I started off with a touch & go. The visibility was so nice. It was mostly clear and little haze. After that I was going to go to the usual practice area and do some stalls, but noticed there were some cumulus clouds there and some rain. So I stayed to the SE where I flew up to 3500' and did some stalls. Technically there's not much to them, and I can do the maneuvers fine. But I feel uncomfortable doing them as the plane stops generating lift and begins the fall. It's not a big deal, but just something where I can think of more fun things to be doing. Then I practiced turns and maintaining altitude, and stopping the turn at a pre-determined heading.
All that went well. I familiarized myself with a few more features on my GPSMAP 96c. It does help with navigating around airspaces which are plentiful around here. Did I mention the visibility was great!? Visibility was listed on the metar as 10sm. But I could see one of the large hotel buildings on Galveston island from at least 25 miles away. Clear Lake and Galveston Bay looked beautiful, and there were tons of sail boats out there. 
Here's the view towards Galveston island. As I was flying around, I heard a lot of traffic on the KLVJ frequency. Looks like others had the same idea to take advantage of the weather. Speaking of the weather, I noticed that it had started getting hazier west towards the airport. It was getting late, so I decided to start heading back. I saw Ellington airfield and remembered it's a Class C airspace and tried to stay south of it. With the sun ahead of me, it was hard to see very well on my GPS where I was in relation to the airspace. But I had a map with me, and was able to stay south of it.
No, I'm not doing a nose dive in this picture. Note the wings are in a slight bank to the left. This is a view of Kemah and Clear Lake behind it. (btw, Clear Lake is not in any way clear). I headed back to the airport and the busy pattern to do a couple of landings. There was a slight cross wind and I managed to land fine anyway. I took off again, and heard someone approaching the airspace from the south. I didn't hear how far out they were, but soon saw them approach the downwind leg before I got there. I had to do a slight maneuver and entered the pattern behind them. By the time I came around to land again, there was an even stronger crosswind. Looking at the windsock, it must have been almost 15 kts. Probably about a 10 kt crosswind component. I dipped the crosswind side of the plane and applied opposite rudder, and the landing was pretty good.
After I turned to taxi off the runway, I looked up and saw this picture. My jaw dropped. It was almost clear for most of the flight. I hadn't even noticed this thunderhead building just to the west of me. The weather forecast forecasted clear skies but ASOS did mention some lightning to the west. I snapped this picture and stowed the plane. As I was tying it down I saw lightning. It was only 2 miles away! These storms sure can barrel their way in quickly. It was a very enjoyable flight, but I'm glad I made it back when I did.
4 comments:
Nice pictures! I'm looking forward to snapping some pics when I start soloing.
By the way... do you like your GPS? None of the planes I'm flying have GPS so I'm definitely thinking of investing in one eventually. It's always good to be able to get around without one, but it would be soooo much easier with one.
Hi, glad you liked the pics. I do like the GPS. I think without spending a few thousand dollars this is the one you'll want. As they say in their ad, you can use it on the trail, in a car, in a plane, or on a boat (for any marine buffs out there). The unit actually comes with a flight yoke mount which works on a C150 & a C172, and probably many others. It can do a lot, and it's probably not a good idea to learn to use it while also learning to fly, so you'll need to learn as much about it on the ground as you can. There's a way to hook it up to your flight sim using 'gpsout' (google it) so you can let your sim drive it, and learn it at home. I haven't tried that yet though. I asked my CFI what he thinks about using it. He says use what ever you like. But just be sure to learn the traditional methods of navigation too because the FAA examiner will probably test you on those. In other words, while training at least, use your GPS as a backup.
Great photos from the flight!
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