A trip

The weather has been been crappy in the last six weeks, which has thwarted several of my attempts to fly. As well, there's my ever-present anxiety about the impending solo flight out to the practice area. I've just been waiting to get on with it so I can make progress and perhaps show myself what I can do. But yesterday turned out to be a gorgeous day and, just to break the frustration, we decided to have some fun and do the first of the cross-country flights that are required in the private pilot training. I have to do two cross-country trips, one "short," one "long" (at least 150 NM), each of them twice - once dual, once solo. Today was the short one. We went from our airport, Cooking Lake, to Vegreville and then to Camrose and then back home. It was a triangular route of 105 NM.

I enjoyed learning about flight planning in ground school and was excited to put it into practice. For this flight, I calculated the fuel requirements, wind corrections, and estimated times of arrival and mapped the route, found our headings, and identified suitable enroute checkpoints. We briefed the flight on the ground and then set off.

It was fabulous! The views were amazing and it was so great to go somewhere! It was quite easy to read the map, determine our location, and adjust the heading, although on the second leg, the landmarks weren't as clear so I had to compare map to ground a lot to be certain. I started to get the hang of flying the plane while looking down at the map and using the E6B flight computer (a circular slide rule) to calculate ground speed and ETA. The flight was uneventful except that, of course, it was beautiful and fun! Now, having done this with my instructor, I have to do it by myself, which I expect to do in the next couple weeks, weather allowing. I have a couple of solo excursions waiting for me now but today, I'm not going to stress. I'm just going to remember how great yesterday's trip was!