Introductory Flight
Yesterday was an absolutely awesome day. Last weekend I signed-up for taking an introductory flight at Wings Aloft at Boeing Field. It was my day to fly, and I was *excited*… ok, perhaps I was a little nervous as well. 
We were assigned a Cessna 172P for the flight and while the instructor was taking me through our pre-flight inspections a USAF AWACS took off in what just seemed a 100 yards away!!! When you’re on the airfield those things are horribly loud and although they have no weaponry they are highly intimidating. This is one of the things I love about BFI (Boeing Field) that although it’s a general aviation airport the traffic generated by Boeing results in takeoffs/landings that you wouldn’t necessarily see at other airfields. For example later in the day I also witnessed a landing of a Boeing 737 AEW&C (Project Wedgetail) which is slated for the Royal Australian Air Force. Anyways, I digress… after completing all pre-flight checks we towed the aircraft out and prepared for taxiing. We eventually taxied to a holding position near the end of the runway and held until we completed the pre-takeoff checklist. All said and done the instructor lined the plane up on the middle of the runway and gave me control… it was time for me to fly! I slowly increased the throttle while trying to maintain the aircraft on the runways center line and once we hit 55 knots I slowly pulled up on the yoke to gain a little altitude and then leveled while flying over the remainder of the runway to gain additional airspeed – I was in business!!!
Immediately after takeoff the 15 knot crosswinds were extremely clear and resulted in the aircraft getting tossed around as if it was a paper plane. It took me a few minutes to get used to how much the plane would rise *and* fall with the wind (think of hitting small air pockets) but I got used to it fairly quickly and carried on with the trip. What a trip it was, after takeoff we started heading east and went all the way out towards Duvall/Carnation and then back over towards Bainbridge Island. During this time I learned the basic methods of controlling the plane including turns, climbs, and descents. I also learned to keep an eye out for other air traffic. At one point I saw an aircraft headed right towards up from a diagonal level. I don’t know if they just simply didn’t see us or just didn’t care but I quickly climbed a couple hundred feet to give some buffer – they ended up flying ~400 feet right underneath us. This made my instructor a little uneasy, not because of anything I did but because she apparently had never had an aircraft come that close in mid-air before.
We continue out towards Bainbridge Island and performed some more maneuvers before calling it a day. As we headed back towards the city the instructor contacted ATC and relayed our intentions for approach. They responded asking for visual confirmation of a DC-9 at 2,200 feet, this plane was at our 11 o’clock and we were requested to follow it in for our approach. Two things to note here, one is the DC-9 was landing at a different airport (SEA) so our approaches weren’t going to be identical but also by the time we lined up it was so far ahead of us we didn’t have to worry about any of its wake. We were given an initial approach clearance for the primary runway (13R) when we checked in for final approach we were asked to land on the shorter runway (13L) as a larger jet was getting ready to make its approach on the larger runway – we made our adjustments and brought the plane done while adjusting for the crosswinds.
All said and done this was an *amazing* experience and I’m looking forward to my next flight next weekend!
