More Comfort Food in Charlottesville

N5294W - C172R - 1.7 hours

Clouds west of JYO

The other night, I was hanging out with my friends Christina and Brittany and the idea of flying this weekend came up.  No plans were set in stone, so when the idea came back up I was somewhat surprised.  At first, since the flight would be between lunch and dinner, I figured we'd just fly down to Luray (W45) and back.  As the time came to head up to the airport, I changed my mind and decided and Charlottesville (CHO) because I needed food, and you all know what my go-to is by now.  Just like last time, the plan was to head to Timberwood Grill.  I've been there all too much over the past year, so I'm going to go on the record and say that trips to CHO are going to be drastically reduced for a little while.  I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of other destinations.

Sorry Timberwood - I still love you.

On to the narrative.

After getting to the airport, Christina, Brittany and I grabbed the flight book and headsets, and walked out to the plane in weather that I'd consider to be just about perfect.  After the preflight, they both climbed in the back while I set up my Garmin GLO GPS (which I just got in the mail on Thursday - I'll review it with ForeFlight eventually), ContourGPS, and the rest the technology.

The taxi out took a longer amount of time than normal because the nice weather brought everyone out.  Whereas there are normally only one or two people ahead of me, I ended up heaving two departures and two arrivals ahead of me by the time I finished my engine run up.  Once they had all done their thing, I was able to get up and out.  I got a video of the departure, but it was just downright ugly with the wind that had picked up so I didn't upload it.  This being Brittany's second flight ever - not just in small planes - the bumps weren't appreciated.  Reaching cruise, though, the bumps smoothed out.

Yes, this is the big EMB-145

Getting closer to CHO, I called the tower and was instructed to call back when I reached the downwind for Runway 3.  As I entered the downwind, a Piedmont (regional carrier for US Airways) Dash 8 called in and was cleared to land ahead of me.  I turned in behind it, landed, caught the first exit and brought it in to the Landmark ramp.  I had the Contour running the whole flight, but I didn't upload any of it because nothing truly interesting happened (and I'll admit the landing wasn't the best, either).  After parking, an American Eagle (regional carrier for American) Embraer 145 taxied out to the runway, prompting Brittany to comment that "it's so BIG!"

As usual, I was greeted with "you gonna want the crew car?"  As much as I like being recognized, this is more evidence that I need a break from CHO.  In an effort to break the norm in some way, I actually switched it up at dinner and got an Al Capone burger.

ForeFlight running with a Garmin GLO
and iPod on the aux input

On the way back, I spent a little more time testing ForeFlight, while we listened to my iPod through the aux cable I bought a while back.  For those who are wondering how that works since pilots need to listen for other pilots and air traffic control, the aux input is overridden any time someone speaks, either in the aircraft or over the frequency.  That ends up making listening to music frustrating at times, but it's worth it for longer flights, especially at night.  Having GPS input on ForeFlight really makes it that much more worth it, as well.  Now, every plane I fly essentially has a moving map GPS.  Granted, I can't shoot approaches with it, but it really helps.

As we got closer to Leesburg, the bumps picked back up as a result of the wind having increased and the lower altitude.  The JYO traffic frequency was really busy with one in the pattern, a MedFlight helicopter inbound, and two other aircraft approaching from the north.  The two approaching from the north had apparently gotten really close to each other, and there was an interesting exchange between the pilots that clogged up the frequency for a while.  I compensated by making my calls really short, but I still ended up getting stepped on a couple times by the other pilots.  Despite all of the radio traffic, I managed to get in during a break in the traffic.

You'd think that it was easy from then on, but it wasn't.  The wind really messed with me, with gusts making it difficult to hold a proper speed down to the runway (which you can definitely see in the graph to the right of the video below).

Enjoy said video of me getting my butt kicked all the way down final:

[Video was here until Contour closed down for a bit, and the video was lost.]
Didn't expect that greaser of a landing at the end, did you?

Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 1.7 - 66.8 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 7.5 (of 40)