpressJet 320GX destined for Barcelona Spain. I joked to Bob that 0GX would spend more money on fuel idling on the taxiway waiting for us to get out of the way than we would spend on our entire trip! It was probably the truth, too, since they wound up waiting about 15 minutes as well. Oh well! First-come first-served!

The WX as we departed was reported as:

METAR KTKI 111953Z 16011KT 10SM OVC034 08/02 A3014 RMK AO2

That turned out to be a bit optimistic for anyone flying VFR. OVC034 means Overcast Layer at 3,400 Feet Above Ground Level, which would equate in that area of the country to roughly 4000 MSL.

On departure, we were immediately cleared to climb to 3000 MSL, and we were just barely inside the bases of the overcast, where the atmosphere was surprisingly turbulent. After about 10 minutes, we climbed to 4000, and were definitely in the smoother soup, a somewhat brightish gray indistinct nothingness enveloping the plane, with rivulets and water droplets making their way up the windscreen.

We flew in this soup for about 20 minutes, and began vectors for the Runway 17 ILS in Denton, where the weather was reported as:

METAR KDTO 111953Z 15010KT 10SM OVC019 08/03 A3012 RMK AO2

I actually intercepted and began the ILS approach in solid IMC, and broke out within a minute of passing the marker and starting down the glideslope. That meant the OVC layer was more likely about OVC017.

We flew a Low Approach at Denton and approach vectored us for another go, this time to a full stop.

We stretched our legs in one of the FBOs for about 10 minutes, and climbed back in to get our clearance back to TKI, weather now:

METAR KTKI 112153Z 15009KT 10SM SCT026 OVC037 09/03 A3009 RMK AO2

That was probably a fair assessment. As we were running about 15-20 minutes late, when we were given the "Expect Visual Approach Runway 17" from approach control, I accepted. We pulled into our spot 9 minutes late.

What a great day! Finally, some MVFR or IFR weather was actually the GOAL, not the reason for a scrub. (Plus, I didn't break the airplane today!)

Today we practiced GPS approaches for the first time. They were much easier than I expected, considering the GPS is an old-timer. Our flying window today was fairly short because of scheduling constraints, but we managed to get out and do two different "partial" approaches. After all, to fly the complete GPS approach back to the active runway would have required a 60 mile round-trip to intercept one of the IAFs!

So, instead we flew out away from the airport by about 10 miles, and then intercepted the approach at one of the Intermediate Fixes, flew the approach, and executed the published missed, all of which involves programming the GPS in-flight and changing modes from LEG to OBS to execute the hold, etc.

As luck has it, the Holding Waypoint is also one of the IAFs for the opposite runway GPS approach, so we flew that one back into the airport and landed.

Strangely, as the plane was sitting on the ramp waiting for me to fetch the tow-bar to push her back into her stall, the nose strut inexplicably blew out and oil poured all over the wheel and ramp. Bob and I looked at each other trying to figure out what happened. The landing was gentle, and I kept the nosewheel off the pavement for as long as airspeed kept the tail down, and it settled gently. So, it must have just been a worn gasket.

At any rate, it grounded the airplane, the same airplane we're scheduled to use tomorrow...

Time again to go somewhere! Today we filed IFR to Fort Worth Meacham, even though the weather was CAVU, it was time to get back into the system:

The above radar tracks from FlightAware show our out and back routing; kind of a big semicircle, huh? Well, if you look at the routing transposed on the DFW Class B Terminal Chart it's easy to see why.

On the outbound leg, I filed and was given 4000 feet. That routing I was vectored into basically kept me at the floor of the 4000 foot shelf for most of the trip, with a brief segment along I-35W (the black line that parallels my course to the west) which enters a 3000 foot floor. Basically, they were keeping me out of the DFW departure corridors.

You can see how I was vectored to the east of FTW, and the track terminates as I was given initial vectors to the Runway 34 ILS.

The astute observer will ask, why on the return trip was I given a more direct (if only slightly) route back to TKI? Simple; I filed and was given 3000, the floor of which is closer to DFW. So while technically we were in the class B airspace for the majority if the trip, it was at the edge (or bottom as the case may be...)

I'm not sure why the tracks look so jaggy; once we turned east on the return trip, we requested and were given a DIRECT TKI clearance, and we used the GPS to go straight there.

The airspace was busy, and all the controllers were working a full load. We had four frequency changes in that brief 50-60 mile trip out, and three on the way back.

More flying today, though not nearly as an exciting event as last week's flight!

We spent today getting back into ADF work by flying outside of TKI's airspace, but using its ILS LOM to intercept and track bearings to and from FLUET and all that good stuff.

Once I was comfortable with that, we got clearance from both approach and the tower (since the skies were crowded) to do some holds over the marker for quite a while, finally finishing up with a full ILS 17 approach including the procedure turn. The one difference this time was that it was all done partial panel. I think I've managed to finally get the grasp of using that darned compass, and the ILS approach, while a little rough, went all the way to minimums followed by a normal landing.

Wow. We've been boxed in with some pretty obnoxious weather of late! Not much flying weather, but today looked pretty good at the outset, with the forecast having a cold frontal passage late in the day, but otherwise fairly benign weather.

Driving to the airport, the thermometer on my mirror read 60 degrees, and it was nice and sunny (with a few spotty clouds). We took off in generally northerly winds, and headed out east to Greenville Majors Airport to continue the refresher course, this time with hood on. Did some stalls, and steep turns under the hood. It amazed me how much easier it was to do steep turns by instrument only compared to doing it with eyes out...

When we reached Greenville, we did quite a few practice approaches on their ILS, as well as a Localizer Back Course approach going the other way. There were a few people out there doing the same thing, but no one got in anyone's way. A couple of times we flew through some very light rain which had started... All in all, we spent probably an hour out at Majors doing the approach work.

Now the weather started to deteriorate fairly quickly as we began to negotiate our way back to TKI. Bob had me take the Foggles off when we were about 15 miles out so I could steer around the more numerous and heavy rain shafts and maintain legal VFR. We heard several people on the radio having issues finding the field, one of which elected to call approach to get an instrument clearance. We just punched the code into the GPS and used that moving map to keep us on the right track, but even then, it was pretty difficult identifying the otherwise obvious landmarks around the field.

We flew through quite a bit of heavy rain, and what we both agreed was VERY marginal VFR due to visibilities very close to three miles... We were given clearance to land when we were about 5 miles out. Shortly after this, a Westwind called the tower and advised they were on the GPS approach to 35.

Now, the guy who had called approach was now back on the tower frequency, advising he was on the ILS for 17 circle to land for 35.

"Cessna X-X-X, McKinney Tower. Are you able to maintain VFR?"

"Negative, we're intermittent IMC on the approach."

"I have you as VFR, approach never told me you were IFR."

And it went from there to a long answer from the pilot about how he called approach and how he got a clearance and how was doing this and doing that and how he did yada yada yada... Meanwhile we're on about a 1.5 mile final to land, and don't forget, there's a Jet coming in on the GPS approach in instrument conditions out there...and the yada yada yada continues for another 30 seconds or so. Now I'm on rather short final, maybe 200 yards to go.

"McKinney Tower, Westwind XXX I see traffic on Short final!"

Tower: "Cessna 737TY GO AROUND GO AROUND GO AROUND, SIDESTEP EAST!"

No question what that's about! I acknowledged as I hit the gas and got the heck out of the way of the jet that was landing just seconds later.

Westwind: "I tried to call you and tell you I saw that traffic, but with that other guy hogging the mike, I couldn't get a word in edgewise. We were about to go around when you finally got through to the other Cessna. Thanks 7TY!"

Tower: "Yeah, that 25 knot headwind really slowed the skyhawk down on final, sorry about that. 737TY, you're number one for the runway, maneuver at your discretion. Winds 360 at 18 Gusts to 28, cleared to land."

We landed, taxied to parking, and as I was trying to get out of the airplane (which is now pointing south) a strong gust pulled the door from my hand and smacked it all the way forward into the wing strut, breaking the door hinge... It was also now just 45 degrees... Much colder!

Whew. The airplane came back online yesterday, and the weather today was great, if not a bit windy. We took off for a VFR refresher flight around 2:00pm after getting a jumpstart because of a dead battery.

This flight was almost like a Biennial Flight Review, it was pretty thorough. We flew out to the practice area, did some slow flight, steep turns, stalls (power off and power on, turning and straight), did some turns around a water tower (great refresher since the winds aloft were probably close to 25-30 kts) and S-Turns across a road. Then I put the foggles on and flew a "vectored" approach back to TKI, which was fairly crowded, and did three touch-and-goes in a decent crosswind (32018G24KT). The winds had become so strong it was actually difficult for the both of us to push the plane backwards into the wind into its parking stall...

All in all, we spent a little over an hour airborne, and it was good to "get my wings back!"

Dagnabbit....

After almost three months, no flying today... The bird we were supposed to go in got delayed in its 100hr inspection. Who knows why... Not expected back now until Monday, which means tomorrow's flight will likely be scrubbed as well...

[pout...]

Yay!

After some home-based rehab and exercise, I feel up to the task of flying again! Not solo, mind you, but with an instructor.

After almost three months hiatus, I finally scheduled some time with Bob to go on a "shakedown cruise" of sorts, some VFR flight, to shake the dust off and see what I can and can't do in the cockpit. That's scheduled for Saturday after New Years.

Expect some new entries soon!