Let’s talk about our Sunday night flight!

First, it was so nice to have Monday off and have the plane reserved all night and not have to worry about leaving for weather or rental or work reasons. The only time constraint was getting to the Waterloo FBO (fixed-based operator) before they closed at 8:00 so we could pay for fuel.

It was amazing to stay at my snister’s so late, throwing a ball around with the fam and enjoying the lovely weather. We left there around 7:00, figuring we’d land around 10:00 after the two-hour flight, then sleep in the next day.

Second, when I realized we would be landing well after the tower closed at our home airport, I excitedly asked Steven if I could do comms to announce our intentions to land and during the pattern. I figured just talking into the nether rather than communicating with ATC (air traffic control) would be a good place to start! I’ve been listening to Live ATC for fun and really been itching to try it out.

Steven said “let’s talk about that in the air.” Fair enough!

It was clear with low winds (05009KT 10SM FEW 090<— that’s just a note for me) when we took off at 7:58. The tower at the airport (KALO) we were leaving closes at 8:00, so right after we took off they announced they were closed for the night.

As we headed out of town I realized we were going to go just south of my older brother’s house (ha, this is not new — we always pass their house on the way in and out of town). I text him and his wife to ask if they were at home and they said yes and that they’d look for us.

At first they didn’t see us. We were already at our cruising altitude of 5,500.

So we did a loop around their house! (That reminds me of something Steven and I decided we need to get better at in the plane — pointing out where something is to each other. Always something to work on!)

And they saw us!

That was a lot of fun!

It was easy flying after that. Steven told me later it was probably the easiest flight we’ve ever done — good weather and there was not much GA (general aviation) traffic.

Once we crossed the Mississippi River and were into Wisconsin, Steven asked me what I would say on the radios when we got to our home airport. I was like “Oooo! He’s gonna let me do this!”

Ha, I could not remember how to start the communication though. I’ve been listening to ATC when tower is open, in which cause you’d say “Waukegan Tower,” then who you are, where you are, what you want, and the weather info you have.

So Steven told me when tower is closed you say the airport name, then traffic, then end the call with the airport name again. So my first call, ten miles out would be “Waukegan Traffic, Skyhawk 408ES, 10 miles to the west, runway 5, full stop, Waukegan” (you skip the weather part when tower is closed).

I practiced all the calls (below) several times:

• 10 miles out
• 5 miles out
• Entering the downwind
• Turning base
• On final

And I told Steven that if it got really busy for some reason I’d like him to take over. Note… it was around 9:45 pm! What are the chances anyone else would be landing then?

And then it was time! All of a sudden my heart started beating really fast (Steven sent me this funny reel about that later in the week). When we fly my heart does all sorts of funny stuff. My watch always tells me I am stressed out, and I am like “Dude, I’m fine…” Anyway, I called 10 miles out, then 5. Right after I called for 5 I got to click the comms button 5 times to turn on the runway lights.

Right after I did that someone else got on and said they were 7 or 10 miles to the south and landing at the same airport as us. What are the odds?

Steven quizzed me who got priority for landing and why. I said us since we called first, ha. He said us, since we have a lower altitude. Good to know!

I kept doing comms for the downwind, base, and final, and a special bonus comm to announce we were clear of runway 5.

I did make two mistakes — one on the 5 mile call (that I fixed, clarifying plans vs actual actions taking place) and one on the base turn (I forgot to say runway 5 again). But I think I did pretty good!

Steven said it was weird to have someone else touching the yoke to press the comms button to talk while he was flying in the pattern. Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I was trying to touch it lightly, but I don’t have much experience with it and it’s already so touchy! I just need to practice more winky face.

I really loved it though. It was exciting to do comms, even though it was just me and that other plane (after we landed two more planes showed up! People must have been taking advantage of the calm night and Monday off.). I hope Steven lets me try again soon!

Redundant, but I love learning all this. On the flight out to Iowa we went over typical landing procedure for the 172 — knots for certain parts of the pattern, when to do 10, 20, & 30 flaps, when to turn, etc. Gawd there is so much to think about! I’m so proud of and impressed by Steven!

We had plans to fly to Waterloo, Iowa last Saturday for our niece Ella’s birthday party. On Friday, Steven called and said “Skill called me” (Skill is the school we rent the planes from). It sounded like he had bad news!

I immediately thought they canceled our reservation. We had the Cessna 172 we usually fly (N378MA, aka MA, pronounced “Mike Alpha”) reserved, but when we’d been there the previous weekend, we saw the other Cessna 172 Steven is checked out on (N408ES, aka ES, pronounced “Echo Sierra”) was sitting in the hangar with the cowling removed. It looked like it was undergoing some serious maintenance so I figured it was still out of commission and they wanted to use MA for the students who needed training, not for the folks renting it to visit family. Bummer, but made sense to me.

I was wrong.

“They want us to fly ES,” Steven said.

“Um, ES, the plane we saw torn apart last weekend?!”

Steven went on to explain that ES needed two of the engine cylinders replaced, and that was all done and they’d taken it on some test runs, but what would really be great for it was a long cross country trip to break it in, which is exactly what we had planned — a two hour one way flight, twice!

“You sound like you are calling me with bad news,” I said. “What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is ES is slower and doesn’t have as high of a useful load, but we did the weight and balance, and it will be fine with less fuel.”

Okay, this is true. MA had an engine rebuilt in 2024 and has been our preferred plane since. But ES is just a few knots slower and we weren’t carrying passengers so whatever.

This whole new cylinders thing though… that did change our planning and flying a bit. We made sure to review engine out procedures the night before, we flew at a higher altitude so we could glide farther if we had an engine out, and I practiced finding the nearest airport on the GPS a few times while we were flying and made sure to locate the airports along the route and have them in sight. It’s good to practice these things!

We obviously made it there and back.

And that was a lot of words about why we flew ES. Ha.

We had beautiful weather by us Saturday morning. The wind was barely moving at 3 knots when we took off at 7:55!

We had scattered clouds at 9,000′ — well above our cruising altitude of 6,500′.

Steven kept an even closer eye on the oil pressure and engine temperature because of the new cylinders. And there were reminders EVERYWHERE to put mineral oil into the plane instead of regular oil (which we made sure we had when we left, but didn’t need to use).

The clouds lowered and become broken with an overcast layer as we got into Iowa, so it looked a bit gloomy out.

But I was all smiles because Steven let me fly! He said I am getting good at keeping the plane straight and level. It’s starting to feel more intuitive.

I felt like I had to touch the yoke a bit more than with MA and Steven told me he was noticing some differences in the controls and throttle too. I flew for about 15-20 minutes then Steven took controls back and we did our typical discussion to prepare for landing (runway approaches, how many minutes we need to descend to pattern altitude, etc.).

We landed at Waterloo Airport at 9:56.

My snis picked us up (with a chai and coffee! Thanks snis!) and we hung out at her place for a bit,

then went to the 4th Street Car Cruise around noon and hung out with my parents and older brother and his family. It’s fun to chill and watch the cars drive by over and over and over (they’re on a loop course). We all kept noticing ones we hadn’t seen before then we’d say “is that one new?” and someone else would have noticed it earlier, lol.

We left there around 3:00? Gosh, the days feel so freaking long when you have an early sunrise, get up early, and don’t spend your whole damn day working or doing chores or errands or other bullshit. It’s amazing. We had more adventures later in the day that I’ll share in another post!