Happy New Year

After starting a new job, I finally got the time to do some flying. This is going to be a little difficult because I will be working 8:30 to 5:30 every weekday and fighting traffic both directions so it looks like I'll be flying weekends now. Maybe when we get into the long Texas summer months, I'll have some time in the evenings.

After attending the first flying club meeting of the year (my first since July) I had to run to the airport with our president. He was giving a demo ride to a prospective club member and needed to see if 29U had enough fuel for the flight. If not, I was going to bump my time in N733NB back an hour so he could use it.

When I got to the airport, I saw a newly built Legend Cub. This is a replica of an old Piper J3 Cub. I saw him getting fuel at the FBO and then another one showed up. It was an awesome sight as they both taxied out and took off one after the other. I couldn't believe how quickly this thing was airborne. They each did 3 touch and goes (to a full stop because they are tail draggers) then took off to the South for what looked like a fun day of flying.

I had to run back home and get my bag and headset for my 3:00 PM departure time. When I got back, I had already pre-flighted the plane, filled out the logbook and had Richard's door open. I was ready. Too bad the dead calm wind that was there 2 1/2 hours earlier was gone. I now had winds from 330@12 gusting to 22. This went from solo work on turns about a point to cross wind landings again. My first couple of landings were not quite up to snuff. So I kept working on them and I think I may have made a break through. Instead of using flaps to get me down at a steeper angle, Richard had me slipping to a landing and all of a sudden, I was hitting the center line again and doing it quite smoothly.

After I was getting a lot better, we went out to the practice area near Lucas to do some turns about a point. Even with some pretty serious distractions, I was able to do what I wanted to accomplish. Since we were just outside of McKinney airspace, we continued to monitor the frequency and was told to look out for traffic on a straight in final just west of our position. After he was gone, we asked for a straight in approach for a couple more touch and goes. On our approach, we flew near a friend's house in Fairview and wagged my wings at him ( I told him that I would do that every time I flew over).

We did a couple more touch and goes and finally a full stop to parking. I was tired but glad to see that I may be finally overcoming some of my cross wind demons.

Now to prepare for my long cross country at the end of the month.

My E-Logbook.