Flight Reflection - First Flight in a LONG Time

2.1 Hours X/C; 6 Landings; KPWA-KSWO-KRCE

In the past 12 months, I have unfortunately only been able to log 6.9 hours of flight time.  That's a whole lot of not-flying going on, but it's enough time for a little knowledge to leak out, and a little rust to form.

For my BIG cross-country coming up (Oklahoma to Arkansas, Alabama, Florida & back), I needed an airplane.  I needed to rent an airplane, and the one I was getting was in Stillwater, but I had to get there from Oklahoma City.  So I met Britton at Wiley Post and we hopped in the Diamond Star (DA40) and headed to Stillwater.  On the way up, we shot a couple of instrument approaches.  This is when I could feel my in-familiarity with flying, as my stomach was starting to tell me it wasn't having that great of a time.  However, with feet planted firmly on the ground in Stillwater, all was right with the world.

After pre-flighting the Cherokee 180, it was time to go do the checkout.  Overall, it was a pretty simple ride, a couple of steep turns, a power-on stall, some aerial maneuvering -- which consisted of releasing a roll of toilet paper and bring the airplane back around for an intercept -- and a couple of touch-and-go's.  The end result was an uneventful 0.7 hours of dual, and a feeling that the skills came right back, "like riding a bike".

Once the checkout was done, one of my friends who had flown with me before, and his girlfriend met me in Stillwater, and I took them up for a quick go.  For this I did some gentle steep turns, a little toilet paper chasing, and a quick overflight of the stadium.  Throw another 0.6 in the logbook, and head off to the local landmark, "Eskimo Joe's" for some dinner.

The final ride of the night was a solo repositioning flight to get the airplane from Stillwater down to Clarence E Page (KRCE) in Yukon, due to the fact that it was close proximity to where I was staying, and tie-downs on the ramp were free.  Since the sun had long since set by this point, it was an opportune time todo 3 night landings, and be totally VFR current for the first time in 49 weeks -- what a long year.