ET's Info-Stew

Jenny and I took a fun flight up to Sacramento Executive airport (KSAC). This was my first time flying in and actually staying for a short amount of time at an unfamiliar airport. It's also the first time I've flown in nearly four weeks, so I was worried that I was going to have too much rust.

We used to GPS to get there directly, and it was extremely helpful, especially because it was pretty hazy. With the GPS aligned I was 10 miles out and made my call and soon after I spotted the airport. The GPS was extremely helpful for that too. The landing was uneventful, though I was too fast and I bounced a few times. Jenny got a good video of it, so I may put it up here.

We taxied to "the base of the tower", which I now know is called "transient parking", got out, and grabbed a soda in the terminal. Jenny said she wanted to go see the pumpkin maze from the air, so I pulled out my tools, approximated the location, and did the calculations. It would take us about 10 minutes out of our way, and we could afford that.

We went out to the plane, entered the coordinates into the GPS and headed off. The haze had seemed to get worse over the short period, which would make visual checkpoint navigation more difficult. But my calculations were right on and we ended up at the pumpkin maze in great position for Jenny to snap some pictures.

Next we headed back to Hayward, but the sun was right in our eyes, reflecting off the haze making it look like we were nearly in IMC. I climbed back up to 3000 feet so that I could talk to NORCAL approach for flight following, but they never responded on two attempts. Perhaps we were too low. Once we got over the Altamont visibility increased, so I didn't bother any longer.

The approach to landing at Hayward was super smooth, the smoothest approach I've ever had. The landing went very well. Jenny got a video of that one too. In all we flew 1.9 hours, which was $133 dry. I went in to pay and the person at the desk told me I still have $2,800 on my account from the package deal. I knew this was incorrect - way too much money left over.

So in all, I wasn't hardly rusty at all. I was well organized (thanks to the GPS) and the landings went well (thanks to low winds). I learned to ask for "transient parking" next time. Hopefully the next time we fly will be at night so I can keep my night currency. I'll post some pictures and maybe some video soon.