Sherry and Mike's, Dayton, OH
It is a small world. My flight instructor's daughter Sherry's house. They were absolutely lovely hosts for a night in Dayton, OH :-)
Second Solo XC to Mount Airy & Mountain Empire
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2 New Handstands!
Mountain Empire
Mount Airy
First Solo XC to Danville
Danville, VA Handstand
Akward Pano of Danville Terminal
Danville FBO Office (Next 2)
Took this one for Justin
Leaving Danville (Next 3 pics)
Out the front on the way back from Danville
Solo XC posponed due to iffy weather
However… I went up locally and flew for over two hours.
Can you find where I did “S turns across a road” and “Turns about a point?”.
So, Danville XC is now supposed to be tomorrow AM.
Here are some pictures from today:
The New River near Claytor Lake
More New River
I-81 going over the New River
Zoomed out, the same bridge
Part of Claytor Lake
“The Quarry” where people usually get community service hours for trying to run down the railroad tracks and cliff jump into it.
Lane Stadium
Lane Stadium Again
Recognize Main St?
Revised Plan for XC Solo?
If i go from Blacksburg->Danville->NewRiver->Blacksburg… That is 150.4 ooo I love minimums 
Might end up doing that instead to make it more straight forward, being my first solo XC and all.
Plan for First XC Solo
I have to plan this flight out and get it approved on Saturday, but I should be flying it for my long solo cross country (Which must have a leg which is at least 50nm and must be 150nm total at least). This flight will have a 64nm flight to Danville and will be 154.6nm total, so just right!
Excited/stressed to plan/hope weather is good.
Blacksburg->Danville->”Blue Ridge Airport”->New River->Blacksburg (154.6nm)
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Flying Solo: Day 2
Yeah… so not as awesome as day one. Started out with 3 Take Off and Landings (TO&Ls) with Cecil and my 3rd was a good pattern and a good landing. He asked if I wanted to try solo and I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.
It stinks that there is construction currently and you have to back-taxi down the runway. This caused me to have to back taxi before every takeoff.
I made it back in one piece after each of my 3 solo TO&Ls, but it wasn’t very smooth.
- My patterns weren’t consistent,
- I had a big jump in altitude in one of them (150ft),
- I ran up some higher RPMs when I wasn’t trusting the numbers when turning base to final,
- There was some choppy air and peak gusts at 7,
- My last landing dolphined a bit and bounced a little (Lee and Rachel from the flying club were watching this last landing which was kind of embarassing).
Anyways, I was happy I got that experience, but I will focus on trusting the numbers, and flying smoothly the next time up. If the weather is good, We’ll be heading over to KPSK and he might let me do some TO&Ls there.
Phew.
UPDATE: Here’s the track I took.
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