I flew 3 flights today, all VFR X-C for total of 4.1 hours.

First one was to the South, open farmside area with various ranches and such. First waypoint was supposed to be a ranch but I never found it. Neither did I find the private airstrip that was supposed to be next to it. Maybe, I dunno, maybe because I had to use a 10-15 years old map with handdrewn points of interest? It’s supposed to look like a JAAA VFR chart but they seriously need to update this. Hell, there’s a runway missing on one of the airports! Flew few circles around the area before I gave up and vent on towards Tedford, small private strip that I like to use, but I know the owner of that land isn’t so happy with people coming into land just like that.
Second one was to the west, over to Orlando, always fun to fly over urban areas. Except finding forced landing areas in case of an emergency. Went first to an abandoned private field halfways towards Orlando, called RYBOLT. Pain to find, cause the once paved runways are all grass now, but the runways themselves are slightly discolored so I managed to find the field and touch down. From there I went to Orlando Executive, Class D airport in downtown Orlando. Fairly smooth, but just on the other side of the highway was Orlando International, Class B airport. Big whitebodies commercial airliners, you get the idea. Wanted to stay the hell away from their airspace.

Those flights were both solo. The 3rd was dual, night flight. Getting my hours up to be certified to do solo nightflight. Went down to Melbourne following the I-4 and back same way. Made an ILS approach to TIX runway 36 but we lost the glideslope just after the Outer Marker so we used the PAPI to guide us in. The same thing happened to Mick, my roommate, during a checkride, most likely the same aircraft.

I think I’ve never flown for as long in one single day so I’m not surprised being a bit tired. I’ve no flights tomorrow so I can sleep out, but my bro is dropping by for a day on Wednesday and I’m planning to take him for a flight. Take him down to Melbourne so I can log it as C-X and then to training area Alpha, see if we can spot an alligator on the riverbank or something.

PS: It was damn close to freezing this night. Temps were around 4° C at sunrise. 1st day in FL that I had to wear a jacket all day long (plus it was freezing up where I was flying).  I put on a hat due to weather. You that met me last xmas know what hat. One of the instructor claimed that he liked said hat on me. I like that hat.