Dream Come True!

Well I have waited a long time and worked hard for this...I am now officially a certified Private Pilot! On Friday February 13th I passed the oral portion of my practical test, sadly the weather did not cooperate and we had to wait a day to do the flight portion. Even though it was far from my best flying I did good enough to pass and now join my grandpa, dad, aunt and uncle as pilots. I can't wait to share my love for aviation and flying with my family and friends. Goals I have long term are to give back and do flights such as Young Eagles, Pilots and Paws, and Angel Flights. If you are interested or have kids that are I encourage you to just go hang out at your local airport, find a fly-in or a Young Eagles and Eagle Flights (http://www.youngeagles.org). This afternoon (Sunday the 15th) I took my first passenger up when my wife joined me for a short flight. Sadly she get's motion sickness so we were not up all that long before heading back before it got too bad. I have always told her I will never do anything she is not comfortable with and will do everything in power to make everything as comfortable for her (and any passenger really) as possible. We did have a bit of a cross wind so the one big thing I did learn was to inform my passengers of anything that may seem different than the generally viewed procedure. The bright side of it I think it was one of my best cross wind take offs and landings. We are looking forward to flying around the area as well as flying back to Iowa when we are able. Since my aunt and uncle will be selling the plane I have been using I will probably get checked out in Open Airplane (OpenAirplane.com) and may even join an area flying club. I will continue to update this blog with our experiences flying and other stuff. Check back in a week for a post on a trip to a grass airfield that my instructor and I went to back in September. Also if you are a pilot and use android devices (like me) in the cockpit check out flywithandroid.com it is a new website that a guy in my home town recently started.

Almost done...

It has been nearly two months since I last updated this. In October the plane was out of commission for a few weeks while it had Garmin 430 installed. Once it got back I have been busy studying and finishing up the last few requirements that I had to fulfill. This mostly consisted of refining my skills, and finishing the last couple hours of night flight, cross country and simulated instrument time. I have also been busy studying to make sure I know all of the information that I need to for the practical. Today I did my last prep for my private pilot practical check ride that I will do this Friday afternoon. If all goes well in six days I will hold a Private Pilot Certificate! If you remember back in in September I passed my written test. The other two "tests" are an oral exam and a check ride with an FAA pilot examiner. The oral part consists of him asking me questions about rules, laws, limitations, what is required of me as a private pilot as well as showing him flight plan that he has told me to make. For the flight portion I will have to do steep turns (360 degree turns at 45 degrees of bank while not losing or gaining more than 100 feet of altitude), both power on and power off stalls, slow flight (nose high attitude while holding the plane on the edge of a stall to prove you can maneuver and recover from that condition of flight), turns around a point (360 degree turn around a fixed point keeping equidistant from the center while adjusting for the wind), rectangular pattern (flying a rectangle or square pattern around a field keeping the same distance from the square or rectangle...used to prove you can fly a traffic pattern at an airport and adjust for the wind so you don't get blown all over). I will also have to do normal, soft field (used for operating on grass airfields) and over a 50 foot obstacle (used for landing and taking off over a 50 foot obstacle at the end of the runway). Today I did great with everything except the landings for a couple reasons. A little rusty, an at least 10 knot straight cross wind and it was only 10 degrees fahrenheit (colder air is more dense and increase the performance of planes...in this case it was hard to get it to slow down and descend). Everything I did today would have passed for the conditions but the landings need to be better on the check ride so I am hoping to get up at least once between now and then just to get a couple more in. I don't have much else to say but I do have a couple of blog topics in mind that I will write in the coming weeks so check back for those as well as to find out how I did. I just realized that for some reason this is not showing the paragraphs I have so until I figure that out I apologize for the run-ons. Oh and GO CYCLONES BEAT IOWA!!!!

Up and Down...

A couple of weeks ago I completed one of the biggest (if not the biggest) part of flight training other than actually completing and passing...the solo long cross country. This entails obviously flying solo but also a full flight plan. I did mine from my home airport of Augusta (3AU) to Emporia (KEMP) down to Independence KS (KIDP) and back to 3AU. The total course was just shy of 200 miles and allowed me to use dead reckoning (using your flight planning, previously known positions, and ground clues to figure out where you are) as well as the Emporia VOR (EMP) going to and from Emporia. A VOR a VHF omni directional range which allows you to tune a navigation radio to that VOR's frequency and find your radial to or from that VOR. I also had the Wichita VOR as reference going back to 3AU from KIDP but used mostly dead reckoning and GPS on this leg since the VOR it is not really a good line from KIDP to 3AU and the VOR (however I could have flown to a point where I would have intercepted a radial from the VOR that would take me to 3AU). Overall the flight went quite well, in fact the flight planning was the hardest part. The second hardest part was waiting for the weather to improve. The plan was to meet with my instructor at 8AM on a Sunday morning and hopefully be "wheels up" by 9:30. We were doing great until good until we got to the whole flying part. Due to some rain the day before and cooler temperatures there was some fog and low ceilings at KIDP that I had to wait for. Just before 10AM it finally started to improve so he let me go and to check it on my way and wait and KEMP if it was not good enough. Sadly I had to do this as well and waited another 20-30 minutes there. When the weather was finally good enough I launched out of KEMP for the last two legs which went very smoothly except for a Southwest Airlines crew that got confused and took one of my hand off's from Kansas City Center, after that got straightened out it was smooth sailing. It felt great to finally be done with a big part of learning to fly. The down part of this post is with mixed feelings. I am very excited and can't wait to finish my license and use it, however my aunt and uncle who own the plan decided to put a Garmin 430 (GPS and communication system) in it. As a member of my generation any "new" technology is cool and I can't wait to use that as well. Hopefully later this week it will get back and I will get back in the air. By my count I have one hour of night flight, two hours of simulated IFR and three hours of prep for the practical and oral test. I have continued to study for that part, check back in a couple of weeks for hopefully a very exciting post!

Checklists

When it comes to knowing and making sure everything is how it should be checklists are very important. Especially in aviation, while extremely safe if something is out of place or not how it should be you could be in for a very bad day. This is why having a following checklists and procedures is very important to hopefully catch any abnormalities and to make sure everything is done the right way. Getting your pilots license can also seem like another checklist, in a way it is. There are many requirements that go into getting your license and proving that you are a capable pilot. Recently I have checked off several of those items. This past Friday I passed the private pilot written exam. Although this is just one of many requirements it was a huge relief to have completed. The test is a 60 question multiple choice test that you have 2.5 hours to complete. You need to have at least 70% to pass (I had above 80) oh and it costs $150 (one big reason I was happy to have passed on my first try). I took the test at Stearmen Field (Identifier 1k1) which is a small airpark just to the north west of Wichita and only about 10 minutes from our house. Stearmen has a some really interesting planes (and houses) and a great restaurant on the field. One of the great things about Wichita is that you never know what you are going to get see. As I was leaving Stearmen a B-24 made a low pass down the runway. Later in the day on Friday I solo'd up to Hutchinson, Kansas (KHUT) which is a class D airspace about 45 north west of my home airport on the east side of Wichita. The main purpose of that flight was to take care off the requirement of having three solo landings at a towered airport. Just to be sure I did five. Several of which were some of the best landings I have ever done. The main thing that I have been needing to work on is letting the plane come down more before flaring and having more airspeed. On my way back to Augusta I was reminded of just how busy the airspace around Wichita can be. The ceiling of the Wichita class C airspace is 5,300 feet and I was cruising at 5,500 . Technically I would have been fine to fly right along above it but that would have made for an interesting decent into Augusta just outside of the airspace and well that is just a little too close to a congested airspace with no radio communication with them for my comfort. Every time I went to key the mic and call Wichita Approach someone else started talking. So to avoid the airspace I decided to divert around the north side of Wichita. I was finally able to get in contact with the controller which allowed me to proceed through the airspace. Since they were departing out of Wichita Mid-Continent to the north he also had me decent to 3,500 to stay out of the way of the jets departing and going over me. That controller eventually handed me off to an equally busy controller who after finally responded and just cleared me direct to Augusta and terminated my radar service. Sunday morning I got up early and enjoyed flying with my instructor on a perfect morning and did some "hood time" simulating using only the instruments for navigation and operation and not looking outside. After flying around for awhile east and north east of Wichita we headed direct to the Wichita VOR on the west side of town. From there we "shot" an ILS approach into Mid-Continent. Although it was difficult at first I thought that I was staring to get the hang of everything the more I did. I still have two more hours of the three required to complete but hopefully at least another hour if not all of it will get done this coming weekend. This coming week and weekend will be full of more items getting checked off. If the weather cooperates I plan to do some night flight with my instructor Friday night (3 hours required) and then Saturday I hope to do my solo cross country. Still need to figure all of that out. Depending on my instructors availability I hope to get pretty much done if not done next weekend. We will see. Sometime this week I will update about a trip to a small grass trip my instructor and I went to for a burger last weekend...my main point of that. Get out and fly there are countless cool places you can visit while flying that are just a lot cooler when you fly there then drive.

Step By Step

The last two weeks have kept me busy flying and studying. While flying I have been focusing on soft field operations, steep turns and ground reference maneuvers. Studying for my written exam has been going fairly well and I hope to take that in two weeks. Planning cross country flights to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) and Newton, Kansas (EWK) has greatly helped in bring everything together. The toughest part of the practice tests is the chart questions, the computer screen makes it hard to draw lines and what not. Thankfully on the actual test I will get paper copies. This past Saturday my instructor and I flew to PNC and EWK. Before the flight we went over the flight plans that I had made. The flight plan consists of several things. There are obvious aspects such as your flight route but even that is not as simple as just pointing the plane in the general direction of your destination and going. You have to account for wind direction and speed, magnetic variation and magnetic deviation. Once you figure all of that you will be able to figure out you just need your distance and speed to figure out the time and fuel you will need. Fuel needed and fuel burned is also highly necessary aspect. For flights under visual flight rule (VFR) conditions you have to have a half hour of fuel on board when you land during the day and 45 minutes at night. Studying what potential obstacles you will have, airspaces you will go through and if and or when you have to talk to ATC are also highly advised. Doing this also gives you a good chance to look at your route and know what landmarks you can use on the ground to make sure you are on the right track and to find potential alternate airports. The flights went great and I handled all aspects of flying. I don't like to boast too much since I know I have a lot of learning to do (there is a great saying that a pilots license is just a license to learn) but I those flights gave me a lot of confidence that I can do this whole piloting thing. Most of the landings went good and I thought that my communications with ATC were very good. The real test will come later this week when I do those flights on my own. Next Saturday we are tentatively planning on flying to a couple of airports with control towers which is a requirement of getting the license. Look for an update after those, as always questions and comments are encouraged. Oh one last thing... GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT IOWA!!!

Living, Working, Flying

It has been a few weeks since I updated this and to tell you the truth I have not had much to update about. I have flown a few time with my instructor to a few airports (Newton (EWK), Jabarra (AAO), ElDorado (EQA), and Stearman (1K1) field). During this fight we have used ATC to get radar service (essentially just them telling us if there is any traffic to be aware of). I am slowly getting better at talking to ATC so that is a plus. I am also now checked off to go on solo flight between our home base of Augusta (3AU) and ElDorado. Last Monday we also worked on short and soft field takeoffs and landings. Soft field takeoffs are designed to get you off of the ground as quickly and smoothly as possible, from there you hold it in ground effect until you are at your normal climbing speed. Soft field landings are done with some power to help smooth landing and allow you to "feel" the runway for a good spot to put it down. Short field takeoff's are similar to soft field except you climb quickly to get over a certain size (say 50 foot high) obstacle near the end of the runway or if you just have a short runway, however these two usually go together. To do this you lift off as soon as possible and climb at your best angle until you clear the object before resume best rate of climb. Short field landings use full flaps just like soft field landings but you again are trying to get down as quickly as possible and you may have to clear an object. Once you clear the object you nose down and cut power. Since these procedures is done so low and slow proper execution is key since you will have little time and altitude to recover. I think doing this has also helped me improve my landings and landing where I am aiming instead of just floating until I get down. I was hoping to do a fair amount of flying this past weekend but well airplanes are mechanical and they break. On Friday I went out to fly and my aunt had just gotten down and the carburetor heat handle thing came completely out of the panel and then the vacuum pump went out. Thankfully it didn't take long to fix and I was able to fly for an hour this morning. This morning was truly the reason why you fly especially in the morning. It was 80 on the ground but a couple thousand feet up was right about 70 and smooth as can be. I worked on steep turns which I have not done in awhile and was a little rusty...certainly something to keep working on. Hopefully the wind will cooperate a few nights this week and I will be able to get up a few nights. College football also starts later this week and will be going strong next weekend...I cannot contain my exCYtment (see what I did there). Leave some comments and I will be sure to respond. GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT THE PANTHERS!!!

Cross Country

This past Tuesday night I was able to do my first cross country flight. The FAA defines a cross country flight as any flight that the arrival is somewhere other than the departure airport. I made a flight plan to leave our home field of Augusta, Kansas (3AU) down to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) where we did a touch and go and back to Augusta. In my opinion this was a good first cross country because it is 1. almost straight south of Augusta 2. only 57 miles and 3. there are numerous towns, airports and other landmarks along the way to help you keep track of where you are and adjust your flight path accordingly. After going through my flight plan (this entails figuring out what your heading will be mainly adjusting for wind correction and magnetic variation and checking the weather we talked through who we would talk to on ATC (although this is not required I believe it should be taken advantage of and is valuable experience). We were able to take off on runway 18 (heading 180 degrees or straight south) and were on our heading to Ponca City immediately. Our cruising altitude for the trip down was 5,500 feet above sea level (ASL). For visual flight rule (VFR) flights if your heading is between 0 and 179 (straight north to one degree west of straight south) you have to fly an odd number altitude plus 500 feet (3,500 5,500 7,500 etc.). Between 180 and 359 you have to fly an even number altitude plus 500 feet (2,500 4,500 6,500 etc.). Remember these are all altitudes above sea level. We contacted Wichita approach for flight following and after they got done dealing people that were bigger, faster, and actually in their airspace we were able to get a squawk code (a four digit number you put into your transponder so they can identify you on their radar scope). The hand off to Kansas City Center went smooth (mostly because my instructor handled the radio communications for the way down) and I felt I did a good job of identifying the towns and landmarks along the way. It was a blessing in disguise that there was haze that limited our visibility to 8-10 miles because it forced me to pick out more places to cross check our path, on a clear day I am told you can almost see Ponca City from a few thousand feet right after take off. The arrival at Ponca City went very well as I crossed over midfield and entered a right downwind for runway 17. The runway at PNC is almost twice as long and much wider than 3AU. These differences if you are not careful can be dangerous as they change your perception of your attitude. The touch-n-go went well and we headed back to 3AU. I handled the radio communications on the way back, I was not good at all but it was my first time right? The haze also caused it to get darker a little earlier and we got back to 3AU at what was essentially sundown at that point. While approaching 3AU we had a small issue with a plane taking off on runway 36 while we were entering the pattern for 18 (same runway just different ends going opposing directions...not good). Even though I had made several radio calls he did not say a thing until he pulled onto the runway and went to take off. Thankfully I had enough time to adjust and make a quick base turn to land on runway 36 (overshot final but was able to recover and land pretty well!). I was hoping to do some more flying today since it is my bi-weekly three day weekend but the weather is not cooperating. Hopefully the wind calms down the ceiling goes up and it stops raining sometime soon! Let me know if you have any questions about aviation!

AIRVENTURE

Well I have had a busy few weeks of flying, work and well life. My flying is going pretty well in the last week I have logged about 2 hours of solo time in which I have done about 20 landings. Everything is going great and I am looking forward to expanding what I can do as well as checking off more requirements. The real reason why I wanted to update this is because this is the week that Oshkosh, Wisconsin becomes the center of the aviation world. Airventure is the annual air show, celebration and trade show held by the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA). There are many things that Airventure such a great event. You can do everything from look at all the newest and greatest general aviation aircraft from every manufacturer, to seeing some of the oldest and rarest aircraft in the world in the warbird and vintage areas. You can literally find every type of airplane single engine piston (SEP), turbine, jet, home built, and rotorcraft. There is almost something for everyone Kidventure does a great job of educating and giving kids something interesting to do. You need something for your plane or are looking for a plane you can find it. Looking for a job in aviation? For the first time Airventure had a career fair this year. My favorite parts are the cool new planes, the old vintage planes and what is arguably the best air show in the world. Airventure features the best civilian performers in the world. The usual headliners are Mike Goulian, Matt Younkin, Sean D. Tucker, Gene Soucy and my personal favorite the Aeroshell team! For those of you up in Iowa the presenting sponsor for the daily air show is Rockwell Collins. On Monday night after the air show there is always a concert which featured Chicago this year. There are also forums and "lectures" lectures covering any topic in aviation. This is no small get together either. The show normally has over 50,000 attendees during the week and thousands of airplanes fly-in to Oshkosh and camp on the grounds. During this week it becomes the busies airport in the world. On Thursday of this week the air traffic controllers (ATC) at Oshkosh handled 2,805 flights in 10 hours, Chicago's O'Hare International Airport averages 2,750 in 24 hours. The thing to remember is these are all general aviation aircraft coming and going, not one bit is commercial. Due to this amount of traffic there are special flight rules for this week which allow them to handle this many planes. It can get so busy that as a pilot you are instructed not to verbally respond to instructions from ATC, instead you simply rock your wings. You are also told to land in big painted dots on the runway to allow for multiple planes to land on the same runway at the same time (not to mention the makeshift runway right next to you that has multiple planes landing or taking off on it as well). This is also just the traffic at Oshkosh, nearby airports in Fon Du Lac, Appleton and Greenbay also act as reliever airports if you don't want to or can't get into Oshkosh. I encourage you to check out Airventure.org to check it out. They have videos, pictures and live cams from areas around the field as well as showing the daily air show from 2-6pm daily and from 8-10 on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Sadly we couldn't make it since someone has to stay back in the air capital and keep the industry going. If you want to go let me know and you can join my wife and I next year as we again plan to make the yearly pilgrimage.

SOLO

I can't come up with anything witty or creative to start this so I will just kick it off by saying today I did my first solo flight! This is the culmination of a lot of work and time although there is still a long road ahead of me. It is a great feeling to have the first big check mark on the list of requirements for my private pilots license. Officially I soloed after 14.3 hours of dual time and 68 landings. We started early (6:30AM) since my instructor was busy from 9-12 and I try to avoid flying in the afternoon down here, especially when it is 95-100+ and I am flying at low levels. Overall this turned out to be a great decision today when we got to the airport there was no wind and the temperature was 80. This afternoon as is normal here it got up to around 95 and right now there are some storms with some strong outflow winds moving into the Wichita metro. To start the flight my instructor went up with me and we did two touch-and-go's along and one full stop landing. During this time he was telling me what to do if something goes wrong (the common sense things of go to another airport if something happens here and come back and land immediately if there is an issue with the plane). On the third landing I taxied onto the ramp he got out and sent me on my way. While pulling onto the runway I definitely had a "holy shit I am about to do this" moment. After that I was fine and completely enjoyed the experience. It was quite interesting getting used to being the only one in the plane and not having the weight of the instructor in there. I certainly learned several lessons (more flaps to prevent floating down the runway). Climb out was also interesting with less weight as I climbed at 85-90 at around 500 feet per minute (FPM) however the 180 hp engine does help this part. Overall everything went really well and my instructor said it all looked great! I will not be flying nearly as much over the next two weeks as my instructor if pushing to finish his CFII (Certified Flight Instrument Instructor) rating before Airventure in Oshkosh which is next week. He is then going to spend a few days up there with his dad. I will take this time to focus myself on studying for the written test so when he gets back we can get mostly done if not done before he leaves for college. I have attached the picture of my shirt tail cut off (you can find the explanation to this tradition here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_solo_flight) as well as videos that my wife took, they aren't the best but you get the picture. As always let me know if you have any questions!

Up and Down...

It has been a few weeks since I updated this but I have been doing a lot of the same things. The last few weeks have been full of take-offs and landings. I have not mastered them and probably never will, there is a reason why they say a pilots license is just a license to learn. Last week I was only able to fly twice due to a wedding we went to back in Iowa. On July first the weather was almost perfect very light to no wind which made it very ideal to do 12 touch and go's. My main issue was visualizing the landing and getting the sight and how it should look down as well as responding to the decent. After a couple I started to get it down and was really doing well. The fourth was a great morning for another 10-12 (I just got done mowing and am too lazy to check my logbook but it is around that number) touch and go's. Most of them were really good and I am getting more and more confident about how I was doing. At that point my instructor threw in simulated engine out landings. Now the key to that statement before my mom freaks out is SIMULATED the engine is at idle. The first step to this (in this case) is to trim for best glide which is 75 knots (about 86MPH) in the 172. The next point is to choose a landing point. We did these at different points in the pattern so the runway was always my landing point. The main thing to remember when doing anything while flying is to never stop flying the plane. The first simulation we did he cut the power when I was on the base leg of the pattern (I can dive more into the different parts of the pattern if requested but for now I will just include this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airport_traffic_pattern.jpg), the second one we did on the base turn from downwind and the final one was on downwind. They all went very well and I actually enjoyed the added challenge of it and the break from just going around and around. On Saturday we had a little crosswind which was great for where I was at in my learning. The crosswind turned out to be about an 8 knot quartering crosswind. Crosswind landings are a little tricker but the same principles are in place you just add a step at take-off and landing. You want to keep the upwind wing low to minimize the wind pushing you around the runway as well as to keep it from flipping, turning and pretty much having it's way with you. To do this you add in aileron (directional control surface on the wing) in the direction of the wind and rudder in the opposite direction. This cross-control when applied correctly will keep you going straight while lifting off safely. ON landing you do the same thing while flaring. At the end of our lesson on Saturday my instructor said that as long as everything goes well with weather and my performance this week I can probably solo at the end of this week. I am currently planning on flying Tuesday (severe weather may not let this one happen) and Wednesday night as well as sometime during the day on Friday and Saturday. It is another hot week with temps around 100 down here so if I am not flying or at work I will probably be at the pool...thinking of you all of course! Let me know if you have questions!

Lucky number...12

Well it is officially summer down here in Kansas. In my opinion being less than an hour from Oklahoma we are far enough south to be considered south so yes it is summer in the south. This of course means it is hot, the high today was about 105. Thankfully though there was not much wind which was great for flying. We spent the entire hour and a half flight "in the pattern" (flying around the airport) doing touch-and-go's. This just means we go around land and take off again. I ended up doing 12 of these and finally on the last one I had an almost perfect landing. Now I don't say that the other 11 previous were bad...just not quite there. As my instructor put it "you are doing great, you have not scared me and I haven't yanked the controls back." So I got that going for me. The more I continue this the more excited I get to do more and be challenged more. Check back next week for another update!

Windy...

That is the best way to describe today's flight. The wind was at about 160-170 degrees (Out of the south south east)at 20-25 gusting to 30. This was great for the ground reference maneuvers, I was able to do the rectangular pattern (basically flying around a square mile always flying a quarter mile from your points(usually roads, tree lines or fence lines). Do pass this maneuver you have to maintain the equal quarter mile distance, correct for the wind and stay within +/- 100 feet of your assigned altitude. I was able to do it 3-4 times around keeping it with +/- 40-50 feet. We then moved on to S turns which I am improving on and almost have down. After this came the interesting part. Until today I only had two landings so still pretty much learning. Even with the cross wind my instructor had me try it and we did two touch and go's and a full stop landing. The first one was rough figuring how much to correct for the wind. The second one was a reminder to fly the plane all the way to the ground. The third was better...until the flare. This is the point when you are basically just holding the plane off the ground burning off airspeed and altitude. Everything was going great until the wind decided to die and I learned the lesson to recover quickly as we pretty much fell out of the sky (only from a couple of feet but enough to ruin an otherwise good landing) without the wind. Taxiing with this much wind is also a little tricker but I slowly got the hold of it. After we got done I asked my instructor how he thought I was progressing and he thinks I am doing very well and I could solo in 2-3 weeks with good weather. Sadly the rest of this week looks hot and windy (in other words summer in Kansas) so we may not be able to fly Monday night, we will see. Thanks for reading and as always feel free to ask questions!

Flight Two

Today's experience was a bit interesting. We had planned to do some more steep turns, as well as turns around a point, square pattern, and stalls. We started with about an hour of ground school talking through what we woud be doing such as the aerodynamics at work, angle of attack (AOA), critical angle of attack (CAOA)and how to do the maneuvers. The issue with todays flight was the weather. At the time we met there were storms 30-50 miles to our east and southeast. At take off they had moved a little closer but were not a threat. I handled the entire flight this time, takeoff went pretty well with the only issue being keeping it on the centerline. After taking off we headed to the north. At this point we were able to climb to 4,500 and started doing some steep turns. I kept struggling a little but each one was improved. We then moved on to stalls. We these with a power on stall, this is at it sounds you leave the power on and just keep pulling back until the plane stalls. They are not too hard to recover from since you already have the power on and simply have to push over and then pull back. Cessna 172's are known as being one of the most stable aircraft out there which make them such a popular trainer. As soon as it stills the nose is already naturally "nosing over" and it does not take much to recover from. The power off stall is designed to simulate a stall while landing or taking off. In order to recover from this one you have to put full power back on, turn off the carb heat and slowly retract the flaps. At this point the ceiling was slowly dropping and the rain was getting closer. We actually had a brief shower on us while we were doing the power off stall. We decided to head back to the airport and call it quits for the day. It was kind of interesting flying on the edge of the Flint Hills (this is the really boring with almost nothing between Emporia and ElDorado along I-35)seeing numerous roads just end and then there be just prairie is kind of interesting. I again handled the approach and even the landing this time. I was a little slow and that didn't help matters when I cut the power and dropped like a rock. We only bounced once but hey it was my first landing. We have somewhat set our schedule for Monday, and Wednesday nights along with sometime on Saturday. Check back after those times for more updates! Happy fathers day to my father and grandfathers along with my father in-law and grand father in-laws (if that is the right term)

First Flight

Although the forecast high for today was 100 it turned out to be a great morning for flying. We met at 9:30 went through a thorough pre flight inspection before taking off. Once we got up we climbed to 5,500ft ASL(Above Sea Level) which is about 3,200 feet AGL (Above Ground Level). To start off we just flew around so I could get used to flying again and get a feel for the controls. As we progressed through the flight we did more turns as well as climbing, and descending turns. My instructor then added in steep turns, these are turns at a 45 degree angle. Once you get a feel for them they are not that hard but there are several things to remember when turning. Due to your angle of flight no longer being straight and level you have to "pull back", the steeper the turn the more you have to pull back. If you did not do this your nose would drop and well that is not the goal of having a nice level, coordinated turn. This was the most difficult maneuver of the day for me, thankfully after a couple of attempts I started to get it down pretty well. To finish the flight we descended down to 2,500 ASL and practiced tracking along roads on our way back to the airport. Flying this way is jokingly referred to as IFR or I follow roads. For those that don't know IFR officially stands for Instrument Flight Rules which is a special rating you have to get in order to flying in IFR conditions. This maneuvers also allowed me to get a little more familiar with the area we will be using as well as the area in general since I am fairly new. Overall we logged about 1.5 hours. We are going back up tomorrow weather permitting, it is supposed to cool off (down to 90!). There are also a 40-50% chance of storms tomorrow so we will see what happens. Dinner is almost ready and I have some studying to do before tomorrow. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions!

Flight Training

So it has been some time (years) since I have done this. While sitting at work today I figured this would be a good format for keeping family and friends up to date on my experience and progress on earning my private pilots license. Which I start this Friday June 14. For those of you who don't know this is a life long dream of mine. My father and grandfather were pilots so I have grown up around aviation. This is also a reason why I wanted to work in aviation. For those of you who don't know I am a Project Integrator (PI) at Bombardier Learjet in Wichita. What it comes down to is I am in project management working with the forward structures engineering groups on the new Learjet 85, my main project is the doors for the plane. I really like my job and it has already allowed me to contribute in a big very visible way to all levels of management inside and outside of the company. Back in April I traveled to Manchester, England to visit our supplier. Anyway back on topic. I feel very blessed that the stars have somewhat aligned and I will be able to use my aunt and uncles Cessna 172 Skyhawk to do my training in. I hope this blog will best allow friends and family to stay up to date and share with me this process and milestones I will come across. Some weeks I may fly and update more than others so just hang in there. Let me know at anytime if you have any questions or comments about what I am doing, the plane, or how to get your license!