Well, I'm still busy at work. I have been studying hard for the Commercial written and plan to take it within the next week or two. I have also been considering doing my training full time sooner rather than later. I will post more when my plans are more concrete. But for something non-aviation related (and because this is the easiest place for me to post this on the net), I would like to present some pictures of the pre-production 2006 Honda Civic, to be released next month sometime. Across the stree from me, there was a promotional party for the car and the new CD release for the band Jack's Mannequin and I was able to snap these pictures until one of the promo guys asked me to stop. It was in a public place though, the parking lot of tower records, so here it is for anyone who is into car news. There were three cars there, and this one had navigation, but no sunroof. The audio system showed support for XM, WMA, and MP3 etched on the top of the screen border.

New 2006 Civic (Pre-production)

Well I haven't updated this in a while because nothing very noteworthy has happened in my training. Right now, I am practicing maneuvers solo now and then and studying the Gleim in my free time. Unfortunately, there is not much of that since it is crunch time at my corporate job. I probably won't be back in the air until the weekend, in fact, and I didn't fly this past weekend. :( Well, I got to pay the bills and flight training counts as a pretty large bill so I can't complain that now and then my job has to take priority. I will still get my ratings done much faster as long has I have a good income coming in.

One thing that I noticed on my solo flights is that I seem to have good days and bad days for no apparent reason. One day I will nail every maneuver and land right at my intended touchdown point, and other days well... as my former air force flight instructor used to say during my PPL training, "I fly like a Navy pilot." LOL. Actually, I wish I did because they tend to be able to land on a point pretty consistently, even if the runway is bobbing up and down in heavy swells. Another thing I notice is that the 172RG likes to float further when there is only one person in the cockpit (I only way about 160 lbs). That took some adjusting.

My next step is to complete my long solo cross country. For this you need to travel at least 300nm, land at three airports, and at least one leg needs to be 250nm. I've thought about Grand Canyon/Las Vegas or Oakland. The problem is that my flight school charges a 3 hour minimum per day, and if I stay the night somewhere the timing will work out to count as 2 days (6 hours). At today's prices this is significant. I really want to used the opportunity to visit a friend up in the bay area, or meet some friends in Vegas, but I may just do a day trip and get it done for cheap. I'm leaning to the Bay Area trip, especially since I won't have to fly at 5:00am to dodge 110 degree temperatures. Updates coming soon!