Wednesday, July 26, 2006

800 hours

Passed another milestone last week. 800 hours total time. I was somewhere over carroll county, md on my way back from Lancaster when I passed the mark. Larry and I were on his first student x-c since he soloed. It was hazy but a good time.

Lately the weather has been either crystal clear or hazy beyond belief. Its extremely frustrating to have to bag 4 flights a week because the visibility gets so bad...mostly due to haze. The high humidity is really to blame. After the thunderstorms pass through it usually clears up considerably until the rain that just fell evaporates. Kinda interesting to witness the convection taking place.

Last night was interesting. A fellow pilot and I ferried an aircraft up into Hagerstown, MD for maintenance. We were racing to get in before a storm hit up there, and then raced to get out of there. We won that race, but nearly lost the next one. Arriving into Leesburg I checked the AWOS(automated weather observation system). The AWOS reported broken at 5000, thunderstorm, rain, and gusting winds. It was an interesting arrival. I watched as a wall or rain moved from se-nw directly towards us. It engulfed route 7 at the rate of about 1/2 mile a minute. It was a fast moving cell with alot of moisture. We lined up on a 6 mile straight in final to the south runway, and landed uneventfully. As I pulled out the mixture control knob to shut down the engine the skies opened and visibility dropped to 2 miles.

I have a multi engine student starting next week. He wants to make trips to Teteboro, NJ, myrtle beach, and BKL in cleveland. I am extremely excited about building some multi time, getting to fly a twin, and to get to fly into some very dense airports. And I dont have to pay a dime. Good stuff.

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