On Thursday of this past week, I went into Horizon Aviation as scheduled and met with Radek as we went over what he would cover in the ground portion of the End of Course check. I had to plan out an IFR flight plan to Syracuse NY based on all current weather conditions in a manual flight plan, explain how and why I chose the routing (ie. altitudes, TEC Routes, Preferred IFR Routes, etc), different communication scenarios, lost comms, holding procedures, etc. As I reported the weather to him just before covering all of this, the wind was forecasted to be gusting up to 30 knots at the surface when we would be coming back for landing. Going up wasn't the problem, getting back in would be. And it just so happens that it was blowing at a 30 degree angle to the runway, which would cause a crosswind of approximately 15 knots. The plane's max demonstrated/structural crosswind is 15 knots from the manufacturer, and my max demonstrated was 12 knots. Knowing this, it put me outside of my comfort zone, so I made the decision to scrap the flight for Thursday and rescheduled for next week - where I will the the VOR A approach into Danielson, an ILS into Providence, and the Localizer 35 back into Norwood. I should be able to handle that without any problems!
Yesterday I had the fine pleasure of being able to take my grandparents up for a flight. I took them on a cross country flight up to Sanford, Me. I got to take N1608S up, which is the newest addition to the fleet, the Cessna 172SP Skyhawk with G1000 glass cockpit. I think they really enjoyed it and especially the opportunity to share something like that! It was truly a flight that I will remember forever! Here's a picture of the brave aviators...
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