Airport Bum

Last Wednesday (April 6) after school we did a short practice cross-country (XC) from Festus to Farmington. The winds were a little high and it was hot. We took off from runway 18 and proceeded basically south, 26 nm (nautical miles...and a nm=1.150779 statute miles-sm...which is our normal mile). Strong headwind, so a little bit of a slow trip down. We cruised at 2500 ft msl. The ground was rising up to meet us just a little....Field elevation at Festus is 433 ft and Farmington is 946 ft...so 513 ft higher! The runways at Farmington are 2/20 which aren't much different than our true north and south runways at Festus-18/36. Winds were out of the south so we landed on runway 20. We swung out east of the airport and came in at 45 degree angle into the pattern...two things were different right away for me...first was the pattern elevation...I'm used to flying about 1300 MSL at Festus, here we were 500 feet higher, so our pattern altitude was 1700 feet if I am remembering correctly. The next thing that was different was calling in "Farmington traffic" instead of "Festus traffic" which I messed up at least once. Once I turned final, there was a third difference....a longer runway...4222 ft...so 2k feet longer than Festus. It is pretty nice that whenever I go into an unfamiliar field, there is a good chance I am going to have a lot more runway to play with! We did 2 landing at Farmington then headed back to KFES with a 25 mile an hour tailwind....so a quick trip back. I spent most of the trip trying to familiarize myself with the Garmin GPS that is built in. You punch in the airport identifier then press enter a couple of times I think and it gives you a heading and your actual heading...the goal is to match up the two numbers...easier said than done of course! I think you go to the right to raise the # and to the left to lower the #, but I could be wrong!! Also, 123HA has two VOR's so I am working to familiarize myself with those as well. Another thing I learned, which isn't marked on the Airspeed indicator is Va speed, the maneuvering speed, which in our plane is 114 mph indicated airpseed. (Va according to Wikepedia: is the highest speed at which full deflection of the controls about any one axis are guaranteed not to overstress the airframe. At or below this speed, the controls may be moved to their limits. Above this speed, moving the controls to their limits may overstress the airframe and potentially cause a structural failure. It is normally designated as VA in flight manuals, but is not typically shown on most airspeed indicators.) Overall, I felt good about the XC, I only was fighting a bit of airsickness again on the return in the chop and the heat didn't help. Today's picture was from Friday after school. Teddy and I picked up some McDonald's and ate it at KFES. As you can see Teddy is totally comfortable there and he told me several times how much he loves it there. He's becoming a real airport bum! So far, being in airplanes and around airports has been really good for Teddy. He really works hard to act calmer and more mature in this environment. Tomorrow, as long as the WX (weather) holds, Teddy is going to ride along on my XC to Perryville tomorrow. More on that in the next entry.