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!