Watercolor Sky

Tonight on the way back from Clintonville I thought the sky looked like a watercolor painting. To the west out of this picture a bit, everything was solid gray with distant rain. Looking southwest in the picture, there were layered clouds and virga (rain not reaching the ground). The sun had set behind all this, and everything had an eerie glow that the picture can't quite reproduce. It was a wonderfully calm evening.

I flew with the editor of the Clintonville Tribune-Gazette earlier. I gave him an introductory flight lesson and he got some aerial photos of Clintonville.

Some Peeking Allowed

My instrument student and I were working on holding and approaches in Oshkosh tonight. So he was mostly missing out on the scenery. I let him peek at the sunset a couple times. Tonight it took on a purple hue. In this picture we are over Lake Winnebago with Wittman Regional Airport behind the wing. The air was perfectly smooth this evening making for a nice flight. There was rain not far to the southwest.

Memorial Day Weekend in Sidnaw

I spent Friday evening through Sunday morning hanging out in Sidnaw, the place I've written about a few times on here. This time I brought the old 172B. It was my first visit this year and was fun as always. I'd been looking forward to visiting again ever since Labor Day weekend last year. We sampled the burgers at Hoppy's bar in Kenton, worked on piling up brush near the end of the runway, went four-wheeling, ate at the steakhouse in L'Anse, watched a movie, and generally enjoyed the up-north outdoors.

Friday: The trees were brighter green than I'm used to seeing.

Friday: Dried-up Lake

Sunday: River

Sunday: Near Clintonville

Sunday: Clintonville's Pigeon Pond in all its weedy glory

The Start of a Good Day

I got up at 5:30 a.m. today, which only happens on incredibly special occasions, and this was one of them. Todd would be taking his sport pilot checkride in Marshfield by 9 a.m. We needed to fly together another half an hour to meet the requirement for three hours of dual within the past 60 days preceding a test. I also needed to endorse his logbook so he could make the cross-country flight.

At barely 7:00 in the morning there were still puddles on Brennand Airport's runway from rain that passed through earlier. A lot of low clouds hung around, especially to the west, where it was still IFR with fog. To the east, as in the above picture, the sun lit up the leftover mist.

Views to the west:

The clouds were breaking up and moving south. We figured that soon it would be smooth sailing to Marshfield. Where the lower clouds cleared out, this was the view straight up:


Todd dropped me off back at the airport with all his paperwork in-hand. All I could do then was take a nap, wait, and hope for good news. When I spoke to him on the phone later in the day, he told me he passed his checkride!

Congratulations Todd!!!

A Calm Lake Winnebago

Over the east shore of Lake Winnebago this morning, looking west toward Neenah.

Waves of sand along the northeast shore of Lake Winnebago.

Sheboygan Again, with Friends

Tonight I stuffed the 172 with three of my closest friends and we flew to Sheboygan for dinner. I was just there a week ago. I think I've earned some kind of frequent customer award because they gave me a polo shirt!

Jenny (who's needed years of convincing) and her husband Zach took their first ride with me tonight when we flew to Appleton to pick up Jim. Then the four of us ate at Sheboygan - mmm - and had an evening trip back to Appleton, then a night flight to Clintonville. I didn't take any pictures, but Jenny and Zach took some pictures and video. Below is a picture I am borrowing from their blog. I don't know what's the matter with me, but I didn't get a picture of the four of us. Now no one will ever believe they really did fly with me! Hopefully we can do it again soon and get proof.

Windows Open, Check

It was warm enough today for my first open-cockpit Ercoupe flight of the year. Todd and I went to New Holstein to practice soft-field takeoffs and landings on the grass runway. Todd is getting ready for his sport pilot checkride.

Spring Thermals & Sheboygan Dinner

I flew all day starting at 10:30 a.m. with a commute to work via airplane. I could tell on that flight that I'd be in for a lot of rocking around all afternoon. It was a dry, bright sunny day with cold air aloft.

Three lessons in a row -- one in the 172, one in the Arrow, and another in the 172 -- and I started to feel like a set of maracas or hmm, maybe a can of spray paint being prepared for use. The thermals were out in full force. The wind on the ground was coming out of anywhere on about a 90-degree arc and anything from zero to 15 knots. I heard my glider pilot friend made it to 8,000 feet today. My three students were troopers. One was practicing landings and the other did laps around holding patterns.

It was time for a serious break after all of that, and then everything calmed down in time for a nice trip to Sheboygan for dinner. The view was gorgeous coming back to Brennand from there. Later I made a solo flight back home in faint light.

The red line crossing the river is a huge empty train.

Steak with Sean

No flight lessons today, only a fun trip to Madison this evening to have dinner with my former student Sean O'Donnell.

Before that, when I was still at Brennand Airport, I watched an agricultural plane come in several times. It was out applying fertilizer to fields (or at least I think that's what the white pellets were). After each short flight it came back and filled up again right in front of my office. The truck had both fuel and the pellets onboard. It's not often I hear a turboprop out my window! The engine kept running while the plane was refilled, but the prop was feathered and turning very slowly, so it was really quiet.


Now the fun stuff: I had a blast with a run to Madison this evening. I flew 15X the Cessna 172B solo from Clintonville to Oshkosh. First I had to wait for some crazy downpours and 25-knot wind gusts to go away -- it was a very unstable afternoon. Behind that junk, the air was pretty smooth and clear. I caught the tail end of it landing in Oshkosh with the wind gusting to 17 knots.

In Oshkosh I picked up Jim, the owner of the 172 as well as Wayne, who hosted my students and me during our Able Flight project in 2007. All of us were looking forward to seeing Sean again. We had a nice flight to Madison.

Green Lake

In Madison, Sean took us to the Outback Steakhouse for good food and lots of hangar talk. He's ready to upgrade to a private pilot certificate and also hopes to become a sport pilot instructor. We heard about his trip to Palm Beach International in Florida in a Sky Arrow where the controller asked what the heck he was flying. And he filled us all in on a boo-boo his poor airplane has suffered -- the same plane I flew to New Jersey last summer. It'll hopefully be back online soon.

We had a night flight back home. I dropped Jim and Wayne off in Oshkosh and flew home solo. Sean would be going home to Philadelphia the next morning. I was glad the weather finally cooperated for a flight to Madison.