Flying in a Milk Bottle

I flew this morning for the first time in four weeks for an hour-long cross-country to visit friends. The cable to the worm gear gizmo that moves the elevator trim tab in my airplane had broken. It felt good to get back into the air again.

It is summertime, which in this area means that the days can be hazy, hot and humid. In-flight visibility was maybe five miles, slant range. And since I was flying eastbound into a rising sun, I could see the ground on either side from 5,000' AGL, but nothing forward, a flight that likely fits neatly into the category of "legal, yes; smart, not so much". It is a flight path I've flown a dozen times or more, so I know the landmarks.

One of the risks of flying in conditions like this is vertigo, which is very easy to get when the visibility is sucky. I looked down to check the sectional and though the "seat of my pants" told me I was straight and level, I was in a descending turn. The remedy is to fly by the instruments until the sensation that the airplane is turning while in level flight goes away.

The other things is that, without GPS, I would have been flying a lot lower and following the highways and a river until I got to where the positions of some VOR stations were convenient to my trip. With GPS, I was able to comfortably follow my usual route and keep track on the sectional as a backup.

Back home tomorrow.