There's my first $100+ Hamburger. And it was sooooo goooooood! This one turned out to be a bit more than $100 because the whole trip took 3.6 hours on the hobbs.
Today I did my long cross country flight. I did my ATC 101 flight the other day to prepare for this since I would be landing at towered airports. I took off from Pearland Regional towards Houston Southwest (to avoid the Class B airspace), then turned north towards Hooks Airport.
On the way over I had a nice view of downtown Houston to my right. Things were happening fast though as I approached Hooks. I was sure to script out everything I needed to do to interact with Hooks ATC. 25 nm out I dialed in ATIS and got all the pertinent info and ATIS code. Then I contacted the tower, and they directed me in. From there I landed and switched to ground as I left the runway. It went pretty good. With ground I think I understood him to say "taxi to park". So I taxi'd to the parking lot ahead of me. I wanted my hamburger, so I talked to a couple of guys and asked where the restaurant was. They said at the FBO at the north end of the field. So I re-taxi'd (after calling ground) to the FBO.There were a lot of people there at the Aviator's Grill. I ordered a B52 burger, and it was very good. I savored the moment because I had been looking forward to days like this when I could just go take a Sunday afternoon flight to some airport just for a hamburger, or any other fun and relaxing adventure. I look forward to many more with my family.
After my delicious lunch I went back out to my plane and snapped this picture. There's my plane :) No... not that snazzy air force plane on the left. No... not that big twin engine plane on the right. Yup the little one in the middle LOL. It ain't much, but it gets me places!
So I contacted clearance delivery to tell them where I wanted to go. Then called ground to get to the runway, and tower to take off. It all went real smooth, and I felt much better about going to towered airports. Now on to College Station. I planned on heading to a VOR in Navasota between Houston & College Station, and then use the VOR to get to College Station. I also wanted to fly at 8500' so I could enjoy the view. I ran into some scattered cumulus clouds on the way up though and had to zig zag my way up through them. It was a beautiful sight. Then on to the VOR. Well with all that maneuvering around clouds and trying to get up to altitude I was at the VOR before I knew it. Now it was already time to come back down to pattern altitude for CLL.
Good ol' College Station... Home of the Fighting Texas Aggies! WHOOOP!!!! Yup, I'm an Aggie - class of '91. You can see the campus in the picture above. I contacted ATC and told them my position. They acknowledged me and said something else. I didn't understand so I asked the tower to repeat. They sounded irritated and said "Cessna 593 I am talking to three other aircraft. Make a call when you are 2 miles north of the airfield." Oooookay. So I did that and they had me follow a Duchess in to the runway. I parked the plane and went into the FBO to relax and review my flight plan for the return trip. Then I checked my fuel, and I had enough with an hour to spare, but just to make sure, I had them put another 6 gallons in. I called FSS with my flight plan and preflighted. I had to add another quart of oil, which I brought along since I've had to add a quart every time I've flown this plane lately. Not good.
Then I contacted ground to get to the runway, and tower to take off, and off I went again. The air was so clear. After I was a about 10 minutes out of CLL I noticed downtown Houston on the horizon. That's 80 miles away! Check out this picture...
A far cry from my last solo cross country to Palacios where I could hardly see the gound from 1500 ft because of smog! I joked to myself about forgetting the pilotage and VORs and just looking for my home airport 95 nm away and fly to it lol. Well my eyes aren't that good so I went back to pilotage and navigating VORs. On the way back through Houston I noticed an airfield that I should be coming up to just to the left of my ground track. I looked closer at it on the map and realized it was the airport next to my parents neighborhood. I couldn't pass this opportunity up, so I circled around and took a few pictures of their house. I would have called them but the plane is too loud to use the cell phone. Oh well... The rest of the trip continued to go smooth. I saw a few isolated rain showers on the way back with some nice sun rays shining through.
That was a great flight and I can't wait to share these kinds of adventures with my family and friends.
