Close, but no cross-country
I reserved a 152 for four hours today to take the girl's mother on a trip. This is again a first flight in a small airplane but since I was dealing with an adult, I decided to actually go somewhere instead of staying in the pattern. It's easy enough to come back if she can't handle it.

Yesterday I met with the instructor who checked me out in the 152 - let's call him Sean because that's his name - to finish up the ground portion of my biennial flight review (BFR) and then get checked out in a 172.

Knowing that I was going to make this trip today, Sean helped me review controlled airspace, how to request flight following, and anything else that would be helpful for a cross country flight that I may have forgotten.

We also talked about various destinations I could go to. He asked me if I had heard of "Nancy's" at Willows (KWLW) and was surprised that I hadn't. He told me he thought everyone in aviation knew of Nancy's and even told me a story of one time he forgot himself, asked for flight following to Nancy's, and the controllers knew where he was going. Heh.

We discussed a few more destination options and then talked about other BFR-related topics.

As for the 172 checkout, we couldn't get the engine started. When I primed the engine, we weren't getting any suction so he had me pump it a bit to get some fuel in there. That may have put in more fuel than intended thus flooding the engine. At one point, he got out and inspected the underside and it wasn't leaking fuel like it should be in a flood. After having me attempt it (under instruction) two or three times, he took over and still couldn't get it started. Eventually the battery went limp and we had to call it off.

Overnight, I finally decided to go to Santa Rosa for a number of reasons. It has less airspace (for me to deal with) and more scenery (for her to enjoy) than the two other real alternatives for the flight I wanted to do. Also, we have a friend who lives there so we arranged for lunch.

Santa Rosa is only 48 nautical miles away from University, so I can't log the trip as a cross country but there is another airport nearby in Healdsburg that I can hop over to if I want. I haven't really planned this trip beyond getting a weather briefing and picking out some landmarks. There are power lines going from here to there so I'll just follow those.

I take my new passenger around the preflight with me as I always do because I find it relaxes them, but then when I get to my passenger briefing I explain to her the emergency procedures, and that ruins all the mental massaging I'd been doing over the last few days. Oh well.

For a few thousand feet after we took off, it was quite turbulent and I was afraid the whole ride would be really bumpy but it turned out to be beautifully smooth. However, my idea to follow the power lines was a bad one because I quickly got myself lost in my new neighborhood. So I start circling around and my passenger is helping me figure out where we are. Turns out, we're right on course, but neither of us can find the power lines. So I just look at which direction I need to go and call up NorCal Approach for flight following. I'm told to bugger off and use Travis Approach. Okay. So I call up the military and get what I want, although he thought I was doing airwork because I was still circling.

Everything now being in order, I start my ascent to my chosen cruising altitude of 6500 feet. We fly over a few hills and get a gorgeous eye-full of Lake Berryessa. All the while, my passenger and co-navigator is pointing out our checkpoints and taking it all in. All her nerves are pretty much gone now.

Charles M. Schulz - Sonoma County Airport doesn't have any waypoints for me to report my location. Perhaps this is because it's only Class D? So I improvise by calling up the tower and saying I'm coming off the mountains to the East for a full stop landing. That seems to make the tower happy and I'm told to enter for left downwind 14 and report mid-field. When I do, I get cleared to land behind a Mooney.

My landings have been really rusty lately - probably because I haven't hardly done any since I passed my checkride two years ago - so I was really nervous about it but I pulled it off nicely. A perfect full stall that initially got applause and then later she told me that she knew when we were in the air and she knew when we were on the ground, but she didn't know when we switched from one to the other. That made me glow for a while.

We were directed over to transient parking and some guy came out to greet us on a golf cart. He offered to drive us up to the terminal but I had no idea what was expected in return so I declined. Am I supposed to pay him? Tip him? I don't know.

Our friend picked us up as planned and took us to eat. In Healdsburg. If I had known that, I would have told her to pick me up from that airport so I could log this whole thing as cross country. Tant pis, as the French say.

As we're going through the town, things start to look familiar. Have I been here before? Then we come to a large square and it hits me. This is where I met Aviatrix! After lunch we went to her house to see if I could reserve the plane for a bit longer. I could, so we stayed and visited for a bit longer.

When we got back to the plane we decided not to hop over to Healdsburg because it was getting late even with the reservation extension, and why do I need to log cross country anyway? (The answer to that is I need 50 hours of cross country for my instrument rating so I should have gone ahead and done it) I got a little flummoxed on the radio trying to leave the airport. I was told to read back my hold short clearance, which I know to do but maybe didn't do it quickly enough for him. And then I told Ground I was ready for take off instead of switching to Tower.

The flight back was straightforward, as if I had been doing it for years. The only problem came when it was time to find my home airport. Lots of circling again. We both figured out that it must be right there but neither of us could spot it. Finally I did see it and entered the pattern. I landed a little fast, squeaking the wheels as I touched down, but I didn't bounce and my companion seemed just as impressed as with the first one.

We refueled and pushed the plane over to its spot. I did not run over her foot.