Friday Flying

And for the first time... it was all good weather. What ? A Friday morning with good weather... Yes that does exist too... Anyhow, cloud-less skies with a light breeze and just a bit of haze around 4,000 ft sounds like a perfect day to go flying. And especially to practise visual flying.

Unfortunately, it was something else that I was planning to practise. I wanted once more and once again to do some instrument flying. So how is it done when the sky is plain clear with no cloud in sight and nothing but a bright sunny disk up-above overhead? Well, basically we just wear a special hood that has view-restricting capabilities. It is designed to limits the field of sight to the lower portion of the cockpit.

Welcome to the alienized world...

Of course, that is not perfect. First because you need a safety pilot in order to ensure traffic avoidance when flying under the hood while visual flying conditions prevails. Then even if a pilot cannot technically see outside of the cokpit, the pilot still has some cues about the attitude of the aircraft due to lighting and shadows on the dashboard.

Readers may understand now why I was so eager to fly in bad weather during the past weeks. There is simply no better training or skill-sharpening shall I say than flying in actual instrument conditions i.e. in clouds. But well, for those of us living in places with great weather all-year round, that is not always easy. So this is simply an 'ersatz' and it is how most of the pilots train for their instrument ticket. And it has worked so far.

To come back to the flight itself, we flew to Lagrange Callaway Airport (LGC) next to the Alabama border about 70 nautical miles South of Atlanta and then to Carrolton - West Georgia Regional Airport (CTJ) approximately 40 nautical miles due West of Atlanta. Highlight was obviously on our way to the South while overflying Hartsfield-Jackson International airport. It simply feels gooood to fly right over those big metal Airbus and Boeing jets...

Atlanta International on our way to the South.
Five parallel runways, six concourses and a brand new control tower... gigantic

Radar track of the flight

For those already inquirring about the erratic flight path of the plane, well...no I was not drunk. I just practised a few instrument approaches at Lagrange airport. Hence those curvy radar tracks...

For those already inquiring about the 'diverted status' of the flight, well...no I did not hijack my own plane. I just changed my destination airport mid-flight...

And finally for those wondering whether I made it to the Advanced Flight Dynamics class, well...no, not in time...