Winter Flying

I almost did not fly today because wind was 10 kts gusting 17 and at quite an angle (270 Vs 210 Rwy heading). As I was still not completely happy with my normal landings, I was not sure I was ready for x-wind and rwy 21 was a shorter Rwy, so there would be less room for error.

While I was waiting for a plane, I saw couple landings that could only be defined as “hair-raising”. And strangely enough, seeing those landings, gave me my confidence back as the only thought I had seeing those was “I can do better than that”. I also remembered that x-wind landings were always easier for me to do than the normal ones.

I got the plane that just flew and was warm, de-iced, so I did not have to bother with anything to start it. I took my time getting ready, got my clearance, flew a nice circuit and surprised myself with a really nice landing. Right down the centerline, no drift, touch down on one wheel first then the other, then the nose. Delighted, I did two more. Second circuit I was behind another Cessna that did a wider circuit and they were also doing a full stop, so I ended up flying long downwind and starting final from very far back and had to play with the power to get the approach right. I got it stable over the Rwy and touched down as 1-2-3 again.

With confidence fully back, it was time to go away from the circuit. I decided to go north and take a few pics of the Lake Simcoe, practice slips and steep turns. Alas, I did not get very far north. Just as I flew over the end of 404, the visibility dropped dramatically and so did the ceilings. Earlier, as I was driving to the airport, the radio was saying there were snow squalls in Barrie, Orillia area. I guessed that those snow squalls actually drifted south of where they were supposed to be and wanted no part of those, so I turned back and flew to Buttonville.

As I was getting my taxi instructions to the tie downs, I was told to hold short of Rwy 15/33. I repeated the hold short portion and, as I was getting closer to the hold short line, I heard the controller issuing landing clearance for 33 and she then reminded me to hold short. I figured it had to be something bigger and more important than single engine piston and it was – Falcon jet with 3 engines. Watching it land in x-wind was very neat.

They rolled to the end of Rwy and I was cleared to tie-downs. As I tied my airplane, I took a picture of it and the Falcon.