Homeward Bound

Fri. Sept. 26th - Ate breakfast and spent the morning visiting and being sociable (rather than going to a store and buying my 48hrs alcohol limit. I saw 8.o% "Tilt" for $1.49). I intensionally didn't bring anything to eat for lunch as I was unsure of what my stomach's reaction would be for the upcoming flight ~13:00. Went to the Bend Municipal Airport (KBND) east of town (not far). The pilot arrived right at 12:50 as arranged, and we went out and I watched as he did his pre-flight inspection. When that was done & bags (1 his, 2 mine) loaded, we taxied to by the end of the runway, waited a short while for another craft to land and exit the runway, then turned onto the runway itself, opened the throttle, a very short acceleration and we were in the air. The plane, a Cessna 172S (tail N326ME), rose quickly, the ground dropping away.














Then we started rolling and yawing with the wind. I did not like this part. I wondered if I were in for 3 hours of roller-coaster-like terror. Its bad enough on the not-amusing amusement park ride where one can see what motion is coming, but these jumps up & down and side to side, rolling and pivoting unexpectedly are not what I like.

We climbed up, and up, and up some more. Finally the motion settled down. KBND is 3,456' above MSL, and IIRC, the buffeting stopped around 7,000'. We still went higher, for better fuel economy. The view was pretty cool. I couldn't look down for about half an hour, but ahead and to the sides was OK. The volcanoes in the area looked more impressive from the air, but were still quite a ways away. We were soon cruising along at 11,000' altitude and ~100knots (varying with the slight tailwind we now had. Airspeed fairly constant 90 knots, groundspeed 105->115 knots. (more to follow, shift ending soon. check "CBP's Picasa" link to the right for pictures, lotsa pictures)