Pilot Life: Taking My Friends, May & Serafina Flying!

It was another beautiful day to get a local flight in to practice some commercial maneuvers. I also brought along some passengers flying as well! For over a year now, my friend May and I have been trying to find some where our schedules matched so we go out flying; the timing of today matched with the weather couldn't have been more perfect! After I picked up May and her sister Serafina, we drove to the airport and hangar and I proceeded to do my pre-flight and walk-around.

N1636H is becoming my go-to airplane!

After pulling the trusty Piper Cherokee out of the hangar, we hopped in and I gave the usual passenger safety briefing. I got the engine started up and powered on the avionics and picked up the ATIS information Salem was currently broadcasting. I picked up taxi clearance and proceeded towards Runway 34; as per the usual procedure, I got the engine run-ups done. After getting a takeoff clearance I got the plane airborne with two very-excited passengers!

I proceeded to do a downwind departure to the south towards Albany. Weather was forecast to deteriorate starting tomorrow, but I was already starting see fog and low clouds further south; I was planning on keeping things local in order to make effective use of my time to practice commercial maneuvers anyways, so I kept us just northeast of Albany near Jefferson and Stayton, all the while remaining clear of Salem's Class Delta airspace. After doing some clearing turns and scanning for traffic both visually and with ADS-B, I talked with my passengers regarding the commercial maneuvers I needed to practice; I also made frequent position calls on the Albany CTAF frequency.

The first thing I did was chandelles, and as soon as I pitched the airplane up, May and Serafina both screamed with excitement! Something tells me they liked this maneuver! After gaining some altitude from a couple chandelles, the next thing I did was steep spirals, so I pulled the engine power pack to idle with carburetor heat on and began a circling descent over a point. After two laps (I gotta get back to doing three!), I leveled with about 1,300 feet between us and the ground, perfectly set up to do some ground reference maneuvers, particularly Eights on Pylons. After determining two points about equal distance from each other, I executed the maneuver, drawing a figure-eight from a God's-eye-view. After a couple laps, I took us out further northeast towards Stayton and Aumsville, just east of Salem and climbed.

Selfie with May and Serafina! A nice day to take these lovely ladies flying!
(Photo credit: May Pinto-Haynes.)

After clearing the airspace around us, I let May take the flight controls while we were flying over Highway 22 and guided her on doing some gentle banks and turns; she didn't do too bad! After that, I decided to take us back into Salem and call it a flight, I positioned for a straight-in approach for Runway 34, picked up the weather, and called up the tower controller, who cleared us to land.

We made an uneventful landing on 34 and taxied off the runway. I was going to get fuel, but the self-serve pumps weren't working, so I just taxied back to the hangar. After disembarking, I pushed the plane back into it's hangar with the tow bar proceeded to do the usual post-flight clean up before calling it a successful flight.

Another good day of flying with good people to accompany me, done!