Since I have some time-off for the next few weeks before staring my new exiting job, I took advantage of today’s great weather to spend some time flying around, just for the heck of flying. I took off KEDU (UC Davis airport called University airport) using runway 17 then I made a 90 right-turn to the west and climb to 4500ft.

The climb to cruising altitude was really smooth, thanks to the temperature inversion. However the downside of a temperature inversion is bad to poor visibility of such air masses. After few minutes I was overflying Winters and decided to head north for a little while. No other aircrafts were around me and the radio was quiet. Perfect!

After some time, I headed back to Davis and started my descent while turning over Winters. I overflew KEDU at 1600ft then descended a bit to 1400ft to stay underneath SMF airspace. After few moments of flying south Davis, I overflew the city to take some photos of downtown Davis. Not easy to fly with one hand and take pictures with the other.

As usual I had a great time. I can’t get enough of that!

I love chasing the sunset with my Langster. Yesterday my buddy (Langster) and I went to the end of the runway 16 (Davis University airport) to catch one of the greatest sunset i’ve seen in weeks . I can’t get tired of the awesomeness of the sunsets in California. The end of the runway 16 is my favorite spot in Davis to find peacefulness and to regenerate after a long day at work. It is a quick and highly rewarding trip either by bike or running.

Heavy C-172…

Saturday June 6th, we had the annual spot landing and flour bombing contest at the University airport in Davis (KEDU). It was a lot of fun! This year I flew the C152 N24774 with Jackie as a bomber. Masayo was on the ground filming everything. The flour bombing rules are simple: be the closest to the target (a white circle of ~10 meters in diameter) drawn right in the middle of the runway/taxiway, fly no lower than 600ft, no slower than 80Kts (~92MPH). For the landing contest the rules are also simple : land the closest to a specific mark. To make it more difficult it has to be done without power meaning that while midfield parallel to the runway at 900ft the power has be set to idle and then glide to the mark with two 90 degrees left turn and no slip for landing. That’s tricky and a lot of fun to do.

We didn’t do well on the bombing, but oh well! who cares? We had a lot of fun flying this day. Then, after a quick BBQ, Masayo Jackie and I went for a flight above the Lake Berryessa with the C172 N4634D. We climbed to 6500ft to fully enjoy the scenery. The view was stunning up-there… and we were flying among clouds: priceless!  What a great day of flying.

A storm is upon us, clouds at 500 ft / overcast at 4000 ft and falling, visibility <3 miles, humidity at 99%, pouring rain, freezing level quit low. This sucky IFR weather should last until Monday…Damn! I was expecting having a great time this weekend with either N4624D or N4870G, but Mother Nature decided otherwise. Both 24D and 70G are old C-172 ladies but they are well maintained and still kicking. Although it is a lot of fun to fly them, it is probably better to stay on the ground and wait for the storm to pass. The good thing is that they will get a great bath and finally get clean.

It was on March 15th ’08. Nice clouds over Davis.