First flight of the new year was to York Pennsylvania KTHV this morning, for breakfast at Orville’s Restaurant. The aviation group I’m associated with needs little excuse to get into the air, but food – and particularly breakfasts – are close to the top of that list. Seven aircraft, including my own, made up the fleet, with nineteen aviation friends, partners, club members all enjoying a crisp and clear morning. Wheel’s-up at 8.30 into a calm and smooth sky, and just 52 miles to our destination, west of our home-base at New Garden N57. The aircraft was full, my cockpit companions – Jim, Jeff, Harv – presented the Cirrus with no problems. All aircraft enjoy the cold air and generally leap off the runway even when loaded, the excellent Cirrus is no exception.

With accomplished pilots alongside you and paying close attention to everything that’s happening there’s a certain amount of added pressure to ‘get-it-right’. It seemed to work well today, with reasonably good landings and take-offs, and no surprises. My pattern circuit at York was too tight, I didn’t make enough allowance for the additional weight onboard and had to re-align for the final approach….. but all fine in the end. Another learning added to the never-ending list, and one of the reasons I really enjoy the challenge of flying – it’s new every time.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 5th, 2008 at 8:02 pm and is filed under Aviation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.