Coming home.

I’m honestly not sure how long I spent doing gentle, lazy turns around the southwest corner of Claremont. I really did lose track of time.  Eventually I decided it was time to bring her home.

I made my call that I was leaving the area and headed south. The shoreline and highway ridiculously simple to spot after the haze of previous lessons. The landmarks coming so easily to me now.  I struggled a little to lose the altitude I needed but managed to force her down. As I got lower the plane started to shake again. Not quite turbulence but not smooth either. “Seriously?” I asked out loud “you’re going to do this to me now?”

I got the ATIS nice and early and made my call to City a little sooner than usual. They sounded busy and I didn’t want to be in the situation where I couldn’t get a call in and would have to delay entering the zone.

Reassured by my conversation with Bob beforehand that the NOTAM restriction would virtually guarantee me the right downwind I needed, I confidently announced my intention “inbound for 08.”

“Cleared for the left downwind, make it wide due to restricted airspace.”

Man, seriously?

Luckily I’ve rehearsed this conversation.

“City tower, JES request right downwind please”

If I don’t get it this time, next comes the “unable” line.

“Approved right downwind, south of the Stacks, not below 2000”

That I can live with.  I repeat it back and plan my approach. This is OK, Bob and I talked about maintaining 2000ft til the stacks anyways. All is going well. There’s traffic around, I don’t have a visual but I don’t feel that I’m in anyone’s way. However, I’m past the Stacks now and I’m still at 2000ft. I politely enquire with ATC as to whether I might possibly be allowed to descend.

No such luck. They keep me at 2000ft until I’m pretty much about to turn base. Still totally unfazed by this I turn base, trim my speed and dump everything I’ve got in terms of flaps, power back and see where it takes me. Not unduly concerned. I’ve had altitude restrictions before and, at the end of the day, I go round if I don’t manage to bring it down. No hassle.

I fly a scrappy approach, nowhere near lined up with the centreline, but I claw it back. Just turning a little too steeply on final to call it a polished performance. A little bit of crosswind, maybe not enough correction but we touch down early and gentle. A decent nose up landing, JES almost kissing the tarmac. I bring the control column back and brake positively and firmly.

Until I realise that I really have landed early, I quickly squirt a bit of power before ATC realise that I could exit onto 33 very easily and tell me to.  I hate that exit! Dutifully I parrot back “exit Foxtrot, no delay” and scuttle off to my usual haunt.

Off and onto ground frequency, the massive grin spontaneously appearing as I realise I’ve actually done this!

Taxi in, guided into a spot by Bob and shut her down. After the obligatory congratulations Bob remarks mildly “you were out there for a while, we wondered if you were coming back or if you’d decided to go off on a cross country somewhere.”

At that point I realise I’ve been gone for an entire hour! To think I was worried that I would bottle out and turn back before I got to Claremont.

I wanna do this again, and soon!