A year ago today...

One year ago today, I brought my Cessna home from Kentucky. On June 17th, 2012, I arrived in Nashville, TN on a commercial flight and made the 5.1 hour flight back here in my new (to me) aircraft, dodging numerous fast-moving rain squalls over about half the route back. Happy Anniversary, my winged friend.

I could not shoot video of my first landing in it back here, because I was more than a little busy worrying about only the second landing I was making in the aircraft, but courtesy of Old NFO, here's a clip of me landing that same aircraft on that same runway almost a year later, this time in a light rain and with a bit of a crosswind.


I want to fly today, but the thunderstorms moving through the area have persuaded me not to. I've learned an awful lot about the need to respect the weather over the last year, mostly courtesy of one flight in particular, so I don't roll the dice when the weather guesser talks about "X percent chance of thunderstorms" these days.

I need something "All-Weather" capable.

This is an All-Weather aircraft.

And the government does seem to have quite a few that they're not using right now:

Time to write another "Dear Congressman" letter, I'm thinking.

"Dear Congressman. If you give me one of these, I will stop publicly pointing out the ludicrousness of the White House canceling public tours because "we can't affords it" only to send the entire Obama family on a 100 million dollar trip to Africa almost immediately after their current vacation in Europe. I won't even ask how many military pilots could have kept their training current with that sort of cash or how many federal law-enforcement officers could have stayed on the job as the Obama Sequester cuts hit everything except welfare checks and the president's entertainment budget."

I should have my new A-6 in a couple of weeks, I'm guessing. Or a new mailing address at Guantanamo.