Today I made my first flight as a private pilot, taking Debby up to Show Low to visit our cousin Shannon. After lunch we only had about an hour before heading back to return the plane, so she gave us a quick tour of some houses in the area, including a few in the 7-figure range. It's amazing how much people will pay to have a house that they will live in for no more than two weeks a year. I wouldn't mind having a vacation home up there, of course, but even the small ones would run about $300k.
The trip up there was uneventful, but the trip down started around 3:30, just in time to catch the hottest part of the day, so (jargon alert) not only did we have plenty of turbulence and wind shear, but it turns out that the density altitude was about 1700 ft above actual, and since this plane has a service ceiling of 11,000 ft, I was fighting to keep this plane at 8500 ft. Of course, every once in a while I'd catch an updraft, and within a few seconds I'd be about 300 ft higher than I wanted to be. Next time I head up that way on a warm day, I think I'd prefer a plane with more than 160 hp available.
So, who's up for lunch in Sedona in a couple weeks?
I also have a Public Service Announcement:
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. For those of you who are not aware of alcohol, it is a marvelous liquid that can make you happy and self-confident, promotes morality by acting as a truth serum, and allows you to see the inner beauty of others and become much, much less concerned with superficial physical beauty. I know that I myself will become very aware of alcohol about 10 minutes after I've paid by taxes.
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