When the days become short, gusty winds rob the body of heat with breathtaking efficiency, and footing is treacherous outside the hangar due to snow and ice, it is a good time to stay inside. Sitting in a comfortable chair and reviewing my logbook leaves me with a sense that 2013 was a year of significant change in my flying. Here is my annual review of the year's highlights along with some of my favorite photographs.
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Warrior N21481 outside of the hangar at Williamson-Sodus Airport
("A Bird's Eye View") |
I now own Warrior 481 outright. Three days prior to the ninth anniversary of
buying the Warrior in Guthrie, OK, I made my last airplane payment.
I earned my instrument rating! After over a decade of VFR-only flying, this required a significant mental adjustment for me in terms of go/no-go decision making. But I like having the new skill and the expanded
envelope of capability. It's too bad that low, icy clouds of winter render the rating virtually useless this time of year. In 2013, I logged 21.8 and 5.7 hours of simulated and actual IMC flight time, respectively, with 48 approaches (15 ILS, 20 RNAV, and 13 VOR).
I moved from the Le Roy Airport to the Williamson-Sodus Airport. This was a tremendous change for me after seven years of considering Le Roy my home. While I will always have a special place in my heart for Le Roy and the pilots based there, the move shortened my commute significantly and brought me to a more active airport.
I exchanged my iFly 700 portable GPS for an iPad using Foreflight/Stratus. The iFly is a great device with a remarkably intuitive interface and a terrific development team supporting it. When I began instrument training, however, I found it to be cumbersome for displaying/zooming approach plates. I already owned an iPad and needed a hardware upgrade to take advantage of ADS-B weather, so I chose the Foreflight/Stratus pathway. I experienced some remorse after making the change because the iPad
overheated on a couple of early flights. However, I found that keeping it on my left leg did an excellent job of protecting it from the sun and I flew many hours with it during the peak of summer without an issue. The iPad is a more capable flight planning tool and also works remarkably well in a pinch for aerial photography (e.g., the sunset photo above).
The Bear became much more comfortable at the controls of the airplane. This year, she had a lot of fun
busting clouds,
taking the controls and
shooting pictures. She flew 30.7 hours in 2013, surpassing the 200 hour mark to end the year with a total of 224.6 hours in the Warrior since infancy.
In 2013, I logged my greatest number of flight hours ever, 128.6. This can be attributed to a mix of pleasure flying, instrument training, and cross country trips. In July, as I neared completion of my instrument rating, I flew almost as many hours in a single month as I did in flying the family to Florida in
2005 and
2011.
I also logged 10.5 hours of night flight in 2013, my most to date. I notice that my night hours are slowly creeping higher as time goes by.
In July 2013, Warrior 481's Lycoming O-320 entered middle age: 1000 hours on the tachometer since the 2003 overhaul.
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Control tower at the Kalamazoo / Battle Creek International Airport (AZO)
("Stuck in Time") |
I/we visited some great aviation museums in 2013: The
Piper Aviation Museum (Lock Haven, PA), the
Air Heritage Museum (Beaver Falls, PA), the
Intrepid Air, Sea, and Space Museum (New York, NY), the
Tennessee Museum of Aviation (Sevierville, TN), and of course, my extremely-biased favorite: the
Air Zoo (Kalamazoo, MI).
In addition to flying with The Bear, I made more of an effort to expose young people to general aviation. Emily, Maggie, and Ben (all college students) each spent some at the controls of Warrior 481. I also
flew with a gypsy and did some
outreach at my daughter's school.
I had the good fortune to
visit my old home base airport in South Haven, MI for the first time since 2008.
Overall, I think that 2013 was a year of achievement and change. Here are the statistics accumulated by
MyFlightbook for 2013:
ASEL: 128.6 (178 Landings, 48 Approaches)
Approaches: ILS: 15 / RNAV: 20 / VOR: 13
Solo Time: 62.6
Cross Country: 53.9
Night: 10.4
IMC: 5.7
Simulated Instrument: 21.8
Dual: 5.6
PIC: 128.6
In addition to New York, I landed in Maryland (1st time), Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
My goals for next year are really very simple:
1. Exercise the instrument rating!
2. Visit some new states!
3. Take more people flying!
It is always difficult to forecast what the future will bring. As 2014 nears, I suspect that there may be even more profound change in store; call it a hunch.
Happy holidays and best wishes for a high flying 2014 to all!
