On Jan 27, 11:32*pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
After weeks of bitter cold, today was one of those rare January flying days
in the upper Midwest that literally convinced everyone to go flying. *I
haven't seen (and heard) this much GA traffic since last summer.

The sudden change from bitterly cold to warm weather has been the
norm this winter in the Northeast. We have done quite a bit of
flying training/practicing for our commerical ratings this winter (had
over 20hrs in the first two weeks of the year). The GA traffic was as
busy as during the summer. About 2 weeks ago, we had several days in
the 60's then the temp dipped to the low teens. It is warming up to
the 40's this week. Unfortunately with both the plane and pilots out
of commision (a broken wing flap cable bracket for the cardinal and a
terrible cold for both of us), it will a week or two before we can get
back on the air to finish our ratings.


We flew from Iowa City to Prairie du Chein, WI, and saw nary a cloud, and
felt nary a bump, despite all weather circumstances pointing to the
development of such conditions.

Umm, I think this is at least the third time that you mispelled
Prairie Du Chien. It's no big deal but it bugs me enough that I have
to point it out ;-). About the calm weather, in our few last flights,
it was just dead calm that we had fun pretending that our Cardinal had
an autopilot and flew without touching the yoke and the pedals while
maintaining our goal of 2-2-20 (2 degrees of heading, 2 knots of speed
and 20' of altitude deviations).

Just goes to show you that weather is still as much a mystery than a
science. *But after such an unusually harsh winter, we'll gladly take the

Weather prediction may not be an exact science but it is quite an
advanced sicence. NOAA report had predicted an above-average winter
temperatures

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories...9_outlook.html

Our electric bill for the last two months was only $100. The bill
showed the total degrees in comparison for the same two-month period
last year and it was indeed significantly warmer. Well, for those who
use air-conditioning in the summer (we don't), the winter electric
bill saving will be insignificant in comparison to the summer bill if
this warming trend continues.

Hai Longworth