Flying in the Rain

Tonight after work Justin Linot met me at the airport. He was excited all day and we continually checked the weather. Storms moved through all day one wave after another. The clouds were ominous and at times the rain very heavy. When we walked out of the building the wind was calm and the cloud ceilings high enough so I gave it the green light.

We preflighted the airplane, took off, and headed toward Cook airport. We flew over Justin's Dad's house and did a touch-n-go at Cook airport. It's a short narrow runway with trees at one end. The landing was perfect!

After our landing at Cook we headed back and over Wichita. We had planned to do a touch-n-go at Midcontinent but we could barely hear the controller on the radio so decided to head back east. We did a touch-n-go at El Dorado as well as a power-on and a power-off stall. Justin was a little uneasy about the maneauvers and preferred to stay mostly level. He did fly the airplane rather well back to Jabara but at times chased the instruments.

The rain was coming down hard and was beading up and streaking over our windscreen. We purposely looked for pockets of rain to fly through which is ironic since the whole day we were hoping the weather would permit us to fly. We did two touch-n-gos at Jabara which were uneventful. On our third trip around the pattern and while turning base we heard another aircraft call a three-mile final. The rain was pouring down and the visibility was minimal which made us both very nervous. Instead of continuing to final I decided to go around. I didn't want a faster airplane to run into the back of us on final. It turns out he mistakenly landed at Beech, an airport a few miles away. Our next go we landed without incident.

The clouds were menacing and the weather at times made our visibility low but the aircraft performed beautifully. It was a nice change from the past few flights in the underpowered Cessna 150. Justin said he enjoyed himself and mostly he seemed to. It was, perhaps, my most eventful flight and for me one of my most favorites!