Gianna's first ride and the autopilot works!

A big strom blew through on Thursday evening, so I didn't get a chance to get up and go flying like I had hoped. This morning we got up and made it to the airport around 9am. The plane was still filthy from the dust at Oshkosh, so we washed it quick and then I headed over to K81 for gas and then off to MLI to pick up Gianna, our grand-daughter. Two hours from here to there gave me time to play with the auto-pilot. I tweaked the sensitivity settings and the torque settings a little and then it was doing its job darn near perfectly. Heading was dead on and altitude didn't vary by more then 10ft either way. Of course, this was in smooth air. All by myself, listening to Dave Matthew Band and letting the autopilot fly.

Once I arrived in MLI, took a break and then loaded Gianna in the plane. I didn't have time to rig up the car seat in the baggage area, so Sandi had to stay home so I could rig the car seat up front. This was her first airplane ride and we weren't sure how this would go. Fortunately, her parents had talked her up about the plane ride so she was ready to go. At first, she even was cool with the headset. Between the headset and the Wiggles DVD, she was pretty entertained for the first 45mins or so and then got restless and took off the headset. The airplane noise didn't bother her, so I didn't force it back on. About 30mins prior to landing, she fell asleep.

The trip home was much improved having the AP do the flying. Trying to keep track of her doin's and fly the plane at the same time would have been tough. The descent down into Ottawa got a big rough. The AP was doing an OK job. I might need to turn up the sensitivity some and maybe the torque.