Initial Cross Country

So yesterday was scheduled to be a solo. I had all these grand plans to go and work on my short/soft field landings. Everything else is pretty good, at least within the PTS standards (PTS is practical test standards). So, right before I head out, my instructor gives me a call and asks if he can bum a ride to another airport. Well, I guess I can't really so no, so I give him the enthusiastic "Of course!!!" Well, when I get to the airport, I see one of the DPE (designated pilot examiner) is there with his plane sitting on the ramp. I didn't think any checkrides were scheduled, but what do I know. As I walk from my truck to the office, I notice two cars in the lot that belong to the "feds". This is much out of the ordinary for this little airport. As I go in, I see my instructor coming out of his office and there is an FAA party going on in there. There were at least 5 people digging through stuff. My Instructor said that somone missed a checkride, so they were scrubbing records of the school. My instructor just wanted to GET OUT!!! I can't say as I blame him. So, we go off and do a couple maneuvers that are required of the commercial license. Sure, I don't need to know them now, but I have no issues with learning a little extra. So, after that we go on to the other airport and hang around there for about an hour then head back to my primary airport. What happens at 5 PM on a Friday? That's right...all the Feds were gone.

So today was my initial cross country. It was the exact same route as I did on the dual flight, so nothing cosmic there. I enjoyed the first leg and actually got to listen to some tunes on the way. Once I landed, I was looking forward to a burger at the airfield diner, but they had closed early for a "special event". What a bunch of punks! It turned out that the diner being closed was a good thing. As I took off and was heading back, I noticed a good bit of weather building along the way. All the forecasts made mention of a "slight risk" of thunderstorms, but all the "scientific forecaster discussions" made it sound like it was HIGHLY unlikely to amount to anything. So with this information and the fact that it hadn't rained in MONTHS I had no qualms to doing the cross country. Anyway, a while back, I had purchased a GPS for when I finish my private training. I have/had no intention of using it until I was done with training or if I got myself into a pickle. When I bought it, there was a model with and a model without XM weather. The model with the weather was a bit more expensive, but figured that since I plan on doing ALOT of cross country flying it would be handy to have. OK, so back to the story...so I was on my way back and I am seeing quite a bit of buildup and rain, so I break out my new GPS/weather toy and fire it up. Wow...I am glad I bought the thing!!! The weather was considerably worse than I thought and it showed stuff that my plain vision couldn't detect. So, I flew around the storms and the heavier rain and elected to do a straight in approach to the field. (It is preferred that you would fly past the field and come back at a 45 degree angle to enter the traffic pattern but I wanted to beat the weather that was about 5 miles from the field.) I taxied in and got the plane tied down about the same time my instructor was coming back from flying with another student. He asked how it was and commended my "aeronautical decision making" for making the straight in approach. I told him I had been in a few storms in the C-5 and it was NO FUN at all!!! So, after clocking in the airplane, I headed to the house. About 2 minutes after leaving the airport, the weather hit. I called the automated weather station at the airport and it was reporting lighting, thunderstorms and winds 18 gusting to 39 knots. So after than...I am GLAD I spent the extra money for the XM weather, and I am GLAD that I did the straight in or I am pretty sure I would have gone somewhere else to hang out and wait for the weather to pass.

Well, nothing is on the plate right now flying wise. The next thing we want to do is the night dual cross country, but my instructor is going off on vacation for a while, so guess it's about time to study, study, study for the written exam. I appreciate the time to get it done, but hate not knowing when I will fly again.

One last thing...This is nothing on the subject of flying, just a random thought. So a couple of months ago, I bought a ski boat. Nothing fancy, nothing new, just something to tinker with. Anyway, the guy I bought it from had a new cover for it and had forgotten to give me the straps for it. He had called while I was on vacation to tell me that he had them but in all honesty, I forgot all about them. Anyway, so when I get back from flying, there is a voice mail from his wife telling me that she still has them and apologized for not being in touch because her husband had died 3 weeks ago. The guy was MAYBE 40-45 years old with 5 kids and really seemed to have the world by the tail. It just goes to show that you NEVER know when your time is up. OK, that's it....