After two brave landing attempts at Kitty Hawk
today, I had to realize that I had to give up and
divert to the neighboring airport, Manteo. The reason
I had a hard time getting down was ridiculus winds.
I should have known it would be close to impossible
looking at the forecast this morning, but I decided
to give it a shot anyway.
I've started the so called SPIC (Student Pilot
In Command) hours I have to fly, 50 in total. SPIC
is supposed to be flown on an IFR flightplan without
influence from the instructor, who is only riding
along as an observer. Flying IFR isn't really difficult,
cause I'm pretty used to talking to ATC and IFR
navigation is much easier than VFR, cause I'm only
following routes to different navigation stations.
Todays flight was planned to First Flight (aka
Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk) via Florence, Fayetteville
and Raleigh with Anna by my side. It was forecasted
pretty strong winds, but I figured I could at least
try. The flight up there was uneventful, but as
I approached the airport for landing I got enough
to work with. There were already one plane circling
around the airport after a go-around, and I decided
to head for the runway. The closer I got to the
runway the stronger the windshear (change in wind
direction and velocity) and the harder it got. It
ended in a go around after almost making a landing.
I decided to try once more, hopeing I was unlucky
with the winds on my first try, but it just got
ten times worse and I aborted the landing way above
the ground. The other guy circling was impressed
by my first attempt and used me as a guineapig for
landing at the neighboring airport, Manteo. The
winds were pretty bad here too, but at least I got
it down.
Here me and Kristian changed, and he flew home
via Pitt Greenville where we refueled an had lunch.
Even though I didn't get to experience First Flight
today, I got a pretty good start on the SPIC and
logged 3,5 hours.
