Not sure what happened, but the PHP backend for the site decided it didn’t like what ever version of the server software was added. Anyhow, 20 something days later, I am back. Not that I even have anything to say really. It must be the heat out here in PHX. Actaully it was sort of cool today at 108. That and it rained.

I had one of those “I learned something from that” moments today. I was coming in on the ILS with one of my students. The guy is an F16 pilot and knows his stuff. Anyhow, we are coming up on the FAF. There is a rain storm on both sides of Gateway (a strange thing around here… I know) but at that point the airport was clear. The wind HAD been at 340 (40 off the runway) at about 18. Tower told us it had shifted to 150 at 25 about the same time we got a 2000+ downdraft and a severe performance loss due to windshear. My student got the power in and start pitching up for a climb. We sort of leveled off after losing about 900 feet (at about 1500 AGL). He got the plane cleaned up as I called tower and told them we were breaking off and heading out to the south east were the area was clear. The funny thing was that the Antanov was on final behind us and they broke of the approach just after we did. Lesson learned? Be prepared to go around even before the MAP. Also, don’t shoot an approach into the middle of two Arizona rain storms.

A slightly old (3 weeks) picture of the cool winglets on a SWA 737 on my way home (PHX to BNA leg I think).