Flight time building is a fantastic period, especially the cross-country segment: you simply enjoy flying and have fun. Of course, it involves a significant amount of planning, preparation, and studying, but it provides a wonderful opportunity to explore new places while gaining more experience.
Summer in Florida is challenging. It’s not just sun and clear skies, as depicted in flight school brochures, but also frequent violent thunderstorms and gusty winds in the afternoon. However, today the weather was great, so I could plan one more cross-country flight.
I had just returned from my previous flight to Palatka when I was informed that the Cessna 150 is back in service. So, it looks like I will have a flight without GPS 🙂 Actually, I don’t even need a paper map for flying North-East since I know that route pretty well, so GPS is not an issue at all.
About 10 miles before Gainesville, I received ATIS information: wind 310 (North-West), 10 knots, gusts 15 knots, runway 29 in use. Gainesville Regional airport is inside class D airspace, so I contacted the tower and reported my intention to land. The controller assigned me runway 25, which means that I will have some crosswind.
Runway 29 was rather busy at that time: one jet was taking off, and two more were in line.
Landing with a gusty crosswind requires more attention and concentration, but it is good practice. Here in Florida, there are usually more than one runway at many airports, and crosswind takeoff and landing are not skills that we practice every day. There are two basic techniques: “crabbing” and “one wing down,” and it is better to know both.
This flight was a very good exercise!
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