Oh cool!

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onwards

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onwards
I've been wanting to fly to Half Moon Bay ever since I got my license... but the weather just never seems to allow for it.

Anyway, I had a plane reserved this afternoon to go to Chico - haven't been there yet, and one of the things I'm doing right now is try to go to new places with each flight (anyone else share this fetish?) - and was browsing through weather briefings and such, when my mind wondered, and...

KHAF is clear! clearclearclear! not only that, but it's supposed to STAY clear through the night! I can totally go there! woohoo!

(ah, the little excitements that being a new pilot bring :D)

EDIT: oh, and I TOTALLY promise an awesome story when I come back about romance and danger and bravery and hanging off a wing swinging a rapier with the sun glinting off the feather in my dashing hat while a non-pilot lands the plane (from the right seat!)... stay tuned!
 
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I've been doing a bunch of long solo cross countries, both because I love to do them, and because they'll count towards the xc requirement for IR training (I hope!).
I also have been very careful to land someplace new every single time. I find that the experience of finding the airport, comparing the actual sight picture with my imagining what it'll look like based on the AF/D and AOPA info is quite interesting. I also have always loved any type of travel, and feel that my PPL will open so much of that for me.
Closest airport to my home 'drome (KGCC) is 46nm away, and most of my trips have been 150-200nm each way. Lots of beautiful country, with the Black Hills and the Bighorn Mountains so close.
Still, I'm jealous of the California coastline.
Some day.....
 
Rneuwirth said:
I've been doing a bunch of long solo cross countries, both because I love to do them, and because they'll count towards the xc requirement for IR training (I hope!).
I also have been very careful to land someplace new every single time. I find that the experience of finding the airport, comparing the actual sight picture with my imagining what it'll look like based on the AF/D and AOPA info is quite interesting. I also have always loved any type of travel, and feel that my PPL will open so much of that for me.
Closest airport to my home 'drome (KGCC) is 46nm away, and most of my trips have been 150-200nm each way. Lots of beautiful country, with the Black Hills and the Bighorn Mountains so close.
Still, I'm jealous of the California coastline.
Some day.....
Click to expand...

I am SO with you!

We are very fortunate to have many airports strewn about, so I can have a cross-country pretty much any time I want, at practically any distance... I've sort of been branching out over time (my longest distance yet is about 150nm for the one leg).

I, too, am really enjoying the process of pilotage, and figuring out where I am by sight and chart, and as a result, have become a lot better at it than I was when I took my checkride (although still lots to learn).

The one thing that was driving me crazy early on was my apparent inability to recognize an airport in clear daylight with perfect visibility until I was practically on top of it (and it happened to me TWICE at Haigh, where I did my training XC). But somewhere along the way, something clicked I guess, and I now have a much better hit rate on seeing them a few miles out. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but I think there is something about the arrangement of brown and grey splotches on the ground that indicates STRIP!

On a related note, as my excitement about finally being able to go to KHAF indicates, I am chatting to an instructor about starting my formal IFR training. Aim to have the first lessons starting in November, after thanksgiving, when I can give it the proper attention. I feel that particularly being here in the bay area, this will open a whole new world of possibilities!
 
Yeah! I've been lucky with weather so far (discovery ride mid-May to check-ride scheduled for Sept. 30). I don't expect that luck to hold here in north-east Wyoming. And I guess in the bay area being able to get through the fog and cloud layers will double or triple your flyable days.
Good luck getting the IR training going.
 
onwards said:
one of the things I'm doing right now is try to go to new places with each flight (anyone else share this fetish?)!
Click to expand...

I'll go on record as sharing your fetish. I'll land at a new airport for almost any reason. I land at anything with Miller in the name, anything with an unusual name like "Wetumpka or Ogallala", anything in a cool location like Leadville, and well, anything that just happens to be underneath me. So far, I have a little over 600 different landing sites in 13 years. :)

Barb
 
One Short said:
I'll go on record as sharing your fetish. I'll land at a new airport for almost any reason. I land at anything with Miller in the name, anything with an unusual name like "Wetumpka or Ogallala", anything in a cool location like Leadville, and well, anything that just happens to be underneath me. So far, I have a little over 600 different landing sites in 13 years. :)
Click to expand...

Awesome.

So here is a logbook confession - each page of my logbook has a line I add at the top listing the new airports I have landed in within that page... can't wait to one day add certain ones (such as SFO, where I really want to do a touch-n-go if I can ever figure out the proper way of coordinating it; someone said call the tower and talk to them about it in advance, but that hasn't worked, or the number I had is wrong). But yeah, it's those little uncontrolled public strips that really seem to attract my attention most... I have this weird and sad little thing in my head saying "if you don't do it now, they will close it and you will never get to land there ever again".
 
Rneuwirth said:
I've been doing a bunch of long solo cross countries, both because I love to do them, and because they'll count towards the xc requirement for IR training (I hope!).
I also have been very careful to land someplace new every single time. I find that the experience of finding the airport, comparing the actual sight picture with my imagining what it'll look like based on the AF/D and AOPA info is quite interesting. I also have always loved any type of travel, and feel that my PPL will open so much of that for me.
Closest airport to my home 'drome (KGCC) is 46nm away, and most of my trips have been 150-200nm each way. Lots of beautiful country, with the Black Hills and the Bighorn Mountains so close.
Still, I'm jealous of the California coastline.
Some day.....
Click to expand...

I feel your pain on airports being few and far between here in Wyoming... The other side of the coin is looking down at the 10 million year old geology is amazing as most of the state looks right out of Jurrassic Park.

Ben.
 
Yeah well, sometimes it's clear, sometimes it's not. To me, its never worth an instrument approach to KHAF simply because I don't want to be in that crap when I land. Wait a couple months and the California coast will open up and be the nicest place on earth, after the marine layer goes away!
 
One Short said:
I'll go on record as sharing your fetish. I'll land at a new airport for almost any reason. I land at anything with Miller in the name, anything with an unusual name like "Wetumpka or Ogallala", anything in a cool location like Leadville, and well, anything that just happens to be underneath me. So far, I have a little over 600 different landing sites in 13 years. :)

Barb
Click to expand...


Congratulations on bring Wyoming to 100% !
 
One Short said:
Thanks, but I still have 7 airports left till I get all 100%. (So many airports, So few non-windy days!) But when I get done, then look out Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska! :yesnod:
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If you made it to Dixon and didn't call them I'm ****ed! Oh wait, you don't have my number and I'm not always there...okay, never mind. :D
 
Clark1961 said:
If you made it to Dixon and didn't call them I'm ****ed! Oh wait, you don't have my number and I'm not always there...okay, never mind. :D
Click to expand...

I made it to Dixon, said Hi to alot of antelope, didn't know you where there, Shoot!
 
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