There are some times during the weekend where you simply find yourself with nothing left to do. Granted, this doesn't happen often for me between my day job forcing a lot of my activities to the weekend, my PMDG job contributing to that, PMDG Flight Ops activities (flying around in a DC-3, obviously, usually takes priority over just about anything else), and various other activities like visiting family and keeping the fridge stocked. To be clear, I have nothing against any of those things (besides maybe my day job), but it does mean that I'm rarely simply sitting there trying to come up with something to do.Luckily, today was one of those days, and I saw an email go out from the school I got checked out with back in April. They needed a pilot to help chase an aircraft from Manassas (HEF) to Stafford (RMN), in order to bring him back from his ferry flight. I immediately called the school to offer to help out and was told to head down to the field and coordinate with the other pilot.
Once there, we waited out some isolated, typical summer storms and set off to RMN. The weather on the way over was still pretty hazy, and there were still isolated rain showers in spots, which was an interesting experience, and offered some pretty cool sights.
On the way back, the other pilot offered to let me log hood time, both to help me get the time, and to help him log time and not just sit there. We were nearly all the way back to HEF when we decided to see if the controller could give us a practice approach to the field, which actually took us all the way back over RMN. It was extra time, though, and time that I needed, so neither of us complained.
After bringing the plane back in and getting it tied down, we added our entries to the logbooks and then headed home. I, of course, stopped by to say good night to the 3 on the way out.
Hours:
Pilot in Command Cross Country (PIC XC): 0.0 - 101.4 (of 50)
Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.7 - 17.8 (of 40)
