N712MF 1.3 Quick sightseeing with David

David, husband of Caryn (see previous), wanted in on the action too. The plane was already booked starting at 10am so we planned for an early morning sortie.

I planned a flight down the Coyote Valley to Gilroy, then cutting over to Watsonville, a few landings there, then off to see if we can find Bonny Doon in the woods, then returning via the Lexington reservoir, crossing midfield at San Jose, and landing back at Reid-Hillview.

The Wx was pretty much perfect, with a big low-pressure trough sitting offshore drawing air from the land out to sea and keeping the moisture at bay. Even then, we had a relative humidity of 40%. At the cold temperatures in the morning -- temperature 4°C and dewpoint 0°C, carb icing was a concern. I printed out a carb icing risk chart and put it in my kneeboard and planned to use carb heat aggressively.

When we got there, the poor plane was covered in frost! No flying with frost on the upper wing surface, lower elevator surface, or canopy of course! So we moved it out into the sun and waited for it to thaw. Meanwhile, we preflighted. It had plenty of fuel so we didn't need to refuel.

Eventually, by 8:45am or so, it had thawed enough to be flyable -- but there goes the ambitious flight plan and the early start. :) So we decided to just launch, go to San Martin, and come back.

Things went as planned. I used carb heat all the time except when using climb power. I sure miss the carb temperature gage that I had in the C162 Flycatcher way back when!

I did one short approach to Rwy 32 at San Martin. It went okay -- I landed just barely on the threshold and was rounding out before my flare, while my intention is to maintain approach speed all the way to the flare. Winds were calm and the landing was pretty soft.

Pressed for time, we took off again and made a beeline for Reid-Hillview. I got the usual straight in for Rwy 31 right. From about 3,500 feet, I entered a long glide at 59 knots, and ended up with a reasonable amount of energy over the mall. At that point, "cash it in", full flaps, nose down, and approach speed to the flare. That was a reasonable simulation of an engine-out approach and I think it went well.

N712MF 2.0 Sightseeing over the coast with Melissa

The Wx was good over the coast this weekend for once, so we could go sightseeing. We got up fairly early and off we went.

At first, I did a couple of practice landings. My first one was a standard approach, which I sort of dragged in and was not totally happy with. The second was a short approach where the approach was adequate, but on flare I sort of slid right of centerline a little bit, and the actual touchdown was clean.

I was not sure if Melissa would want to listen to ATC so I planned the flight without flight following. She later said she didn't mind, but I already had the plan "armed" in my mind and we were at the airport, so I decided to fly as planned and keep this in mind for the next time.

We departed KRHV downwind to the South, and flew to the Southern tip of Coyote Lake. I then descended to 2,500' and flew across the Coyote Valley, looking all the while for traffic that may be coming in to Hollister. Then we climbed back up a little and flew towards the Moss Landing powerplant. We turned Northward from there and cruised up the coast, up to the point where we were North of Santa Cruz.

It was getting late so I needed to make a beeline for home. I set a direct course for the Lexington Reservoir and climbed like hell so as to give myself glide distance away from the mountains should I get an engine failure. When about 9 miles South of Lexington, I called Norcal and got sent direct midfield KSJC, as usual, then direct KRHV. That was uneventful and Melissa later told me it was cool but "scary" to be flying so close over the large, busy airport!

For my landing, I again asked for a short approach and that one worked quite well. I did a soft landing, on centerline, without having to slip, and with a steadily increasing flap setting concluding in full flaps (on the SportStar, that's a barn door) right at the end. It was not a real "power off 180" since I did not nail my abeam sport, but I did make a reasonable landing from a power cut abeam the threshold so I am calling that a decent standard at my current level of experience. Of course, this was with essentially zero wind; recall last time I flew it was windy in Byron and I learned that I have a lot to learn about correcting for winds in that maneuver. But I'm getting there.