Today was an awesome day for flying! I mean, the clouds were dissipating and before you knew it, the sun was shining and giving me a darker complexion. By the time I get back to San Diego, I’ll be as dark as…(insert the name of your darkest skinned friend that you know here, I’ll just abstain from inserting someone)

I did a couple of landings at a different airport with more crosswinds. I was blowing from from 250 and sometimes 220 varying 8-10 knots with gusts of 15 mph. Not that bad, but when you’re about the land and think that you’re about to touchdown onto the runway, the wind just swirls you back up. Add a little more power, stabilize your approach again and then touchdown. I got some great footage too. I just need to convert these little DV cam videos on to my computer and then somehow get it into quicktime, and then…you can watch the flight too! It’s all about the crosswinds here in Florida. 28J is a nice Class Gulf airport (www.airnav.com and and search for 28J if you want to see it) but there isn’t anything more to do there than just land and go to the bathroom. We are making some progress with our 4th class tomorrow on slow flight and stalls. I need to go review again.

And yes, flying still makes me sick sometimes especially when I’m in the back seat doing all the callouts and observations. I don’t get sick flying, but man, when there is wind turbulence, I’m just hurting!!!

Here’s is the type of weather that we flew in today. Made a nice Cross Country (>50 miles) to Gainesville Airport. It was a nice trek. My flight buddy flew for 1.7 hrs and I took the plane home in about 1.6 hrs. Got landings in, even some w/ cross wind action. Got some rain too. Did a little “scud” running back into the airport with overcast being 800 feet. More to come on Monday.

Wow, yesterday and today, it’s been up to the last minute to decide whether we’ll be up in the air or staying on the ground. The only thing that I find frustrating is the fact that we wake our asses up , get into uniform, check the weather, call up our instructor to get his final say, when I walk out the door, he calls me and then cancels and then says we’ll fly up on saturday, and then I call him and the outkook is marginal VFR because of ceilings…yada yada yada.

Should be fun today. I’m about to step out of the door and head to class. Looks like we’ll just be doing some ground again today. Umm….I see a pattern here.

To top it off, my right ear is still all messed up from I don’t know…fluid congestion or pressure build up. I can’t hear out of it. Stinks but oh well, what can I do?

Call me if you click on this link and you see some adverse weather.
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/radar/latest/DS.p19r0/si.kjax.shtml

shouts to Corrin-eeeee and Mar-c-ella
The one on your left is single and a taurus. Leave some comments and I’ll forward them.

SHOUT OUT TO MY BABY!!! HI A-DLE!!! I Dove YOU!!!

It’s great to be back in the air! I was able to do great takeoffs but my first landing was pretty bad. Of course, I came back around with the proper correction and nailed that sucker. Flying the DA40 with 200 pounds extra in the back (my stick-buddy) changes the dynamics and I should have known that. I powered off and just thumped back to the ground. Wasn’t that bad, but not good enoung to pass my standards.

Recap of Last night:

Got home and needed to get rid of this pressure crap that is making me partially deaf in my right ear. Something about getting sick and getting all clogged up back there. So, I took some Nyquil, and ate some dinner. Laura told me that that always makes her pass out about 45 minutes after initial digestion, I wanted to prove her wrong. I just about started feeling really whoosy right there and then. I decided to go to bed and I passed out!!! –> there goes my studying that I thought I was going to do for the Physiology Final today.

I woke up a couple of times during the night just feeling kind of weird but I was able to get some good rest (the best ever) and woke up early to get ready for my first flight. After the flight, we (as a crew) went back home, ate some lunch, headed back to school, had a Red Bull and a Nerd Rope, and then took the test. I passed w/ a 94%. I tied once again with the Indian dood who spent the previous night watching 6 hours of the O.C. Man, I guess I still have it in me!

Going flying tomorrow…of course, if that SoCal storm doesn’t get in the way.

I passed with a 98% (59/60) on the test today which only took me about 30 minutes. It was great, but I really thought that I got a 100%. I came so close. Oh well, I tied with Manoj. I’m happy. Things are going well. I’m so tired. We start flying next week on Thursday. In the mean time, we have two finals next week. One in communications and one is flight physiology. Should be a fun weekend!