Greetings to my loyal Pleo pals (both of you...) from sunny and friendly Washington, District of Columbia. Thanks to the wonders of Delta Airlines, Dollar Rent-A-Car and Courtyard Hotels, I had an easy trip up this morning from Atlanta, three productive meetings, and now some decompression time this evening.

For those of you who have asked about my recent flying experiences, Audrey and I had a great trip to visit Libby in Louisville last month as well as a fun trip with Cathy to Birmingham to see Meg, Andy and the grandkids. July 2008 was a record month of flying for me, crossing the 200 hour mark and 425 landings. We really enjoyed getting to Louisville- Libby's got some great friends and has really impressed us no end. Go, Libby! You can, as always, view my flying blog at www.rossstatham.com.

Jim made it home from Africa two weeks ago, and has been enjoying hanging out around the house with Alyssa, his fiance (or is that "finance"??). You can read his Pleo blog to see what he's been up to, so I'll spare you here.

Getting caught up on the laptop in the hotel room tonight, then more meetings tomorrow before heading home tomorrow night. I can always tolerate these one night or two-night trips. NO sweat.

Happy trails!.....Ross

Since I'm getting very close to my 200-hour mark, I decided to fly Dahlonega (GA) to Pickens County (SC) to Andrews-Murphy (NC) to Blairsville (GA) and home. None of the "legs" on each flight was over an hour, plus I got to fly dead smack over the Smokey Mountain National Park.

My first leg was to Pickens County SC (LQK) for a total of five landings. As I was about 20 miles out I heard a Piper SuperCub (1950's vintage) aircraft calling in, but he was flying much slower than me (if that's possible). I was in no hurry, so I told him to go ahead while I did a leisurely 360 degree turn to give him more spacing. When I got 15 miles out I began my descent, and entered the airport traffic pattern about the time he landed. I did four "touch and goes" on runway 23 and the fifth time I came to a full stop. You practice landings like you practice parallel parking; it's good to vary the conditions a bit and to learn new airports. Once I got on the ground, I talked to the guy with the 1954 Piper SuperCub- he just bought it today and is flying it home to Vermont. Really nice guy.

Leg #2 was a flight over the Smokey Mountains to Andrews-Murphy, NC, where I did my FAA checkride with Don Jones last August 24 (2007). I decided to fly this leg at 8,500 feet-- and see how my body would handle the altitude. KRHP is tucked into a deep valley, and I had trouble finding it, since I needed to drop below the clouds (without hitting the mountains). But I found it and landed just fine after a little over an hour of leisurely meandering at 2200 RPM. (I got a bit of a headache from the altitude, too.)

I looked at the radar in Andrews-Murphy, saw some thunderstorms forming to the southwest- but it was still ok to fly. Now for leg #3- on to Blairsville Georgia, where I would get fuel and a Coke. One of my favorite stops. That ride was easy- about 20 minutes including taxing at both airports. Since I seemed to have the place to myself, I came in right traffic into runway 26, landed and taxied to the fuel farm.

While Chris filled it up, I got a Coke and some crackers. I like Chris- he's got a great sense of humor. I looked over the radar again and didn't like what I saw- rain and thunderstorms developing between me and Dahlonega. So I decided to kick back for a half hour and wait it out- in fact, I leaned back on the couch and took a snooze. Glad I did- my short flight home (46A to 9A0, above) was easy. I took off on runway 8, turned south and pointed Trixie at Dahlonega. I had JUST missed the rain, coming in behind it, and was able to clear the mountains and land in record time.

Jim called me when I got home- he's looking forward to his return, and we spoke about a taxi driver strike tomorrow where he's working in South Africa. He's annoyed about it, but resigned. Me, I'm just glad he's ok.

Last Friday, July 4, Cathy and I made a fireworks run Independence Day morning by flying to Chattanooga, borrowing a car from TacAir, driving out I-24 to exit 61, buying the stuff, driving back to the airport and flying home. Ok, I admit it. A lame excuse to fly. We could have driven to Alabama in less time and for less money, but it was fun to fly on my day off.

Cathy and I got up early to fly to Chattanooga, and we pretty much had the airport to ourselves! Air traffic control cleared us to land 8 miles out! We landed, parked Trixie and borrowed a car, swung by Krispie Kreme for coffee and fat pills (doughnuts), then we got on I-24 for our ride west, until we hit exit 61 right at Nickajack Lake, where there were two really big fireworks stands- so we parked, went inside and spent the big bucks. Well, not the big bucks, but enough to have some fun!

We had a nice flight back to Dahlonega, making it home in time for lunch. How were the fireworks that night? Great!

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print. Watch this space!

Three evenings this week, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, I spent working on small to medium fixes in Trixie. (Hey, not to worry, I like to putter.) But this morning I got to go flying, so it all evens out.

Tuesday was the biggie- the liquid compass needed some work, but Garrett, who's an A&P (and about to retire) had a repair kit. I flew over to Jasper and he made the fix for me and help me get it re-installed and working Tuesday evening. Thursday night was cleanup night- the leading edges of both wings, the nose and struts were covered in bug splatters. I also cleaned the plexiglass all the way around, inside and out, and at my buddy Ferrell Brown's suggestion, I waxed the leading edges and struts after I'd cleaned them. I went ahead and waxed the cowling, too- plenty of dust and dirt. Put some "shine" on the tires, too.

I'm trying to decide if I want to change the yellow stripe on the side of Trixie to a dark gray or some other color. Still thinking about it. Still need to repair the left wingtip.

Last night (Friday) I finally got around to fixing the seat back. The old 1972 plastic was cracked in a couple of places and the seat back was flopping around loose, but I was able to get slightly longer screws and washers and fix things right up. Also fixed the right shoulder harness clip where it had come out, and generally tighten things up.

This morning made up for it! Today (Saturday) we were planning to fly to Chattanooga and back- me, Brad & Alex Bowman and Don Bowman- friends from church. But.... we had high clouds, plus some rain showers to the south of us. I had called the weather briefer, who reported rain and generally lousy weather both north and south of us, but ok for flying in the immediate area. But Chattanooga was definitely out.

We still ended up flying a couple of hours- Dahlonega to Gainesville for two touch and goes on runway 5, then we headed over to Cumming, where we overflew the church building. Next we headed over to Canton (where Alex is from) and did one go-around before landing at the Cherokee Airport. After a Coke and a potty break, we took some photos, then headed west again over to Rome, with Brad at the controls much of the way.

I really like the Rome airport. Fuel prices are always pretty good, they have two really good runways, plus a nice FBO that's manned most of the time. It's a good place to stop and get fuel when you're coming back in from Alabama, but this trip was going to be quick- about ten or fifteen seconds! I came in from the east, and since there was no traffic at the airport I came in right approach, then lined up for a touch and go on runway 1. Coming back to Dahlonega, we flew just south of Calhoun and just north of Jasper.

It was hazy, so sightseeing wasn't all that great, but the company was great and we had some laughs. Wish every flight could be as much fun as these were. Brad, Alex and Don were super company- I'll gladly take these guys flying again! I put photos and details on my site: www.rossstatham.com/private_pilot.htm

As I type this Audrey and I are at the Mariott Courtyard in Chapel Hill in northwestern North Carolina, where we flew up this morning on Trixie. Very easy flight!

Our friends Ed and Joan Rigel had a daughter getting married in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (a 5-6 hour drive), so we decided to fly. We loaded up Trix and had an easy "short field" takeoff and turned to a heading of 79 for a projected 2:30 flight to Chapel Hill. The flight was easy. We steadily climbed to 7,500 feet to get over the mountains and the heat (yep, projected to get in the high 90's today on the ground), and as soon as we crossed 6,000 feet it really cooled off. I leveled off at 7,500 and was headed just a bit north of Greenville Spartanburg and just west of Charlotte. (If you click on the flight planning printout you can see some of the detail.)

About 40 miles from the Greenville-Spartanburg Airport (GSP) I called them on the radio and got flight following to Chapel Hill. They gave me a code to squawk on our transponder, and eventually I showed up on their radar. It became pretty clear from our ground speed that we had a slight tailwind- huzzah! As you can see from the photo I took of myself in the cockpit (Audrey was doing crossword puzzles while I flew), we were flying into the morning sun. Down below it was hot, humid and very hazy. But up here it was nice and cool. Greenville-Spartanburg handed us off to Charlotte, who cleared me on through their airspace with no vectors. Yeah! We passed west of the airport, and we had a Delta jet fly below us (!!) lining up on the runway for a landing, as well as other traffic passing above us.

Sure beats driving six hours and arriving pooped! By 10:55 AM I called Greensboro and asked permission to descend. "Permission granted, radar services terminated, squawk VFR." (Hey, that was pretty easy.) So I started my descent checklist- mixture full rich, carb heat on, etc, then killed the altitude control on the autopilot and throttled back to 2,000 RPM. Nice, easy descent starting at 28 miles out. I changed to 123MHz for IGX, tuned their weather. Winds favoring runway 27, making for a landing back to the west with a moderate right crosswind.

My crosswind landing was mediocre at best. Audrey, of course, got the whole thing on her video camera- including both bounces! (I told her she could tell her friends she'd had three landings in Chapel Hill.) We back-taxied, exited the runway and parked to get in line for fuel. Took the bags up the terminal, and I filled Trixie back up with $103 in fuel- probably the same or less than if we had driven~! Total flying time: 2:22 from hanger to tiedown. Got these nice pictures of Audrey GRINNING getting out of the airplane (always a good sign!) and in front of the little admin building.

Wedding in Chapel Hill was great- plus we ran into our friends Lane and Becky Bridges from back home, who told us their drive took SEVEN hours and cost them $120 in fuel. So flying was definitely an improvement. Went out to dinner with Lane and Becky after the reception- then back to the hotel to crash.

(Added the next day: Sunday evening)

Church in Cary was nice. The service ran long, and the building was hot, but the worship was thoughtful, meaningful and interesting. We were able to leave at noon; we got lunch, refueled the rental car and drove to the airport, where we turned in the car and paid the $10 tiedown fee.

Had a long, hot and kind of bumpy flight home. It was 100 degrees in Chapel Hill when we took off, and right after we took off we called RDU on the radio, who gave us a transponder code to squawk. We climbed to 6500, above the clouds, and RDU handed us over to Greensboro, who eventually handed us over to Charlotte. Smooth sailing, right? Well, no. Charlotte ATC had us drop down to 4,500 feet, then vectored us south, turned us back southwest and flew us next to downtown, before turning us back west and directly over the Charlotte airport (way cool!). It was nice flying over the airport, but it added 10 more minutes of flying.

Unfortunately, on the return trip we had varying headwinds and the 3:10 hour flight was tiring. Charlotte handed us to Greer (SC), who let us climb back to 6500 feet where it was cooler. Greer handed us off eventually to Atlanta. As soon as we crossed into Georgia, ATC (air traffic control) warned us about a plane climbing into our airspace- we saw them and didn't even have to change course. Thank goodness for ATC! Soon enough it was time to descend, where we came down right over Yonah Mountain (which I have hiked up at least 15 times). Was great flying over it! I turned a bit south, lined up over Dahlonega and landed on runway 33. THIS time I did my landing right. "Nice landing" from Audrey. ("Whew" thought I.)

Last Friday night our sweet Cathy graduated from North Forsyth High School. Yep, Statham number four finished up with a bang!

As you can see from the photos, Cathy sang a solo at the beginning of the graduation (over 400 seniors!), but having Andy, Meg, Evan and CJ with us in the audience surely made the long ceremony well worth it.

There was quite a crowd- we were in the Cumming Fairgrounds, and with the metal roof, rain, dirt floor, catcalls, whistles, air horns... well, it was a noisy and lengthy affair.

We're proud of our Cathy. She did good.