BJC->3V4->STK->BJC

corey    Flying    

On October 13th, I finally took my final cross country solo!

Taking off from Jeffco I headed over to Fort Morgan. The weather was great! Cool, clear skies, with a touch of haze. On arrival to Fort Morgan I overflew the airfield and checked out the wind sock: Ouch, an 80 degree crosswind for runway 14. Fort Morgan’s semi-sane automated unicom system said “Winds 220 at 9″. Knowing this, I decided that I would land with only 20 degrees of flaps and get a chance to work on my crosswind landings.

Well, my first approach was a bit too fast (on purpose, actually) and I ended up floating down half of the runway before executing a go-around. The second time around was much better, with crosswind correction almost right where it needed to be. Needless to say, I was a bit left of centerline when I touched down but only a small amount of side load was applied to the landing gear.

After touching down I did a 180-degree turnabout and taxied into the (small!) run-up area for runway 14, so that I could adjust my radios for 15 minute flight up to Sterling.

The wind at Sterling was pretty much right down the pipe. Since I had never been there before, I also overflew this airport to check out the runways. The AWOS told me the winds were about 10 knots, but since they were only 10 degrees off runway 33 it wouldn’t be any trouble. After a not-terrible landing, I taxi’ed back to beginning of runway 33 and setup my radios/GPS for my return trip home.

On the way back I took out my camera phone (shh!) and snapped a couple of pics. The quality sucks, so next time I go on a “trip” I’ll have to bring my digital camera.
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And that was that. Than that having to do S-turns on final because the controller couldn’t figure out spacing, all went well. Now to get ready for my FAA Check Ride..

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