For Valentine’s Day, I asked the bride of my youth to fly with me for an hour. She needs to gain some confidence in my abilities so it was an opportunity to gradually introduce her to flying in a Cessna 172 with a romantic overtone. We started off practicing some takeoffs and landings and I soon realized that with passengers who are new to small airplanes, the pilot may need to shallow out most of his turns. The winds were fairly gusty, they were quartering from the right, and my crosswind landings still need work, so we decided to do a little sightseeing instead. We flew over to Omro and back to Oshkosh and then landed and let C get out while we practiced a few more crosswind landings. My technique is getting better, but I still need to get better at correction. I am looking forward to practicing some more.
Afterward, we stopped for dinner at Fratello’s on the Fox River and had the privilege of seeing a bald eagle. We figured it was unusual to see a bald eagle in the city but probably the birds that normally hang out to the west of Oshskosh had come to the open water to find fish.