Yesterday I went on a cross country flight around northern Wisconsin. I did not make any stops but was really enjoying the scenery from 3,500 msl which is roughly 2,500 agl in this area. I had been flying for about two hours nonstop as I was getting close to being back in the vicinity of my home airport KSTE. The main purpose of my flight was to do some comparison of three flight apps I have downloaded on my iPad. The apps are iFly GPS, Foreflight and FlyQ EFB. All three have great features. The smoothest moving map display bar none is the Foreflight display. It is smooth and does not jump. iFly moving map jumps the most and FlyQ EFB is very minimal to almost smooth. I have been flying iFly GPS for a couple of years and it is a great app. As a matter of fact all three but the FlyQ EFB by Seattle Avionics far surpasses all in features. If you have not looked at FlyQ EFB I suggest you do. Ok, so let?s get back to the subject matter which is ?What the heck was that?? The flight was as smooth as a baby?s butt and I was able to trim and do a lot of hands off while I played with the apps. Did I mention I had a Bald Eagle pass right in front of me! Man was that cool. When it did I banked quickly in the direction it was flying and tried to find it but no luck. No that was not the ?What the heck was that?? I was about ten miles out and was getting ready to call in my approach to landing when all of a sudden ?BAM? my head hits the canopy and I hear this loud bang. The plane jumped around like I just flew through wake turbulence from a fighter jet. I looked all around and never saw another plane. My first thought was what the heck was that? To have been flying such a pristine smooth flight to have this happen on approach was unnerving to say the least. I quickly checked the flight control responses and all was normal. The engine never skipped a beat and I continued in to make a normal landing. But I kept thinking what was that loud bang. As I shut down all systems on the plane I reached for the XGPS160 which is my GPS device for my iPad Mini. It was no where to be found. That is when it occurred to me that when I hit that bump in the air that it went airborne and slammed down on the floor and went under the seat. At least I finally knew what the loud bang was and no the GPS unit was not damaged. Apparently I hit some sort of severe up draft which threw me around. Lesson to be learned here is to tighten the seat belt and shoulder harness as much as possible. A full inspection of the plane today revealed no damage. Just thought you guys needed a good flight story.
Mark Jones (N886MJ) Stevens Point, WI E-mail: flykr2s at charter.net Web: www.flykr2s.com
