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This blog was originally started to talk about flying. It has gone done many different roads; I've talked about cars, and computers, and soldering, and my cats. That's all fine, but I think it's time for a flying post.
I went flying a week ago, October 19. I mean really flying. Several weeks ago I joined a flying club. Three weeks ago I went flying with an instructor and got signed off to flying the club's Cessna 150 solo. A week ago Sunday, I took my first solo flight in the club's airplanes. My main purpose was to get out and do some semi-cross-country flying. That flight was a lot of firsts (or almost firsts). My first time flying any of the club's airplanes solo My first time flying that plane solo My first time landing or taking off solo at any of the airports I visited My first time taking off and landing solo on a turf strip My first time since November 3 2007 flying ANYTHING solo My first solo flight outside an airport traffic pattern since August 19, 2007 when I flew back from getting my license.
The weather was glorious. It was clear and cold and the visibility must have been at least 25 miles. Here's my route:
and from any point I could see the mountains that corresponded to the features of the entire route. For a while during my training, I had trouble spotting airports from the air until I was almost on top of them. It wasn't a problem on October 19. I could see airports from 15 miles away. One aspect of real flying that really can't be duplicated in a simulator (particularly on a home computer) is how far you can see on a clear day. (By the way, the above sectional photos were blatantly stolen from SkyVector--I love that site. They now have a flight planner!)
The navigation part was trivial. My approaches weren't very good; I really need to go out and do touch-and-go's somewhere and get my pattern dialed back in, and practice soft-field approaches. But I didn't screw the landings up too badly and in each case I knew what I'd done wrong.
I was going to go flying today but I was tired and I really didn't feel like it. But hopefully more flying stories here in the near future. There also might be posts about washing airplanes, if I get to that.