Flight Training and Chicken Pot Pie

Last week was an exciting training week for Dave.  First, they went to a dry lake bed and tested the limits of the Cessna 206.  They practiced hitting narrow touchdown spots and seeing how fast they could get stopped.  They also practiced air drops, seeing if they could control the airplane and place the package in the drop zone...it is harder than it looks.

Air drop at the dry lake bed

Then, Dave practiced taking off and landing at sloped airstrips.  Imagine landing an airplane going up a ski slope... or taking off going down one!  On Friday, I got to go with Dave and his instructor out to the mountains where he practiced landing on airstrips that were about as wide as the landing gear.  As they were talking about the location of the airstrip from the air, I kept looking out the window thinking "where is it?".  Not only were these landing strips very narrow, they were very short.  The second one we went to had what they call a "blind approach" meaning you can't see it until you are coming in to land.

Walking the airstrip

Touching down in the zone

Here is a video of Dave doing an aborted take-off, a short field take-off, and a landing from the inside (check out the landing strip from the air!).

Jill rolling out her home made pie crust

On Monday, while Dave was practicing his instrument flying in the simulator (the airport was shut down for maintenance), I donned an apron and went to a cooking class.  We practiced cooking from scratch when you have to make do without convenience foods.  Think about how often you just open a can of tomato paste or cream of something soup for a recipe, or pop open a can of biscuits when you are cooking.  We cooked with leeks, yucca, papaya, plantain, and jicama (lots of new stuff for me) and made our own sauces, crust, and dough.  In the end (4.5 hours later), we had an awesome chicken pot pie, oatmeal rolls, and fruit salad...Yum!