Couple from a hazy day at 47N
Did a little flying yesterday; was going to take a little trip, but decided to have a look-see first, as reported conditions were 5-6 miles in haze, with conditions expected to worsen... made one circuit and saw this:

Blecchhh. That might not be fun for a cross-country, especially if it got worse.
Still wasn't sure if I'd go or not, until I made a pretty hard landing, and decided that alone merited some hot-weather takeoff and landing practice (temp was about 32 C). So around and around I went- did seven more landings, each one a little better than the last.
Here's a Bird Dog coming in to drop a banner on the grass... very nice of him to use his radio.
The bright spots are just reflections from the many dings and scratches in "Casper"'s windshield; I'd just given it a good polishing after removing several bug carcasses.
I got a good look at the pickup earlier while I was on downwind, but couldn't really get a picture.

An unfamiliar experimental... anybody know what this is?

It was not a bad couple of hours' work; always good just to go flying. The only really unpleasant thing was having some Bonanza driver suddenly show up on his base leg (he'd asked what runway we were using just a moment before) while I was past midfield on my downwind. And maybe my altimeter was innacurate, but he seemed to be 159 feet above TPA as well... lucky I spotted him so I could extend my downwind a bit. Then he called "clear of the runway" just as he started braking on his ground roll; that's when I had to speak up: "Looks like you're still on it from here..."

Blecchhh. That might not be fun for a cross-country, especially if it got worse.
Still wasn't sure if I'd go or not, until I made a pretty hard landing, and decided that alone merited some hot-weather takeoff and landing practice (temp was about 32 C). So around and around I went- did seven more landings, each one a little better than the last.
Here's a Bird Dog coming in to drop a banner on the grass... very nice of him to use his radio.
The bright spots are just reflections from the many dings and scratches in "Casper"'s windshield; I'd just given it a good polishing after removing several bug carcasses.I got a good look at the pickup earlier while I was on downwind, but couldn't really get a picture.
An unfamiliar experimental... anybody know what this is?
It was not a bad couple of hours' work; always good just to go flying. The only really unpleasant thing was having some Bonanza driver suddenly show up on his base leg (he'd asked what runway we were using just a moment before) while I was past midfield on my downwind. And maybe my altimeter was innacurate, but he seemed to be 159 feet above TPA as well... lucky I spotted him so I could extend my downwind a bit. Then he called "clear of the runway" just as he started braking on his ground roll; that's when I had to speak up: "Looks like you're still on it from here..."

I was tempted to have a little chat with him after my session was done, but he wasn't around.