It’s been a brutal winter here, with more snow than we’ve seen since I was a kid. That snow has been piling up at the airport, and lining the hangar rows. Our guys plow, but they’ve run out of places to put all of the snow, and since our doors sliding in guides, the can’t plow too close to the doors or they’re catch the guides and damage them. It’s also been bitterly cold.
All of that is relenting. The sun is out, and the temps are climbing. I have a date with destiny… in a way of speaking. We’ve set time with John A from the factory to come up and check me out in the Velocity. I’m legal to fly our plane, but the insurance won’t cover me, and I wouldn’t be safe yet. So next month I’ll fly with John and get my sign off. We’ll also try to get Elizabeth comfortable landing from the right seat so she can safety pilot for me, as well as get our CFI signed off in the airplane so he can do the same. That should give us a great ecosystem in Cincinnati, and I’m thinking about just going straight into my instrument rating this summer. Not only would it get it out of the way, it would give me a bunch of hours in the Velocity with the ‘safety net’ of having my instructor there for more than just moral support. It’s a win-win-win. And not having a rating is one of the reasons we’re a little gun-shy of going on longer trips… distance or days… we really can’t afford to get stuck places… so it would help with that too.
So, to that end, I went out with Pete today in the Warror and did an hour and a half of brush up work. I’m surprised at how well I did, actually. Yes, I wasn’t perfect, but I was pretty proficient, even at some of the finer points. I’ve always wanted to get comfortable enough in the airplane that it was similar to driving a car, just something I can get in and do without thinking about it very much. I’m not there yet, but I can see that day on the horizon. It’s a nice feeling.
Posted By: Brett FerrellSaturday March 1st, 2014 at 10:16 PM