The picture is me at Perkiomen standing in between the yellow Cherokee I share with my two partners; and the white Arrow that Mary and I are racing.Despite humidity and thunderstorms, Mary and I have continued building time on the overhauled engine. Friday dawned with a low overcast and mist, but by the afternoon it had cleared up enough for us to go flying. I had had precisely zero sleep the night before, so Mary flew the whole time and I pretended to do nav/comm duties from the right seat in between naps. In fact I was so tired I actually can't remember where we went! but I think we just flew out West for a while. Today (Saturday) we were promised a better day for weather, but we started out with broken cloud at about 3000 ft with a 7000 ft overcast, and the lower layer pushed up cumulus and thunderstorms as the day warmed up. I felt much better having caught up on my sleep, and I flew left seat out of Pottstown with the intention of going to Akron Ohio to build some hours, first stopping at Lancaster to pick up some charts. But it was not to be. West of Harrisburg we climbed to 4500 ft to clear the mountains, and started to get into the cloud tops. We asked for 5000 ft and climbed again, but now the visibility started to go below minimums. So we asked for a diversion and filed IFR back to Lancaster. On the approach to Lancaster we were descended all the way down to 3000 ft, and still found ourselves in cloud. We also picked up the Pottstown weather and realized it had gone down to 2700 ft overcast. So we diverted again, this time IFR directly to the airplane's home base, Pottstown Municipal. But as we got close to the airport, we saw on the GPS a building cell with Level 2 returns less than half a mile from the airport, and it soon became visible out the window as well. So we diverted yet again! this time back to Perkiomen Valley, where Mary and I are usually based. We started the VOR 9 approach in cloud, but broke out about 2200 ft and landed visually. So in just about 2 hours of flying, we only managed to visit Lancaster and Perkiomen!! But we got yet more IFR and teamwork practice in. I should add that since Mary is a former air traffic controller, the kind of intensive radio work needed for a flight like this is much easier, since she is very quick, and knows exactly how to ask for what we want!
The schedule for the rest of the week is: tomorrow more flying; Monday fix the autopilot and change the oil; Tuesday wash and wax the plane and stick on the number "8" decals; Wednesday pack and check the weather; Thursday or Friday depart.
