2012 Review

We got out for a little "fly about" this weekend. Only an hour touring the local area. We stayed low, below 2000', which is quite unusual for me. I wanted to enjoy following some of the roads I travel out near Skippack and Blue Bell. Although the visibility wasn't great I did spot some interesting towers out that way, some rising over 1500'. Sally and I decided to climb up to a more comfortable 2500' for the ride home.

Gary inspired me. Over at his blog he posted a summary of his flying accomplishments for the year. I decided to steal a page from his book and try something similar here. I used Zululog to compile this data:

A nice trend in Total Time. Just over 50 hours for the flight out west. The numbers are still good even without that trip. I feel that I'm getting good use from this little two-place VFR airplane.

 

Good cross country time. Sally is a comfortable ride on a long distance and can definitely fly longer than I can. The seats are comfortable, the glass panel is great and I love the autopilot. Another good trend. We added about 30 new airports to our list this year.

I was surprised to find this number roughly equal. Obviously this year I flew more flights out of the local area, but I enjoy just going out to the airport an exercising the process. My target is about once a week, if the beautiful Pennsylvania weather will let me.

This one surprised me, less landings this year. I love to stay in the pattern and shoot landings. That encompasses nearly every element of flight. The convenience of Butter Valley lets me escape with even the shortest bit of notice, and those escapes usually find me in a landing pattern at a local airport. Obviously I'll have to make a better effort on this category next year.