Solo cross country today!
It was a beautiful day, clear, calm, perfect day to be in the air! I was late [as usual, it seems] getting off the ground, and spend about 10 more minutes circling to the southwest figuring out the new comm/nav radio. But once that was done, I headed off to New Braunfels. I was trying not to use my new Garmin 496 gps, and ended up missing the airport because I had it on and was watching it. I didn't see the airport, instead saw Seguin ahead and mistook it for New Braunfels. By the time I figured that I was missing something, I circled around and found it. Duh. There were a number of planes in the pattern, but having a tower made it easy. I landed, not one of my better landings, taxied to the Ops/Cafe, shut down and made a pit stop. The image below shows EB and the new tower in the background.I
then did 3 take-off/landings, each full stop, and each one better than the previous one; the last landing was really good. I thanked the tower for their help on the last one and headed to Llano. This time I relied on VOR navigation and did a much better job. It was really pretty up there, all the rain we've had made it really green. I saw Lake Travis on my right and Canyon Lake on my left. As I neared Llano, another woman pilot called from the east [I was coming in from the south]. I saw her, told her I had her in sight and was #2 behind her. I landed, ok, not perfect, and taxied to the gas pumps, as Justin said their gas was cheap and to fill up if I wanted.
'Llano Larry', the attendant came up in a golf cart and filled 'EB' up for me. I told him this was my first solo cross country, so he bought me a coke! Yea! I noticed that the right pedal as kinda loose, but couldn't really see what might be wrong. The rudder and brakes worked fine, no taxi problems so I headed for Fredericksburg. On the way, Enchanted Rock was on the right, beautiful. Again, I used VOR navigation, and tuned the radio for T82. Wow, there were at least 6 planes in the pattern and more calling in approaching. I slowed down, turned to the west to be able to come in '45 to the downwind' for Rwy14. Because of the rudder pedal, I didn't do more than the one landing, a good one BTW, and headed for the hangar. I called my instructor, and he was relieved as he thought I should have been back much earlier [story of my life]. I'll email a summary of the flight to him so he can critique it. Bud went over the trip logs with me, said the first mistake was pretty classic, but I recovered ok. He seemed to approve this time, an improvement over the dual cross country as far as being able to know where I was in the air. As Justin says, each trip is a learning experience. Justin did emphasize to me today that there would be lots of folks in the air after being grounded by the rainy weather, and the two airports I had chosen were very popular. As Bud said, keep my 'head on a swivel'.
All in all, not bad performance, especially after the first leg, wonderful time in the air! I had a great time! It was more fun than the night flying we did earlier in the week. We were going to do the required dual night cross country after the pattern work, but the weather didn't cooperate, clouds and/or fog began to form by the time we were through with the 8 take-offs and landings. I was exhausted, dripping in sweat. I didn't get a really smooth landing, but each was better than the last. If I can tomorrow, I will do pattern work [several take-offs/landings] and maneuvering work. What fun! I can hardly wait for another cross country!
posted by pdf Tex @ 3:21 PM
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