All the packages were wrapped and the shopping done before the weekend. Saturday morning, I headed out for some fun flying. I finally convinced my instructor to let me try flying his airplane, a Maule short field aircraft. That was fun. It is higher performance and snappier than the other two planes I have been learning on. It is a tail wheel airplane, so harder to control on the ground. We started by heading down to a larger airport. There, we practiced a few high speed wheel taxis, meaning almost taking off but instead just driving down the runway. The first one, I veared off to the side a bit before figuring out how to keep the airplane going straight. The second time went well. The takeoffs were fun because you got to point the nose way up and climb out. After doing a bunch of landings, we went and had fun doing steep turns and a couple wing-overs. The landing back at Brookline was the one place where I had troubles. I let the airplane get too slow coming in to land and did not correct fast enough for that airplane with more throttle. So, my instructor had to intervene. Overall, my impression of that airplane compared to the one I am learning on is kind of like my old kayak to my new kayak (though not as extreme). It is more advanced, but it is more responsive and higher performance.

Then for the next bit of fun, I went over to Hampton to fly the Cub and we practiced landing at the local farmers fields with runways mowed in them. One had a steep hill at one end. That one took me two tries to get landing downhill. The other one has a bend at the end. That was fun flying into.

And, then for our last bit of pre-holiday “fun”, Tyson and I addressed all our holiday cards. Someday I’ll actually get the cards made before the holidays.