Well, we are about a week and two days out from my Pilot's exam. I'm getting very nervous, anxious, and excited. Yesterday, I went up with the instructor and did turns-around-a-point, soft & short field landings, and emergency landing with no flaps but with a slip to land.
Turns-around-a-point seems to be a major weak spot for me. I find it fascinating that in some ways, you don't want a windy day to do these procedures, as it makes it a bit harder, but the landing procedures you want some kind of wind as it makes landing distances shorter. On the day of the test, I would prefer to have winds at 260 between 3-7knts. No gust!
Last night, I was woken up by a very sharp pain in my lower sinus cavity. It felt swollen, so I thought it was a sinus issue. I had a teeth cleaning today, and told the dentist about it, it turns out to be an infection that I will need a root canal done on. That will be this Thursday. He gave me some medicines to take in the mean time. I drop those off at the pharmacy and took off for the airport. (No pun intended.)
The tooth wasn't hurting that much, so I decided to go ahead with my planned flight to KRHP today. While getting ready and prep'ing the plane, winds were calm at KRYY and about 3knts at KRHP. Winds aloft were brisk, but not too bad.
I filed my flight plan, and off I went. Since KRHP and KRYY are on two different sides of the aviation maps we use, I decided that I would use KCNI as a good checkpoint as it was easy to find on both sides. Went to an altitude of 5,500 feet for my flight up there. Past KCNI it started to get bumpy and gusty. At times it was hard holding my altitude. Started to descend into KRHP with winds around 12 knots. I first did a “normal” landing, which was decent. Next was a soft field take off, followed by a short field landing, followed by a short field take off. Next was a normal landing and I decided to take a quick break at their FBO. I grabbed some water, and played with the Andrews-Murphy FBO's TSA Cat. Have no idea what it's name is, but the folks there allowed me to pet her. She was so soft, fuzzy and friendly.
Decided to do a short field take-off again. One thing that is drilled into your head about short field take offs, is when you bring the flaps up from 10º to 0º, you make sure you have plenty of altitude and you have a positive rate of climb. When I bought mine up, my plane took a pretty good dip. Probably due to the wind/gust picking up. On my way out, I thanked Andrews-Murphy for their hospitality, and was welcomed with a “Come back and see us again!” which was very nice. Another Cessna was coming into the area, so we were communicating with each other trying to figure out where he was, and where I was. He was descending, and I was ascending. We kept giving position reports to make sure we weren't going to collide with each other. I never saw him, and he never saw me, but there was no issue. Flying back to KRYY, the chop was getting worst, and that's when the pain started. It's advised that you don't fly when you have a toothache, or sinus problem. Well, the pressure at 6,500 started to affect my tooth. It didn't get too bad, but there was pressure there.
The flight back to KRYY became more turbulent also. I decided that I needed to file a PIREP, and wrote down all the information that I needed. Landed back at KRYY with a normal landing and closed out my flight plan plus filed my first Pilot Report! (Screen shot of it below!)
Overall, it was a good flying day. I have part 2 of my mock-oral tomorrow with Hutch. Saturday went really well, hopefully tomorrow will too (about to study again.) Have my root canal on Thursday, flying with the instructor on Friday and Sunday.
Happy travels!
653KB at KRHP
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