December Weather

Today is December 19th and it's snowing -- again. The temperature dropped from 39 F at 6 AM to 32 at 9 am.

I was going to fly the A36 to FWQ to have the oil spray looked at. There is a very fine mist of oil that seems to be coming from the propeller hub -- not much, since the oil level barely changes after several hours of flight. But there is enough to begin obscuring the windscreen after an hour flight time.

I was going to put the A36 in the hangar and fly the V tail back. I wanted to check out the V tail and if everything checked out, take that on a night XC. I also wanted to set up the Garmin 496 mount (haven't figured that one out yet).

Having the 496 along in the V tail will be a big help, especially at night. I plan to fly either north (towards Erie) or west to avoid the Alleghenies. There are plenty of airfields or just plain fields. No sense making the night XC riskier than it needs to be!

I still can't understand how I haven't satisfied the night XC requirement -- I have plenty of XC hours, but my longest night XC was only 1.7 hours. So I need to get the 2 hour VFR night XC flight in the logbook.

It makes sense to fly the V tail for this one -- less fuel burn, and strictly a VFR airplane (though night flying can often be an IFR exercise). I can dial the power back a bit and take it easy in order to get a full two hours and go 130 NM or so straight line.

The instruments are ok, just not up to the requirements of actual IFR (the instruments are not in the standard 6 pack arrangements, for example).

If I do fly through some clouds at night, it won't be a disaster, though. I'm qualified and current and the gauges will be adequate to maintain heading and altitude. The 496 as backup will help cross-check the gauges.

The 496 has XM as well, which will help avoid any really nasty stuff.

Now all we need is a big cold H on the WX map east of the Mississippi.