Sunday, January 20, 2013

After a break, I'm back in the Cub!

     After a break of almost 4 months, I was itching to again find myself in the sky. Whether it be weather or my busy schedule, there always arose a reason for me to not be able to fly. Finally, I took to the skies again on 1/20/2013 which was the first flight of the year. Only the Cub was open this weekend with Joe, so I booked it. Besides, I hadn't flown in a while. I might as well return to the basics.

     This Sunday, it was a chilly 28F so Joe and I were both bundled up to go flying. Once we got out to the airplane, we found that N98286, the "big" Cub, was low on gas. So after several attempts, we got the engine running and taxied to get some fuel. After nearly freezing, we got the airplane fueled up and were ready to fly. The winds were steady at about 10kts, sometimes gusting to 15kts before we took off. This gave us a nice wind straight down the runway and also a little crosswind practice (nothing I couldn't handle even after taking a 4 month break). After completing the simple CIGAR checklist, I taxied to runway 26 and prepared to take off.

     The power that airplanes have in cold, dry air is amazing. As soon as I increased the throttle, we were practically in the air already. After reaching 1500ft much sooner than usual, I headed towards Caesar's Creek Gliderport where I practiced a few landings. The first one took me by surprise with a little bump, but after that I regained my "feel" of landing the Cub. After getting my landings down again, we headed back to Stewart to do a few more.

     Once again, the first one was a little bouncy because of the wind. But after that, I managed to squeeze out smooth landings one after another. After an hour, it was time to head in to the hangar. Overall, it was a great flight after having to take such a long break. Thankfully, I was not as rusty as I had imagined I would be.

     Sorry guys, no video this week. After about 20 minutes, my GoPro suction cup mount suddenly failed because of the cold(I think). But, here is a quick picture taken after the flight.


This Flight: 1.0 Dual, 1.0 Total, N98286, 40I-2OH9-40I
Total hours to date: 20.2