Good to be back.

'tis good to be back. I took a hiatus but thought it was time to restart my blurb.

There is nothing like a close brush with death to make you want to spill your guts and put it out for the world is there. I jest? Not really. Last weekend was Memorial Day. A quiet day I thought, and so myself and my buddy and fellow flight enthusiast, went up for a 3 hour flight. One of the stop off points was a little grass strip near the town of Hollister. We came into the landing strip, I got us to pattern altitude and was turning into the pattern. Scanning the sky I saw 7, yes 7, identical small planes coming straight for us. Holy crap, I increased the bank angle to avoid them. Now I think about it, it was perhaps a little too steep an angle, since we were only at 1200 feet. However, we avoided the planes but probably would have anyway, even if I hadn't gone into emergency banking. My old instructor chuckled and said it's a big sky with small planes......3 dimensions to help avoid the incoming hazard. Well, perhaps, but it instantly raised my blood pressure and heart rate for a while. I was too high on the subsequent landing and redid it just to be safe. As the phrase goes: "There by the grace of God go I." That might be fitting if I was particularly religious. After that, the rest of the 3 hour flight was uneventful and fun. Just how I like it.