Stranded In The Southland

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Cross-Country

I set off on my first cross-country flight today, going from Chino to Flabob Airport, a total distance of about 12 miles. I'd carefully prepped, reviewing the aeronautical charts and satellite photos on Google and radio procedures until I was sure I was ready.

Then it turned out to be such a turbulent day that I barely got my hands on the controls -- J. was constantly controlling trying to keep us stable. He did most of the approach for the landing at Flabob after we found another plane just in front of us, with wildly varying winds.

In fact, the wind had changed so completely that while we landed on runway 24, we turned around and took off in the opposite direction, on runway 6. We headed back to Chino and made a bunch more touch-n-goes, this time concentrating on short-field landings. Which was complicated by the incoming Santa Anna winds that bounced us around like crazy.

All in all, it was a bit frustrating. Next time we'll head out to a selection of local airports, so hopefully that'll be a bit more fun...