Well, I finally got some more money to go flying again. This was my first flight in the Piper Arrow. I will be gaining experience in it to receive my complex endorsement. I went up in the Arrow on Monday with Justin. It was a beautiful day outside and the weather forecast was looking good, except for the small storm that was supposed to come in around 5pm. I was meeting Justin at 1:30pm so it shouldn't of been a factor. I met with him and we went over the new preflight information. We hopped into the plane and began the engine start-up checklist. It is interesting going from a plane that was built a few years ago into one that is older than I am. Most of the Arrows USU has were built in the early 70's. It was hard to find the correct switches because the lettering is worn off on most of them. One of the features I liked was the flap lever. It looks just like an emergency brake lever in a car, and is positioned in the same spot too. It's a little more fun to be able to bring the flaps in immediately, than it is to push a button and wait 3 seconds for them to engage. After fumbling through the new checklist and finding my way around the vintage instruments, we taxied over to the self-serve gas pump.
Justin helped one of his other students with gas. He was a private pilot student who was going on a solo cross-country flight about the same time we were leaving. The other student filled up on gas and went to the run up area. As we were filling up on gas, I looked to the West and saw some dark clouds peaking over the mountain tops. There was the storm starting to come in. It was coming way early though. It shouldn't have come for about another 2 hours or so. We discussed it and decided that we would still go and land before it got too bad. We would listen to the weather on Logan's ASOS (Automated Surface Observing System) frequency during our flight. While we were performing the run-up the dark clouds seemed to be getting closer. Justin was worried about his solo student and got a hold of him on the radio. He mentioned the clouds to the West and they discussed it briefly. The student, already airborne, decided to cancel his long cross-country flight. I don't blame him because he would have had a long flight in some unfavorable weather.
Justin and I talked about our options and decided that our short flight would be alright to continue, and if the weather got too bad over Logan we could land in Preston, ID about 20 miles north of Logan. We departed LGU to the North and entered a practice area for some maneuvering. I practiced normal turns, ascents, descent, and slow flight. It was a totally different feel than the diamonds. It's glide ratio is more like a brick than a plane, but it can turn really well.
After about 40 minutes into our flight we noticed that the weather system was predominately over Logan and we listened to the weather frequency. The winds were recorded gusting to 45 knots. That's over 50 mph! Needless to say we didn't want to land in Logan, so we diverted to Preston and landed on their short little runway. It was still a little windy but not as bad. Probably gusting around 20-30 knots. I didn't feel comfortable landing the Arrow in Preston, the runway is narrow and short, so I had Justin land it there. We went into the scrappy pilot lounge and check the weather radar on Justin's phone. Man, I wish I had a fancy phone! They really do come in handy sometimes (not just for showing off what your phone can do). The TAF reported that weather would lighten up in the next hour. After waiting out the storm for 45 minutes, we left the little shack and departed Preston Airport. Winds were reporting 5 knots now in Logan, so we went straight home. I performed my first landing in the Piper Arrow and as Lindsay said in a text message, I got my feet on the ground. So I sent her a text back to let her know I was OK.
And so continues my adventure into Commercial Piloting!
