Lesson 53 – A “Passenger”

Yesterday looked like a very nice day – from the ground. In fact, when I got to the airport, I learned that it was very hazy above the ground. I wouldn’t be doing a solo flight today. Instead, Sandy asked me to pretend she was my passenger and we were going to take a short flight. I was to pick an airport we hadn’t been to before, fly there without her help, do a couple landings and find my way back to UGN. While I was doing my planning, one of the other CFIs took the airplane we would be flying for a short discovery flight so; it was about 3pm before we got going.

I had chosen Lake Lawn as our destination and I navigated there perfectly. The only problem was that I couldn’t find the runway. When I finally saw it, I was right over the numbers on the approach end of runway 18. I couldn’t have hit it more exactly if I had known where it was. I had to come back around and enter the pattern from the east. I ended up doing three landings on the very rough runway there and then navigated back home. We landed just as the bright red sun was touching the horizon.

I’ll keep looking for a good day to fly that first solo cross country. In the mean time, I am also planning for the a trip to Rockford. We will try it Wednesday with the option to switch to Thursday night depending on the weather.