Today there was some bad weather down at New Orleans moving north, so we stayed close to the airport and just worked on improving my landings. We practiced short-field and soft-field and combination short/soft-field landings, and I definitely felt myself getting more comfortable with them. One maneuver which gave me trouble was the soft-field touch-and-go.

[Entry Continues...]

Yesterday before doing some solo flying, Mike and I flew up to Sycamore (the flight school's mechanic's grass strip) to deliver an airplane part they needed. I got to try another soft/short field landing, and we delivered the part. He's got a nice setup out there. I wouldn't mind living somewhere like that — in a house out away from town, on a field bordered by forest, with a grass strip and a few hangars attached to your house.

I taxied out to the end of the strip and prepared to take off again. As I was running through my checklist, a butterfly floated up out of the taller grass bordering the airstrip. I thought to myself what a pleasant setting this was, and just sat and watching the buttefly for a bit, enjoying the peaceful moment.

And then the butterfly fluttered straight into my propeller and disappeared in a puff of yellow. :(

Today the weather between here and Gulfport, MS was finally clear enough for me to go on my first solo cross-country flight, from Hammond to Gulfport and back, a round-trip distance of 142 nautical miles. And look at that! I managed to stay alive. That was my primary objective for the day, and I'm glad I managed to achieve it.

[Entry Continues...]

Today Mike and I flew down over the lake to the New Orleans airport, MSY (or Moisant Field, as apparently every other pilot knows it — apparently the name was changed in 2001 and most people still use the old one), to give me a taste of flying into a Class B airport (the busiest classification). I had the option of flying to Baton Rouge instead, but I wanted to try flying into an airport that I had actually arrived at as a commercial passenger. It went surprisingly well. And when I checked my logbook later, it turned out this was my 50th landing. Hey, look at that.

[Entry Continues...]

Today I set off with Mike on my first cross-country flight. We flew from Hammond to Gulfport, Mississippi, and then back again. Of course, it didn't start there. There's actually a lot more involved in planning a flight than I would have thought.

[Entry Continues...]