Today I soloed on my cross country! We started the morning by flying the long cross country with instruction. The plane I wanted to take would not start, so we took the Sport Star on the long cross country. Sure does look cool, but it is SLOW. At least 20 knots slower on cruise (if not more). So instead of taking us a quick 2 hours, it took us about 2.5. Got HOT towards the end.

We went from Northwest Regional to Possum Kingdom to Gainsville, then back. I filed flight plans, but we did not end up activating them because I filed them on the old aircraft. We just did flight following instead. We did that on the first two legs.

Then we landed, I drove into town to get some lunch, and headed back. The plane started right up this time so I headed over to the pumps and filled it up. Then I took off to do the same trip we just did, but SOLO! It was a real experience too. I filed flight plans for all my legs, but again, did not activate any. Why? BECAUSE MY RADIO WAS BROKEN!

I could receive just fine, but my transmissions were garbled very badly unless I was within a mile or so of the receiving station. So I was able to transition through Alliance and Denton class D airspace with clearance, but just barely. I figured I was going to be OK continuing my flight, simply because there was not a ton of VFR traffic out in the heat of the day, and I could still hear other transmissions. Since I stayed out of the Class B, I am technically not required to have two way radio comms.

I finally landed, and relayed my story.

Tomorrow I am taking my old favorite, N5915A, over to Possum Kingdom for a short flight. If you want to track me en-route, click here!