So what did I do? I got in a hot airplane and flew to Graham (KRPH) on Sunday with my friend Keith. Keith is an instrument rated pilot and a man who's place I took on the TFC Board. I still learn from him every day. He likes to stay proficient so he flies just about everywhere IFR. Toady was no exception. We flew our club's Arrow (PA-28R-180) so we could get there pretty fast. Keith likes to go to interesting places. This place was about 100 miles away, so it wouldn't be a long flight.
The ride out was very bumpy. It was so hot that the thermals we giving the auto pilot a very hard time. We finally gave up and flew it by hand. Once we finally got to Graham we pulled up for fuel and only burner 12 gals of fuel on our little hop. Then we walked across the street to the Dairy Queen to make our $100 hamburger trip official.
The trip back was just as bumpy and I got to fly for about 35 minutes. The biggest problem I had was the thermals. We would fly into a thermal and the next thing you know, we were over 100 feet above the assigned altitude. So you try to push the nose down to get down to altitude then you would fly out of it and then over shoot the low side. ATC does not like you to go more than a 100 feet in over or below your assigned altitude. After a while, it settled down a little and I didn't have to fight it so much.
I'm glad we had such a good time because when I got home, my A/C went out. I may not be flying very much in the future because I just dumped $6500.00 on a new A/C unit. Below is our flight track from Flightaware.com on both legs.
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