Just for the fun of it

I was supposed to take a friend flying yesterday, but something came up at work for him so he couldn't make it.

I was disappointed, mainly because I was really looking forward to going flying just for the fun of it. Instead, I went out and practiced the commercial maneuvers but my heart really wasn't in it.

My friend is an interesting guy: Used to fly C-130s in the Air Force and picked up a couple of business jet type ratings along the way. Now, he's out of aviation and trying to find a way back in. He doesn't want to go fly for some regional airline, the major airlines are a mess and charter work wasn't steady enough.

It's a little odd. Here's this guy with way more experience than I have who hasn't found a flying job he likes. And I'm plugging away at my little ol' commercial pilot, single-engine land with a fair bit of optimism.

There's a lot to be said for flying just for the fun of it. It's certainly easier, because all it takes is money.

Getting paid to fly takes a lot of money up front, marketing, networking, luck and probably several things I don't know about yet. Not to mention your butt is seriously on the line. Slip up and it's time to start looking for a new career.

Another guy I know is running somewhat of a special: He'll instruct for free as long as it's in a mult-engine airplane.

On one hand, I totally understand it and think it's a smart move in the long run because it gets him where he wants to be. On the other, I think flight instructors deserve to get paid for their work.

What's really tempting is to go get my multi-engine commercial with this guy and pay him anyway, which I guess is the ultimate act of putting my money where my mouth is.

Flying is supposed to be fun but it's been ages since I've gone out and just flown for the fun of it.

My logbook shows my last 'fun' flight was October 20. I was in the middle of my instrument rating and so sick of training I jumped in a 172 and flew to Redwood Falls using nothing but a map, the compass and my watch.

If Lindbergh could fly the Atlantic that way I figured I could get to silly ol' Redwood Falls. It was interesting and sort of a pretty flight.

But I barely count that one since it was fairly useless and ultimately a boring trip. I did a touch and go at RWF and headed home so there was a fair bit of just completing the mission to the whole flight.

It's important to know your limitations and I now know that I'd be bored out of my skull as an airline pilot.

Therefore, my most recent 'fun' flight was the weekend of June 25 when my wife and I flew down to Milwaukee to catch a Twins game.

It was a great trip and exactly the sort of thing small airplanes are good at. The drive to the airport, the preflight, the flight, picking up a rental car at Timmerman Airport and drive into Milwaukee took perhaps 3 1/2 hours.

That meant we were finishing a long, relaxed lunch at the Hi-Hat Lounge at about the same time we would have been pulling into the city had we driven.

So, it's really been nine months since I've used an airplane as I think they're intended to be used: To go someplace you need to go and get there faster than if you drove.

When you're working on a new license or ratings, especially something as demanding as the instrument rating, it's too easy to forget that flying is fun.

I've tried to keep some of that fun going by working in a checkout in our Cirrus, spending time in the sim or just keeping a good attitude but it's just not the same.

I need to book an airplane and take a trip somewhere that matters, just for the fun of it.

The last written

Took the Flight Instructor Airplane written today. Passed with an 86, which is a pretty mediocre score by my standards. I'm fine with that.

The damn written test is done, which is what really matters to me at this point.

I swear, if somebody offered me a chance at a million dollars on the condition that I take and pass an FAA written test a day for an entire month I'd have to think long and hard about it. Even in February.

On each of the five writtens I've taken in the past few months there have been at least two questions that made me want to pull what's left of my hair out in frustration over either the utter uselessness of the information being tested or the obtuse wording.

Today's gem had to do with within which frequency ranges the various TACAN components of a VORTAC operate.

TACAN is short for 'Tactical Air Naviation' and provides azimuth and distance information for aircraft equipped with the appropriate radios. F-16s, B-52s, that sort of stuff.

Basically, if it's flown by a member of NATO and paid for by the taxpayers it probably has a dusty TACAN receiver on board.

If it's flown by anybody else, like any civilian pilot, it doesn't.

Stick a TACAN station on the same hunk of ground as a civilian VOR station and you have yourself a VORTAC. (VOR/TACAN. Get it?)

Anyhow, the question that set me off required me to know if the azimuth portion of a TACAN was VHF or UHF, if the distance portion of a TACAN was VHF or UHF and if the azimuth portion of the civilian VOR was VHF or UHF.

Well, I think civilian VORs operate on VHF since VOR is short for 'Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range.'

Or something like that.

I'm pretty sure the other bits are all UHF so I may have actually guessed correctly, which isn't really the point.

The point is, who the heck cares?

Since I don't plan on teaching students to fly in F-16s I could honestly care less how a TACAN receiver works, much less on which frequency range it operates.

Shoot, I'd be surprised if anybody ever even uses the things in this GPS world.

A better question might have been:

In your average training airplane, the difference between a VORTAC and a VOR/DME matters:

A) A lot
B) A little
C) Not a single frickin' bit

Written exam-itis

It occurred to me driving home from the airport today that I've taken four FAA written exams in a little more than three months and I'll probably take my fifth later this week.

That's a lot. In fact, it's probably too many.

I took both the Instrument Rating Airplane and Flight Instructor Instrument Airplane exams on Dec. 16, the Commercial Pilot Airplane Feb. 21 and the Fundamentals of Instructing March 17.

I'll take the Flight Instructor Airplane written later this week. Am I totally ready for the test? Probably not. Will I pass?Yes. Will I make a decent score? Probably.

So why take it before I'm completely ready? Simple: I'm sick of studying for written exams. It's pretty much all I've been doing for the last four months and I've had my fill of FAA test questions for a while. At this point, I'd rather get the last written behind me than card a perfect score. (That could, technically, be considered the 'impulsivity' hazardous attitude I've been reading about for the last four frickin' months.)

I guess there are two schools of thought on the whole written exam thing:

On one hand, the FAA doesn't care if you score 70% or 100% correct, either your passed or you failed.

The other recognizes that the examiners who conduct your practical test (comprised of the oral portion where they ask you questions and also the part that actually involves flying the airplane) are human and just might be at least slightly impressed with a big number on a written test and therefore be more inclined to believe you know what you're doing than if you showed up with a score that was barely passing.

I need to make a note to ask my examiner after my commercial checkride which is the case.

I've had a pretty bad attitude the last couple of days. I'm sick of studying and I need a break.

On the upside, I spent the morning learning how wind triangles (click here and scroll down a bit) work. I can do them fairly easily now and it really is kind of cool to be able to figure out your wind correction angle and ground speed using nothing more than a protractor and ruler.

The tough part was thinking about how to teach them to a novice. Luckily the phone rang.

It was my DC-10 captain buddy calling from Hawaii. Our conversation went something like this:

DC-10 guy: "How's your flying going?"

Me: "Um, ok. I'm trying to figure out how to teach wind triangles."

DC-10 guy: "Neat. You mean with an E6B?"

Me: "No. Using just a piece of paper, a protractor and ruler."

DC-10 guy: "You can do that? Cool! How does it work?"

(I've decided that I love pilots who fly anything with 'heavy' in the call sign. They have absolutely nothing to prove to anybody and therefore are comfortable asking the best damn questions.)

Me: "Well, draw a line that represents true north, then draw a line that represents the winds in relation to that. The length of the line represents the wind velocity. Figure something like 1-inch equals 20 knots, so if the wind is 20 knots the line wind vector is 1-inch long. Draw your desired course line, then start at the end of your wind line and connect the two with a line that represents your true airspeed using the same scale. For example, if your airspeed is 120 knots use a six-inch line. The distance along your course line between where your airspeed line intersects it and your true North reference line is your groundspeed. The angle between north and your airspeed line is your heading, corrected for wind drift."

DC-10 guy: "Cool. I get it."

I have to admit, I was on my second pot of coffee at the time and DC-10 captains are smarter than they let on.

I'm guessing that somewhere between Hawaii and Tokyo tonight a DC-10 first officer and flight engineer are working out wind triangles on a piece of paper to pass the boredom of a 10-hour-flight and either betting who can come the closest or cursing their crazy captain and his flight-instructor-wannabe friend.

I still haven't figured out how to teach it to novices, but I'm getting closer.

A perfect day

Woke up, scarfed down a bowl of granola.

Took a practice written exam for the fundamentals of instructing.

Shovelled the driveway where the city plowed me in.

Drove to the airport.

Took the Fundamentals of Instructing written at Crystal Shamrock's Laser Grade center. Passed, mostly due to memorization. Hooray! One written exam left.

Shovelled the hangar so I could pull out the 182RG I never fly and go fly it. The 182RG I had been flying is in the shop for its annual inspection.

Flew around a bit, practiced some steep turns. They were within standards but average, I really need to get going on the principle of exercise and practice them more before my checkride.

Marvelled at how two airplanes of the same make, model and year can require different power settings for the same maneuvers.

Flicked on the autopilot and looked on in awe as the airplane wandered around in a series of increasingly divergent rolls as it tried to track a heading.

Turned off the autopilot and vowed to leave it off. Forever.

Flew to Anoka to meet Linda.

Had a great lunch with Linda, debriefed her on my instrument checkride (it seems like that was a lifetime ago) and had a nice visit.

Flew around a bit, practiced some steep turns, lazy eights and chandelles.

Started falling asleep from the burrito at lunch and the warm sunshine pouring into the 182RG.

Exhibited outstanding Aeronautical Decision Making and hauled butt back to Crystal since I was sleepy and not learning much anyway. (Per the Fundamentals of Instructing, a student's physical needs must be met before learning can take place.)

Note to self: Don't have a big lunch then go fly on a nice warm day. Take a nap instead.

Shovelled the rest of the hangar out so I could get the RG back inside.

Drove home, shovelled the walks where the city plowed me in.

Added 1.5 hours to my logbook. I now have 50.3 hours of high-performance/complex/retract time in the 182RGs and I'm really starting to feel at home in those airplanes.

Treated myself to a beer since I'm in for the night and not flying this weekend.

All total: 1.5 hours of flying. 0.5 hours of pre-flight and post-flight chores. About 1.0 hours of shovelling. 1.0 hours of driving to and from the airport. 2.0 hours for lunch. 0.3 hours actually taking the FOI test plus another 0.3 hours watching the proctor set up the exam on the PC.

What a great day!

Wind triangles and an organized self

No flying so far this week but lots of studying to prepare for my next two written exams, the Fundamentals of Instructing and the Flight Instructor Airplane tests..

I spent the first part of the week hammering away at the Fundamentals of Instructing, which is basically all theory about how people learn, how memory works and how to construct test questions, etc...

Or something like that.

To be honest, studying the FOI makes my head hurt. I'm sure there are interesting ways to study the basic mechanisms behind how people learn but the FAA's version is brutally dull. Even worse, the test questions themselves are almost absurd in their requirement not for thought or skill but for simple rote memorization.

Eventually I gave up (the 'resignation' defense mechanism outlined in the FOI) trying to really understand what the FAA was getting at and just hammered through a bunch of practice tests until I'd seen the questions enough times to score well.

Here's a sample question that just makes me want to scream:

A basic need that affects all of a person's perceptions is the need to:

A: avoid areas that pose a threat to success
B: accomplish a higher level of satisfaction
C: maintain and enhance the organized self

The correct answer, by the way, is C. Why? I have no idea. I memorized it.

It's probably not a great way to learn but I'd be shocked if anybody ever asks me what the FAA means by an organized self.

The irony, of course, is I personally fail when it comes to the following question, at least when it comes to the FOI:

True performance as a professional is based on study and:

A: attitude
B: research
C: perseverance

The proper answer is 'Research' but I'm getting through the FOI written exam with perseverance and a slightly bad attitude.

I've tried to enjoy the FOI and I haven't been able to. I guess I lack 'readiness'.

Studying for the Flight Instructor Airplane written exam has been more interesting.

It quickly became obvious to me that I need to go back and re-read the private pilot written exam stuff.

It's been ages since I've thought about a lot of what's covered there and I certainly don't remember most of it well enough to teach it, or even in some cases know what the heck something is.

Take wind triangles, for example. I'm pretty sure I learned about wind triangles when I was studying for my private pilot written exam 14 years ago. I know for certain that I forgot all about them the instant I walked out of the testing center and never looked back.

The first time one of the darn things showed up on a practice exam I didn't even have a clue what it was. So I need to go back and learn them again.

Why on earth they're still taught today is beyond me.

Which brings up an interesting question: As an instructor, what do you do when a student comes to you with a question about something you know for certain they will never actually use in their flying career?

I'm pretty sure that if a private student comes to me with a question about wind triangles I'll just come clean and say 'well, they're kind of neat but outside of your written exam you'll never ever need to do one. I don't really remember how they work, do you have your textbook handy? It will be fun to work a few together.'

What's so interesting is that how you initially handle questions like that really sets the stage for how a student feels about the particular skill or procedure in question.

If you blow it off and say 'don't bother, you don't need to learn that' your student will never, ever learn the thing. Even worse, they could start thinking they don't need to learn other stuff that, little do they know, just might save their butt one day.

From my own experience, the response I got from my instructor when it came time to learn NDB approaches really got me fired up about doing them, even though I knew full well chances are slim I'd ever need to fly one in the real world.

His attitude toward NDB approaches was great. It was pretty much 'yeah, these things are really neat and a great challenge. They're not something you use very often in real-world flying, especially if you have a GPS, but they're just so cool. I really enjoy flying them."

From that second on I was a huge fan of NDB approaches.

I'm trying to work up similar enthusiasm for wind triangles.

A long day

I wanted to practice Chandelles and Lazy Eights while they were still fresh in my mind, so I went back out yesterday evening and flew them for about an hour.

I also threw in a couple of steep turns, which were pretty bad. Within standards, but still crap.

The Chandelles worked out ok and I flew one just about perfectly, with the airplane just shuddering at the beginning of a stall as I rolled out wings level. It's like hitting a great golf shot, you don't even feel anything because everything is working so perfectly. Like golf, I get about one good Chandelle out of every four or five shots.

Still, it's tough for me to get enough pitch up into the maneuver and keep it to get that stall warning consistently.

My Lazy Eights started coming along nicely. Eventually I stopped paying much attention to the instruments and just flew them visually and by feel. That worked out much better. I'd check my altitude at the end of each turn to check that I wasn't gaining or losing altitude, adjust my power slightly and continue on. But during the maneuver it was all eyes outside.

The attitude indicator and turn coordinator really started lagging after a few and giving some pretty weird indications so they were pretty much useless anyway.

I flew a string of Lazy Eights for probably 10 minutes straight because I was having so much fun.

Since I had about an hour of night work to finish up as well I stopped in Litchfield, grabbed dinner out of the vending machine (the Fritos were excellent, highly recommended) and waited for it to get dark.

After that, it was over to Willmar to kill some time then up to St. Cloud for a couple of landings, then back to Crystal.

All total, 4.5 hours of flying yesterday, all of it practice, and I was pretty beat when I finally shoved the 182RG back into its hanger.

Commercial practice

Finally, some nice flying weather so it was back up in the 182RG today to work on the commercial maneuvers.

I didn't really have the feel for how a proper Chandelle and a proper Lazy Eight were supposed to be flown. I'd read quite a bit about the maneuvers and flown them before, but hadn't really understood how they really worked.

They're the kind of maneuvers that, for me at least, I needed to fly a bunch of times with an instructor until I got the feel for what a good one (and a bad one) looked and felt like.

After my fifth or sixth Chandelle it finally clicked. We did a couple more and we both were comfortable that I understood the maneuver well enough to practice it on my own. The biggest difficulty was pitching up enough and holding it.

Power on and with flaps and gear up the 182RG stalls at what seems like about a 45 degree pitch angle. (Actually it stalls at some angle of attack, but today that angle of attack translated into a massive pitch angle.) Anyway, it took a few tries before I put enough pitch into the maneuver. Once I got comfortable with the amount of pitch required everything was just ducky.

Lazy Eights were more of the same. It's a beautiful maneuver once you get the hang of it. My tendency at first was to try and rush things, which you just can't do. They're called Lazy Eights for a reason: It takes patience to fly the maneuver properly and a delicate touch on the controls, especially the rudder.

Like the Chandelle, Lazy Eights just sort of clicked after a couple of tries and I wound up doing a long series of them with a huge grin on my face. They weren't all perfect, far from it, but I finally understood what was going on well enough to critique myself as I was flying.

So, now that I finally understand the darn things it's just a matter of lots of practice and I can't think of anything more fun.

We also did a steep spiral, which is sort of a goofy maneuver. It's basically a steep, descending turn around a point. On my first one I let my airspeed build up and had to work to get three turns in before reaching 1,000 feet AGL. On the second, I kept the airplane at best glide speed and it was a piece of cake.

The view out the left-hand window in a steep spiral is pretty wild. It looks like you're standing the airplane on its wing and just pivoting around a spot on the ground. In reality it's not quite that dramatic but you don't use up a whole lot of airspace doing one.

I'm not totally in love with the maneuver only because it's hard to keep any heat in the engine and I'm a little worried about shock-cooling the cylinders or having the entire thing quit running when I put the power back in to level off.

We did some eights-on-pylons, which I've practiced before and understand pretty well. They worked out just fine and the hardest thing for me is picking two points that are the proper distance apart. I'm sure with some more practice it'll become second nature.

Finally it was back for a couple power-off 180 degree precision approaches. I lucked out and absolutely nailed the first one, greasing the RG right in the middle of the spot we'd picked out.

The second didn't work out nearly as well and I had to add just a touch of power to stay out of the weeds off the end of the runway. On the upside, it was a beautiful landing but I would have blown the maneuver if it had been a checkride.

I've decided that from now on, I'll fly my power-off precision approaches tighter so there's no chance of coming up short. I've been concentrating so much on not overshooting my spot I've actually been putting myself into position to land short.

From now on, if I wind up landing a little long I'll throw myself at the mercy of the examiner and take my medicine, but no way will I come up short.

Speaking of examiners, my checkride is scheduled for April 4th. So now I have that to obsess over for the next three weeks.

That right seat sure is different

Before today I'd probably spent a grand total of 1 hour actually flying from the right seat.

I've sat there more as a safety pilot of course, but when it comes to flying with the stick in my right hand and the throttle and radios in my left, well, I just haven't done that very much at all.

And I'd never even tried to land from over there.

That all changed today, thanks to a kind airline pilot friend who suffers fools kindly.

We were headed from Flying Cloud up to Duluth by way of Red Wing to pick up a passenger.

My airline pilot buddy has a nice Cirrus SR-22 that has far too few hours on it for being 5 years old.

We took off out of Flying Cloud for the quick hop down to Red Wing with my 20,000 hour, ex-Navy instructor pilot, jumbo-jet captain flying the first leg. We picked up our passenger and taxied back out while I was day-dreaming looking out the window and not paying particularly close attention to what was happening in the left seat.

At the hold short line the captain looked over and said: "Ok, the checklists are run. It's your airplane. Take us to Duluth."

I looked over, trying to think of something reasonably intelligent to say.

"Um, you do realize I've never flown an SR-22 before and I almost never fly from the right seat."

"Yes. You want to be an instructor, right?"

"Well, yeah. OK."

I selected half-flaps, flicked on the boost pump, set the trim and somehow was able to taxi into position without looking foolish from the free-castoring nosewheel.

I eased in the power and was pleased that the rudder becomes effective earlier on the SR-22 than the lower-powered SR-20 I'm barely checked out in. Holding the centerline (or what looked like the centerline but probably wasn't) was a piece of cake.

Rotate at 75 (a little too slow, actually, 80 is a better number), climb out at 110, flaps up and boost pump off at 1,000 feet and we were on our way to Duluth. There was a ragged overcast cloud deck at about 3,200 MSL so I leveled off at at 2,700 feet, reduced power to 23 inches of manifold pressure, let the airplane accelerate and trimmed it up.

I figured I needed the practice so I left the autopilot off and hand flew. That was just as well because I really had no idea how the nifty STEC-55X autopilot worked anyway.

It was weird flying a complete leg from the right seat. My right hand resting on the side-stick sort of did what I wanted it too so controlling the airplane wasn't a problem. The only real hangup came when I tried to tune the Garmin's and my left hand didn't quite cooperate. Eventually I managed to load the Duluth ATIS, approach and tower frequencies and got the radios set up the way I like them.

It didn't take long before the runway at Duluth loomed into view and I started coming down and slowing down.

"Stay close on the landing," I begged, "I haven't done this from over here before."

The SR-22 doesn't want to slow down as readily as our lower-powered, slower SR-20 so it took some effort to get set up on the 80-knot target speed for final. I was still a touch high and fast but managed to get everything nailed and capture the glideslope.

What I couldn't capture was the centerline. The perspective from the right seat was just a little too weird and I wound up about 10 feet right of center, although I could have sworn I was smack-dab down the center stripe.

I thought I had a good landing in the bag when I spazzed out a bit, rounded out too high and came in with a thankfully soft thump instead of the roller I was looking for. We rolled out, turned off and taxied up to Cirrus' offices to take care of some business.

It wasn't exactly a beautiful landing but it wasn't horrible either. I'm sure I'll make worse ones, regardless of which seat I'm in.

This flying from the right seat deal is going to take some getting used to.

Night cross country

Kevin and I jumped into the 182RG to complete the night cross-country dual requirement for the commercial rating.

I love flying at night. I've always been comfortable flying at night and am even more so now that I have an instrument rating in my pocket.

In fact I've noticed that since I added the instrument rating I'm just that much more comfortable flying, both day and night. I'm sure that's partially because I've just been doing a lot of flying lately. But there's also some comfort in knowing that if things start looking bad I can pick up a clearance and fly an approach someplace.

Some people, perhaps most, feel that flying a single-engine airplane at night is simply too risky. If something breaks on the airplane finding a place to land is that much more difficult when you can't see.

I'm probably wrong, but I think the beauty of flying at night outweighs the slight additional risk, as long as the risk is properly managed.

So, to manage the risk I always get flight-following or radar advisories at night. This way I'm already talking to ATC if I have a problem on the airplane, decide it's safer to file IFR or just don't know exactly where I am.

My personal minimums at night are also extremely conservative.

According to the regulations, basic VFR minimums at night in most airspace are three miles visibility, 500 feet below clouds, 1,000 feet above them and 2,000 feet horizontally. I've flown in those conditions VFR at night and would never do it again.

So, at night I'm looking for a minimum of 6 miles visibility and at least a 5,000 foot ceiling. Those are minimums and I'd probably think long and hard about flying VFR away from the airport or in an area I wasn't extremely familiar with if the visibility was right at six miles. To be honest, if the sky isn't clear I'm just not that eager to fly at night.

(And, come to think of it, I probably wouldn't fly VFR during the day with three miles visibility either.)

Finally, I won't land on a runway that doesn't have some sort of vertical guidance, like a VASI, PAPI or even better an ILS. The only exception being if I'm extremely familiar with the airport, any obstructions and that particular runway, but even then I avoid it like the plague.

I can think of few things that are more difficult than trying to judge your distance from a runway at night and maintaining a proper glideslope without some form of external guidance. The worst situations are long-straight in approaches. The runway lights just seem to sit there and you could be a mile away or 10 miles.

Now that I have an instrument rating I'll probably maintain similar personal night minimums and always file IFR if I'm flying a cross country.

Doing all of that – talking to ATC, bumping up my minimums, always requiring some form of glideslope information – mitigates the risk to a point that it's acceptable to me. I also carry several flashlights, check each of them before every flight and won't fly if I'm tired.

The flight itself was a piece of cake. We departed Crystal, headed North and overflew Cambridge. We could see Mora in the distance and I took up a course that essentially followed I-35. Before long the lights of Duluth were barely visible on the horizon so I pointed the nose just west of center where I thought the airport was, set the heading bug and flicked on the autopilot.

Minneapolis Center turned us over to Duluth Approach sooner than I expected, at least 50 miles from the airport. They instructed me to enter a right base for runway 9, gave me the winds and current altimeter setting since I hadn't yet picked up the ATIS and the frequency fell silent.

About 30 miles from the airport I spotted the airport beacon and let them know we'd like a stop and go then flight-following back to Crystal.

I ran my descent checklist (basically weather, altimeter, landing light, mixture, frequencies set and review the field elevation) and pulled the power back. I was still having some difficulty locating our runway, although the PAPIs for runway 3 were clearly in view.

To simplify matters a bit I activated the ILS 9 approach into the Garmin so it would display an extended runway centerline. About the time I finished up with that chore we both spotted the lights for runway 9-27, all 10,000 feet of it.

Entering from a 90-degree angle it was difficult to estimate where I was on the glideslope so I decided not to go below pattern altitude until I had the runway 9 PAPIs in sight. Somehow I lucked out and when we turned final I was right on the glideslope.

The runway sure is impressive. The massive approach light array was turned up, as was the touchdown zone lighting and center-line lighting. It's like landing in Times Square and I'm almost certain you could spot that runway from space, it seemed that bright.

I made a lousy landing and stopped, a little dazzled all the lights. I cleaned up the airplane, ran my takeoff checklist and we headed home.

The flight back was more of the same. We climbed up to 6,500 feet and could see a bright spot on the horizon that was the Twin Cities. I pointed the nose toward the western edge, set the heading bug and flipped on the autopilot.

For kicks we lit up a couple of airports along the way and chatted about flight instructing and my experiences flying down to Alabama and back in a Cirrus before we both fell quiet and just enjoyed the night.

Minneapolis Approach kept us high going into Crystal to avoid some traffic but it worked out just fine and I flew the VASI's down to a greaser landing.

There's just nothing so soothing as a night flight.