Getting Away for a While

I finally got to get away from TKI for a while yesterday. After we did some short field landing practice we decided to head up to our new field where the TFC will be operating out of while the runway gets resurfaced at TKI. We started our flight to SWI (Sherman Municipal) but the closer we got, the lower the ceiling was becoming. About 2 miles out of SWI we saw that there was no way to get into to land because the ceiling was so low. We decided to go to GYI (Grayson County, also in Sherman) on the other side of town. The ceiling was just barely within limits there. According to Richard, GYI used to be a B-52 base a long time ago. Now it has 2 parallel runways (17L - 35R and 17R - 35L, but this side is closed) that are aligned the same way TKI is. The 17R - 35L runway is not in use but it looked like they were towing gliders off of it. There is also a short crosswind runway (13-31).

As I was making my turn to base from downwind, I had a little wisp of a cloud I had to fly through to get to base. That's how marginal it was. I even considered putting down and staying until it burned off but as I put it down on the very rough runway, I saw that it looked great to the south. I made one more lap around the pattern, then headed back to TKI. It was getting late and I needed to get the plane back. So I dialed up TKI on the GPS and flew an intercept course for the ILS to do a practice ILS approach.

I have flown ILS approaches on my simulator many times but this was for real. As I started getting the signal from the ILS, I began my turn at 3000 feet. I was just about perfectly centered left and right and when I hit the outer marker, I was just a bit high on the glide slope. A little throttle back and then pushing the nose over got me to the center of the glide slope. After that, it was a piece of cake getting on the ground smoothly.

The good thing is I got a new endorsement in my logbook today. Part of why we were going to Sherman in the first place was so I could do some touch and goes at SWI so I could get a sign off to do solo work at that airport. The way the endorsement reads is as follows: "Solo landings and takeoffs at another airport within 25 nm 14 CFR - 61.93(b)(1)

I have given _____ the flight training in both directions over the route between TKI and GYI, including entering and exiting the traffic pattern and takeoffs and landings at the airports to be used, and find him/her proficient to practice takeoffs and landings at GYI, subject to the following conditions ______".

Since SWI is only 7 nm away, I can now do solo work at SWI when we temporarily relocate there for the construction.

I think I'm ready for starting to do some cross country work now. After all of this I have 15.8 hours (I really need more) and 128 landings. I need to work on finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so I can fly more. I'm looking every time I see one.


My E-Logbook