Ryan

Yesterday the weather was finally better.
Today it was too good, I had to cancel because of the heat; the temperature was > 43°C and SATC doesn't allow us to fly in such heat.
Maybe good like this because in the cockpit with the canopy closed you can add 10°C more to the outside air temperature.
As I cancelled today I'm planned for two flights tommorrow, my 1st IFR-introduction-flight with the DA20 and than a solo flight to practise manoeuvres.

some pictures of my flight to Ryan...
I went via the valley in between the mountains, did some T&G in Ryan, and than back to Falcon via Pinal airpark and coolidge. With the navigations my hours are adding up quite fast now, I could add again 3 hours PIC and 11 landings in my logbook...

Ryan airfield

After my navigation check I could start with my solo navigations, finally...
But the weather doesn't think that way.
Today I went for the 2nd day after each other to school, I checked the weather to Ryan (an airfield south of Phoenix; 1.3 hours flighttime) and found CB's and TCU developing along the route.
The TAF didn't really predict a decrease in thermal activity quite fast and as my flight was @ 1545 I could not wait for it to decrease because otherwise I was out of my solo-VFR limit (landing during nighttime).

KTUS 252322Z 2600/2624 34008KT P6SM VCTS SCT080CB BKN150

   TEMPO 2600/2602 VRB15G30KT P6SM -TSRA BKN080CB 

I had a B plan to go north of Phoenix but even there the weather was bad.
After having discussed the weather with my instructor the best option was to cancel and give it another shot tomorrow.
Again a lost day... Let's hope on good weather tomorrow.
Than I can finally start with my navigations and catch up with the others.

Just to give you an idea of what's the weather like when CB's are passing overhead Phoenix...
This is a radar-image of almost 2 weeks ago when I had to cancel because of thunderstorms.
You better avoid green-red if you don't want a loooot of turbulence and rain...

Pray with me for good weather and enjoy the last day's of holiday!!

Two months Arizona

Time is flying soooo fast over here, already two months have passed.
In 8 weeks I did only 25 missions, made about 100 landings and have about 50 hours experience.
Some more good news, yesterday I succeeded in my 45 check (= a navigation check that you have to succeed before you can do solo cross-coutry missions)
From now on I'm allowed to do solo cross-country missions: navigate to other airfields, land there, refuel if necessary, have a (veeery short) break and fly back to Falcon.
The time can go from 1.5 hours up till 4 hours which allows us to fly to California, the Mexican border, Lake Havasu, nice places in North Arizona,...
Now I have still 20 missions to go, than my last navigation check and than we can be planned on the Diamond 40 where our IFR training will start.
But first the VFR cross country part. This will deliver some nice pictures of arizona which will follow shortly.

Enjoy the heat of the summer,

See y'all later!

Air Force One

President Obama was in town this weekend!
We heard at school that all our airplanes were not allowed to fly anymore between 1800 and 0945 because the air force one would land in Phoenix and for safety reasons the airspace around PHX became prohibited area.
We left with our camera's to Phoenix Intl. Airport in the hope to shoot a picture of the president's "flying house".
For safety reasons the right side of the airport was shut down for commercial traffic so only the two left runways could be used for other departing and arriving traffic.
When the 747 was landed all traffic that needed to go to the north (right) side of the airport had to wait until the area was secured. This led to a long waiting line of taxiing aircraft like you see them quite often on big airports.
After that we visited Phoenix downtown.
Phoenix is nothing more than parking garages and a few high buildings, no beautiful places, no romantic feelings hanging in the air...
Without knowing what it exactely was, we entered the "chase building" where we were stopped by security.
It was an indoor baseball field and they asked to show our tickets (which we didn't had offcourse...)
After a little chat and showing that we had no guns our dangerous things in our pockets the nice lady let us going in.
This is the cool thing about Amerika, if you are friendly and you are playing an interested tourist they would let you in, even without ticket:)!
We were there together with 42.000 other Americans and the atmosphere is just something I cannot describe. You have to be part of it to understand. A lot of shouting, a lot of emotions, really cool to see such a match going on! The next step is to see a real basketball match.
it seems that this is even more impressive, we'll see... this was already niiiiice!

Sedona

Yesterday we did a trip to "the red moutain region" known as Sedona.
It is a city about 140 miles north of Phoenix and 30 miles South of Flagstaff and it's lying at about 4000 ft high (+-1,3km above sea level).
As we got out of the car we could already feel the difference in temperature compaired to Mesa,
especially in the evening temperatures went down more than we were used to (we had cold when walking outside in our t-shirt at 8 pm).
If you come in "North Arizona" during wintertime you can expect snowshowers and especially during the wintermonths temperatures go below 0°C and you can ski and snowboard for shure!

Today again, the scenery with the mountains changing coulours, the road that find themselves a way between the hills and threes, a river in the middle of nowhere with a magnificant view; mother nature is just beautiful when driving, hiking or flying in Arizona.
It is maybe a very dry and hot country but it has a lot to give.
We saw a beautiful sunset looking to the red mountains, the coulours just changed every minute.

The last three pictures are from the sunset,
wonderful colours and an amazing sky.

See you next time!

Next step: navigations

My last solo flight in the practise area is done.Now I have to do 2 more navigation flights (it's a flight of +-300km per mission where we exercise diversions, try to find recognition points on the ground and make shure we are still on the good "planned" track).Such a flights ask a lot of preparation and in the cockpit if you do a diversion the workload become quite high. you have to take your map, draw a new track on it, find all the necessary frequencies, calculate the time and distance, take the weather AND fly the airplane.A hell of a job when you fly at noon with a lot of up-and-downdraughts.Today I was lucky to fly in the morning.very smooth air, very busy in the practise area and a nice sunrise above the mountains.

Have a good weekend!

pictures:

1. On final together with a cessna
2. In the pattern of Falcon
3. Sunrise of this morning
4. Santana Mouantains
5. A quite rich family with a big "house". A pool is almost everywhere standard, the tennis court not.
6. Exept the desert in the SE practise area you have a lot of pools (and green) in the cities
7. SE practise area with some more mountains
   

Saguaro Lake

Yesterday we went to one of the lakes close to Phoenix.
We went to Saguaro lake, it is very pittoresque, surrounded by mountains and the road to get there was sooo beautiful.
To see "big" mother nature in his most purest form makes you silent.
To get there, there was only one single road turning left and right, up and down just between some lost threes and cactusses.
After only 10 minutes driving we were already in a totally other environment.
The scenery changes so fast, after every bend in the road you have another view.
Like this, driving is a pleasure compaired to Belgium, you can drive one hour and you have the feeling having driven though the French alps, through the desert of Egypt, through the mountain lakes of Oostenrijk,...
The pictures speak for themselve I guess...
Dry, dry ground, beautiful nature and very "refreshing" water!

Ciao!