We are going to Minnesota for Thanksgiving. I’ll miss my lesson. I search around on the web and find a flying school at Crystal Airport just north of Minnesota. It is called “The Flying Scotchman”. It is surely fated that I fly here. I email them and a nice CFI called Steve Fischer agrees to take me up for a lesson on the Friday.
Got to hand it to these guys for their winter flying. Plough your way to the hanger door and pull the plane out. Take it over to the pre-flight hanger – heated. Pre-flight. Check survival gear in the back. Open door push out, start up and GO. A tip at preflight from Steve who also teaches gliding. Shake the wings. He rigs gliders a lot after towing them to a field on a trailer. You shake the wing to make sure it is firmly bolted on. Doesn’t do any harm on a Cessna to make sure it is still attached too!
We fly north over the lakes to sight see. If you are looking for an emergency landing spot – pick a field – there are a ton to choose from. Just don’t pick a frozen lake. We let down at a strip at Cambridge. It is about 50% snow and ice but this doesn’t seem to bother Steve. After our first landing another aircraft in the pattern calls down and asks about the braking effect. Steve replies it is “good”. I look at him. “Well for this time of year” he says to me!
Got to play with Carb Heat for real (at Providence we are fuel injected and don’t have it) and the ADF. There are fewer VOR’s around here and still quite a lot of ADF stations. We do a few landings at Cambridge and head back to Crystal. Steve gives me some tips about landings. A great lesson on a beautiful clear day.
