Instead of shooting up to Bangor, which would have taken much much much longer, longer than the time we had alotted, we opted to fly into Laconia, NH up on Lake Winnipesaukee. It would have taken us about 2 hours to get up there and around 1 hour 40 mins to get back. But, the trip up to Laconia (86 nm away) took just about an hour. The Cessna 172SP is an amazing aircraft - although a little heavier than the 172R's I'm used to flying, it still handles like a dream! The leather seats are well padded and extremely comfortable. I could see myself flying this plane in complete comfort to its extent. The G1000 - in one word - WOW! It was absolutely amazing. Truly experiencing the capablities of the G1000 first hand was a little daunting at first, but everything has it's form and function and is fairly easy to pick up and use after some simple instruction. The layout of the ribbons and flight instruments on the display really makes it feel like you're flying in a simulator, though you do get that sense of reality when you pick your head up and look outside and realize you're actually in the air, still flying the aircraft as you've been trained to do. The engine has 20 more horsepower to bring it up to 180 hp, which is incredibly smooth, and MUCH quieter! It was possible to carry on a conversation at normal levels with the engine running before putting on our headsets. The controls are incredibly smooth as well! The ground control during taxi is almost effortless, the controls are very tight and responsive. The flight management system on the multifunction display has a lot of different tools to offer! Live weather information with radar view around the aircraft, full-color topographical and GPS displays displays, a variety of navigation screens, engine performance information which makes it incredibly helpful to obtain the best lean of peak to conserve your fuel, and the most helpful especially in congested areas - like Boston on our way back to Norwood - is the Traffic Information System, which shows other aircraft in the air around us with their altitude and ground track in relation to us. There were 7 different warnings given to us by Boston Approach of other aircraft in our vicinity within 2 minutes. 3 of which were heading in opposite direction and ended up passing us not more than 100 yards away and one within 150 feet of our altitude! This made traffic spotting so much easier to be able to find the other traffic instead of the tried and true method of just scanning the sky in the direction that ATC is telling us to look in. Overall, it is an incredible system coupled with an efficiently designed new aircraft that I can't wait to do more of my training in!
The flight into Laconia was uneventful. It was nice and smooth at altitude on the way up there and the way back. I took some nice shots of the lake and distant views of the snowcapped Mt. Washington with my camera and will post them this evening. We made a quick landing at Manchester International Airport on their nearly 11000ft runway! Almost 3 times as long as Norwood! We took off again and headed home. All in all it was a great flight and can't wait to finish up my instrument rating in the next couple weeks so that I can really hone in on my G1000 skills and commercial rating!
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