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DAY9

I keep saying, "Somebody pinch me!"

After a little ground this morning, I went out for X-Country version 2. Not nearly as exciting as yesterday, but still some weather along the route to keep things interesting. The plan was to head NW out of RYN and catch the TUS VOR to Gila Bend. It was beautiful outside, and I completely enjoyed the first leg. After touching down in Gila bend, I stopped to make sure I was dialed in for the next portion; North up to Buckeye. Buckeye is about 1 mile to the West (maybe a little further) of PHX's class B outer band, so I was careful to stay to the West, and after having a little trouble finding the airport, it appeared to my right just about the time I was going to pull up the GPS to double check my work.

A little story about Buckeye: I stopped in to get some water and talk to a man about a mule, and when I was in the bathroom, well involved, I noticed this nice bold printed sign that said "WARNING Rattlesnake Activity Reported IN and Around Airport Buildings." Guess who took a quick glance under the toilet!? So with no rattlesnakes and ready to head home, I got back into the plane and took off to a basic backtrack of the same route.

As I got close to Gila Bend and hung a left back to Tucson, there were already some dark clouds building. Arizona weather is interesting this time of year, and I'm glad that I'm having to fly through and around some of this stuff, since its great experience compared with the normal clear blue sky. There is a restricted area that parallels the route I was taking SE to Tucson, and unfortunately the weather totally forced me South into it. I had raised Gila Bend AFB on the radio earlier to make sure they knew I wasn't doing it on purpose, and the guy was cool enough to pass me off to their range frequency just in case. The voice on the radio said "There's about a 3 mile buffer South of the interstate before you get into the R-area." ...And since I was totally over that line I told him that as soon as I could go north I would - but there was no way I could get around the weather. Again - cool folks. I like this flying stuff.

A quick IFR note: My CFI told me that a study of VFR pilot crashes when forced into IFR conditions generally resulted in about 45 seconds until impact. The lesson: use those instruments and do NOT trust your inner gyro. Once more: Use those instruments!

Eventually it cleared and I picked up my original radial, onto Marana for a couple TnG's and then back to RYN.

I think my checkride is scheduled for one week - so I'm going to be spending a lot of time practicing maneuvers tomorrow and for the next few days. Until tomorrow!