Life Is Good

!PRC 09/068 E25 AP LGTS OTS WEF 0609142200-0609281300
!PRC 09/067 E25 OPEN 1300-0200 DLY WEF 0609142200

As I mentioned in earlier posts, my real job takes me to Wickenburg, a small town Northwest of Phoenix on the road to Las Vegas. It's only about 100 miles from my house, but I have to contend with Phoenix traffic. With no traffic, it's 1:45. With heavy traffic, it's taken me as long as 3 hours. For a 24 hour trip, that's 6 hours of driving. Although my daily driver is a an Audi A3 and I love it, 5-6 hours of drive time for a 24 hour trip is brutal.

Wickenburg Airport (E25) has been closed for the last 5 weeks and just reopened with a new 6,500' runway. The lights aren't installed yet, so it's day VFR until October. That's fine with me. I can leave after ground school at 2pm, be there by 2:45 work all afternoon and in to the evening, leave the next morning at 10am and be back in time for ground school at 11.

It's a pleasant flight and with the weather cooling off, one that can be done at 4,500' without having a heat stroke.

---

Since I finally started flying for my commercial training last week, things have been happening very rapidly. We've been doubling up lessons to catch up and I'm already at the end of stage 1, which is commercial maneuvers. I did power off 180's yesterday for the first time and nailed them all. It's a fun maneuver. I'm getting better at Chandelles and Lazy Eights.

With a little luck, I'll have the stage one check ride by Friday. Stage 2 is FINALLY multi engine flying. By this time next week, I hope to be flying in the Piper Seneca. I'm really looking forward to it.

I'm extremely satisfied with my instructor. He really knows his stuff. His father is a 767/777 pilot at Delta and he's pretty much an aviation savant. Actually, I call him Rain Man with a personality.

Life is good.