My Flight Journal

Sunday, October 31, 2004 4:05pm

w00t! Got it done today. Was looking very iffy all morning. Weather in GNV was 3 mi vis and haze up until around 10:30, when they starting calling it 5 miles viz. But the weather here and at CGC was beautiful, so I took off and crossed my fingers that the clearing trend in GNV would continue. (Even though the briefer I called just before I left said it wasn't expected to get any better than 6 mi).

The flight over to CGC was a no-brainer. It's a straight line with plenty of visual checkpoints in between. I didn't even take my GPS out of the bag. Hung out there for a little while, called the ASOS in GNV again to see what it was doing. Was up to 6mi vis and haze, skies clear (sounds like an oxymoron). They were doing glider ops at CGC, and I got behind a tow plane and glider before taking off. The glider either broke or dropped the towline half way down the runway. No big deal, he had plenty of runway left. Thankfully he was able to coast to the turnoff and get off the runway so I could launch.

Gainesville was a trip. Visibility wasn't as bad as I was expecting, maybe 8 miles. But with the prez coming in, the place was a friggin zoo. They parked me a half mile from the FBO. I had to hitch a ride on a fuel truck. The place was crawling with cops and secret service guys - and guys in polo shirts and sunglasses with earpieces. The inside of the FBO was also crawling with well-dressed men and women with briefcases and cellphones. Campaign workers I guess. There wasn't even a place for me to sit down in the main area. They have a little table with a couple of chairs in their vending machine / snack room / kitchen. I went in there and sat down for a few mins. Lunch was a Kit Kat bar and a cup of water. The whole time getting eye-f'd by guys with guns. I just wanted out of there. The C-17 was cool though.

The trip back to SFB was the only time I really had to divert for weather. And it wasn't that bad - a big line of rain showers east of Palatka. I cut the corner a little shorter than I'd planned and avoided those. But by doing that I knew I might end up getting back to SFB short of the 2.9 hrs I needed. I was watching the hobbs and willing it to go around. It was looking like I was going to be short by maybe .1 or .2 so instead of flying directly to SFB I made a little detour towards the beach. Also pulled back the power so I was cruising around at 95 kts (today's 172 is a much faster one than I had yesterday - it'll actually hit the numbers the performance tables say it's supposed to). By the time I landed (had to extend my downwind for someone doing a stop-n-go) and taxied back to the ramp, I was at 3.0 exactly. 0.1 more than I needed.

Now I just need 1.5 of dual and all my reqs are met. Planning on Wednesday for that.