Last Saturday was simply beautiful with blue sky, calm winds, and moderate temperatures. I reserved N6343D and took Kevin and David up again, this time to dawdle about in the sky over our house, their school, the local baseball stadium and whatever else caught our fancy.
Along the way I flew over to Spirit of St. Louis airport (KSUS) and actually talked to a tower for the first time (whew! 🙂 ) The guys in the tower were quite forgiving of my rusty radio procedures and let me shoot a touch ‘n’ go. After operating from St. Charles Municipal’s narrow runway, it felt weird to have the vast amount of concrete in front of me on 8L at Spirit, and this is their small runway. It is surprising how my perspective has changed since I learned to fly at Long Beach (KLGB) in 1986.
Kevin brought his camera again, so we have David standing by the plane. (We missed that shot on the first flight.)
and a nice shot of our house:
Kevin and I went back to the plane after sunset. I did my three take-offs and landings so that I would be legal to carry passengers at night, taxied back,
and took Kevin back up for some night sightseeing. He shot lots of great artistic stuff which he plans to post to his own on-line gallery. I’ll let you know when they are available.
The night flying was beautiful (as always) and I can’t wait to get up again (as always).
Next step: Regaining my IFR currency.
What altitude was the shot of the house? Looks low.
About 1900 MSL, which makes it about 1300 AGL.
Ineresting, this towered v. untowered thing. I trained at an airport in the middle of an ARSA^H^H^H^H class C airspace airport, and felt positively weird going into one with nobody at the other end of the radio. Took me a while to accept it as normal. I’ve got this theory that those who train from grass fields with a cub perpetually in the pattern are equally unsettled going into a busy towered airport – this fear of saying one wrong word and being dragged off in irons upon landing.
Though I’ll admit it was about a year after getting my ticket before I braved the NYC airspace. Completely uneventful, once I did, though.
-lr