A Different View of the World...

Yesterday was by far my favorite day flying thus far in NIFT. The obvious explanation is due to a couple things. The wind for the first time wasn't a big deal, so the vast majority of the ride was smooth as silk. The other thing was the day was absolutely beautiful, and you could see for fifty miles in any direction. Luckily we happened to be doing a cross country, so it was my longest flight thus far, and by far the most comfortable. Took a bunch of pictures along the way of just what it looks like to be just chillin at six thousand. Another cool thing about the flight was due to the winds the active runway was runway 3, which is the runway always used by the major airlines. I got to taxi all the way over to that side of the airport alongside the terminals with gates and whatnot, and we performed the runup right alongside a massive Southwest plane. I found it quite hilarious that someone was crammed in coach looking out their window at me in my dinky Cessna out for a stroll. I felt even sorrier for the Continental plane behind them, because we actually got to take off in front of them, so hundreds of people had to wait while we putt putted down the runway. It's also kind of fun to be on the radio with tower and ground as they give these massive jets orders to hold short of the runway because we're on a five mile final, as was the case when we landed on the return trip. We did a touch and go way down in Live Oak County at an uncontrolled airport. Those are kind of fun, because first of all I'm actually beginning to enjoy trying to land properly, and then just being able to do the aircraft equivalent of flooring it and taking off again is pretty cool too. The other neat thing was all the navigation calculations I did during the trip planning to compensate for the wind and whatnot were pretty much right on, which is always a good feeling given my career track. I should also mention we flew a low level on Tuesday which was good times as well, where you just skim along about five hundred to a thousand feet off the ground and use dead reckoning to navigate; stuff like "there's a river" "ok here's the river on the map we need to go south" to follow along a predetermined course. Low enough you can see dogs running across lawns or what kind of clothing is hanging from a line is pretty cool. Only three flights left, doubling up tomorrow with a cross country and the second low level, and then backed up the last flight until after I get back from the holidays to allow more time to study for the FAA test while I'm sitting on planes in transit and sitting around home.