Well, I did my first cross country! Flew from Phoenix area to Flagstaff and return on Friday. My instructor and I made the flight in a rented C172 rather than my Cherokee 140. I really learned a lot. First time flying a Cessna. Flew direct at 9500 feet up there, and varying altitudes to stay VFR above and away from the mountain tops and under a lowering cloud deck on the flight back. There are a couple of alternative fields we planned for but didn't need to use, although had we not left when we did we might have.
I greased the landing at Flagstaff, woot! Take off from Flagstaff (7000ft) was a lot of work. We used over 1500 feet of runway, climbout was around 200FPM in our turn at 75kts. Made me wonder how my Cherokee would do with 10 less HP.
We had a guy takeoff right behind us with a 182....he made his climbout and turn inside ours, beat us to 1000ft. AGL, and got ahead of us too lol. I guess the extra 20HP makes a big difference. Looks like I'll be looking to upgrade to at least a Cherokee 180 in the future......
I greased the landing at Flagstaff, woot! Take off from Flagstaff (7000ft) was a lot of work. We used over 1500 feet of runway, climbout was around 200FPM in our turn at 75kts. Made me wonder how my Cherokee would do with 10 less HP.
We had a guy takeoff right behind us with a 182....he made his climbout and turn inside ours, beat us to 1000ft. AGL, and got ahead of us too lol. I guess the extra 20HP makes a big difference. Looks like I'll be looking to upgrade to at least a Cherokee 180 in the future......
