A day trip in my plane, the Ruptured Duck
A couple of days ago we had CAVU weather here, that's Clear And Visibility Unlimited. My instructor and I headed out on a cross country trip. We flew from Mason Michigan (KTEW), NNW'ly to Mount Pleasant (KMOP).
I'd preplanned all the trip, and had checkpoints selected to identify from the air. In reality, the highway (US-127) was the handiest and most reliable checkpoint. I've driven the route several hundred times, so recognition of landmarks from the air was a lot easier. Winds weren't as predicted, so that helped a lot. This time of year, birds are minimal and that's good. In a few weeks, migrations will start picking up and I'll have to fly higher to avoid bird strikes.
When we arrived at Mount Pleasant, there wasn't an operational coffee pot anywhere! I thought it was illegal to have an airfield without a coffee pot. HUH! To be fair, there were no deer on the runway either. While there, I called an old buddy who lives nearby, and he's healing well after a foot operation. Not fully ambulatory yet, so couldn't come out to see us. On another trip, we'll go up for lunch with him.
We had intended to scout a nearby field that's close to the park where the Masonic Lodge in Mount Pleasant holds their picnics. With an eye to flying in to where they have goodies to eat, I wanted to be ready. Unfortunately, my instructor had to get back to the Lansing area - poor devil still works. So the field at Lake Isabella will have to be visited another time. We flew over several small towns and Lansing, the capital of Michigan. Landing back at home field was as uneventful as most of my landings, a bit bumpy with two landings for one approach. :wink:
We have some more cross country trips in the offing. One to scout out landing strips near a buddy's deer camp. Another to SW'ly Michigan, just to see the hills and lakes as spring marches in.
A couple of days ago we had CAVU weather here, that's Clear And Visibility Unlimited. My instructor and I headed out on a cross country trip. We flew from Mason Michigan (KTEW), NNW'ly to Mount Pleasant (KMOP).
I'd preplanned all the trip, and had checkpoints selected to identify from the air. In reality, the highway (US-127) was the handiest and most reliable checkpoint. I've driven the route several hundred times, so recognition of landmarks from the air was a lot easier. Winds weren't as predicted, so that helped a lot. This time of year, birds are minimal and that's good. In a few weeks, migrations will start picking up and I'll have to fly higher to avoid bird strikes.
When we arrived at Mount Pleasant, there wasn't an operational coffee pot anywhere! I thought it was illegal to have an airfield without a coffee pot. HUH! To be fair, there were no deer on the runway either. While there, I called an old buddy who lives nearby, and he's healing well after a foot operation. Not fully ambulatory yet, so couldn't come out to see us. On another trip, we'll go up for lunch with him.
We had intended to scout a nearby field that's close to the park where the Masonic Lodge in Mount Pleasant holds their picnics. With an eye to flying in to where they have goodies to eat, I wanted to be ready. Unfortunately, my instructor had to get back to the Lansing area - poor devil still works. So the field at Lake Isabella will have to be visited another time. We flew over several small towns and Lansing, the capital of Michigan. Landing back at home field was as uneventful as most of my landings, a bit bumpy with two landings for one approach. :wink:
We have some more cross country trips in the offing. One to scout out landing strips near a buddy's deer camp. Another to SW'ly Michigan, just to see the hills and lakes as spring marches in.