Pilot Life: Buzzing Around in the Emeraude!

I will be leaving eastern Idaho within the next day or two; it has certainly been a nice mini-vacation in between moving out of Provo and returning home to Oregon! But before I leave, my uncle and I did one more flight together this evening. And we got to fly in the CP-301 Emeraude, which means I logged some tailwheel time!

Fun to fly, but a bit of a b***h to land and taxi, my uncle and I logged some time together once again in N5TX!

My uncle and the owner of the Emeraude first had a score to settle between the two of them; it was for bragging rights to see who is better at landing the squirrelly tailwheel airplane! So they first went up and had me take video on my smartphone and be the official/unofficial judge of the competition! In my observation, it was a draw! After the landing competition, it was my turn to hop into the airplane. My uncle re-started the engine and we taxied out to Runway 22. We did a quick engine run-up just short of the runway before lining up and beginning our takeoff roll. Once the tailwheel got of the ground, I rotated and we got airborne.

After a left crosswind turn, we departed the traffic pattern on the downwind and headed north towards Ashton. My uncle had me fly the airplane (and log the time!) while he looked out for elk to get an idea where they might be when hunting season officially opens; always killing two birds with one stone, my uncle is! We spotted a bunch of them grazing in and around a forested area in the middle of a field! Afterwards, we buzzed around Ashton for a bit. My uncle took the controls and we flew over the Snake River (my uncle says the jet skiers needed to be buzzed). We then headed over to a private grass airstrip (that my uncle has permission to use!) up on the Ashton Hill. Using a modified approach to landing, my uncle made a sweet touch-and-go landing on the grass strip! This was my first time landing on grass!

After the touch-and-go, my uncle handed the controls back to me and we flew over the town of Ashton. I suggested we fly over the Pineview Cemetery, where my late-grandfather was laid to rest earlier this year. We did our dedicatory fly-by of the cemetery and "woke up" my grandfather; love ya gramps!

After the fly-by, we headed back to St. Anthony to do some touch-and-go landings. We navigated via GPS and we were in position to make a modified left-base turn for Runway 22. I took these landings and made an alright touchdown on the runway; the squirrelly nature of the tailwheel airplane became evident once again. I throttled forward and we got back up in the air for one final circuit around the pattern, since we were running low on fuel. After flying a modified pattern (because the Emeraude has an under-powered engine, so getting up to pattern altitude would take forever!), we made our full-stop landing on Runway 22; my second landing was much better, by the way! After rolling out, we made a 180 on the runway and back-taxied until we cleared off. My uncle taxied us back to the hangar; he even shut the engine while we were still taxiing and then swung the plane around to line it up with the hangar so we could simply push it back! Only in a tail-dragger!

After doing our post-flight, we secured the plane and pushed it back into the hangar. We drove back to Ashton and my uncle signed my logbook once again! I am looking forward to returning to Idaho and fly again real soon!