Slightly cross country

Another milestone logged in my PTR, my first dual cross country flight. Ok so it wasn’t exactly epic, a nice little compact 1.1 hours from City to Buttonville to Oshawa and then back to City*. It may not have crossed any international boundaries** but it was a high workload flight.

I knew it was going to be challenging, I also knew that the conditions were going to be a little bleurgy, winds from the north always mean bumpy conditions. Ironically though the winds from the north, although bringing the bumps also meant that runway selection at my destination would be a lot easier, Buttonville has a runway 33 and Oshawa has 30, easy choices- no mental math needed to figure out the active beforehand. My planning was thorough and complete; nothing came as a surprise to me.

It was still tough going though and I get a bit tetchy when I get stressed! Poor Bob was helpfully trying to prompt me to switch radio frequencies etc. and all he got from me was a terse “trying to fly a plane here!”

He tried to talk me through the bumps and squirms of the updrafts by telling me “It’s just some gentle summer thermals, nothing to worry about,” only to have me snap “I’ve got an engine, I don’t need thermals, this ain’t a glider!”

Maybe that’s why they call it “cross” country!

 

* I promise a future blog post on the geographical area I work in, honestly!

** incidentally a 1.1 hour flight could easily see you in the States if you weren’t careful