Spring Turbulence
We are westbound over Santa Rosa, NM, on the way to Albuquerque. Flying at 6,000 ft MSL, which is just 1,000 ft AGL, we encounter just light turbulence instead of the moderate turbulence above us. But it is time to start the climb to 12,500 ft MSL to clear the Sandia Mountains to the west. As we try for this, we run immediately into moderate turbulence and thus go lower again. Now what? The day has started nice enough. With perfect spring weather of early May, we lift off from Aero Country at 7:00 am in our Zenith 601HDS, N314LB. There is some headwind shortly after takeoff, but it diminishes as we climb to 4,500 ft MSL. After 3.3 hrs, we reach Plainview in West Texas. This is always a fun stop. The folks are friendly - they once helped replacing a failing battery with a WalMart motorcycle battery - and the fuel is cheap. Who would have thought that less than $5/gal one day would be considered cheap!? Another reason to love Plainview are the two runways, in case the win...