19. Fukushima to Sendai - 16 June 2004

	Low visibility
	Lake Nawashiro to the west
	Snow-capped Mt. Bandai
	Sendai
	Lining up on final

Straightline distance from Fukushima to Sendai is 59 nm. I took a more leisurely (viz., sloppier) approach.

My initial plan was to follow the roads and valleys. I got as far as Koriyama like that, but visibility was so low that I became uneasy and began to reprove myself for unsafe and probably illegal practices.

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I tuned in Sendai's VOR and began homing. I also clomb to 7,500 and then 9,500 ft to get out of the clouds -- at which time, of course, my DME indicated that I was nearing Sendai and had to begin my descent.

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A bad day for seeing the terrain. I did, though, see Lake Nawashiro to the west and then Mt. Bandai (6,640 ft tall), snow-peaked still in the middle of May.

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Cloud ceiling at Sendai, a coastal town, was extremely low, and I didn't see the airport until I was almost on top of it. Soon enough, though, to enter the traffic pattern as directed, flying east over the ocean and then turning around for a tidy landing.