Bill Maxwell had his first flight in the B-4. Joshua Kaczmarczyk had his first flight in the 126. Suresh Pajaniradja had his first flight in the 126. Suresh also got his private on last Thursday. Joe Schena was signed off to fly the Blanik solo and got his Commercial Glider rating last Thursday. They have all worked very hard. I hope I haven't missed anyone.
TJ
I got checked out in the L-13 this weekend. My first flight was with Jeff. We went to altitude and did the stall spin thing. The next day I flew with Tom for a couple of pattern tows.
It was turbulent down low. I got my first "canopy head slam" during the second tow. No damage to the head or canopy. I appreciate the controllability in gusty conditions as compared to the 2-33. I think the L-13 will be my aircraft of choice from now on--until the checkout in the B-4.
Joe Schena
Last Friday,10/22, three of us departed from the Skyhaven Airport in Rochester at 6:00 am off to Atlantic City International to spend a day at the AOPA convention. Our ship was a 180hp C172, N5212K. Our ground speed was about 88kts. We stopped in Danbury, CT. for fuel--- just in case. All three of us were licensed pilots, my right seat controlled the radios and assisted with navigation. We flew VFR over the clouds most of the way down, which was a new experience for me. The plan was to climb to 8,500 over the New York class B airspace. To our surprise, approach cleared us through class bravo airspace at 6,500 ft directly over New York City! At that altitude we could see all the traffic arriving and departing from JFK, Newark, and Laguardia. Looked like bugs on the windshield! I was hoping that the controller was not having a bad day, especially since the last two controllers from Manchester and Boston apparently forgot all about us on flight following earlier on. Anyway, the flight over the city was awesome and we have some great pictures. Onto Atlantic City. The hold point was a place called Ships Corner(?) a predetermined checkpoint where you had to establish contact with ATC in order to proceed. The radio traffic was so busy it took about twenty minutes to establish contact. Good thing I've had practice flying in circles! Finally made contact, but was vectored way off northwest to the other checkpoint because of a change of runway. Must have wasted well over an hour with these two procedures, glad I stopped for extra fuel. Landed straight in (another first) on runway 13 was told to hurry because a twin was right on my tail, and take the first right, which turned out to be a runway, got off that quick and finally got to park amongst the other hundreds of airplanes. Hobbs meter 4.7 hours. Checked in, bought bus tickets $15, off to the convention center for a quick visit. $30.00 to get in, but gee we were only staying for an hour? Too bad. Quickly visited the booths, and exhibits, picked up some freebees, got some lunch and back to the airport on the bus. The reason for the hurry was that we knew the weather was closing in faster that originally forecast and we wanted to be back North before dark and low ceilings. Like eveything else, things took longer than planned and we did not get into the air until 4:00. The weather was closing in to the north and from the west, we deliberately drifted eastward in order to beat the weather. Made a decison to land in Danielson, CT. and call it quits. My son picked us up and we got home around midnight. The weather on Saturday was not good enough to fly back down with the other C172 and the forecast for Sunday was not good either.
Sunday morning however, the weather looked great and the forecast was good with the exception of some winds later on. Sharon, myself and another pilot took off in 64305 to Danielson, a gorgeous one hour flight. On Friday night we were going to park 5212K on the lower ramp, the young man at the FBO suggested that we park the plane up on the hill nearer the FBO as the lower ramp was for private ships. Sunday morning, the scuttlebutt around the field at Danielson was about damaged airplanes. Sure enough, Friday night, someone had vandalized six aircraft, four of which were totaled, plus a Lincoln, right where we were going to park! Fortunately, 5212K was not touched.
A nice smooth flight over the top at 5,500 took us home.
Dick Ruel