Big update today. This covers two flights, one yesterday afternoon and one this morning. Yesterday afternoon we did my first cross country flight. Now before you start thinking we went to Mexico, a cross country flight is defined as a flight with a landing at an airport more than 50nm straight line distance from your…

A day late on this one too. It was a hectic day yesterday, from catching an early morning flight out of IAD to catching up on a bunch of work, to then heading out to the airfield to see the plane I reserved not parked at the hangar! Something came up, and my 4:00pm reservation…

Fresh off my successful solo and passing the FAA written, we took off to the northwest and did maneuvers all day. I’m getting better at turns around a point. I must have circled that damn tree ten times when my instructor finally said “Ok, let’s go back and do some touch & gos.” “What, you…

Yes you read that correctly! I did my solo yesterday! This is a big milestone and I’m ready to move on to the next level of my training. We took off from Northwest Regional (52F) and headed over to Alliance (AFW). We entered the pattern (with clearance) and did some touch & gos and one…

Big milestones coming up here. First, I finished reading the text book. That’s a big one and I hope I can quit carrying that massive thing around. Second, I will be doing my solo tomorrow! Solo first, then haircut, then pick up James, then my FAA Written test. BUSY day. Today we flew over by…

1/4 of the way to the minimum required hours! Today we head weather threatening to strand us if we strayed too far from the airport. It ended up being a non-issue, but safety first! We just stuck around 52F and did touch & gos. I am getting really good on my landings… such a light…

Pretty standard day today, except I am really sticking my landings! We started by doing steep turns in the practice area to clear the airspace, then we did two power off stalls and two power on stalls. I think I finally got the 172 to break on the stall for that last power on stall.…

A day of takeoffs and landings! Took off from Northwest Regional (52F) and headed west to Alliance (AFW) to practice the major thing I need practice on…. LANDING! Now keep in mind, I’m getting the plane down fine. Sometimes a little rougher than others, and crosswind landing makes things interesting. Nothing unsafe, but I am…

It’s FREAKING HOT up there.  Good gracious.  Today we did a little ground school while we were waiting for the plan to be returned to the hangar, then it was time to go!  Did I mention it was hot? So remember yesterday.  Hot = thermals = bouncy time.  Plus we had some wicked wind from the…

Long flight today! Took of from Northwest Regional, left cross, left downwind and departed northwest to the practice area. First off, it’s freaking HOT out there. No A/C. Secondly, when it is hot outside you get these fun thermals. BUMPY. Hard to maintain altitude. It’s a weird feeling… you are flying along and all the…

Lots of flying today! Only logged 2 landings (vs. the 6 from yesterday). Ground school took a while today. I was having problems with charts and classes of airspace, but now that I understand them both, there is just some memorization to do on VFR minimums. We took off and looped around the east side…

Ground school was quick today. Only spent about thirty minutes chatting in the classroom before it was time to preflight! Sometime after my flight yesterday (and NOT because of my landing) the magnetic compass fell off the windshield. My instructor was not sure if we were going to fly that plane today, but the mechanic…

Today was pretty fun! The ground school covered the basics of the airplane and the instruments. Learned a few cool tricks, like if your static system gets clogged (powers your Airspeed, Altitude, and Vertical Speed Indicator [VSI]), and you know the clog is PAST the Pitot tube, you can break the VSI to get your…

I’m going to try and blog after every lesson for those of you interested in my quest to become a private pilot. I had my first lesson today! First lesson was pretty much an intro as you would expect. We went over the forty (or so) pounds of books and material that I will be…