Another Chance To Fly

 Finally a beautiful sunny, warm 74 deg. day with the wind down runway 23 at 5 knots. I checked the winds at 3,000 feet, Light and Variable.  It sounded perfect to me.  I took off just before 5pm today, and headed east. The pictures were taken while east bound, looking North, West and South.

I got to our house at Lake Louisa in about 10 minutes but it was so bumpy I gave up and wandered back to the airport.  The sun was still high enough on such a clear day that we had plenty of thermal activity.

I flew for a half hour and made a nice landing so I'm glad I went.  I'll try again tomorrow.

Finally A Nice Day For Flying

 We finally had a nice day.  It got into the low 60's with a gentle breeze from the southwest.  It was 5 pm when I finally took off so I just stayed in the traffic pattern, going around the airport for 30 minutes.  The wind at 3,000 feet was 16 knots from 290° so I expected a little turbulence do to the wind coming over Merry Mountain.  It wasn't much until I got to the south end of the airport.  About 5:30 I was still going to fly a little more but it had gotten turbulent enough there that I gave up and landed.  The overcast looks lower than it was.  The AWOS was reporting clear below 12,000 feet.

There was an end to the overcast about 30 miles to the north.

Looking southwest the airport is in front of the wires.

Looking at Southwest Mountain from the upwind for runway 23.

Beside the airport heading southwest, upwind for 23.

Looking over Merry Mountain (1,100 feet) we had very good visibility to the Blue Ridge Mountains, 30+ miles.

A nice evening flight.