First Cross Country

The first cross country is out of the way as of today. We put 3.2 on the Hobbs starting at 1000 this morning. I got out to the airport, not a cloud in sight and the windsocks weren't even twitching. (hmmm I am in West Texas). We had drawn up our course a couple of weeks ago and figured on KLBB (Lubbock) to KAMA (Amarillo) to KCVN(Clovis NM)back to Lubbock. This is kinda a standard dual CC at the school. Called for the weather brief. (That's the first one I ever called for) The briefer was very cautious and told me there was a front that was stationary around Amarillo, but the forecast said if it moved, it would head north. Other than that, no worries and have a good flight. I was flying a Archer III today instead of my Cherokee, but no big deal (just costs 30 dollar an hour more to rent) After we took off and activated our flight plan, we got a vector from the tower to turn to heading 010. OK that is where we are going anyway. The flight to Amarillo only took 39 minutes due to a 17 knot tailwind. The only complaint I had about that leg, was some moderate chop about halfway there, but we made it in one piece. I was unaware that the Amarillo airport used to be a bomber base many moons ago and that runway is a monster. My landing into AMA was a little lackluster. I flared it too high, but got it recovered and touched down fairly nicely. We took back off and departed and called the tower to tell them we were on our way to Clovis, they handed us off to AMA departure, who turned us over to Albuquerque Center almost immediately. Very relaxing flight in. No turbulence to battle with, good smooth sailing. After doing a few touch and goes at Clovis, we decided to take a break and made a full stop. My instructor' instructor is the FBO at CVN so we stopped to say hi and so my instructor could introduce me. Turns out this guy is 84 years old and is still instrucing (CFI, CFII, and multi instrument) He truly was a n amazing man and just a wealth of knowledge to talk to. (Plus he was retired from a lifetime career as an Air Force pilot). Coming back to Lubbock was interesting, high density altitude and heat kept performance down considerably, and the turbulence was getting going pretty good. After we got back to Lubbock and deplaned, I was ready for a beer. That has been my longest in the plane so far.