Pilot Life: Sunset Flying Down to Nephi and Back

How hard is it to find someone to go flying with me on a Saturday? For me, apparently it's not that easy!

I flew another solo flight this afternoon right up until around when the sun set; after lousy weather all last weekend and mostly this past week, I needed to get some flight hours in to make this whole week satisfactory. And for today, I did a quick flight down to Nephi and then came back to Spanish Fork before it got too dark outside (even though I'm now night-current). And it looks like I've been making the right decision to fly down to Nephi because I've heard from other pilots that Provo has been busy with everyone trying to get their flying in, especially from the flight training side of things!

Took up N992CT up again!

After pre-flight, engine start-up and run-ups, I taxied to Runway 30 and took off. Once airborne, I headed south to Nephi. Winds were favoring Runway 35 in Nephi today, so I came in straight from the north for the left downwind during my descent. Once established, I set myself up for a touch-and-go before doing another circuit in the pattern. I decided to do something I've never done before; a land and taxi-back operation, which means I made I full-stop landing and vacated the runway before taxiing back to the same runway I landed on. I figured it would make my routines diverse for the week. So after I landed, I cleared the runway on the next available taxiway and taxied back to Runway 35 via the parallel taxiway.

Right wing view look north while holding short of Runway 35.

Once I got to the runway, I held short for a second before taxiing on and lining up. I throttled forward and got airborne once again. I made a straight-out departure back to the north and headed to Spanish Fork, where I would do a little more pattern work practice before calling it a flight; I did one more touch-and-go followed by a full-stop landing back at home base.