hi, I'm here to reschedule

Another winter day with nothing good happening. Winds are light, but with the ceiling at 1300 and PIREPs for icing at all the nearby airports, there's no point in me going anywhere. Tim suggested that we could go, and let me make the call. I half expect he was waiting for me to say "yes," just so he could show me how wrong I was. In any event, I don't want to go on purpose at 100 feet from the clouds at pattern altitude, so it's a scratch.

I stayed for a bit, rescheduled for Christmas Eve, and briefly talked over Doug's assessment. He gave me a written page with Doug's notes and comments, and this was really helpful. I think his comments are pretty much right on, and said that I wasn't too thrilled with my performance at PSM, because I know I can do better than that.

Then we discussed this recent AOPA article:

A pilot challenges conventional wisdom

His take on it is that though establishing control first is the important thing, a 180 will still get you out of increasing bad weather while climbing will not. There's no way to know how high it goes, whether you can get there, or if that's the right thing to do. In particular, if you pop up into the clouds, the right thing to do is get level and trimmed (though you should already be there), take out 100-300 RPM, and descend back to where you can see.

It's also good to know where you are. Flying around here is easy, because if you're at 2000 feet, there's really nothing to hit besides other planes. Nothing is that high as long as you're east of Mt. Monadnock. Things would be different in the Berkshires or up in Vermont.

We also talked about options for my next flight. The ever-present third solo is on the list. Another possibility is flying up north and doing some hood work, if the winds don't cooperate.

Posted at 12:29PM Dec 21, 2007 by carlson in Aviation  |