With my rental currency renewed and skills no longer so rusty, there can only be one obvious conclusion: it's time to go somewhere fun! This time, it's up to Blacksburg, VA (KBCB), for lunch with indigodaisy. Why Blacksburg? Because, as you will, see, mountains are very pretty.

So, clear skies, calm winds, but one major problem: it's ****ING COLD AS HELL. Highs on the ground are below freezing, and it only gets colder at higher altitudes. But clearly I am insane, as I showed up at the airport anyway. One very cold pre-flight later (cold metal airplane = not fun), it's time to go.

( Surprise, surprise, mass picture spam again. )

Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, automated weather, 1-8-2-3 Zulu.
Wind: 250 at 5.
Visiblity: 10.
Sky conditino: clear.
Temperature 16, dewpoint -9.
Altimiter: 30.02.

How could I not go flying on a day like that? Off to the airport with anatomiste in the right seat (such bravery!) to knock the rust off my skills and maybe get her a few pictures in the process.

( Are you really still surprised by the cut? )

So apparently I survived 24 years of this life already. Who had any idea? In honor of this glorious event, I was given 1.4 more hours of my far more important life*.

Off to Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport, to hopefully bring the costs down to the point where I can actually afford to fly again outside of major holidays. This is accomplished by proving to one of their instructors that I am qualified to rent their Cessna 152, a much smaller and cheaper plane. Cheaper being a relative term, of course, as this brings the cost down to $80/hour from $150/hour. Sadly there are few pictures, as I was too busy having fun to remember that silly camera thing. Oh well...


( Cut for picture size anyway. )

The large pile of random pictures that don't really fit nicely anywhere else:

( You know the deal, lots of pictures. )

(The re-posts continue!)



Well, there it was, the last major milestone on my flying lessons: the long solo cross-country. 150 miles, two stops, and nobody in the right seat.

Right. Another beautiful summer day in NC (ok, hot, humid, hazy, but clear skies and calm winds), LET'S GO!

( IMAGE SPAM CUT )

(Continuing to re-post the facebook images on a more appropriate host.)



The problem: my scheduled cross-country flights are done, but I'm 0.2 hours short of the 5 hours required for my license. Oops. Guess I should've taken another trip around the pattern in Washington (KOCW). Now, this is an especially annoying problem, since the FAA defines cross-country as "over 50 miles", there's no way to just do a quick 0.2 hours, I'm going to have to make another two-hour flight.

The solution: it's time to consult the internet for good airport restaurants, I'm going on the $100 hamburger run!

Fortunately an obvious choice presents itself: Blue Ridge Airport (KMTV) in Martinsville, VA, about 75 miles NW of Raleigh. It's over 50 miles, but not too far, and the food is supposed to be good. Simple enough trip, and I even get to use the GPS again now that all of my primitive navigation requirements are complete.

Simple enough... famous last words again?

I wake up early, around 1:00 to file my flight plans and pick up my weather briefing. Weather is nice along the route, but typical for summer in the south, there's a line of nasty thunderstorms 100 miles or so to the west. However, flight service gives me a clear forecast for Martinsville until a couple hours after I plan to be gone, so there shouldn't be any problem... and I've got plenty of diversion options if things look bad.

So, my instructor approves the trip by phone, and it's off to the airport, pick up the plane, and depart RDU no problems. Pretty nice weather for summer in NC, clear skies and no real problems into Martinsville. Well, Nexrad in the plane is showing the nasty green blob a bit closer than I'd expected, but Martinsville still reports clear skies and calm winds. Guess short-field takeoff practice is probably getting moved somewhere else, but I should still have time to land and get lunch.

I do my usual incredibly graceful landing (that is, I float down the runway for a couple thousand feet, bounce a couple times, and do everything BUT look pretty), park the airplane, and get this wonderful sight:

( CUT FOR LARGE PICTURES )

Dear Facebook. You suck. Please stop resizing my pictures to 10x5. If I wanted tiny blurry pictures where all of the interesting details are squished into a single pixel, I would have taken them that way.

Therefore my near-flawless record of keeping this journal read-only must come to an end. *sigh*

====================================================

So, Charlotte. It was awesome. Everything went perfectly, without even the slightest mistake.

What? It's August 1st, not July 25th? The radio died as I was starting my takeoff roll, and my trip consisted of less than 1000' of runway 23L? Oh, right.

( Cut for tons of huge pictures )

This certifies that JONATHAN ROBERT PARKE has been found to be properly qualified and is hereby authorized in accordance with the conditions of issuance on the reverse of this certificate to exercise the privileges of: PRIVATE PILOT

Pictures to follow.

Megan made me do it, I swear. I'm not a necromancer! I let old journals rest in peace, but there were many threats involved!

For you RPG geeks (and I know you all are):

http://theglen.livejournal.com/16735.html