Flying Anniversary

1:42 PM Wednesday, July 20, 2011

One year ago I sat in the pilot seat of an airplane for the first time! By the time I landed I was addicted! 6 months later I had a license and now 1 year later aviation is a huge part of my life. I wouldn't trade a single second of the time I have spent learning about airplanes and flying in them and I wouldn't take a single dollar back that I have spent.

For those of you keeping track of my summer goals you will remember that one of my goals was to fly on my anniversary. Well it didn't happen. For one, there is a major heat wave happening right now. The temp was 102 today and the heat index was 115+. I was still planning on flying until both 545ca and 547ca went to the shop one for its 100 hr and one to get the engine rebuilt. I guess that settled it, I would have to wait until next week to get my flight in.

Flying with my Brother!

10:00 AM Monday, July 11, 2011

Location:KDVN
Weather: VRB05 Sky CLR
Runway in Use: 03 and 15

For the past few months I have been trying to get my brother to go with me on a flight, but our schedules never quite worked out. Although last Friday rolled around and it was supposed to be pretty nice. I booked a plane for 12-2pm and let my brother know I would be flying if he was going to be free he could join me. Turns out he could go but not until 1pm. That made our flight a bit short but we got it done!



I arrived at the airport a bit early so I could have the preflight done and we could head out as soon as he got there. The preflight looked good, albeit very hot! I went back into the airport and chatted with the airport folk until Ryan arrived. In the meantime I watched the b-17 that was on display take-off, not a bad looking airplane. I was tempted to go get a ride, but for $400 I think I will save my money for PIC time.



Ryan arrived. We hopped in. I gave him my usual speech about staying out of the way of controls, if he sees traffic/birds/obstacles in our flight path to go ahead and point them out, I may or may not see them and two sets of eyes are better than one. The winds were 070@05 so I taxied to 03 did a quick run up and then lined up to take off. The door was a bit of a problem, the top latch didn't want to lock, but we got it taken care of and then we were off. It was a pretty smooth lift-off if I may say so myself. We were headed to the north east but I went a bit north first to avoid the Met Life blimp that had just lifted off and to avoid QC airspace.

The rest of the time we just cruised around at about 2500ft doing some sight seeing. We went out by the Mississippi, up around the Clinton area, circled and headed back. We did a quick touch and go on 15 with a very pretty chirp then went around for a full stop which was a bit harder but still nothing to be ashamed of.



All and all it was a good day of flying. I enjoyed sharing it with my Brother and can't wait to do it again.




Duration of Flight: .08
Total Flight Hours: 90.7

Photo Credit and Copyright: Ryan Lenger

New Job & Met Life Blimp

12:19 PM Wednesday, July 6, 2011

Just a quick little post to say that I am now a proud employee of Carver Aero! I am only working the front desk but it is still a job around aviation and I can't wait! I should have a lot more posts about interesting planes that come into Davenport.

Also, while I was at KDVN today the met life blimp was tied down at the ramp. I wish I had had time to go see it up close but it was still pretty impressive from the hanger.