Friday, January 20, 2012

To Athens and Back - 1/19/2012

We went to Athens, GA yesterday in good ol' 707PD, but I marked a first yesterday, as it was the first time I had a passenger (besides the instructor) with me... my buddy Adam. God bless his soul, he is a nervous flier, but he got up the nerves and flew with me to Athens. Going there, we were cruising at around 3,500 feet (non-autopilot.) It was a bit choppy, but not the worst chop I've been through. The Flight Service Station was having major issues yesterday, and apparently they were going old school when we called to get our Weather Briefing, and took one hell of a long time to get them on the radio to open up our flight plan. We flew out of KRYY on Runway 9, headed East, south of Roswell, just north of KPDK, right over Gwinnett's airport, south of Barrow County airport, and landed on Runway 27 in Athens. We decided to take a quick break at the Athen's FBO, Athen's Flight Center. The lineman was very nice, and so was the young lady at the front desk. Usually on cross-countries we don't make a stop at the FBO, but I'm glad we did this time. For some reason, my back was getting very tense, so I need to get out anyways. My instructor informed me, that this was the busiest that he's ever seen Athens. A bit later we took off from Athens Runway 27 and went to a cruise altitude of 4,500. Much smoother ride at that altitude, and I decided to engage the autopilot for a bit. We did some autopilot work all the way till we got about a mile from runway 27. Atlanta Center was one of the busiest that I've heard it in awhile, no issues though, but we had to pay extra close attention while listening for our call sign. We had a nice crosswind landing, and a smooth touchdown. Pretty nice in my opinion.

We saw a Mitsubishi MU-2 at KRYY, that thing is so freaking cute! It was on the South Ramp.

Looks like some nasty weather will be moving in the next several days. Rain moving in this afternoon, and a chance of rain all the way up until Monday night. A chance of storms tonight, and a better chance of severe thunderstorms tomorrow. I have some solo work on Sunday (707PD, I believe) but with the rain chances, I might just can it, and do some extra studying. The written test is getting much closer, but even though I've been studying and using practice test, I'm still not happy yet with my score. Right now, we do seem to be on track for taking the test in March or April (I'm hoping March.) I'd love to start the second phase of everything before June.

There is a concern that I'm having though... I'm wanting to go commercial with my pilot's license. The thing is, you need to build up hours. I've been reading post, that people say the best way to do this is via CFI. Well, I don't think I would be a good teacher, so this brings up a concern on what would be the best way to get my hours built up. I'm wouldn't say no to doing "regional" cargo flights, to build up the hours at first.

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