Knowledgeable passenger

In addition to my home base at Cooking Lake, I also fly at a flying club at Villeneuve airport. But out there, I don't know anyone so don't have a pilot buddy to fly their planes with. So, I asked my pilot friend, Cam, if he'd be willing to come along with me for a flight out there as a knowledgeable passenger who could save us if necessary.  :)  Last week, on Dec 1, we flew to Barrhead, a 33 NM flight from Villeneuve Airport.

I'm getting more comfortable with the planes there. They really are just 172s like I'm used to but the strangest part is the radios. I fiddled with them a bit but it finally clicked and we headed off. The flight was lovely.

Halfway to Barrhead

As we neared Barrhead, we searched for the airport. When I went there in the summer, it was easy to find, but with everything all white in the winter, it was trickier. I had a sense of where it was and Cam confirmed a couple landmarks on the map so I flew toward the downwind leg. My landing was great (the quality of my landing seems to define a whole flight for me!). I recorded the times and reset the instruments and we took off again for a pleasant flight home. I was cleared straight-in for runway 16. I trained in uncontrolled airspace, where straight-in approaches are not permitted so to be able to do them at Villeneuve, which is controlled, is kind of cool. You have to think it through differently since you don't have the same structure on approach (normally a rectangular pattern) but I haven't had any trouble with it.

It was another great day in an airplane and it was nice to have Cam along for company and security.