Fun Flying

It was too nice not to fly so MikeB and I traded emails and decided on a flight after work. Mike and I headed out just to shot a few approaches and I wanted to work with the Garmin 530. I have to get smoother (comfortable)with dialing in the OBS for non published type holds. I wish the 530 would let my select on the CDI and reflect changes, it doesn't work that way.

I completed the pre-flight and Mike was waiting for me at the plane since I ducked inside Red Eagle to chat with Jason. 08R was ready and cleared to taxi to two seven at Mike. It was bumpy this afternoon, which worked out well because I wanted to work on my scan and altitude standards. Something Mike shared with me a while back was the "macro/micro scan" (Mikes reference)with the attitude indicator (AI), I needed to revisit that. Sometimes I think I fixate yet other times I read, interpret and move on without enough correction. I went back to the method noted and every time scanning the AI, I would would also give it a look at the tiny ball (circled in red) . I was in the habit of blowing by this tiny little helper and not taking advantage of interpreting the aircraft pitch with an easy reference. The hash marks provide degree of pitch up or down or as I like to say up or down bubble. My altitude control was much tighter after working on reading and interpretation of something so simple.

Mike shot the GPS 35 into Summit (KEVY) and then we headed back into Wilmington. The time went by really quick and I inked 1.8 in my log book. I should add we did some lazy eights and that really helped with my pitch/bank controls and getting a better feel of 08Romeo. It also adds the want for my commercial rating.