It's my 50th birthday today! :) I decided to go for a flight with my lovely wife Melissa. We were a little bit squished for time because our son Aden was in camp and we had to drop him off and pick him up, so we opted for a short flight from KRHV to the coast.
During climbout, I wanted to look at the map and asked Melissa where the iPad was. Neither of us could find it. Then all of a sudden I was like, wait. Here it is on the left wing walk, where I had forgotten it. It was sitting there on top of the wing, plastered down by the airflow, just fine and dandy.
So this was a practice "emergency" drill. What to do?
I grabbed my Android phone, which has a freeware EFB app that I use as my backup to iPad Foreflight. We figured out the frequencies for E16 and planned a landing there. It was very turbulent, and on my first try, I did a go-around. The second time around, I ballooned back up a bit during my flare and the result was a gentle bump down and, I'm sure, an unworkmanlike appearance. I'll chalk that up to the really challenging gusts, but I would like to do better next time.
We brought the iPad in and took off again.
We flew basically to the Elkhorn Slough, then up the coast as far as the Southern-most reaches of Santa Cruz, then retraced our route back to KRHV. There was of course lots of pretty scenery. And we identified the Monterey Bay Academy airport and Frasier Lake Airpark, two fun dirt/grass fields where unfortunately, due to FBO's rules, I can't land the plane.
Our return was uneventful. I got a straight in landing on 31L. I flew to a point where I believed I was within glide range, then cut the engine and glided down all the way, adding flaps as necessary. I ended up under-estimating my energy so I had to slip quite a bit on short final (Melissa said the nose-down angle was scary and she closed her eyes! I did not mean to scare her!). But the landing was soft.
During climbout, I wanted to look at the map and asked Melissa where the iPad was. Neither of us could find it. Then all of a sudden I was like, wait. Here it is on the left wing walk, where I had forgotten it. It was sitting there on top of the wing, plastered down by the airflow, just fine and dandy.
So this was a practice "emergency" drill. What to do?
I grabbed my Android phone, which has a freeware EFB app that I use as my backup to iPad Foreflight. We figured out the frequencies for E16 and planned a landing there. It was very turbulent, and on my first try, I did a go-around. The second time around, I ballooned back up a bit during my flare and the result was a gentle bump down and, I'm sure, an unworkmanlike appearance. I'll chalk that up to the really challenging gusts, but I would like to do better next time.
We brought the iPad in and took off again.
We flew basically to the Elkhorn Slough, then up the coast as far as the Southern-most reaches of Santa Cruz, then retraced our route back to KRHV. There was of course lots of pretty scenery. And we identified the Monterey Bay Academy airport and Frasier Lake Airpark, two fun dirt/grass fields where unfortunately, due to FBO's rules, I can't land the plane.
Our return was uneventful. I got a straight in landing on 31L. I flew to a point where I believed I was within glide range, then cut the engine and glided down all the way, adding flaps as necessary. I ended up under-estimating my energy so I had to slip quite a bit on short final (Melissa said the nose-down angle was scary and she closed her eyes! I did not mean to scare her!). But the landing was soft.
