The Old Dominion

Location: ORF VORTAC 293/4.4DME, 7 MSL.

After spending the better part of a day strapped in the cattle car section of a Long Beach Death Tube, I finally arrived back in the Old Dominion last night. In conjunction with a work trip that I had to make to Norfolk, we are going to do some house hunting in Charlottesville. It will be nice to finally be in an area where a normal house doesn't cost $600K and involve an hour-plus commute to work.

Although normal winter delays prevailed, it was a good flight. I sometimes wonder if every pilot has the same internal conversation I do:
"Gee, it would be nice if I were flying this thing myself. Then again, I can barely fly a Cessna. I sure am glad there is someone significantly more competent than me flying this thing."

Off to go look at real estate.

Hasta,
BC

Bad Flight

It was one of those days where I wonder if I should be allowed to fly airplanes. I'd rather not go into details here, just suffice it to say that within ten minutes of takeoff I had decided that I had had enough and returned to the airport. I have filed an ASRS report. To top it all off, some a**hole in a Pitts couldn't listen to his clearances from tower and was flying the pattern every way except correctly, almost screwing up my landing.

On the upside, it was one of the best landings I have ever made and I was able to back up the controller when they gave me clearance to land on the wrong runway. There must be some points given for grace under pressure.

Snow and Flying

The Chief Photographer and I had a wonderful vacation in the mountains of Colorado hitting some downhill, even a black diamond and some moguls (me) and some snowshoeing (the Chief Photographer and her friend K). The snow was wonderful champagne powder that is a pleasure to ski and I only fell twice, both on moguls. Here are a few pictures of the lovely views.







After returning home and getting caught up at work, I went out this past weekend for a little flying. Nothing exciting. 1.1 hours of complex time, NZY to SDM, five landings, back to NZY for 1 landing. I did put the gear up on every takeoff and remembered to put it down for every landing, so I consider this a success.

I'm hoping to get up at least once more this month, taking the Chief Photographer to Big Bear for lunch. Big Bear is an airport up in the mountains east of LA. Due to it's high density altitude it is difficult to get in and out in the summer, but the winter provides plenty of lift and great views of the snow covered mountains, not to mention good Chinese food. After that, it's big iron back to the Old Dominion to start looking for a place to live.

Have a great week.

Cheers,
BC