Everything is bigger in Texas...including the airports! And everyone should have the experience of flyin' into such a place! It is so different than the local patterns around Chanute! Or Lincoln!

I woke up at 7:15...then realized how ridiculously tired I was (the helicopter left two times last night...not fun). I set the alarm for 7:30. Just 15 more minutes!

We finally pushed off around 8:30. Jarryd was flying the leg down there, and I was gettin' the leg back. The weather today was perfect for flying! We had relatively clear skies for the first half of the journey and calm air. So smooth! We landed at McAlester Airport in Oklahoma to fill up on fuel before we headed into Dallas.

The flight itself was rather long. We were averaging about 90 knots groundspeed with the winds from the southwest. That's not movin' too fast! But south of McAlester, we encountered quite a bit of clouds...for about 80 miles...so that provided some enjoyable scenery. We just flew over the tops of them...still on our VFR flight plan. About an hour later, they started to clear. Good thing, too, as we needed to punch down below them!

Jarryd tracked his way to the airspace around Dallas, and after a minor setback (we were 2000 feet too high due to a miscommunication with ATC), we were allowed to enter direct to Dallas-Love Field. We were now pointed directly into the wind, and we were around 65 knots groundspeed. Not good!

The Dallas-Fort Worth area is sprawling with suburbia, and we flew over huge subdivisions for probably the last half-hour before the airport. As we were approaching the airport, ATC advised a Falcon jet to go ahead and pass us on the right side, then land before us. We were simply moving too slow for him to wait on us! ha! So we came in behind the Falcon jet on Runway 13L.

The skyline was directly in front of us about five miles. There was quite a bit of haze today, but it's still a fun sight to see on the way in! We then taxied to our FBO...the Business Jet Center!

Ok, picture this...you have a bunch of "cool" kids ridin' motorcycles...all chromed out and shiny. And then you have a couple of guys roll up on rusty ol' minibikes. That was us! It was great! We roll up in our 1966 Piper Cherokee, and we are literally surrounded by $10 million corporate jets! It's pretty sweet! We were the only single-engine airplane at the FBO...and by far the smallest! But we were treated with the same style!

We were thrilled to get out of our nearly four-hour flight, and we headed inside. The FBO itself is really fancy...lots of modern and beautiful furniture...as well as free cookies, tea, coffee, and the like! I'm not a coffee drinker, but I downed my third cup of the day.

From there, Jarryd's girlfriend (she was waiting for us at the airport) took us to downtown and dropped Evan and me off. And we just walked around! Seein' as how we were in Texas, we found ourselves a nice steakhouse (YO Steakhouse!) and bought ourselves some steaks! And they were oh so good! Now that is what I call the official welcome to Texas!

We walked around the rest of downtown, and we didn't have too many worries...we were just thrilled to be outside in the 67-degree weather! It was beautiful! I even saw green grass for the first time in months! After a western-wear store, we ended up headin' for a mall (the largest I've ever been in) and just walked some more. We didn't really care...we were in Dallas!

We met Jarryd and his girlfriend back at the airport about 7:05, and we pushed off around 7:40 P.M. And we were eager to head out, too. There were forecasts for thunderstorms tonight in Dallas, and we had been watching the clouds all day. We arrived with stratus clouds, but they quickly changed to cumulus in the afternoon...and some were pretty dark. By time we were pushin' off, we had a slight rain. To the west an hour or so was a cell already producing hail. We didn't want any of that!

So I taxi us out to the runway (after a confusing array of signals from the jet center guy...I completely mis-understood him, but it worked out). And there we are...face-to-face with two American Eagles regional jets on the other side of the runway, waiting to depart just like us! (As a side note, an American Eagles jet had to wait for us to land when we came in!).

ATC lets the two jets go first, then has me enter Runway 13L and wait for take-off clearance. We still have a slight rain. I am given clearance and advised to avoid the jets' wake turbulence, and I push full throttle down the runway. It is dark by now, and Dallas-Love's runway is more than well-lit with tons of lights! It's pretty sweet! We climb out, then I make a turn to 070 degrees.

The rest of the flight is pretty worry-free. The air is calm, and outside of the alternator kicking off about 15 times, the plane flies great with only minimal use of my hands! She wants to fly level tonight! On the way back, we averaged around 102 knots. We were passed off on the radios from Dallas to Ft. Worth to Tulsa to Kansas City.

And three hours later, we are comin' into Chanute...we didn't stop on the way back as we had enough gas. Although I almost ruined that one! I switched from the right tank to the left tank, and in doing so, I actually went one notch too far (I simply slid it from one side to the other until it stopped). Well, it turns out that on Cherokees, there are three sections. OFF, LEFT, RIGHT. And LEFT is in the middle. So I went from RIGHT to OFF. After a check of the fuel pressure and a second-check of the switch, Jarryd noticed it (and subsequently freaked out with a little yell!). We had caught it in time, but a few more seconds would have left us with a dead engine at 5500 feet! Lesson learned! That's why you carry a flashlight with you at all times at night! The fuel switch is down by the feet and completely unlit. The secondary check saved us on that one!

A couple of fun memories from the day...we flew directly over Tulsa and listened to a sweet old lady on ATC...she was describin' "runway kill" to another inbound airplane, and so I inquired as to what it was. Raccoon. Too bad. What a way to go.

A large flash outside of Tulsa had an array of pilots commenting for a couple of minutes. "What was that"? "I saw it, too!" "ATC, is there supposed to be some sort of fireworks show or anything"? No one figured out what it was.

And some lessons learned?

1. Checklists! Always use your checklist, and even double check what you do! With so much goin' on, even a good memory can miss something. I didn't miss the fuel switch (I did it!), but a check after my switch revealed the problem before it really became a problem!

2. Have everything ready to go beforehand! Jarryd had forgot an airport diagram this morning, so we changed our fuel airport to another one so that we could print one out. Seein' as how we didn't know the lay-out of the taxi-ways at Dallas-Love, we wanted a paper in front of us showin' us exactly where they were. No need for runway incursions!

3. Repeat, repeat, repeat! When given an instruction, repeat it! A couple of times today, ATC would come back and say we had missed the frequency (122.2 vs. 132.2) or the heading (010 degrees right vs. 010 degrees left). By repeating the command, a problem is avoided before it happens.

4. Use your co-pilot! Even in controlled airspace, watchin' out for other aircraft is of prime importance! We had two active runways today (13 Right and 13 Left)...parallel with each other! And traffic was comin' in on both of 'em! Jarryd used me for taxiway info, radio switching, commands, and I did the same with him! On radios, you go from approach to tower to ground...and each gives specific commands. It's so important to use two sets of eyes and ears and hands rather than just one! There is quite a bit goin' on at an airport like this one!

5. And have fun! I used to take local flights around my airport I trained at...and those were enjoyable. And I've been to Class C airports before, but I never had the confidence to enter something like Dallas-Love. Realize that it's possible! I am absolutely in love with big airports now! I love the small ones, too, but I gained some valuable confidence today by steppin' out of what I used to do! This is what flyin' is all about! Not testing the limits, but using what you know to go further. Now that's fun!

To sum it up, I just loved the experience.

On arrival back at Chanute, the winds were 040 at 4 knots, and I had a beautiful landing...with the stall light coming on right before touch-down. I probably won't see winds like this for another month!

All in all, it was a great (but long!) day. We spent 7.2 hours in the airplane and covered 600 nautical miles and three states!

And I had my first experience with a VERY busy airport. I assume it wears off after awhile, but it's pretty sweet to watch jets wait for you to land...and then to follow them out on departure.

All of a sudden, you feel like your minibike is just as special as their motorcycles...

Went to bed at 2:30 A.M.