Yesterday, Saturday January 11th, 2014 was just the prettiest day in recent memory. I just had to go fly. Having not flown for a couple of months, I was a little nervous. Over the holidays I had had a bad fall and fractured two ribs, then to come down with bronchitis. Then add all that arctic air from that polar vortex. What was that all about? Then add in the Christmas holidays and me losing my job. Combine all that with some really wet crummy weather and you see why I had to just go fly! So I flew! I met Gene Lee and we decided to do a flight of two. (Never done that either!). I took off first with Gene Lee right behind me. As I powered up the plane was pulling to he left. So I was all over the runway on take off. Finally got it straight, took off and headed North. With Gene on my six, we circumnavigated the class bravo of DFW airport. We flew it counter clockwise. It took two hours. As we got close to McKinney National, we separated and Gene just took off! I throttled up to catch him we were doing almost 180 knots.
I pulled and squared up with the runway 8 miles out after having reached the tower. They informed me that I would be doing a left 360 “for spacing”. Great, (not.) Sure enough the tower came back and asked me to execute a left 360 at 6 miles out. As I lined back up, I slowed up. At 1 mile out a Cessna 152 pulled final from a left base for 36. He was not that far in front of my plane. I became very uncomfortable! I could see that even with minimal speed I wouldn’t be able to keep this close spacing. His final approach speed is half of mine! I called the tower, ” McKinney tower, 909 Echo Zulu, I’m very uncomfortable up here” I blubbered out! The tower responded, ” What? The plane that just passed by your left?” I said, No, the plane in front of me!” What happened next was just amazing! The tower called the plane in front of me, now on short final, and told him to “Go around, pass to the right of the runway and go around”. Much to my surprise, it did! I suddenly saw only the runway in front of me. The tower said, “909 Echo Zulu, you are cleared to land”. I came back with a big thank you, and focused on making a good landing. I did and thus completed a wonderful flight.