Given the week I've been having, I didn't hold much hope for my first flight in four and half months this week. I wasn't even sure I'd get off the ground on Wednesday considering how far the weather had plunged into the deep freeze. However, things did start to look up on Wednesday and it dawned bright and sunny. Still cold, but not so cold that the a/c were grounded. Besides, cold air means stable air and that's never a bad thing for me. My flight was at noon and I was anticipating that the a/c would have already been out flying when I got in but that was not the case. The walk around time increases ten fold when you're out taking off wing covers and scraping the ice off the tail. I've had people comment; “Well, don't you guys have special stuff to spray on the wings that make the ice go away?” Let me clear something up, buddy at West Jet has “special stuff” to spray on the critical surfaces of his or her 737, I have a snow brush from Canadian Tire. Another thing I don't have is a flight suit. It has seemed (until this point) a bit of a useless garment since I am a jeans-and-t-shirt-days-off sort of flight student. After conducting my walk around, slogging through three-foot snow drifts in my best “business casual” because I had to work right after my flight I started to think that a flight suit might not be a bad idea.
The flight was off to a great start from the beginning. Katana's are terrible princesses when it comes to starting and even warm I've had trouble getting the engine to turn over. Even in -20 weather I managed to get the engine going and that was my first indication that my flight might not turn out to be the disaster the rest of my week had been thus far.
We took off mid-way down 16 and my rolling start was straight with a clean rotation. My landmarking out to the NE practice area was a little rusty but considering (oddly enough) that I've never been up with this much snow on the ground I still managed to find Irricana, Beiseker and Bruce Lake without too much searching. I always thought that I had pretty good radio procedure before this but the months of training as an RTC have made my comm tight. Straight-and-level, climbs and descents came back with considerable ease and I had the a/c trimmed and leaned as we headed out to do slow flight and stalls. My slow flight was not bad and I even managed a turn within test parameters. I'm still fighting in stalls to use the rudder instead of the ailerons (I didn't invert but I came damn close).
The best part of the day though was the crosswind landing I greased onto 28. The whole approach was textbook and I'm ecstatic that months of reviewing approaches and landings as well as several afternoons watching other aircraft bring their kites in at YYC have paid off.
In the end I think the near-five month break has probably done me more good than harm.