JavaRod

Starting the Fuselage

2010-11-10T22:34:00.000-08:00

We've been working on the fuselage in our copious amounts of spare time. I wish I had the energy to work on the plane every night after work. The first part of the kit is the mid fuselage bulkheads. This is where the wings are going to attach to the fuselage, so, you know, it's kinda of important. Here's a coupe photos of some parts we have finished.

Welcome Again

2010-11-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

It's been several years since my last post. I've continued flying doing short cross country flights to the coast, up the Columbia River Gorge, and all around the Willamette Valley. However, my last flight was in June. The place I rent the plane requires at least one takeoff (and landing) in the last 90 days, otherwise you need to go up with an instructor. In addition, every two years, you are required to go through a bi-annual flight review (BFR). Mine expired at the end of October. I think what I would like to do is schedule between 5 and 10 hours with an instructor and review several key elements from the private pilot syllabus. Review short and soft field takeoffs and landings, stalls, towered airport operations, etc. The only question is when I should do it. After a relatively dry October, the rainy season has started in the Northwest. If I do this review now, chances are there won't be any decent flying weather until late March or April (and that's optimistic). If I wait until Spring, there's going to be a lot more rust to shake off.

The reason for the lack of flying is not from lack of interest. Rather it's a lack of the two things that always seem to be in short supply; time and money. A friend and I quickly realized that we would be able to utilize our pilot certificates a lot more if we owned a plane. We had two options; build or buy. This was back in early 2008; pre-recession. Buying a new plane was (and still is) certainly out of the question. The used plane market seemed to be a seller's market. 30 year old Cessnas were actually appreciating in value. (I wish that would happen to my 10 year old Jetta.) It didn't seem like we were going to get a lot of plane for our money. We then looked at the build option. There is a healthy experimental plane community in the United States. Anyone who has been to Oshkosh can attest to that. Lots of companies will sell you a kit with instructions on how to assemble it into a fully functional aircraft. Basically, instead of exchanging a ton of money for a 30 year old plane, we would exchange a half-ton of money and lots of sweat equity for a brand new plane. In addition, when you build your own plane, you are allowed to do your own maintenance. In addition to saving money upfront, we should save money on ongoing costs.

Given all that, we went ahead and purchased a kit for a Van's Aircraft RV-10. It's a four seat aircraft with a cruising speed between 180 and 200 m.p.h. It's a fairly stable aircraft, which means it's hard to stall and fairly easy to fly. Plus, Van's is located less than an hour away in Aurora. We toured their facilities and even got to go up in a Rv-10. After we got back from the test flight, the check was writing itself.

The kit itself is purchased in 4 parts; empennage (a.k.a. "the tail"), wings, fuselage, and the finishing kit. We started building the plane in October 2008. We have completed the tail and the wings and just started the fuselage. My guess is that we are a couple years away from our first test flight.

Today, the used plane market has really bottomed out. Your money can buy you a lot more used plane. If we were making the build vs. buy decision today, would we still be building a plane. Most likely. I've learned a ton of new skills and there's still a lot of new stuff ahead of us. Plus, building a plane is a lot of fun.

The focus of this blog will shift from flying planes to building them. There's, hopefully, still a lot of flying ahead for me. In order to fly this plane, I'm going to need to get a high-performance and complex endorsements. In order for it to be practical to fly to exciting destinations (VEGAS!), I'm really going to need to get IFR certified. But the budget allows for one thing at a time, and that thing right now is building.

Here some pics of the stuff we've already done:

The trailing edge of the wing:

The ribs of the wing:

Constructing the tail cone:

The horizontal stabilizer:

The elevators:

The tail:

The rudder:

VFR X-Country to Hoquiam

2007-10-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

On September 22, a friend from work and I flew up to Bowerman Field in Hoquiam, Washington. It was a beautiful late summer afternoon and a great day for flying. We had lunch at a cafe on the field called Lana's for our $100 hamburgers. In my case, it was a $100 tuna fish sandwich. The food must have been good since our takeoff roll after lunch was a bit longer than our takeoff roll before lunch.

Some people might think it's crazy to spend over a year and a good chunk of change to get a license just so that once can fly somewhere to get lunch. To that I respond, it's the journey, not the goal. Or is it the means justify the ends.

Here is a short clip of us departing Bowerman to head back to Pearson Field.

And here we are flying over Grays Harbor.

And here are some pictures:

Would you fly with this pilot?

Lined up and ready to depart Pearson Field (VUO)

Flying over the Columbia.

Over Grays Harbor

Video of flight around St. Helens

2007-07-14T02:18:00.000-07:00

Last week Big D and I went for a flight around Mt. St. Helens. Big D ran the video camera while I flew the plane. The video begins with us departing Scappoose (SPB). We approach Mt. St. Helens from the southwest and circle the summit counterclockwise. The other mountains you see in the video are Mt. Ranier, Mt. Adams, and Mt. Hood.

Loop around western Washington

2007-07-01T11:02:00.000-07:00

Aero Maintainence, the FBO at Pearson Field at my home airport organized a group X-Country around western Washington. We flew from Pearson (VUO) to Bowerman Field in Hoquiam (HQM) to Jefferson County International in Port Townsend (0S9) to Chehalis (CLS) and back to Pearson. It was an absolute blast.

Five planes went on the trip. On my plane, a Cessna 172m, with me were an instructor and a student pilot. I flew the VUO - HQM and 0S9 - CLS legs. We used mainly pilotage for navigation. I've never been to the Washington coast before and it was absolutely beautiful. The flight around Mt. Olympus was breathtaking.

Big D Finally Soloed!

2007-06-24T11:44:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, a good friend of mine, let's call him "Big D", finally soloed. He started flight training a few months after I did, but got waylaid by a six month delay in getting his third class medical from the FAA. All private pilots need to get a third class medical certificate which basically states you meet the medical requirements set forth by the FAA. To get it, you go to a FAA approved doctor and they put you through a routine physical, ask about your medical history, and ask you for a list of any current medications you are on. The doctor can then approve you during the physical and you can walk out the door with your medical certificate. Or, as was the case with "Big D", the doctor wasn't sure about something, so he decided to send it to the FAA for approval.

A few weeks later, Big D got a letter saying his application for a certificate was denied. The strange thing was that he was denied for something other than what the doctor had a question about. The letter went on to say that if he wanted to appeal he needed to do X, Y, and Z. Big D does X,Y, and Z, and two months later, the FAA asks him to do X,Y, and Z again! It was at this point I understood why pilot's hold the FAA in such a special place in their heart. It was also at this point when I bought Big D a t-shirt that said:

FAA Mission Statement:
We're not happy until you aren't happy.

Anyway, Big D had enough of this and decided to get AOPA involved. It was amazing. Two phone calls and two weeks later, Big D had his medical certificate in hand and was back in the sky training. Yesterday, he soloed. Now he gets to do the fun stuff; X/countries, short and soft field T/O and landings, night flying, towered airports, and the FAA written exam. (Maybe the last one isn't exactly fun.)

Congratulation's Big D!

VFR To Astoria

2006-11-19T09:36:00.000-08:00

In a previous job, I had to travel a lot. Once, I was stuck in Denver as United tried to find a crew to fly our plane. I thought to myself that even I could run an airline better than United. It turns out I can't.

The plan was to fly to Astoria with two of my friends from Borland. It was the first VFR weekend day in Vancouver in two or three weeks. The weather was forcasted to turn ugly the following day and the rest of the week, so basically, this was going to be our only chance to fly.

I get a call about an hour before I'm supposed to get the airplane. Apparently, the previous renter drained the battery trying to start the plane. Thankfully, the mechanic was willing to come in and charge the battery back up. When I arrived at the airport, the mechanic was charging the battery in the shop. The flight desk told me that I should still have the plane on-time. That's when they realized that the previous renter, who took off in another plane, had the key. That's right, the key to our plane, was flying somewhere over Oregon or Washington. Just a note to fellow renters: It's really annoying to not be able to fly because the previous pilot didn't return the key. Please return the key to the plane when you're done.

After an hour wait, the pilot with our key finally returned it to the flight school (without an apology, by the way). Fortunately, we had enough daylight to make the trip. The trip itself went fine. The only scary part was when, on the return leg of the trip, I listened to weather at Pearson (our home airport). I thought the report said that the clouds were at 1000 feet, which is minimal ceiling for VFR flight. I started thinking about alternative landing spots. My co-pilot, who is a student pilot, must have seen the gears cranking in my head when he said he heard the clouds at One-Zero Thousand (10,0000 ft.) Turns out he was correct.

Here are some pictures taken from the trip:

This is Pearson Field as we depart. The yellow and black checkered roof is the Pearson Air Museum. To the right of the museum is Fort Vancouver.

The occupants of the spacious 172 showing off their best side.

I think this is when we were in the pattern in Astoria.

On final on Runway 8 at Astoria. And, no, I did not photoshop this picture. I really was on glideslope!

We found this plane parked on the tarmac at Astoria. It looked like the engines were in working order. (Meaning there was fresh oil on the ground beneath them.) I'll have to look up to see what kind of plane it is. Whatever it is, it looks like a lot of fun to fly.

Go - No Go

2006-11-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

Today was supposed to be my first flight with passengers in a Cessna 172. However, the weather in the pacific NW isn't really conducive to flying light aircraft. A wind storm is supposed to move in later this evening. Right now, the METAR for Pearson looks rather benign:

METAR KVUO 121653Z AUTO 18007KT 150V210 10SM OVC060 09/03 A3006 RMK
AO2 SLP180 T00940028

The clouds aren't really an issue to doing a local flight, with them at 6000 ft. The winds also look doable at 7 knots from the south. However, right across the river at PDX, the weather looks like:

METAR KPDX 121655Z 18014KT 10SM SCT060 BKN080 OVC250 09/03 A3007
RMK AO2 SLP181 T00940033

Winds there are at 14 knots. Since they are coming from due south, these would be almost a direct crosswind at Pearson. The 172 maximum crosswind component is 15 knots. My personal maximum crosswind component is 10 knots. After all, this will be only the third time I've flown a 172.

If you go a little further south to McMinnville, the winds get stronger:

METAR KMMV 121653Z AUTO 17012G21KT 10SM CLR 09/04 A3007 RMK AO2
SLP182 T00890039

At least it is clear down there, but look at the winds...gusts of 21 knots! The forecast is for the winds to remain at around 13kts from the south. The winds aloft at 3000 feet are from the southwest at 34 knots.

Even if I were to do a local flight, we'd be getting bounced around in a 34 knot wind, all the while I'd be worrying if the winds were going to pick up at Pearson. So, I think it's a No Go for this flight. Maybe next week.

Checkride

2006-11-04T10:59:00.000-08:00

Originally, this post was going to be about my check ride. But it quickly morphed into a check ride study guide. I'll probably edit and expand upon this later. Also, I'll be happy to incorporate any tips, tricks, and advice other pilots have about the private pilot check ride.

I finally got the opportunity to take my check ride a couple weeks ago. I spent all my free time the week leading up to the flight studying. Studying for the written exam is completely different from studying for the oral exam. Compared to the oral exam, the written exam is easy. I was able to learn most of the answers by rote memorization. However, it seems that the purpose of the oral exam is to make sure you really have an understanding of the topics.

About a month before the flight, I went through a mock check ride with the chief flight instructor. That was really useful. It exposed my strong and (many more) weak areas of knowledge. After the mock exam, I felt that I should spend most of my time studying for the oral portion of the exam. My flight maneuvers were fine and I felt comfortable that I had them down.

One of the areas that I was weakest in was the physiological aspects of flying. There are a few questions on the written about the topic. The oral exam goes into much more detail. You need to know about the different types and effects of hypoxia. Know the difference between hypoxia and hyperventilation. Finally, memorize when crew and passengers are required to use oxygen. (12,500 - 14,000 and > 30 minutes, crew must use O2, 14,000 + crew must use, 15,000+ O2 must be offered to passengers). Know the inner ear and know how altitude can affect it.

In terms of the mechanical and performance aspects of flying, my advice is: Know thy POH. (Pilot's Operating Handbook). A couple days for the exam, my flight instructor had me read aloud several portions of the handbook. A number of important facts got stuck in my head as a result of this exercise. For example: How much electricity does the alternator provide? How much electricity does the battery provide? How do the brakes work? What are the indications of brake failure and what do you do if the you suspect brake failure? How is fuel delivered to the engine? How does the carburetor work? How does carburetor ice form?

In terms of aerodynamics, know the effect of forward and rearward CG have on the plane. Know this backwards and forwards. Know what the horizontal component of lift is. (a.k.a. how a plane turns). Be able to explain, in detail, under what conditions a spin can occur and why the plane spins. And then be able to explain how to recover from a spin. I knew the recovery procedures, but I couldn't explain the aerodynamics of it.

I thought I knew a lot about all of these subjects. I could remember reading about them in ground school and hearing the instructor talk about them. But, when I tried to explain these concepts out loud, I realized there were some gaping holes in my understanding. My advice is to review the your ground school textbook and POH . After your review, explain the concepts out loud. Even if you end up talking to yourself, you'll discover what your level of understanding is.

Blogging at FL380

2006-08-24T12:06:00.000-07:00

This blog entry is being written at flight level 380 somewhere between Portland and Denver. I’m en route to Boston to spend the weekend with some very good friends. I don’t know if Denver has free wi-fi, like PDX has. If they do, I’ll try and upload this in Denver. If not, I guess I’ll upload it when I get to Boston.

Apparently, Denver decided it should take advantage of travellers and charges $8 for wireless access, unlike Portland where it is free. Just a note to owners of businesses at Denver airport, money I could have spent at your shop is instead going to AT&T. Boo Denver!

This is the first time I have flown commercially since the TSA implemented the “no liquid” rules. There was conspicuously less carry-on luggage and it was great. I used to travel a ton for business, and certainly empathize with the road warriors. But, the security check to get to the gates was breeze and it only took about 5 minutes to board our airplane. No one was trying to cram their bag into the overhead bin, blocking everyone else in the aisle. I’m sure I am in the minority, but I wouldn’t mind going to single carry-on (purse/briefcase) policy. It would be safer and quicker.

I took the FAA private pilot exam yesterday. I got a 97, which, apparently, is better than what Pearson airport’s dog, Ellie, got on the exam (she got an 87). The test examiner claimed he saw some paw prints on my test materials and accused me of getting help from the dog. The FAA publishes a book of all the test questions (I think there is a bank of 600 of them). The exam consists of 60 questions to be answered in 150 minutes. I studied by going through all the questions in the test guide and highlighting the answer. Most of questions can be answered if you know the basic principals behind them. However, there are a quite a few questions that require rote memorization. For example, I had a question about to whom and when I am supposed to send a notice if I were to be convicted of drunk driving. I’m pretty sure that’s the one I got wrong. I also bought this program for my Palm Treo called Private Pilot Pocket Test. This way I could take test questions when I had some free cycles…or even during meetings (let’s keep that between ourselves…okay?) It’s a great study aid. I highly recommend it for anyone taking the written exam. Finally, I took the free exam on Sporty’s web-site every night for a week before taking the test.

When I finished the test, I didn’t think I had done that well. There were a couple of distractions that made it really hard to concentrate on the test questions. First, I took the test at Pearson airport. I never put two and two together and only until I was taking the test realized that plane engines are really distracting. Second, there was someone taking another test sitting next to me. He was a using calculator and was hitting the buttons as hard as he could. Boy, he sure used his calculator a lot. There was another woman there taking another test, some kind of nursing exam. Her test results were printed out right after mine. She had passed. She seemed so happy and relieved. I was happy to pass the test just because it’s one step closer to my license. But, passing her exam meant she could get a job. I think she mentioned to the examiner that she took the test previously and failed by one question. Good for her for sticking with it and not giving up. I don’t know how the guy next to me did, he was still pounding away at his calculator when I left.

Now that I’ve passed my test, I only need to do two more things before I’m ready to take my check ride. First, I need about another half-hour of hood time. Second, I need to do my last progress check with the chief flight instructor. Hopefully, by the end of September, I’ll be ready to take the check ride.

Mobile Blogging Now Working

2006-08-16T20:23:00.000-07:00

I've been trying for a while to get this to work.

The next photo will be aviation related. I promise!

Stage II and III

2006-08-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

I haven’t posted since I soloed, which was late April. I should bring everyone up to speed on where I am in my flight training.

Flight training is broken down into three stages. Stage 1 is complete when you do your first solo. You learn all the basic maneuvers (e.g. turns around a point, s-turns, rectangular course, steep turns), stalls, and landings, landings, landings. In one lesson, I did 12 takeoff and landings with my flight instructor! After you do all that, you practice landings some more. Once your instructor is comfortable with your landings, she’ll let you solo. Once you solo, you move onto Stage 2.

In Stage 2, you learn to do short and soft field takeoff and landings, instrument-only flight, night flying, and cross-country flights. In addition, you continue to review everything you learned in Stage 1. Short field landings and takeoffs are used when the runway is either short for your aircraft (what is a long runway for a Cessna 150 may very well be very short for a 737), and/or there are obstacles near the ends of the runway. Soft field landings and takeoffs are used when landing on turf or other runway surfaces that aren’t your standard asphalt/concrete runways. They are a lot of fun. Instrument-only flight is practiced by wearing a hood that covers the view outside the cockpit and the only thing you can see are the aircraft’s instruments. You really have to distrust what you body is telling you and trust the instruments. Often, you will be flying straight-and-level and your body will feel like you are turning. Cross-country flying includes learning how to complete a flight plan (using your trusty E6B). You do a day and night cross country flight with your instructor.

I have completed Stage 2 and now am in Stage 3. In Stage 3, you do at least two solo cross country flights. I went to Independence for my first cross county flight. For my second, long cross country flight, I went to Olympia and Centralia. I’ll write more details about those trips in later posts.

I am now studying for my written exam, which I hope to take in the next couple of weeks. After that, my flight instructor thinks I can do my checkride in late September.

Empty Right Seat

2006-05-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

I started writing this post almost a month ago. I finally got around to finishing it today.

--BEGIN FLASHBACK TO FOUR WEEKS AGO. INSERT WAYNE'S WORLD FLASHBACK SOUND EFFECT HERE.--

It’s been a busy, busy week. On Wednesday, I had to take my ground school final exam. (I passed.) On Thursday, I had to take my pre-solo checkride with the flight school’s chief flight instructor. (Comments made: “Stop riding the brakes.” And, “You do realize that the field you are about to do an emergency landing in is a berry field, right?”). When I arrived at Pearson at 9 a.m. on Saturday, it was raining. The clouds are just above minimums. Who wants to fly in that? My flight instructor and I go over the pre-solo quiz for over two hours. She does a great job of quizzing me, as well as answering all my remaining questions. As I’m getting ready to leave, she says, “If the weather is good, we’ll see if you can solo tomorrow.” At least I knew I wouldn’t sleep well that night.

My flight lesson for Sunday was scheduled from 5-7 p.m. I keep checking the weather all day. Thunderstorms are forecasted for the afternoon. Will the weather hold for my flight? I get to the airport and start pre-flighting. There are some ugly clouds to the south, but the wind is from the west. We take-off and head to Scappoose and see what the weather is like there.

The winds at Scappoose were calm, but there was a rain cloud just to the south of the airport. We did 4 touch and goes. I wasn’t happy with any of my landings, but they weren’t that bad. My flight instructor asked if I was ready to solo. I told her I was ready. We taxied to the FBO. She signed my logbook and got out of the plane.

I taxied out to runway. Fuel selector on, mixture set to rich, flaps up, carb heat off, full throttle…and that’s when I noticed the first droplets of rain on the windshield. The rainstorm that was hovering south of the airport decided to move over the airport.

The rain seemed to lighten up a bit as I turned crosswind. However, it wasn’t the rain that I was worried about…it was the wind. However, the two are sometimes associated with one another. I switched the radio over to the automated weather and checked the winds. There was a crosswind, but only 4 or 5 knots. I turn base and final, line the plane up, and land the plane to the left of the center line. I was surprised at how routine my first solo landing was. I guess that’s the sign of a good flight instructor.

Since the wind seemed to be holding at a steady 5 knots, I took off again for another circuit. When I turned downwind, I tuned into the weather. Now the winds were blowing directly across the runway at 10 knots. If the winds were 5 knots faster, I would be exceeding the plane’s design specifications…on my second solo landing. I decided at this point to land the plane and not go around for a third circuit. Turned base and then final. As soon as I lined up the nose with the runway, the wind starts blowing me north of the runway. I crab into the wind (i.e. use the rudders to point the nose of the plane into the wind) to try and keep her lined up. I end up landing hard way to the left of the center line.

I taxi off the runway and back to the FBO to pick up my instructor. I’m half expecting her to start yelling at me for going around a second time. When I get back to the FBO, she runs up to the plane and asks me why I didn’t go around a third time. I was getting yelled at, but not for the reason I thought I was. (I really didn’t get yelled at, but that’s only because it’s not my flight instructor’s style.) I let her know about the crosswinds. When she listed to the radio, she thought it was a good idea to abort the third circuit.

We flew back to Pearson. The winds were calm there. My flight instructor decided that I could do my third circuit at Pearson. We landed, she got out, and I taxied back onto the runway for one circuit. Flying the pattern in calm wind seemed simple compared to the rainstorm that I was just in. Takeoff, crosswind, downwind, base, and final were all by the numbers, followed by probably my best landing to date. Which was a good thing since a friend of mine who is also taking flight lessons was at the airport watching me. I’m glad he saw that landing, and not my landings over at Scappoose.

I felt more comfortable about the whole experience than I thought I would. I felt that I had control of the airplane at all times. I suppose that is what matters most.

This is the bird that delivered me safely from my first solo: N16221

--END FLASHBACK--

Focus

2006-04-01T16:54:00.000-08:00

A lot of things happened during today's flight lesson.

I pre-flighted the plane and towed her over to the fuel pumps to fill her up with some gas. As I was finishing up, two military helicopters landed on one of the taxiways. They had a landing gear, so they taxied over to the side of the ramp. A couple of national guardsmen got out of the helicopters and got into a car and drove away. They took-off again, hovering only 10 feet off the ground, turned 180 in formation, and landed on a nearby field. It was really amazing to watch, especially the 180 in formation. It's amazing how close military pilots get to each other. Up in the air, we do everything we can to stay as far as possible from each other.

After the mini-airshow, my flight instructor got into the plane and we taxied out to the run-up area. After the run-up we got to the runway threshold and I made my call to Portland tower. I practice my call to Portland tower all the time. I do it in the car, in the shower, running on the treadmill. Sure, people think I'm crazy, but my nightmare is to screw up a call to the tower. Well, the nightmare became reality today. I got on the radio to call Portland tower and said, "Portland Tower Cessna 19298..." At that point, I totally forgot what to say. Portland Tower got on and said "Cessna 19298 say again.." I called back and made my call correctly. Ugh. But the next thing I let happen was worse. I let my frustration make me lose focus on the task at hand. I made my call to Pearson traffic, and then proceeded to taxi onto the runway. I hit the brakes when I realized I forgot to go through my pre-takeoff checklist: altimeter set to "Alt", beacon lights on, mixture set to rich. I went through the checklist and did a fairly decent (I think) crosswind takeoff.

We went up and did slow flight, stalls, and steep turns. At that point, we saw that a nasty looking cell was heading toward Pearson, so we diverted to Scappoose to wait out the storm. Lately, my landings have been terrible. All this week, I've been going over the landing process over and over again. It must have worked because I think my landing at Scappoose was pretty good. We taxied the plane over to the FBO to wait out the storm.

While we waited out the storm, my flight instructor asked me several questions about the weather. I should have known the answer to these questions. I used to know the answer to these questions. But, for some reason, I could not focus and get the answer. I felt like I let my flight instructor down with my inability to answer her questions.

The storm passed over in about 30 minutes, and we headed back to Pearson. As we entered the Class D airspace over Vancouver, I called Portland Tower to report my position and obtain clearance. I gave my position report and the tower responded. I replied, "Thank You, 19298". The tower came back on "19298, that instruction was not for you." Ouch. The tower gave me clearance and we proceeded back to Pearson. My approach to landing was okay, but instead of landing on the main gear, I landed flat on all three wheels.

So, I got through one of these things I dreaded most...making a mistake while talking on the radio to the tower. And I did it twice. But, you know what, planes didn't fall out of the sky. While I'll practice those calls during the week, at least I know if I make a mistake, the world won't end. I just need to remain focused.

Thoughts on Flight Training

2006-03-25T09:26:00.000-08:00

It been several weeks since my last post. I've been doing flight training on the weekends and ground school two nights during the week. Recently, my flight training has been focused on getting ready to solo. Obviously, when you "solo", you fly the plane all by yourself (i.e. sans instructor). So each lesson usually involves some combination of slow flight, power-on and power-off stalls, emergency landing procedures, steep turns, and plenty of landings and takeoffs. I think we did 8 landing and takeoffs on my last flight.

Emergency landings are fun to practice. Unannounced, the instructor will pull the throttle out to idle (this does not stop the engine, it's still turning at about 500 rpm, but that's not enough to produce any appreciable thrust). At that point, you pitch the plane to best glide speed. This is the airspeed that will give you the most horizontal distance for a given rate of descent. You then pick the best available landing spot and set up an approach to land. We simulate trying to restart the engine and assume that we can't. We get within 500 feet of the ground and then apply full throttle and climb. It's surprising how far those little Cessnas can glide.

A couple weeks ago I flew "under the hood." This is where they put a hood over your eyes so that all you can see are your instruments. This is to simulate flying through clouds, without any visual reference. It is sort of like the training that Luke Skywalker received from Obi-Wan in Star Wars where Luke wore the helmet and had to defend himself from the laser ball thing. It's interesting how what your body is telling you can be different from what your instruments are telling you. You might feel like the plane is flying straight and level whereas it is actually turning to the left. You have to ignore what your body is sensing and trust your instruments. You also have to trust your flight instructor.

My lesson starts in a couple of hours. Time to get ready.

Not all landings are created equal.

2006-02-21T20:27:00.000-08:00

The day after I posted my frustrations at my inability to land the plane...I manage to land the plane, four times, without instructor assistance. Needless to say, I was pretty happy that day.

I was scheduled to fly both Saturday and Sunday last weekend, but last Saturday was cancelled because of high winds. Sunday, however, was a great day to fly. It was about 35 degrees when my lesson started with no winds. I was really excited to go out and land the plane again. But before I could do that, I would, well, have to takeoff first, I suppose. Following that, we would go and practice some steep turns, slow flight, stalls, and then, finally, head over to Scappoose for some touch and gos.

As I was pre-flighting the Creamsicle (one of the 4 trusty 150s I train in), I noticed that there was mud all over the landing gear and the flaps. I wondered how mud got up on the flaps. Then it clicked. I had read in the paper that a plane rented from my flight school had to make an emergency landing in a wildlife refuge about 10 miles north of the airport. Apparently, he had ran out of gas. I don't know if he forgot to check the fuel before he had taken off or if he was flying back in and didn't quite make it. The owner drove out to look at the plane, deemed it airworthy, filled it up with some gas, and flew her back to Pearson. At this point, my flight instructor asks me if I had heard what happened to our plane for today's flight. She confirmed my suspicions. I later learned that this was the first time the plane was rented after the little incident. They wanted to see if our little Creamsicle wanted to fly back to the refuge. Fortunately, it did not.

We took off and went over to the practice area to practice some maneuvers and then headed to Scappoose. I then had three terrible landings. I think my flight instructor had to get on at the very end of each of them to get the plane on the ground. On each of them, I turned for final too late and wasn't lined up with the runway. I was also coming in too high and too fast. It was pretty frustrating. I even made mistakes on the radio calls. In once case, I said I was turning crosswind when I was really turning base. After I made the call, I wanted to get back on the radio and say, "Cessna 18661 means the other crosswind, Scappoose."

As we were flying back to Pearson, my flight instructor made the comment that I "look like a pilot." Well, at least I can look the part. I still have a lot of work to do to become a pilot.

Landings

2006-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

Landings. My inability to successfully land the plane without my instructor jumping on at the last second is really beginning to frustrate me. But more on that later.

This week, the weather has been the best that the northwest has had all year. Of course, by Thursday the weather folks were predicting high winds (25-30 mph with gusts up to 50) through the weekend. Turns out we got most of the wind on Thursday and Friday, and by Saturday morning, the wind had died down completely. Today was the first day I have driven to the airport knowing that I was going to get up today. But not after a few problems.

I got to the airport about 10 minutes before my lesson was about to start. If my plan is available, I like to start pre-flighting early and get as much flying time as possible. When I got to the airport, I learned that my flight instructor was out on an IFR flight. They dispatched the plane to me and I went out to pre-flight. When I checked the fuel tanks, the plane only had about 6 gallons of fuel. The plane was on the other end of the tarmac, away from the fuel pumps. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to tow the plane over or taxi the plane over to the fuel pumps. I decided to wait for my flight instructor.

Unfortunately, her IFR flight went long, and she was about 20 minutes late. She told me that I could have towed the plane, but not taxi it. So we decided we would taxi over and fuel her up. When I tried to start the engine, the engine began to smoke. My flight instructor told me to get my stuff out of the plane and go back inside. I started going over in my mind what I did during pre-flight. I checked the oil, it was at 5 qts, within the 4.5 - 6 qt range on the 150s. I put the oil cap back on and secured it and secured the engine cover. I had primed her 3 times, as we always do when it's the first time the plane has been out for today. Mixture was set to rich and the throttle was 1/4 inch set. When my flight instructor told me to go inside, I thought she had seen me do something wrong (or not do something) and I was about to get yelled at. But it was simply to go and check to see if another plane was available. There was a plane available. I did my preflight again and off we went.

By this time, there was only an hour left in my lesson. So we flew over to Scappose to practice landings (and takeoffs...sort of hard to do one without the other). Winds were reported as variable, so I wasn't sure what to expect on landing. The first two landing attempts, my instructor got on with me at the end to help get the plane down. On the third try, she said that this one would be on my own. I lined myself up nicely with the runway on turning from base to final. I was a little low and added a little bit of power. There was a slight crosswind coming from the south (I was landing to the east), so I added just a little right rudder to keep the nose pointed into the wind. Everything was looking good for my first unassisted landing.

During this whole process, a plane that had landed in front of me was doing a touch and go and was taking off again. As I turned final, a bi-plane decided he's is going to try and takeoff before I land. In the back of my head, I start to recall what to do in case we have to go around. As I finish my turn on final, the bi-plane starts its roll. By the time I'm lined up with the runway, he is up in the air, and departs to the south immediately after takeoff. Okay...all of that's out of the way and now I can complete my first landing. Everything is going great until we are about 200 yards from the runway, we hit some heavy turbulence and the right wind starts to drop. I know it wasn't a stall because I was looking at the airspeed and we were going just over 60 knots. My flight instructor gets on the controls immediately and we safely land the plane. Since we never felt the turbulence on the first two landings, we think it might have been turbulence caused by the bi-plane taking off. Regardless of what caused it, if that had not happened, I might be writing about my first successful unassisted landing.

If the weather holds, I'll be going up, and coming back down, tomorrow.

Yet another exciting post.

2006-01-28T13:04:00.000-08:00

Guess what...I was grounded again today. To whomever controls Portland's weather: Enough with the freakin' rain already. I took a picture of the empty tarmac covered with rain with gloomy skies above with my cell phone. I'll see if I can upload it to this blog.

I checked the weather before I drove to the airport. Winds were 170 at 7 (meaning winds were coming from the south at 7 knots). Pearson's runways are 8 and 26. This means the winds were perpendicular to the runways. I wonder what it's like to land with a perfect crosswind. A blog that I read a lot gives a good description of how to land a plane in a crosswind: Blogging at FL250 The author of the blog is a professional pilot who lives right here in Vancouver. He also has a good photographic eye and posts quite a few pictures. Check it out.

BTW: When is Blogger going to support HTML editing of blogs in Safari browser!!!

Low Ceiling

2006-01-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

I was grounded both Saturday and Sunday because of weather. What was especially frustrating was that the clouds were only a couple hundred feet below minimums. At Pearson Airfield, the clouds can’t be any lower than 1500 feet for VFR flight. On Saturday, they were at 1200 feet and on Sunday, 1000 feet. To make it worse, we’ve had great weather yesterday and today.

I did some groundwork with my instructor and then went out to a plane to do some chair flying. I practiced stall recovery procedures as well as memorized the various V speeds and their location on the airspeed indicator. It was time well spent, but I’d much rather have gone up and did it for real.

Back In the Saddle Again

2006-01-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

After taking a month off from flying because of the holidays and a quick ski trip out to Mt. Bachelor with my brother, I went back to my weekend flight lessons. My instructor has a little saying, "The rudders never lie." That is, the amount of finesse used to operate the rudders and length of time since last flight are inversely proportional. In my case, that relationship is true.

On Saturday, I got to have a little fun before my lesson. When I started taking lessons a few month ago, a good friend of mine kept talking about how he always wanted to learn how to fly. A few years ago, he even went to ground school, but never followed through and took the actual flight lessons. (Why would someone go through all the trouble of all that book learning and not go and do the fun part !?!?!) I asked him what he was waiting for and he couldn't answer me, so he signed up for flight lessons. Since the weather has been so poor around here since mid-December, it was a month between the time he actually signed up and when a finally was able to fly. He is taking lessons in a Cessna 172, which seats 4 people (unlike the Cessna 150s that I fly in, which seat 1.75 people). I asked him if it was okay to tag along and he and my flight instructor had no problem with it.

My flight instructor took the plane up and when we got over the Columbia River, let my friend take control and do some simple turns, climbs, and descents. Then, in what I am sure was a surprise to him, we went over to Scappoose for some touch and go's. It was a lot of fun flying with him, seeing him realize a lifelong dream. It was also fun sitting in the back seat. I noticed so many things I had not seen before because I'm usually too busy flying the plane. Hopefully, he and I will both get our private pilot certificates and I can talk him into going halvesies on a plane with me.

I went up right after him in the trusty Creamsicle. Fortunately, the door didn't open on my flight. I could tell I was rusty during my pre-flight check. I had started memorizing the checklist so I could use it as a "done list" and review it after I completed the pre-flight. But I had to take the checklist around with me so I didn't forget anything. I had forgotten simple things like Vx and Vy (different speeds for climbs). We practiced slow flight and stalls, and my reaction time was slow because I was having a hard time remembering what to do. It was a little frustrating because I knew I knew better. Not that I didn't expect anything else. Okay, maybe there was this teeny tiny part of me that thought that I was one of those pilots that doesn't "rust"...that it's in my blood. Survey says: X (Insert game show buzzer sound here.)

Sunday was much, much better. I was still a little rough in the beginning of the flight, but smoothed out as we went along. There was a lot of cloud cover and we couldn't get much higher than 1000 feet. So we went over to Scappoose for some touch and go's. It was great practice for crosswind takeoffs and landings. Normally, you want to land directly into the wind. It's easier to control the plane at slow speeds in a headwind because you have a little bit of lift provided by the wind going over the wings, in addition to the wind naturally going over your wings as the plane moves forward through the air. Unfortunately, the runway isn't always lined up with the wind direction (that is, until they start building runways on gigantic lazy-susans, so the runway will always line up with the wind). When the wind is blowing at an angle to the runways, it is called a crosswind. Crosswind landlings are trickier than normal landings because the wind has a tendency to blow the plane away from the runway. So you need to compensate using the ailerons and rudders. How much you need to compensate is based upon how much of a crosswind you have. I'm probably oversimplifying the issue because it is hard to do a good crosswind landing. Even commercial pilots have trouble from time to time. Here's an extreme example.

I can only assume that the pilot landed safely the second time around. And getting the plane and its passengers safely on the ground is all that matters.

Anyway, we did 6 crosswind touch and go's. I am *so* close to doing landings on my own. I'm in no particular rush to get my certificate, but, in my mind, it would be my first great piloting accomplishment. Hopefully, the weather in the next few weeks will be good enough for me to get a lot of hours in.

Turbulence and Overload

2005-12-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

I wasn't able to go out today since the ceiling was at 700'. Instead, my flight instructor and I sat down and did more ground with my instructor. We went over the Seattle sectional and we talked about the various classes of airspace. She gave me a lot of information to process and its going to take a little while to sink in.

But I did get to go flying yesterday. The clouds were scattered at 2000 feet with a ceiling at 4000 feet. We took off and I think I might have rotated too soon. Usually when I take off you can feel the nose getting "pushed" up by the elevators (it's more like the tail is getting pushed down). But on this takeoff, there didn't seem to be that much lift. I noticed my flight instructor got on the controls to pitch the node down so we could gain some airspeed. We eventually got into a steady climb and headed over to Scappose (SPB) to practice some landings.

As we approached Scappose, the weather over the airport was acceptable for landing. But directly west of the airport were some clouds that were only 200 - 300 feet off the ground. Since the wind was coming from the west we were afraid that the clouds might soon be over the airport. We decided to fly back to Pearson to practice landings there. As we setup to enter the traffic pattern at Pearson, we heard two other planes in the pattern over the radio. Then we get a call from one of the instructors on the ground that there are two helicopters flying directly through the pattern. We see them and they are at the same altitude we are (about 1000'). Right after we see the helicopters, we see another Cessna in the pattern, turning from crosswind to the downwind leg where we were going to enter the pattern. Oh, did I mention it was raining and quite turbulent. During this, I had managed to lose 100 feet of altitude and my airspeed was 120 mph (I should have been at 1000' going about 100 mph). My flight instructor said we were going to do a 360 and re-enter the pattern. By this time, we lost sight of the helicopters and we tried to locate them again while turning to avoid the other plane in the pattern. It was at this point that I hit sensory overload. My normal reaction is to stop and try to slow things down, which wasn't really an option in this situation. My flight instructor sensed that this was too much for me and she took control of the plane, executed the 360, and handed back the controls to me (at the proper altitude and speed). This is one of the reasons I really like my flight instructor; she has a good idea of when I'm getting over my head and knows when to step in and take control.

The joy of straight and level flight.

2005-12-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to my lesson this weekend. My flight instructor is booked all day Saturday, so I don't think I'm going to fly tomorrow. I told her to call me in case of a no-show or cancellation. I only live about 10 minutes from the airport, so I can be there in a jiffy. I do have a lesson scheduled for Sunday. Steep turns are on the syllabus.

I was talking to someone today about flying and I realized that my favorite part about flying is flying straight and level. Maybe it's because I'm still new to flying, but I really enjoy puttering along at about 100 m.p.h. in the school's Cessna 150 at 3000 feet. Flying above Vancouver and Portland, you can see Mt. Hood, Mt. Rainier, and Mt. St. Helens from our practice area. When it is a clear day, the contrast of the white, snow covered mountains and the brisk blue sky is amazing.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy taking off and landing, practicing stalls, and learning the basic maneuvers. But that is a different kind of fun. During those things, I am completely engaged, totally focused on my task.

As a bonus, since it is winter, the air is considerably calmer (or at least, so I'm told) than during the summer. My flight instructor told me I was getting spoiled by all the cold, calm air. I hope I get spoiled this weekend.

Landing, Stalling, and Raining

2005-11-27T16:18:00.000-08:00

I've managed to get in 4 lessons since my last post. Today, my flight instructor and I did some ground school since the cloud layer was at 1400 feet. For those of you not familiar with the flight certification process, the first certificate you get is for VFR flight. This means that flying through clouds is verboten. You have to either fly 500 feet below the clouds or 1000 feet above the clouds, and 2000 feet to the side of any clouds. Since TPA (traffic pattern altitude) is 1000 feet at Pearson airport, the clouds cannot be any lower than 1500 feet in order to fly. (In addition, you must have visibility of at least 3.5 miles.) It turns out that had I scheduled my lesson in the afternoon, I would have probably been able to go up. We did some ground school and talked about carb icing, instrument malfunctions, and spins.

In the last couple of lessons, we had started practicing power-off stalls. Power-off stalls are supposed to simulate stalling the plane while in the landing pattern. The goal of the exercise is to recover from the stall while losing no more than 100 feet in altitude during the recovery. A power-off stall occurs when you have no throttle (hence the power-off) and flaps extended (since you are simulating a landing). For obvious reasons, you practice this at higher altitudes. In my case, we practiced the stalls at 3000 feet.

Stalls were quite a bit different than I had imagined. First, I thought it would be easy to stall the plane. It wasn't (thankfully). You have to extend full flaps and pull hard on the yoke for what seems like forever. Second, I thought when the plane went into the stall it would be similar to a roller coaster car reaching the zenith of the first hump and it starting to descend down the tracks. The stall itself was not that violent. Of course, maybe I was too busy trying to recover from the stall itself to notice my butt lifting out of the seat.

I recovered from each stall at about 2600 feet. I need to improve that so I lose less than 100 ft. Funny enough, I am losing most of that altitude trying to get the plane to stall in the first place. My instructor says that's because I take too long extending the flaps.

Only one lesson scheduled for next Sunday. But my instructor might be able to see me on Saturday as well. I hope so, because this flying thing is starting to get fun.

How to make a 757 go-around

2005-11-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

A winter storm has been hovering over Portland all week. I assumed that the weather was not going to cooperate through the entire weekend and I wouldn't be able to go out. However, when I woke up Sunday morning, the sun was out with partly cloudy skies.

By the time my lesson was about begin, it looked like a couple of storm cells were rolling in. When my flight instructor arrived, she asked me if I wanted to do the pre-flight. Of course! She gave me the plane's log book (all flights and flight hours are recorded in a log book that they use to figure out how long the engine was on so they can figure out how much you owe) and I went out to the plane to begin the pre-flight check.

Part of the pre-flight check is to check to make sure the lights work and lower the flaps for inspection. Since the engine isn't running, the power is coming from the batteries. As I was lowering the flaps, my flight instructor came out and told me that the master switch was on (I guess she could tell since the plane's beacon was on) and told me to turn it off so I didn't drain the batteries. I tried to tell her I was checking the lights and lowering the flaps, but I guess she didn't understand what I was saying. I didn't want to get into an argument over such a small thing, so I turned the master switch off and we started the pre-flight from the beginning. That ended up being a good thing, since what I didn't do when checking the lights was walk around the plane to check to see if the navigation lights on the wings were on. A good lesson learned. We went over a lot of things that we covered last week, which was a good thing. For the pre-flight check, repetition is going to be the key-to-learning.

As we were checking the oil, my flight instructor noticed that a plane was about to takeoff in the wrong direction. When the wind is less than 5 knots, planes are supposed to take off in the same direction as the big commercial planes do at Portland (PDX). Planes were landing going east and this plane was about to takeoff into the west. As he tookoff, there was a United Airlines 757 landing at Portland airport. You could see the 757 change its course. Apparently, all commercial airlines have a collision warning system. If any plane, even a small Cessna, gets within 500 Ft. of the plane, the collision warning will sound and, according to regulations, the plane must abort the landing and go around. That, understandably, pisses commercial pilots off. As the 757 passed overhead, it changed course again and was going to land anyway. The plane passed over the horizon and I don't know if it landed or if it went around. I hope I never cause a commercial plane to have to divert because of some boneheaded move on my part. Once again, I discover another reason to take this hobby very, very seriously.

We finished the pre-flight, and by the time we were ready to takeoff, there were some crosswind to deal with. My flight instructor had control of the yolk and I operated the throttle (which on takeoff is easy...FULL POWER!) . I felt what she was trying to do by turning the ailerons in the direction of the wind to counteract the crosswind component (it turns out all that vector math I learned in high school physics is finally paying off!). As we accelerated, we slowly brought the ailerons even. We were going to fly the traffic pattern at Pearson, but decided to go over to Scappoose airpark and do some touch-and-gos since the weather was better over there.

I'm starting to get a feel for the airplane. I beginning to figure out how much I need to turn the ailerons for a standard turn, or how much throttle I need to give to go to a certain number of RPMs. But the rudders are still foreign to me. It's like learning how to walk and chew gum at the same time (which I've never had a problem with, but patting your head and rubbing your belly has always been difficult for me).

After a few touch and go landings, we flew back to Pearson. We flew through a little rain. That combined with the fact that we had broken clouds and some sunshine, I couldn't see a thing out the window because of the glare off the water on the windshield. What was worse was there was another plane entering the same part of the landing pattern that we wanted to enter. My flight instructor got on the radio and told the other plane that we could not see them. They told us that they were about to enter the base, which was good since we hadn't entered in the downwind portion of the flight pattern yet. I certainly understand why it's important to know where other planes are (Apparently, fender benders at 1000 feet are fatal.) but it sure is hard locating them. A couple of times my flight instructor located planes long before I did. I'm hoping this is a skill that will improve with practice.

I won't be able to fly next week. But after that, I'm going to have two lessons a week, Saturday and Sunday.

We are going to do what today???

2005-10-29T16:30:00.000-07:00

It was a rainy day in Vancouver and low overcast skies. I wasn't sure if my first "real" flight lesson was going to be cancelled. I was going to be disappointed if it did because I was really looking forward to all week. On the other hand, I did the reading that my instructor gave me, but I hadn't absorbed it yet. So maybe an extra week wouldn't be such a bad thing.

I get to Pearson Airfield. I had to bring in my birth certificate so I could prove I wasn't a terrorist. I guess terrorists don't have birth certificates from Hawaii. Once I get the paperwork is done, I head upstairs for some ground school.

I assumed that since my instructor had me read about straight and level flight, turns, climbs, and descents, that was what we were going to do today. We sit down and she starting talking about flying in the pattern...to takeoff and land. She started talking about how to make an approach for landing. What??? Did she have me confused with another student? We went over the basics of takeoffs and landings and went outside to do the pre-flight check.

We go outside to the plane and spend close to an hour doing the pre-flight check. The purpose of the pre-flight check is to find any problems with the plane on the ground and not in the air. As Don Rickles' character in Casino (one of my favorite films) said, "Better down here than up there, you know what I mean?" My flight instructor apologized a couple of times for taking so long to go over pre-flight, but I didn't mind at all. In fact, I would have been fine if pre-flight took the entire lesson (Okay...maybe not. I did want to get some flying in today.) I'm the type of person who has difficultly remembering things by rote memorization. If I can understand why something needs to be done, then I can remember when to do it. Carb heat for example. I didn't know any thing about a carburetor and so I didn't know why and when you need to apply carb heat. (By the way, I am not proud of the fact that I have no idea how an engine works.) After reading in my textbook about the venturi and how carb ice forms, not only did I learn when you need to apply carb heat, but why it's so important to prevent carb ice. I don't mind taking the time to understand what the static port does and why it needs to be clear, or why you need to manually inspect the fuel level (get this...the fuel gauges on the Cessna 150 are only accurate at empty.).

We finish the pre-flight check. We startup the engine and proceed to taxi. The instructor lets me taxi the plane. I hope nobody was watching because I'm sure it looked like I was under the influence. A couple of drinks might have straightened me out. We do our pre-takeoff check and taxi out onto the runway. She let's me work the throttle on takeoff. This is easy since we go full throttle. I'm flying the plane but she has her hand on the controls. I'm still not sure how much control I have of the plane. I'm so focused on flying that I can't really tell how much control she is exerting on the stick or the rudders.

We climb to about 600 feet and turn into the crosswind leg of the traffic pattern. We keep turning until the downwind pattern and climb to 1000 ft. We level off, speed up to about 100 m.p.h. and pull the throttle back to 2300 RPM. When we are abeam of the runway, we pull carb heat out (that carb heat study is paying off in spades!), pull the throttle back to 1500 RPM, pitch to 90 m.p.h. and lower the flaps 10 degrees. How do you know the flaps are lowered 10 degrees? You lower them for three seconds. (I assumed there was some sort of gauge that would tell you, but not on this plane.) We turn and go into the base. We pitch the plane to 80 m.p.h. and lower the flaps 10 more degrees (one-mississippi, two-mississippi, three-mississippi) and turn into the final. At this point, she takes control of the plane and lands. Then she immediately goes full throttle and we takeoff to do to this again. We do this three more times. Each time I have a better feel for what is going on. But I am nowhere near feeling comfortable with flying in the pattern.

I still have this, "I'm over my head" feeling, but I suppose that's why you spend over 20 hours of flight time with an instructor at your side.

First Flight

2005-10-22T21:17:00.000-07:00

For many years, I have wanted to learn how to fly. When I was a kid my father bought an IBM PCjr for Christmas one year. One of the programs he bought was Microsoft's Flight Simulator. Ever since then, I've always had a version of Flight Simulator lying around. I never got around to doing the real thing because I never had the time or money for flight lessons. A couple of weeks ago I realized, that at this point of my life, I did, in fact, have the time and money for flight lessons. I called the flight school at Pearson Airfield in Vancouver to schedule an introductory flight lesson.

I spent a lot of time searching for blogs and web-sites about people's first flight, but still didn't know what to expect. When I got to the airfield, it was busy. Two planes were parked by the fuel pump and another plane was taking off. As I walked towards the flight school's office, I noticed a police office standing by the door. What happened? Did I just book my first flight with the same flight school that Al Qaeda uses? I walked passed the officer, wondering if he was going to stop me. He didn't and by the time I checked-in, he was gone.

I checked-in with the flight school and the paperwork part of my lesson began. After signing all my rights away, I was told my flight instructor would be with me soon and that I should have a seat. There were several people in the waiting room, chatting about their recent flights, weather conditions, and (gulp) aborted landings because the pilot realized that the runway he was trying to land on was a road. I wondered if he was my flight instructor.

My flight instructor arrives (not aborted landing guy) and tells me it's going to be a few minutes. She needs to do the pre-flight check. I had read that in some introductory flights, you get to do pre-flight check with the instructor. I was a little disappointed about not getting the entire experience, but I'm sure she didn't want some pesky student asking a bunch of stupid questions while she is trying to figure out if the plane is going to fly today.

While waiting for my instructor to do the flight check, I realized that I was actually really excited about getting to fly. Since it had rained for most of the week, I assumed that the weather would have been bad and that I wouldn't get to go out. I didn't let my hopes get up. But it was a sunny, brilliant day. In a few minutes, I was going to get to do something that I've been wanting to do for over 20 years! The last time I've been this excited was when I was having dinner at
The French Laundry.

My flight instructor returned and we walked out to our plane, a Cessna 150, called the creamcicle because of its orange color. My flight instructor accurately called it a go-kart with wings. The Cessna 150 has a 100 horsepower engine and can go about 100 miles per hour. My instructor told me to get in on the left side, the captain's seat. My friends from college probably think that the first thing I did was point my right finger forward and, in my best Patrick Stewart voice, say "engage". They would be wrong. (Although, it took an enormous amount of will power NOT to do it.) The instructor went over a brief overview of all the instruments and controls. We strapped ourselves in and closed the doors.

Or, at least, I tried to close my door. The darn thing wouldn't shut. After three tries, I held the door latch open, closed the door, then closed the latch. The door seemed to be shut. Then, the instructor said, "Don't worry if the door opens during the flight." WHAT??!!?? According to her, the slipstream around the plane will keep the door shut, or at least it wouldn't open that much. Seemed to make sense to me and she obviously knew what she was talking about. Besides, what are the chances of the door opening in flight anyway?

She started the engine and started to taxi towards the runway. During taxi, she asked me to test the brakes with the pedals on my side of the plane. (The Cessna 150 has two rudder petals with brakes at the top of each pedal.) I gently apply the brakes and almost flip the plane over. I'm exaggerating, but those brakes seemed more touchy then the ones in my car (maybe I should get the brakes on my car checked out.) After getting clearance from PDX (Pearson airport lies in the path of PDX) we announce our takeoff and taxi onto the runway.

This is it! I'm finally going to get to fly. Other than testing the brakes, my instructor had the airplane since taxi. She pulled the throttle and we began our takeoff roll. I'm not sure what to look at, the controls or out the window. I start looking off to my left. What the hell am I doing? I've never had the chance to watch a takeoff from the cockpit of a plane, and here I am looking off to the side. I looked forward out the window. We accelerated. The end of the runway got closer, and closer, and closer. Uhh...are we going to take off? At the last moment (or what seemed to be at the time) we took off...and my door promptly opened.

I was ready to panic, but my instructor didn't say anything about the door, so I figured everything was cool. I tried closing it again, but no luck. The door only opened a fraction, as my flight instructor predicted. Actually, I wasn't that worried about falling out of the plane. What I was worried about was my wallet falling out of my back pocket and onto some lucky recipient below. Nonetheless, I'm going close to 100 m.p.h. at 1,000 feet and my door is open. Super.

We head to the practice area that is to the west of Vancouver, south of the Columbia in Oregon. My flight instructor pointed out other airplanes in the area. I couldn't see all the planes that she was pointing out. That, of course, worried me. Even at speeds of 100 m.p.h., two planes flying towards each other wouldn't have that much time to change course. You would think it would be easy to see their navigation lights (the red and green lights on the wings of the plane) or their beacon, but on this bright, sunny, hazy day, the only thing I saw was the sun reflecting off the fuselages of the other planes.

She hands the controls over to me. I am supposed to try and keep the plane straight and level. This wasn't very difficult because it seemed that was what the plane wanted to do. We did a shallow right turn and then a shallow left turn. I was overwhelmed by the number of things that I was supposed to monitor; the angle of the turn, the altitude, the coordination of the turn, and finally, always looking out for other aircraft. I realized that I was concentrating so much, I was forgetting to have fun. We did some sharp turns at 45 degrees. This was the only part of the flight where I began to feel motion sickness. But it passed quickly and it didn't become a problem.

My flight instructor took the controls and we headed back to the airport. All the while, my flight instructor is making radio calls to other pilots in the area announcing our position and our intention. There was some communication with a pilot who was going to land behind us. I remember reading on other pilot's blogs about their difficulty with radio communications. I thought it was because they had issues with public speaking. In a previous job, I had to do a lot of public speaking, so I thought the radio probably wouldn't be a problem for me. But as I listened to my instructor and the other pilot communicate, I heard the words, but did not understand them. It was another language. I now understand why people have difficulty with the radio. I think I am going to have difficulty also.

As my flight instructor approached the runway, she seemed to adjust every control in the cockpit. Landing sure looks complicated. The landing was a lot smoother than I thought it was going to be. I was expecting some body-jolting landing. But it was smoother than a lot of commercial flights I've taken. We taxied off the runway and to parking. We parked the plane, tied the creamsicle down (the tie the plane down lest a gust of winds comes along and flips the plane over), and went over some of the plane's mechanics.

The experience was pretty much what I had expected (except for the door part). I was ready for more. I scheduled another lesson with my flight instructor and bought some textbooks. I think the next few months are going to be a lot of fun.