(This entry is backdated)
With my impending move, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to move both of my cars. I plan to rent a U-Haul truck to move my stuff, so I can tow a car behind it, but getting the second car there would be trickier — I'd either have to drive the truck with one car in tow, then fly back to Covington to drive the other one, or I'd need to pay a friend to drive my other car alongside the U-Haul and then fly them back home or something. Neither option is very appealing.
Fortunately, Andrés came up with a solution that benefits us both. Now that they're moving to Knoxville, he knows that he won't be able to get everywhere on public transportation anymore, so he'll have to buy a car. He plans to buy a motorcycle once they're settled in there, so he hopes not to have to drive a car much, but it will probably be necessary to have one for those few occasions where a bicycle or motorcycle won't do. We realized that if I lend him my Supra for that purpose, it solves both of our problems.
So we figured that he would fly out to Covington and drive the Supra back to Knoxville. And since Knoxville is the first stop on my roadtrip, we arranged it so that he and Amy would fly out a few days before I was planning to drive to Knoxville, and we'd make the drive in two cars. They flew down on Tuesday, and we got to spend a few days hanging out with Bryan and Cat before heading off.
On Wednesday, I took everyone flying, marking the first time I carried passengers. Of course the plane couldn't have carried everyone at once, so we did it in two shifts. First I went up with Bryan and Cat.
It was almost a hundred degrees, as it has been all summer, so we taxied out to the runway with the door open, as usual. There was a plane on base as I finished my runup, which meant I had plenty of time to take off before he landed, but I wouldn't want to waste any time unnecessarily, so I gave my radio call stating that I was taking off. My instructor Mike, who was apparently in the landing plane with a student, said hi on the radio when he heard that it was me, and as I taxied into position on the runway I said hi back and told him that I was taking up my first passengers. He congratulated me, and I started my takeoff roll. As we started to get going, Cat asked if she should close the door. Crap.
When a few seconds passed and she wasn't able to get the door closed, I aborted the takeoff and got off the runway so Mike and his student could land. When I gave my radio call saying I was clear of the runway, Mike asked if I had a problem, and I had to explain that I had just forgotten to latch the door. Ah, what an illustrious start.
After that, though, things went better. I ended up only going once around the pattern with Bryan and Cat before landing, because we got a few drops of rain once we were airborne. Rain alone is not an impediment to flying, but rain can presage thunderstorms, and I wanted to take no more chances. So we landed after just about 10 minutes in the air, and we parked the plane and figured we were done flying for the day. But just a few minutes later the sky cleared up and the weather started to look pretty nice, so we jumped back in the plane so I could take Andrés and Amy up.
This time I flew much better. No checklist steps were overlooked and my flying showed much more of the precision I had developed during training. They didn't feel ready to experience a stall, but I did show them a steep turn, I flew them over Sycamore so they could see what a smaller grass strip looks like (and I was actually able to find it without an instructor to point it out to me for once), and I showed them a soft-field touch-and-go (and managed to keep the nosewheel off the ground the whole time). I made sure to point out to them how well I was flying, in case they couldn't tell, and they were duly appreciative (or at least they humored me, which is all I ask, really).