ET's Info-Stew

Today I took up Cessna N6346D for 1.8 hours, which puts me at 61.4 hours of total flight time. Flying less than 30 average hours per year over the last 2.5 years is nothing to be proud of. Most casual pilots average 50-100 hours per year. Since leaving California I have only flown five times now, two of those with an instructor. As of today I have 12 days until I must complete my biannual flight review, and I still think I need to do some solo practice a couple more times first. But today was a good start.

In the 1.8 hours I flew I did 9 landings (one was a power-off short approach, which is a practice engine failure landing), and one go-around. The go-around was intended to be a normal landing but I had a bad approach and took the safe way out. I didn't execute it very well, though so it took me some time to get some altitude back. None of the landings were exceptionally hard, and none were exceptionally smooth. In the middle of this pattern work I decided to leave the pattern and do some maneuvers practice to the south. So I headed 12-15 miles south to near Castle Rock, did some steep turns, stalls, slow flight, then returned to the field. Not having good location references or an idea where the field was, getting back in the pattern was a bit of an adventure. From now on before I call up the tower it's best if I identify exactly where I am then give a distance and direction from the airport. Saying I was over "Castle Rock" didn't seem to help them figure out where I was.

The flight had an interesting quirk to it. Last flight has an inoperative airspeed indicator. This one had an inoperative left-seat mic button. It seemed a wire became detached. I plugged my headset into the right-seat jacks and, finding that it worked just fine, I continued with my flight using the co-pilot jacks and microphone button. I was worried that this would cause me some confusion flying from the left seat, but it really wasn't. I had no trouble remembering to reach over to the right yoke ever time I needed to communicate.

After I was all shut down and doing all the postflight stuff, two F-16s did a low-fast approach in formation, split up in the pattern, did another low approach in landing configuration, then left. It was pretty darn cool, especially given I was on the ramp about 100 yards from the runway. It was like a mini-airshow!