The Aviation Forum

Sunday evening on July 3rd was the first cross country I did since earning my PPL. I took my wife, Nikki, on her very first x-country to Lock Haven to enjoy the scenery and have dinner. We departed Carlisle at approximately 16:30 and arrived at Lock Haven around 17:10, fighting a headwind along the way. The ride over the mountains had a few bumps, however we climbed up to 6,500 feet to try and avoid most of them and get some cool air coming into the cockpit. In hindsight I perhaps should have picked a different place to fly, as the winds can do some funky things around the hills when landing at Lock Haven and this day was no exception, however Nikki handled it very well. We tied down and took an Uber ride into town to eat dinner at the Main Street Grill. The food there was excellent and I would recommend it to anyone stopping by. After dinner we took an Uber back to the airport and got ready to depart back home. By this time the day had cooled down considerably and there was a pleasant breeze in the air. We departed LHV to head back to N94 and it was a much smoother flight during the evening hours as expected. We had a nice tailwind along the way home as well. Nikki managed to take a few pictures during our return leg which are posted below.

All in all, my wife really enjoyed her first experience taking a small trip via general aviation. We are looking forward to many more adventures together in the future!

As an aside, this was the first time I used Foreflight to file, open, and close a flight plan for both legs completely within the app. As long as you have cell service, it works amazing! Not that calling FSS on the radio is inherently difficult, however this made the entire process seamless and allowed me to concentrate on other things during the flight. I highly recommend it!