I enjoyed a beautiful day alone in the airplane this morning, flying to Georgetown, Delaware (GED). It was a relatively easy flight; just a bit bumpy below 1000′, which made for more involved landings. With the winds aloft at 3,000′ sitting at about 250 degrees and 35 knots, my groundspeed was nearly 120 mph. That was not the case on the way back, providing for a near-direct headwind. My groundspeed on the way back from Georgetown was averaging about 68 mph. Needless to say, it took me nearly twice as long to get back as it did there.
As the winds were a bit choppy at the lower altitudes, I came in with a bit more power on final approach to avoid being sucked down to the ground or into the trees. The consequence of that, however, was being a bit faster on final approach and more floating down the runway.
Overall it was a good flight – uneventful which is what you strive for. Next weekend, I have a couple of more solo’s: Saturday is my long cross country solo. I’ll be flying out to Ocean City (landing), on to Easton Airport (landing) and back to Freeway Airport. On Sunday, I’ll be doing a solo to our training area, practicing stalls and slow flight on my own. Following that, I will have just a couple of more flights and then I’ll be on to my FAA checkride!
~ Brian
Hours today: 2.0
Total hours: 58.1
Runway 18 
Brian, I do have a question, did you count all the bolts after landing? On the initial takeoff there was a lot of shaking and it sounded like bolts were coming out. Lol…I find the optical illusion of the prop cool.
Could you get another camera to face out the window and then splice the two together, that way when you say the landscape is beautiful we too can see it?
Proud of you.l..keep flying.
Dad
By: Dad on October 25, 2010
at 5:27 am
Yeah, the camera was on the rear edge of the passenger side door, which provided for more vibrations. Just appears that way on camera. Not that bumpy in actuality. 🙂
You can see just how amazing the landscape is from some of my other videos where I do angle it out of the side. I try to change up the angle between flights. I am tempted to place it looking out of the back on the plane once just to see what it looks like. I bet that’d be pretty sweet.
Thanks, dad.
By: 1studentpilot on October 26, 2010
at 6:53 pm