Friday, June 13, 2008

First Flight Finally

YES!


I finally went up for my first flight ever in a small airplane. It was awesome. Believe me, I'm still kind of in shock up to now that I have been UP there. And to just sum up, it was a completely different experience. More bumpy than the sim, hahaha!

I handled the aircraft pretty much most of the time. From engine start, taxiing, take off, enroute to practice area. We then proceeded with straight and level flight, climbs, descents and turns. My flight instructor also demonstrated steep turns which made me feel really gooey inside, but it was all good. He also showed the visual landmarks going in and out and around buttonville which was good because you don't really see anything on the sim. Couldn't do the landing though because the crosswind was too much, but it was good.

Even though we were in the air for around an hour, it felt like it went by so quickly. And also, I wasn't as situationally aware, and often times getting behind the airplane maybe because it WAS my first flight and I was kinda still like "wow" inside my head.

But yes, I enjoyed it very much, can't wait to go up again.

I didn't get to take a picture of me with the airplane but i did manage to take a picture of the airplane I flew in right after.
C-GSEQ

Logged first flight 1.0 hrs.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Waiting...

So I finished the monotonous phase zero of cessna 172 simulator training. I have been validated and is ready to start flying. Unfortunately, some of the people in my group have had cancelled sim lessons and so are a lesson or two behind and according to my FI, I have to wait for at least half of the group to actually start flying.

I've been bumming around my house for the past 3 days with nothing to do, patiently (actually impatiently) waiting to get started on flying. I know someone in the same class but in Group A, is almost close to his Private Flight Test. He is ahead of everyone, and is moving pretty quickly too.

Hopefully, I'll move on the flight line pretty fast as well, probably be at the airport for extra hours try to get an extra flight in or something. But for now, I'm here sitting at home, watching videos and doing some extra reading, ready to go, and waiting.

I have written my PSTAR and radio exam. I got 13/15 on the radio exam on the first try so I had to rewrite it. Second time I got 15/15 so great.

Also got 49/50 on my PSTAR. I forget which one I got wrong I think it's the one with the taxi clearance to a runway and to get there you have to cross another runway. I put taxiing there but needs a clearance to cross the other runway (because that's what I saw in the study guides) but actually, you're allowed to taxi all the way without holding short of anything.

I guess it's the same thing as taxiing down Bravo, crossing RWY 21 to get to RWY 33. Sometimes they say "cross 21", sometimes they just say taxi "Bravo all the way down". Other than that I'm good. Got my Student Pilot Permit and Radio Operators certificate so see, I'm good to go!

In the meantime, I'm reading up on emergency procedures for C172. Trying to commit most of them to memory, because eventually we're gonna have to anyways. Hopefully I'll start flying by this weekend. As for now, here's a clip of a jet departing buttonville I captured a week ago.