Day 6 - Midland to Dallas

Better scenery going from Midland to Dallas. I was a little worried about the clouds closing in before I could get there, but I only hit one section where I was on top of the cloud layer. I could still see the ground through the holes and as I got closer to Denton airport it was pretty much clear.

The DFW airspace was a little tricky. There are a lot of other small airports around, so I was on with ATC to ensure I didn't bust through some random airport's space.

One of the controllers started asking me questions about my plane over the radio. I thought he'd be too busy to chit-chat, so I kept my answers pretty short. But he just kept peppering me with questions so eventually I told him about the journey I was on and gave him the website address. If I remember right, someone else on the frequency caught it and I got a comment from them at one point, which was kinda neat.

I didn't get a lot of bonus pics on this leg. Not because the scenery wasn't great, I was just a little focused on the flight itself and the weather so I didn't grab the camera. My battle with the GoPros continued also. The process of rebooting them every morning seemed to help, but I was still having issues running the two interior cams off an external battery so I had to be selective with when to hit record.

I had a small mechanical issue after landing at Denton. The A5 doesn't need flaps when landing on a normal runway. They're used for water and short/soft field operations, so I didn't have them down for the landing. The wind on the ground was gusting, though, and sometimes those gusts can bang the spring-loaded flaps around. So, I lowered the flaps while I was taxiing back to the FBO, which keeps them locked in place. But, when I tried to retract them they didn't budge. After some troubleshooting it was clear that the flaps were functional but the flap motor wasn't working. I put a call in to ICON and they verified that I was still OK to fly, just no water or short/soft field operations and they would look at it when I got to the ICON facility in Tampa in a few days. 

It wasn't ideal, but at least I wasn't grounded completely. My plans were to go to Austin the next day then New Orleans and then Tampa, so I'd have to stay off the water for a couple days - not the end of the world. Plus, the weather forecast was making it look like I'd have to skip Austin altogether due to strong winds coming out of the south. But, I decided to wait until the morning and see what the weather looked like before making a final decision.

I met up with Dirk, Kristen and Jake, who'd moved to Dallas about a year earlier. It was great being able to see their new place, splash around in the pool and have some awesome food. I hadn't been on the road long enough to feel like I was missing sleeping in a "real" bed, but it was still nice to be in a home and not a hotel. Even got some laundry done!