N291DR 2.4 Solo Boonville to Reid-Hillview

Flying back from vacation in Boonville. Departed and flew direct Cloverdale, climbing to 7,500' MSL for safe clearance of mountains. Flew to Petaluma, landed, and fueled up. Did a few takeoffs and landings, then flew back to KRHV.

Milestone: My first ever solo touch and goes! :) I need to get a bit of a feel of these; in one case I pushed power in and the airplane leapt into the air in 3-point attitude! But generally okay.

I got relatively good at short field landings. Approach 50 full flaps, slip if needed, a touch of power if needed, then round out and make a 3-pointer. Nothing to it. I was off at the first taxiway every time.

I think I also had lost the habit of looking at my horizon when landing -- I'm not sure where I was looking. I re-drilled into myself: Learn 3-point position, then look for it, keep your eyes forward. What do you know, it worked. Better 3-point landings. #themoreyouknow.

N291DR 1.8 Flight from Boonville to Gravelly Valley and Ukiah with Melissa

Flew from Boonville to Gravelly Valley, but did not land because it was too bumpy. Went to Ukiah and stopped for lunch. Took off and did one practice landing, then back to Boonville. 3 landings total.

N291DR 2.6 Solo Reid-Hillview to Boonville

Flew from Reid-Hillview to Boonville via Petaluma. 2 landings at Petaluma, one at Boonville.

N291DR 2.9 Practice flight

Routine practice flight to prepare for an XC trip.

N291DR 2.0 Flight to Watsonville with Aden

Flight with Aden to Watsonville for lunch. 3 landings total.

Departed KRHV and flew to check out the Calero reservoir where we had been hiking the day previous. This is under the 3,000' KSJC Class C shelf, and we were at 2,000' MSL, so we decided not to buzz the actual lake but just flew South of it then peeled off Southwards.

We saw that KWVI was still clouded over, so we went to Frasier Lake to do some landing practice. My first landing was a bit floopy -- I was about to bounce -- so I went around. My second landing was a good soft field 3-pointer. I pulled off the runway hoping to tie down and talk to folks in their hangars, but the guest tie-downs required that you bring your own ropes, and with the wind the way it was, we were not leaving the plane untied! So we took off again.

We checked the KWVI Wx and found it was now clear, so we went there. I did a short approach to rwy 20 and ended up coming out of my turn just as I passed the threashold, and a bit off centerline. I could have saved it but I just decided to go around and try again. My second landing was a good 3 pointer.

We had lunch and puttered around a bit.

We took off and came back to KRHV in somewhat bumpy air, and I elected to do a wheel landing. It was all good except for some tailwheel shimmy when I let the tail down. It's possible I should have waited for the plane to slow down some more.