One Year

A year since my first flight alone.

A great adventure.

1/10/10

Sunday we decided to take a flight north for a change.

Chehalis-Centralia (CLS) airport, 75nm north of Twin Oaks, was our destination for lunch at the golf course located across the street from the airport.

We departed Twin Oaks and turned north to transition Hillsboro's class D airspace, at which point Audrey was already asleep, and once beyond climbing to 4,500ft and a 30kt tail wind.

Pretty nice to have a ground speed of 140kts (160mph)...

The air was pretty smooth for the majority of the trip despite the winds aloft, with multiple layers of scattered ceiling above 5,500ft, and an overcast layer at about 12,000. Some haze and patchy fog below.

Along the route we had some nice views of Mt Adams and Mt St Helens, following the Columbia river for a short time before it makes it's turn west, and then the I-5 freeway.

We could easily see the airport from 20nm south, and began a gradual descent to enter right downwind for runway 16. Surprisingly, Chehalis-Centralia is a 150 X 5,000ft runway, over three times as wide and twice as long as long as Twin Oaks. I always a feeling of being a little lost in a 172 on such a big expanse of blacktop.

We shut down, woke Audrey up, and headed for the FBO to exit the airport to walk over for lunch.

The FBO was closed, but the keypad lock could be opened by entering a code that any pilot landing there would know. Great, we're in, and it's a very nice place with some comfortable couches, computer, restrooms, etc. We're ready for lunch though, so out the door to the parking lot we go.

I had assumed that the same code would get us back in from the parking lot side, but it doesn't. We were stuck with us on one side of a tall fence, and our transportation home on the other. Well, if nothing else, we'd have Matti climb the fence (probably a crime), enter the code from the airport side, and open the door for us on the other side.

We walked over to the club house at the golf course for lunch, which we found is also a popular spot for the local motorcycle club. A little noisier than the golfers you'd expect, but a friendly group.

On our walk back to the airport we found the back way in. Matti's fence scaling skills would be used another day.

Our cruising altitude for the trip home gave us 35kt headwind, bringing out groundspeed down to about 75kts, dropping lower lessoned the headwind but made for a bumpy ride. We really weren't in any hurry anyway.