Entries with tag "maintenance"

Today I got two exercises in pilot decision-making, for free!

I was scheduled to do my long solo cross-country flight, flying from Hammond to Baton Rouge, then to Lafayette, then back to Hammond; about 170 miles in all. We had to cancel on Friday because the weather has continued to be crap as it has been for the past few weeks, but as I awoke this morning I found that there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. It was like a magical little window had been opened up in the never-ending series of summer thunderstorms, just for me. It looked like I'd actually get to go up to my planned altitude (4500 feet westbound and 5500 feet eastbound), where the air is nice and cool, rather than sweating it out at 2000 feet to stay under the clouds, like I had to do on my first solo cross-country flight to Gulfport.

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