Last weekend was nice...
Saturday:
Jeanie spent a quiet day at home resting after a tiring week dealing with my mother.
I started the day by going to the monthly CAP squadron meeting. Fortunately, there was no special training or events scheduled, so it was only an hour.
I Went home, changed, then went back on the island to donate blood.
In the evening, we watched the entire four hour presidential candidate debate which we both found very interesting and entertaining.
Sunday:
I Went to the Sunday coffee at the airport and spent a couple of hours chatting with the regulars. There was a relatively small crowd, but I found the time very enjoyable.
I came home and Jeanie fixed a yummy scrambled egg and cheese in a flat bread sandwich.
We took Cali and headed off to the beach for a forty minute walk. We got to watch the para-motor pilots flying around which we always enjoy. The weather was a bit brisk, but not too bad. We then went to Center street and walked around for a while. It was nice only having Cali, as unlike Diego, she is friendly with strangers and doesn't embarrass us. We then went to the Dairy Queen, where Jeanie and I both ordered a double dipped cone. Much to Cali's delight, the nice girls in the drive-in window gave her a small cup of DQ. We drove onto the beach at the end of Sadler and ate our ice cream while we listened to the band playing at Sliders. We then headed home, where Diego got to share some of Cali's DQ.
Since the weather was nice and my night currency was getting close to expiring, I decided to go do my three take-offs and landings. I got to the airport a little after sunset, and by the time I had finished preflighting the aircraft, completing my CAP paperwork, getting my flight release, etc. I was good to go for my three trips around the circuit. Technically, I had to only do two night landings, as I had just done a night landing less than a week ago, but I couldn't figure out how to do the three night take-offs but only do two night landings <grin>. I was very pleased with my flying. I performed one short field take-off and two normal take-offs. Since the last time I had done night currency circuits, I had been high on all of my approaches, I decided to extend the downwind leg more than seemed "right." This worked out well, as I was able to intercept the PAPI and fly the glideslope out at a much more comfortable distance and altitude, which allowed me to fly a much more stabilized approach. For all three landings I used "normal" technique, but for the first two, I still ended up with reasonably short landing distances and reasonably smooth touch downs. For the last landing, I allowed the roll-out to be relatively long so I could practice keeping the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible. This worked out well, as it allowed me to get to a convenient turn-off point on the runway without having to do a lot of extra taxiing.
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Posted by David at January 09, 2008 09:00 PM