I finally got to lift my head up from my computer and go out and do something for myself. I went flying. No goal except to get re-acquainted with flying and have fun. I had our club’s Dakota booked from 1pm, and somebody else had it booked in the morning. I was hoping that would mean I wouldn’t have to pre-heat it, but the other guy evidently didn’t fly. The weather was saying low clouds in the morning, but higher in the afternoon, and the reports were coming in showing it better than the forecast all morning. Sure enough by the time I got out there the ATIS was reporting a few clouds at around 3200 feet and a broken layer way up high, so it was prefect visual flight conditions.
The airport was incredibly busy, as about 4 jets arrived and departed while I waited behind a Commander to take off. And then after take off, it took the tower controller until I was at 2300 feet before he could turn me over to the departure controller. Within 2 seconds of the GPS saying I crossed outside of the outer ring of the class C airspace, the controller turned me loose, so obviously the rush was going to continue for him.
I decided to try a couple of steep turns, and they weren’t good. I had trouble getting over a 30 degree bank, and I kept gaining altitude. And then I tried one stall, which I hate doing in this plane because it seems like the nose never drops. That was enough practice stuff, so I flew over and did a touch and go at Ledgedale (7G0) and another at Batavia/Genesee County (KGVQ). Both were passable but not great. I flew the first bit of the VOR-A approach into Canadiagua (D38) just to get some experience flying a VOR radial again.
My feeling is that I’m still rusty, and I’m going to need at least one more flight before I’m ready to do my club annual ride. And then I’m going to need to do 6 approaches with a CFI-I or a IPC in order to get instrument current again.
The Dakota is a nice plane, but I miss my Lance. I felt perfectly at home flying that plane, but not so much with this one.