Winds Calm

Nice beautiful day to fly, even if it was hazy.. We showed up early, my niece and I. I started preflighting the plane, turned on the master switch and hit the switch to lower the flaps. They wouldn't go down. I tried again, with no luck. I checked the fuse panel to make sure there was no popped ones and there weren't. So we went back in to tell Heather about it and she got a mechanic to look at it, fix it and I finished the preflight. In the meantime, my niece decided to not go up with me so Heather and I went up. Because of the late start, we stuck around Pontiac and just did pattern work. So after about an hour later, we came down. Total time in the plane today was 1.2 hours with 11 landings to bring my lifetime total to 17.5 hours and 73 landings (63 day, 10 night).

Winds 160 at 11 gusting to 18

This post is almost a week late. My last lesson was this past Saturday. Same lesson plan as last week. We flew out to Lapeer and did some landings then came back to Pontiac. We took off and landed on the new runway though. Runway 17/35 was finally opened up for use and Saturday with the winds off the left of runway 17, I made a request to the tower for that runway and they let us use it. The approach was fun. It was pretty hazy on the way back and we really couldn't see the runway until about 2 miles out. I'm now on page 3 in my log book. We continued to work on landing consistency. Trying to get the kinks and rust out and get me ready to solo. I'm probably not going to have a lesson until after the new year because I have family coming to stay with me. Total time in the plane was 1.2 with 16.3 total hours and 62 landings!

Winds 240 at 15.

I had no luck last weekend with the weather. It was rainy and my instructor had the weekend off. It's only recently turned cold and we barely have any snow on the ground whatsoever. We're pretty much still in the transition from fall to winter here. Today was a good chance to see how it's going to feel like flying in cold weather. With the wind out of the Southwest like it was, the wind chill was brisk. I put the hood up on my coat so at least when I was facing away from the wind, my head was warm.

I met Mary Carpenter today too. She is the examiner that passed my sister. She was nice and friendly and when I mentioned that my sister had her for the checkride, she asked how she was doing and then asked what got me interested. So I gave her the short story about me. It was nice talking to her

Today's flight was a little hop to Lapeer and back. It was an interesting flight, with the wind. Even when we were pointing straight north, we were still moving to the northeast. Pretty neat how that works. It took about 20 minutes to get to Lapeer. It's a nice airport, similar to Romeo State. They both have north-south runways and are uncontrolled. It was choppy below about 2800 ft and on the way to Lapeer, we went up to 3500 ft and it smoothed out. You can imagine how much fun I was having doing landings in the chop. So 4 landings later, we left Lapeer and headed back to PTK. We only climbed to 2500 ft. and it was choppy. Not too bad but enough to make me feel like I did when I first started flying, overwhelmed. My altitude was way off, up or down and I'd correct for it and then it would be below 2500, etc. I'm still not flaring enough. I'm not discouraged because I know that with more practice, my ability to control the airplane will improve.

Today's time was 1.3 for a total of 15.1 (13.5 day, 1.6 night) with 57 landings (47 day, 10 night).

Winds Calm

What a beautiful night to fly! When I got to Flight 101 tonight, the plane I was supposed to fly wasn't back yet. I went in and said hello to my instructor who said that tonight we were going to take a trip to Lapeer, do some full stop landings there and then come back. But the plan changed by the time the plane showed up. It was half an hour late and then when the previous student parked it and pushed it back, he hit the wall with the right elevator and damaged it. So we weren't taking that plane up to fly. By the time we got to a different plane, got it fueled up and preflighted, there wasn't enough time to go to Lapeer and come back. So more pattern work. I am starting to get it. I had a couple of landings that were better then any I've done. Hopefully, the good weather will spill over into next weekend and I'll actually be able to fly two weekends in a row. That would be neat!

Total time is 13.8 (12.2 day, 1.6 night) with 51 landings (41 day, 10 night).

Weather, Weather.

I had the plane schedule this Saturday at 12 pm and while the visibility was good, the clouds were too close to the ground to allow me to do anything in Class D airspace. My instructor is off this weekend and while I have toyed with the idea of calling in sick tomorrow, I need the money more then I need to fly right now so I guess I'll have to wait until a week from Saturday to fly again. My instructor has said that all we need to work on is landings, getting the consistency on them and then she'll turn me loose to solo.

I've been playing Microsoft Flight Simulator X lately and do like it. It's certainly not a good substitute for flying but it does take my mind off of things and relax me. They have missions now which actually immerse you more then the previous versions.

Winds 200 at 8

I'm legal to fly by myself now when I'm ready. On Friday, I was issued my third class medical/student pilot certificate. So now when I finally am consistent on landings and when my instructor and I agree that I'm ready, I'll be able to kick her out and fly the plane by myself.

Finally, back in the air at last. Today was more pattern work as my instructor continues on the path of getting me ready to solo. I've got the takeoffs down pretty well. I need to work on staying on the runway centerline but that will come with practice. Landings are what I need to work on. I am not consistent on my landings, I flare to much or not enough. I don't pull back as much as needed. Just need to have more practice. Landings are a controlled crash as I was told today by my instructor. We flew 1.3 hours in N73455, and we completed a total of 13 landings, 2 of which were night landings and .3 hours was night flight. It was very cool to see the transition from day to twilight to dusk to dark. My instructor says that her favorite time to fly is at night and I can see why.

I did have some time scheduled last week but the winds were so fast that I erred on the side of caution and decided not to go up. It was pretty choppy I heard from those that did. So we spent time in ground school, talking about my homework and procedures for when the field goes IFR and I'm up in it. Pretty informative and gave me some ideas where I need to study. Long range forecast says a possibility of rain next week but I'm going to schedule some time anyways in the hopes that I can get up again and not grow rusty.

Total time is 12.5 hours, (12.2 day, 0.3 night) with 43 landings (41 day, 2 night).

I feel so rusty.

I had N73455 scheduled for 4:30 pm on Sunday and wouldn't you know it. A weather forecast that went from cloudy but no rain on Wednesday to IFR conditions on Sunday. I went out to Flight 101 anyways, in the hope that the rain would clear and the ceilings would go up but no luck. I've got a flight scheduled for Saturday at 12 pm and hopefully the weather will cooperate. The long range forecast is calling for a 30 percent chance of either rain or snow with a high temperature of 40 F. Winter is sure early this year. At least this will start to get me adapted to training in cold temperatures. I don't think I'll see my instructor opening up the window because she's too warm when we were flying previously. I did get homework though, even though we didn't fly. I've got a 4 page aircraft checkout and pre-solo test to complete. It covers the basics. Although there are some things that I haven't learned from my instructor. Like what happens when we're in the pattern flying VFR and the field goes IFR. That topic hasn't been covered yet. Another topic is requirements for entering different types of airspace.

Winds 150 at 6..

Posting this a day later because I was busy last night. Yesterday was more pattern work. We did a total of 11 landings with one of them being a taxi back. The cool part was that the winds were out of the southeast and Tower had wisely switched traffic to 09R and 09L so I got to take off and land in the oposite direction. Quite cool. In all the time that I've been flying there, I never had taken off to the east and yesterday we did. My landings are slowly getting better, but not to the point that I can solo yet and even if they were, I don't have my medical yet either. Time in the aircraft Saturday was 1.2 with 11 landings for a total of 11.2 hours training and 30 landings.

Winds ahhh.. Yeah..

I'm usually pretty good about remembering what the winds were.. I know they started out about 10 knots but towards the end, dropped down to at least 3. Oh well.. Well, due to my instructor taking a trip down to Kentucky (in the very same plane we flew in tonight), I grabbed her for an hour tonight. What did we do? We did pattern work. Today was all about landings. We did 5 touch -n-go's, 2 taxi-backs, and 1 full stop. I gave the controller a laugh tonight too. We were downwind on our way to our last landing and I called the tower and said "Pontiac Tower, Cessna 73455, inbound for termination." and the tower said "Inbound? " and I said back "We'll be terminating on this one, thanks. " "No problem, cleared to land, 27 right".. So many times, I just wasn't thinking. I mean, we were inbound to land, just already in the pattern. heheh.. Then we heard the funniest thing. A pilot was radioing the tower, telling him they were inbound to Pontiac, and the tower said to report when they were two miles southwest. So about 10 or 15 minutes later, the same guy radioed back, and after a couple of exchanges, the tower had enough and asked him to ident, which he did. It showed him heading SW and the tower gave him vectors to Pontiac. The guy evidently was heading towards Mettatol airport and told the tower so and the tower said "Frequency Change approved" and that was that. So where was I??

Oh yeah, . So I noticed that my taxiing is way, way better then it was. I'm doing quite well keeping on the centerline. Flight time tonight was 1.0 hours with 8 landings for a total of 10 hours and 19 landings. I'm finally into double digits, WOO HOO!!!

Winds 300 at 13

Tonight's flight was a first in the flying in rain department. It wasn't really rain, rain. Just misty rain. Tonight we did more ground reference manuvers after being introduced to them. My instructor said that my S turns were pretty good for only my second time doing them. However, my turns around a point are more like ovals, or egg shapes. We also did some pattern work. 3 more landings tonight, and 1.1 in the plane for a total of 9.0 hours total and 11 landings.

Winds 190 at 11 gusting to 18

As you can tell, today was a fun day for crosswind landings and takeoffs. I learned alot today. I shook off some cobwebs too. It was a nice day for flying, a little hazy and bumpy up until about 4000 ft which is where we did most of the work today. We reviewed everything I've done so far up to this point at Tradewinds and learned some new things. Today was Turns about a point and S-Turns across a road. My S-turns need alot of improvement but my third and fourth turn about a point (a barn with silos in a big field) were better then the first two. I definately felt a little out of place. Tradewinds has a newer fleet of 172's and they're fuel injected rather then carborated as I learned today about when and what carb heat is. Heather said I did pretty good overall considering how long it was since the last time I flew. Today also filled up the first page in my logbook. Today was 1.3 in the plane, for a total of 7.9 with 8 landings.

A flying I won't go..

Not today at least. Thunderstorms aren't the greatest thing to fly in so, needless to say, I'm somewhat perturbed. Murphy's aviation law is at work today I think. I went out to the airport anyways and met my instructor and all the other instructors that are there. They're all good people. I know I'm going to like it there. Especially since they have a waiting room with a tv in it and when I came in had the Michigan game on the tv. So I'm going to reschedule my rained out lesson for today to next Saturday, and I'm going to do some studying. While watching the game of course.

A flying I will go..

Well, hopefully... I'm scheduled to take to the skies with my new instructor from my new school tomorrow at noon. The forecast is saying MVFR/IFR with showers but I'm hoping that it holds off until I'm done. I hope that I don't have too much trouble shaking the rust off.. Still, I am looking forward to tomorrow and getting up into the air.

KPTK Open House

The Oakland County International Airport Open House was held on August 13 and I took some pictures of the planes there with my phone. They came out pretty good. Most of them. I'll put them up later. The biggest thrill for me was seeing an A-10 tank killer fly right over my head and also fly right by me about 20 feet above Runway 27, which was 100 feet away. Talk about loud!

In learning to fly news, I've made an appointment with my new school to get paperwork done and to take a lesson with my new instructor who came recomemded to me by her own mother who also is a pilot. I'm looking forward to getting up in the air again and anxious about starting back up.

I've also played the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X demo that hit the web recently and all I can say is WOW! I'm definately going to be working in upgrades to my desktop computer. Really nice though. You can find a writeup about it at www.gamespot.com. TTFN.

Monthly Update

Okay, I certainly didn't mean for this to take quite so long. However, things happen. Lot's of things have happened this month. For example..... For the month of July, I flew a total of 1.6 hours. That's it. Not very good for a guy who is learning to fly and I probably lost what I gained from those sessions. My last lesson on July 23rd was pretty good though. I held the centerline when I taxied, something which has, at least to this point, been tough for me to do. I'd be like a drunken sailor. All over the taxiway. My new instructor was quite impressed. I like him but there's something else I need to do, more on that in a bit. I also did most of the radio work . Which after the previous lesson where I was doing a lot of stammering and trying to remember what to say. Now granted, I'm a ham radio operator and I speak on the radio a lot and not prone to "mic fright" but there's a difference. When I'm using my ham radio skills, it's socially. Except for the rare check-in to a traffic net, I don't use my skills for communication, per se. When you're in a plane, there's not a lot of socializing going on.

I'm also a member of AOPA's Project Pilot. My Mentor's name is Kevin. He's a private pilot with Single and Multi-engine endorsements and certified in Commercial and IFR operations. He's working on his instruction certification and is almost done with it. He's a nice guy and is pretty knowledgeable. He helped me make a decision fairly recently.

The decision is this. I like Tradewinds and my new instructor, but they're expensive. I'm paying $103.00 an hour for a C172 (only a couple of years old) plus $9.95 an hour fuel surcharge plus $40 an hour for instruction. That total is $152.95 an hour. 2 hours is $305.90. For that same amount of money, at Flight 101, I can get 3.2 hours of instruction. A big difference in cost. So I'm switching probably next week or so to that school. Sure the planes are older but it's going to cost me much less. And planes really don't change that much.

For those who are keeping track. 6.6 hours total time in the plane - 7 Landings.

First Post

HA! Finally first!

Welcome all. I've decided to chronicle my adventures in learning how to fly as there weren't that many people who have decided (at least publicly) to do so. I hope anyone that stumbles onto this either gets an interest to fly or gets a kick out of it.

I'll be posting things later.