A hazy solo flight
The beginning of a flight-filled weekend began today with a solo flight in the local area. My steed for today’s adventure was Skyhawk N321WF, a nice 2000 Cessna 172R Skyhawk rented from Wright Flyers Aviation. What began as a day filled with a thick overcast almost - in minutes - became CAVU (an acronym for Ceiling And Visibility Unlimited - aka CLEAR skies!)
The TAF for San Antonio had been calling for scattered clouds at 2,500 feet which was going to be perfect for a nice, afternoon IFR flight.
Ah well…I kept the IFR flight plan and launched off into the cloudless heavens. Climbing to 5,000 feet enroute to New Braunfels Municipal Airport and its GPS Runway 17 approach. The approach went well (using the nice Garmin 430 GPS in this particular airplane) but I got busy between the various step-down and heading changes while trying to broadcast frequent position updates to the VFR traffic buzzing around the field. This included a fellow pilot doing the VOR-A approach.
Executing the published missed approach, I soon received radar vectors for my return to San Antonio International Airport. There was quite a bit of haze out there. On the flight back, heading into the sun, the haze nearly resembled an overcast cloud layer.
Haze in the sky resembling an overcast cloud layer
(Fuji Finepix A205 - my “free” camera from Dell)
Landing back at San Antonio went well. This was especially true after learning that my request for the ILS approach would have involved a long wait. I opted for a visual approach and was soon taxiing my Skyhawk back to her nest to roost.
A fun, quick and easy flight was over…
