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Yesterday was the first day of ground school, so I decided to leave work a bit early and get out in the afternoon for another flying lesson.

I got down to Boeing Field about a half hour early to give me some time to brush up on some of the material before my CFI showed up. When she got there she made some friendly jabs at me on whether or not I was going to be “OK” today (referring to my last lesson when I got nauseous in flight). I assured her I was operating at 100% and that I was excited to get back in the air.

After we went through our pre-briefing she sent me over to check the weather. During previous sessions she would pull up the weather on the computer and give me a high-level overview and that apparently wasn’t going to be the case today, she wanted me to check the weather and do so without using the weather computer. This essentially meant I needed to call the Flight Service Station (FSS) and get a weather briefing. I don’t know where all this came from but as soon as I got off the phone with the briefer I was able to cite the area forecast for the next several hours, weather conditions both at Boeing Field and Bremerton National, winds aloft, and the notices to airmen (NOTAMs). All the information that was somewhat cryptic to me in the past I was able to collect and sum up with short one liners such as “BFI conditions, few clouds at 7,000\scattered at 12,000; visibility 10 miles; 220@Niner (winds from the SW at 9 knots)”. Also, to give an idea of the importance of the NOTAMs there was one in particular which was informational of active skydiving at 12,000 feet at ¼ mile west of Bremerton National which happened to be where we’re headed to practice – good information to know!

Once we got up in the air and over towards Bremerton I started running through maneuvers related slow flight – apparently when the CFI says slow flight she really means SLOW FLIGHT. We got to a cruising altitude of 4,000ft and we started inducing low power scenarios by reducing throttle, enabling carb heat, and attempting climbs. The plane was in a constant nose pitch up and we were just barely maintaining our altitude while at 60 KIAS. After completing some other maneuvers we got into the real fun, we brought the plane back up to speed and then started deploying the flaps after we had full flaps deployed we reduced throttle and kept the plane with the nose pitch up. As the plane slowed the stall horn started sounding at ~50 KIAS we proceeded to continue slowing and I then spent the next ~30 minutes maneuvering at ~40 KIAS. To put this in perspective, the Vs1 stall speed (no flaps) is 44 knots and the Vs0 stall speed (full flaps) is 33 knots. Ironically the entire time the stall horn continued to blare and at no time was I concerned about actually stalling, I think this is an indication that my trust in the aircraft is really building.

After a while we decided to go make some landings which would happen to be my first real landings! We went over and did a couple of touch and go’s at Bremerton National before making a final landing at Boeing Field – my flare was off and I ended up bouncing all three landings. I’ll get the hang of it with more practice and although the bounced landings aren’t elegant at least I can get the plane back down on the ground.

Overall, this was definitely my favorite lesson thus far not only did I learn so much but I’m enjoying myself so much more now that I’m starting to gain trust in the aircraft!

I went out with the flight instructor again on Saturday for practicing maneuvers, some of which were quite interesting. We did some basic climbs, descents, and turns at various speeds. At one point I was requested to do a climb at 50kt which wigged me out a little bit because Vs (stall speed) is at 46kt, this ultimately brought me to the point where I ended up getting nauseous. Which brings me to the valuable lesson of the day – before flying ensure your body is in state capable of flying! The fact I stayed out late the night before (wasn’t completely well rested), wasn’t operating at 100%, and that I had crap for lunch (McDonalds) are all contributing factors… lesson learned!

On a brighter note it was also my first shot at taking a jab at the radio communication which is as cryptic as cryptic can be. I believe the line requesting permission to taxi was something like “Boeing Ground Cessna six-three-three-niner-six at Wings Aloft, Zulu, requesting clearance for Vashon departure”. Let’s just say I have a lot to learn before I become fluent in the lingo.

In other news, I ran into G. Gordon Liddy on Saturday night. Everyone around him was treating him as if he was God which agitated me a bit; who are these folks and do they not know he is one of the biggest crooks of all time? I just wanted to grab him by that ludicrous mustache of his and drag him down the street though it’s probably a good thing I didn’t because I have a feeling he “knows people” and I may not have woken up the next morning… I’ll just leave it be with stating that I don’t like him.

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!