I’m fortunate to have several airports within the 25nm local flying range, meaning I can fly short round-trips and land elsewhere without having to file a flight plan. Yesterday I did just that, heading out from CYKF (Waterloo) to CNM4 (Stratford) for a touch and go, and then to CYFD (Brantford) for another touch and go. Besides giving me somewhere interesting to go, trips like this also let me practice my uncontrolled aerodrome radio work. It’s funny how pilots trained at controlled airports feel awkward at uncontrolled ones, and vice versa.
It was quite gusty yesterday, with winds at 12kt gusting to 22kt, although it was straight down the runway at CYKF, and only about 20 degrees off at both CNM4 and CYFD, so I didn’t get a whole lot of crosswind practice. But the winds at circuit altitude were about 35kt, which made the downwind legs very fast, required a lot of crab on base, and made final very slow. There was quite a bit of mechanical turbulence below 2500 ASL (1500 AGL), so it was good that I didn’t have a passenger.
Date: 2006-Dec-20
Aircraft: C-FPME, DA20-A1
Passenger: None
Route: CYKF - CNM4 - CYFD - CYKF
Flight Time: 1.5h
Takeoffs and Landings: 3
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