I Finally Did It, Continued... Part II

"The first and last steps are usually the hardest." Saying

As I was saying.

We took off nice and smooth and exactly as briefed. Nose up at 55kts, then once ground effect was not effecting the plane, a little nose down and climb at 65kts. Holding an airspeed in a climb is a matter of pitch, not thrust. And at altitude in the summer we climbed steady but slow. All the time listening and looking for other aircraft. We found one, but we were of no consequence to its flight path, so on we went. Climbing to 8500' the views of the Sierra and three reservoirs; Prosser, Boca and Stampede, we clear and present.

We headed North by Northwest to the Sierra Valley to our training area. Along the way we had to pass through a lovely alpine valley. The first mountain flying lesson my instructor taught me was to keep a look out for meadows to land in. Why? Well, in a single engine aircraft you never know... At this point you would think a sane person, like myself, would think twice about continuing on. No, not me. I like calculated risk, I'm and expert skier for goodness sake. And people every day take deeper risks than this, regular sane people. That makes me saner than most, huh?

Anyways, the second mountain flying lesson my instructor taught me was to fly on one side of the valley or the other to leave yourself enough room to turn around in an emergency. Good advice in a single engine aircraft. So I choose the Western side of the valley, it looked nicer to me.

In an all to quick 10 minutes we arrived at the training area and did two sweeping turns to check for other aircraft in the vicinity. There were none. Off to our West, sticking up out of nowhere visible, stood the pointy Sierra Buttes, old and worn, and many miles away; a great landmark to work with. So we worked with them. 30 degree turns to the left and right, rolling out on the Buttes. Then finding another nondescript peak, we did the same using it as a landmark. Then back to the Buttes and some slow flight. Throttle to 1500RPM, flaps full, then attempting to hold 55kts, not easy, but fun.

Once out of the flight maneuver and back into normal flight I saw my instructor look at the clock. Nooooo! Time to go back. It felt like 5 minutes had passed. Time is a funny thing huh?

Back SSE, through the valley of mountain flight training, to KTRK. Tomorrow I'll tell you about the descent, pattern and approach.

And in other news, the best kind of news. My wife tells me we are expecting another child. I can't imagine life any better!