Aviation

Aviation has been a interest of mine for as long as I can remember.  I have fond memories of the years flying radio controlled airplanes with my dad or trying to get old versions of Microsoft Flight Simulator working on severely under-powered PCs.  However, none of those compared to the two short moments I experienced real flight with a yoke or stick in my hand.  Although I was just a young teenager at the time, actually controlling an airplane and feeling it respond beneath me was something that I have never forgotten (thanks for that, Mike).

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Solo Three

Posted on June 06, 2016.

Flew over to Lake In The Hills (3CK) for my third solo, as was the original plan for the last flight.  Did a couple of practice laps and then he got out and I did 4 circuits solo before heading back.  At this point I'd be good to solo at that airport, but my school has a policy about flying cross country before taking the FAA written test.  So it's time to get serious about prepping for the written and getting that out of the way.

Second Solo Surprise

Posted on June 03, 2016.

Today we were going to fly over to Lake In The Hills (3CK) for a little practice at an uncontrolled airport and to do my second solo there.  My instructor ran into a problem on his way in and couldn't make it in time, so I actually soloed again at PWK.  It was pretty fun going through the whole process on my own and I got 8 circuits in before calling it quits.  Got a few nice landings in there towards the end, which felt nice.

First Solo

Posted on May 25, 2016.

Finally got to do my first solo today.  Three laps around the pattern at PWK.  It was great.

Smooth Lift of Spirits

Posted on May 21, 2016.

Had a nice, relaxing lesson today.  The air was dead calm, which was a nice change of pace from the weeks of gusty conditions that I've been dealing with.  We flew over to Lake In The Hills (3CK) for some uncontrolled airport and precision landings practice.  The conditions were so nice and smooth, that I could just focus on my approach and flare technique.  I was eventually hitting the numbers and got some greasers in there.  I could tell my instructor was enjoying the smooth flying as well.

Some success can really build confidence and he said he would have soloed me right then and there, but I still didn't have my student pilots license.  I say "didn't", because when I got home this evening, there it was....

Diversion Confusion

Posted on May 18, 2016.

Today we practiced an in-flight diversion and lost procedures.  We set off for a nearby airport and then he diverted me to DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport (DKB).  The diversion procedure itself went fine and we arrived at the airport as expected.  For some reason (mainly because I've never done it before), what to do at an unfamiliar airport fell out of my brain.  You're supposed to overfly the airport and check the sock...duh.  He was purposely not helping me, which definitely drove the point home.  Eventually I figured it out and landed on the active runway.  That was learning moment one.

Learning moment two happened immediately afterwards.  I have a habit of rushing myself to get out of other people's hair.  In this case, another plane was taxiing along the runway as I exited.  They had the right of way, but they radioed and let me go first.  With them behind me, I felt rushed to get off the ground and out of their way.  We took off and headed back east when he "diverted" me to 3CK (our original destination before diverting to DKB).  What he knew and what I didn't know was that I forgot to realign my heading indicator and so it was about 20 degrees off.  I ended up flying too far south and actually thought everything was OK until I cross-checked my position with a VOR.  Once that was fixed, we got to practice lost procedures and got back to 3CK.

Getting burned like that definitely drives the point home.  I was always a bit lazy about realigning the heading indicator.  Hopefully that habit is broken.