Pilot Life: Taking My Friend, Carolina Flying!

With the nice weather, it was a good day to go flying. I'm on the verge of lining up a flight instructor from the flight club to help me finish my commercial flight training, which should start really soon. But in the meantime, I took today as an opportunity to take Carolina, one of my church friends flying on a round-robin cross-country flight down to Hobby Field in Creswell, Oregon. It's been a while since I did a cross-country and I've never been to Creswell's airport before, so this was a good opportunity to add another airport to my logbook (with all the Instrument flying I've been doing up until a month ago, I really haven't gone anywhere!)! I met up with Carolina and took her to the hangar where the club's Cherokee was stored, where I did the pre-flight and walk-around.

My first cross-country flight in N1636H!

After pulling the plane out of the hangar, we hopped in and I taxied us over to the self-serve fuel pumps by the FBO (because the tanks were low!) where I topped off the tanks. Once I restarted the engine after getting fuel, I got our taxi clearance from Salem Ground (after getting the current ATIS information, of course!) and did the run-ups just short of Runway 34 at Salem. I got our takeoff clearance and we were airborne and proceeded to depart south on the downwind; little did I know it at the time, but today would be a not-so-great day for the Valley Flyers fleet. One of the club's Cessna 172M Skyhawks was in the area and the pilot declared an emergency coming back inbound. I listened over the tower frequency on the radio and it turns out he was experience intermittent engine failures, which was a scary thought! Thankfully, the pilot was able to land uneventfully and safely on the runway; I'll gladly buy him a drink of his choice for a job well-done!

N12382 declaring an emergency was just the start of today's "curse!"

After observing that little scare, it was back to business as I flew us down south towards Albany, Eugene, and eventually Creswell, all the while pointing out points of interest to Carolina, who was taking in the view. Also, since the last time I flew the club's Cherokee, it has received some upgrades, including a new Garmin GNX 375 GPS and transponder, which complies with the upcoming January 2020 ADS-B mandate; it was a touch-screen GPS and I immediately fell in love with it! Needless to say, I used this new toy in the Cherokee to help me navigate towards Creswell. Once we were past Albany, I called up Cascade Approach and requested VFR Flight Following, which was promptly granted. Aside from a few traffic advisories as we approached the Eugene-area, it was a routine flight; I was just glad I could get this rather quick cross-country flight logged!

Selfie time!
(Photo credit: Carolina Pachas, my lovely passenger!)

I got the Creswell weather from the local AWOS frequency and Cascade Approach cut me loose so I could go enter the left downwind pattern for Runway 3 there and do a touch-and-go landing. I came into the pattern with about three other aircraft already in the pattern with two more also inbound, so I made sure to sequence myself as appropriate and kept a vigil eye out for other traffic! After getting my touch-and-go following an extended downwind, I departed the area northbound and got back on with Cascade Approach for the return leg to Salem; again, it was an uneventful flight aside from Cascade Approach messing up my tail-number and call-sign when they handed us off to Seattle Center! I was one with Seattle Center for a few minutes before cancelling Flight Following as we were close to Salem at this point.

I contacted Salem Tower and we got cleared for straight-in approach for Runway 34. After an uneventful landing, I taxied us straight back to the hangar, shut down, and pushed the airplane back into its hangar with the tow bar prior to going home, or so I thought!

To be continued...