First two flights with passengers as a private pilot

When my good friend Dave got his private pilot certificate last year, I was his first passenger. So after I got mine yesterday, he met me at Twin Oaks Airpark this afternoon so we could go flying, only this time with me as pilot in command.

We took off from the airport and made our way south, ending up about half way between McMinnville and Salem before heading west a little ways, and them turning back north. We did a touch and go at McMinnville and then flew over Henry Hagg Lake before returning to Twin Oaks. We saw all kinds of cool stuff and did some fun turns and whatnot. It was a lot of fun flying with Dave again, and we will be spending a lot of future time together in the air, I'm sure.

A little later in the afternoon, another good friend and former roomie, Cory, went with me to the airport, and we took off for my second flight of the day. Our trip took us to Hagg Lake and the area to the south of there, then Aurora, where we did a touch and go then to Mulino, where we did a full-stop landing. From there we returned to Twin Oaks. By the time we got about 5 miles from the airport, the winds were really starting to whip up out of the southwest and west, and as I approached the airfield I started to wonder what the landing was going to be like.

In fact, Betty Stark (she and her husband own the airport) got on the radio when I announced I was approaching and intended to take a look at the windsock. She asked me what I thought, and I observed that the windsock was presenting a direct headwind, so I would fly the approach and see how it looked, but be safe in doing so. I flew the pattern to runway 20, but once I was on the final approach leg and getting close to the runway my strong headwind turned into a nasty 25-knot quartering crosswind - too much for that little Cessna 150, and especially way too much for my own personal limitations. So, I applied full power and climbed out on a go-around, crabbing into the wind.

At that point I had to decide what to do. I could go to Aurora, where I knew conditions were better, or I could go to Hillsboro, where the runways are more plentiful and facing more directions. Or, I could fly around Twi Oaks again and observe the windsock and the winds to see what they might do. I chose to head toward Hillsboro (at the Stark's suggestion) and in the process flew the box pattern around Twin Oaks again.

Once in the downwind leg for runway 20, the winds had calmed somewhat and were again running straight up the runway. As long as they stayed like that, I'd have no problem landing the airplane. So, I announced I was making another try for the field into the headwind and flew the approach. Kathy, an instructor who'd helped me with a mock check-ride exam and flight last week, happened to be in the ground in an airplane and she confirmed the winds were coming up the runway. She and her student sat on the ground in a bigger 172 while I flew the approach. It got a little squirrelly but the winds cooperated and I neatly put the plane on the ground, then got it off the runway. I have to say, it felt pretty good when Kathy keyed the radio and said "nice job." Heh. Well, I'm glad I was able to do it!

My instructor, Kelly Wiprud, had put me in situations like that one, with strong and highly variable winds, when we were early in my training and he was in the airplane with me. I hear some people hardly see crosswinds at all when they train, but I have had far more than plenty over the past few months. And I'm glad, as it's made me much more prepared for surprises like the winds this afternoon.

So, 3.3 hours just today, and it was fun. I added up my log book this evening, and was a little surprised to find out I have 77.9 hours of flight time under my belt. Pretty cool!

More solo practice in stronger winds

On Thursday I flew for just over 2 hours in one of the Cessna 150's at Twin Oaks Airpark, which is where I am training. I was on a solo flight day again, and spent my time first at the Portland Mulino airport, where I did two takeoffs and landings into a strong quartering headwind. The crosswind component on approach was a little stronger than I had expected due to some gusts that came up, but I handled it pretty well. My crab angle to fly the right lines in the pattern was extreme due to the winds aloft. On the ground the wind was not as pronounced, but was still plenty strong enough to present a good challenge.

From there I few over to Aurora State Airport, which is not too far away. I got there quickly since the wind was at my back. I crossed over the runway at midfield about 2000 feet above the traffic pattern, flew west a little ways so I could lose some altitude, and then did battle against the wind while turning back toward the airport to enter the traffic pattern. I did three or four landings at Aurora, all touch-and-go's. The wind at Aurora was also a very strong headwind, coming slightly from the right side. On climb-out, once the aircraft reached about a hundred feet above the ground the airplane would climb like crazy thanks to the strong wind, and my indicated airspeed would quickly reach 90+ miles per hour while the GPS showed my groundspeed was only 68 miles per hour - quite a difference. I kept the nose a little low since it climbed on its own and I wanted to be sure to avoid propellor stall problems at a high angle of attack.

After playing in the winds at Aurora for a while, I headed back toward the hills between there and my home airport. I did a few ground reference maneuvers and then entered the traffic pattern at Twin Oaks. I spent the rest of my time doing several landings and takeoffs, practicing flying in the windy conditions on the smaller runway and working to clean up my landing routine a bit more. By the time I did my last few landings, I had improved things quite a bit, and the last landing of the day was as soft as they come.

The one thing I was not able to work on (due to the high winds aloft) was practicing stalls and recoveries. So, I will have to do that again sometime soon, since I have yet to practice them solo. It turns out I now have exactly ten hours of solo time, so I don't need a whole lot more before I complete my private pilot training, but regardless I need to practice those, either in another solo practice session or perhaps while on my long solo cross country. I have a night cross country left to do with my instructor, Kelly, as well as my solo trip and a small amount of additional dual instruction "under the hood," simulating instrument flying conditions.

I totaled up my pilot's logbook today, to see where I'm at in terms of accumulated flight and training hours. Here are the results:

Total Flight Time: 38.7 hours
Flight Training Received: 28.7 hours
Solo Flight: 10 hours
Cross-Country Flight: 4.4 hours
Night Flight: 0.6 hours
Day Landings: 148
Night Landings: 3

I've had a number of people requesting that I post more cockpit video. I have some new video from portions of my last couple flights, but I need to get it transferred to my computer, which takes some time due to the cheap-o software I have. I will post some edited video in the near future to show some more of my flying activity. What the heck, everyone loves watching cruddy landings on video, heh.

Trying some flight video - Flying the Twin Oaks pattern

This is just a quick test with some mounted-camera video. It's pretty obvious when you watch that there are some serious issues with the camera's shutter and how it interacts with the propeller. But, I decided to publish this particular lap around the pattern at Twin Oaks Airpark because it was the last circuit I flew with my instructor before he jumped out and told me to fly three take-off's and landings on my own for my first solo back on November 16th. I didn't have the camera running for the solo landings because the batteries died right after this one. At the very end of the video you can hear Kelly telling me what I'm about to do.

The camera is a Kodak Zi6 compact camera set at 60fps/720p, and mounted with a homemade bracket on the top of the dash with parts sourced from my local Home Depot (Velcro tape and straps and a couple metal angle brackets). I need to do some experimentation and try the camera at 30fps to see if the prop weirdness is still there, as well as at a lower resolution maybe. I also plan to test a more advanced camera when I fly next time, one I have that will let me record the audio from the intercom on the video's audio track, similar to the audio-only recording I did the other day.

Cross-Country Scrubbed - Short and Soft Field Landings Instead

Audio from this lesson is available in Episode Two of my flight-cast, click here to download the MP3 file.

My dual cross-country trip to Corvallis that was scheduled today was scrubbed due to a late heavy fog that reached from around Olympia, Washington all the way down the Willamette Valley to the northern border of California. By the time things started to clear up in the afternoon, it was too late to start the trip. Besides, I watched the weather and I don't think it ever really cleared up down in Corvallis.

So, while the fog and clouds were obscuring everything more than a mile away from and about 500 feet over the airport, Kelly and I went over a bunch of ground schooling on the topics of short and soft field takeoffs and landings. There are a bunch of additional and changed steps when you're on a shorter runway or a soft strip of grass or something similar. After we went over the procedures and discussed them, the skies started to clear so I get the paperwork and book for the airplane I had reserved and after Kelly extricated it from the hangar I pre-flighted the airplane, hooked up my audio recorder and got ready to go.

We flew our practice at Twin Oaks. Kelly showed me a couple short field take-off's and landings and then the plane was mine. The sun was right in my eyes on departure so I asked Kelly to help me "see" the indicated speed (meaning read it to me). My landings with full 40 degrees of flaps were a little sloppy in terms of flaring (I was a bit early on the flares), but overall went well. You can really make that airplane get down and stop if you have to, it's quite cool.

He showed me one short field take-off, but the sun in our eyes was getting so bad we decided to turn it into a standard landing, which I flew. But he covered the wind speed indicator, told me it was "dead," and a short time later he covered up the altitude indicator, too. So, I had to fly the pattern and approach based on look and feel: Look outside and get a good sight picture, reference speed over the ground and fly to the runway. I made it there just fine and floated it a bit before landing.

After the lesson, Kelly signed me off to be able to make solo flights to a group of other airports in the general vicinity (within 25 miles). So, on Monday I have some time scheduled and if the weather allows I'll be flying on my own, which will be fun. Not much to record on those flights I imagine, but I'll probably record the audio anyhow - You never know, maybe it will be interesting to listen to.

First Solo! (and some other stuff)

I'll get to today's rather fun and exciting lesson shortly, it's a milestone day. But first a quick description of yesterday's lesson for posterity's sake.

The goal of Saturday's lesson was to fly to someplace not too far away, but where I had never flown before. I chose Scappoose, since the weather report was good and it was a new destination. I drive through that town almost every day and I flew there with my friend Dave once, but have never had to navigate there myself and have never landed and airplane there.

We took off from our home airport, Twin Oaks Airpark, and headed north. I eventually managed to get a word in edgewise with the busy Hillsboro control tower and received permission to cross their airspace. Then I flew over the Cornelius Pass ridge and turned left to find Scappoose. Of course it was right where it belonged, and I quickly located the airport on the far side of the town. We did several landings and a bunch of emergency and equipment failure drills, such as engine-outs, flap motor failures, and aborted landings. I made a couple little mistakes, and one big one: starting a touch and go with 30 degrees of flaps still down and failing to retract them while trying to climb out (which is a no-no). I could still climb the airplane, barely, but very slowly and not over tall obstacles like, say, trees. Bad idea, not safe. Kelly taught me the lesson by killing the engine while I was about 20 feet over the runway (with lots of pavement left), which required me to reflare the airplane, get it on the surface, start it back up and exit the runway. Honestly it wasn't until I got onto the taxiway, stopped and looked over at the wings (at Kelly's direction) that I realized my mistake. A good lesson, and well taught. Nothing like having your instructor cut the engine on you over the runway to make you really think. I don't think I'll miss that one again.

After a bunch more landings and drills, Kelly told me he'd have jumped out and let me fly solo if I had the insurance. I told him if he did that today I'd be ordering him back in the airplane, hah. My mistakes, especially the flaps one, had me a little worried, I guess. What else might I forget? He said I was ready, and learning from mistakes is what it's all about.

More insurance... How much insurance does one person need, really? Kelly had asked me to get the airplane renter's insurance set up last week but I spaced it out while traveling. So, before we went flying to Scappoose I went online and made the purchase. There's a wait of one day before it becomes valid. I guess they don't want to start insurance on the same day (makes sense, someone could crash and buy insurance the same day to try to cover it), so the effective date for the policy was one minute after midnight on Sunday.

We departed from Scappoose, and I had to dog-leg to the left on departure to fly around a suddenly-appeared flock of geese that thought they owned the airspace. We headed back to Twin Oaks and climbed to 3,000 feet, where we flew a simulated an engine failure directly over the airport at high altitude. Kelly showed me the first one, then I flew it again. Essentially you locate the runway and fly a spiral over the runway to lose altitude but stay close to the runway until you're ready to enter a downwind and land with no power. Another good lesson. I felt good about the session by the time we were done. Except for the forgotten flaps on the one landing, I'd flown pretty well.

Anyhow, on to today's lesson...

Today our original plans were to fly from Twin Oaks to Aurora State Airport to do some landings. Kelly had told me he wanted me to solo at a large airport, and Aurora's runways are huge (5,004 long x 100 ft wide) compared to Twin Oaks (2465 long x 48 ft wide). Soloing at Twin Oaks for the first time is just a real challenge due to its size. He's had lots of students and only one of them did their first solo at Twin Oaks.

We got in the air and I travelled on the compass heading I'd derived over to Aurora, but once past the ridge between the airports discovered that the low-lying haze over there was simply a little too thick to be safe. You could see down through it, but if you were to fly down into it and try to look horizontally through it, the visibility would be insufficient and dangerous. So, as often happens when flying, we had to change our plans. Kelly pointed out that this was good practice for the FAA check-ride, since I'll certainly get diverted from my planned route. He killed the GPS display and said I was to divert back to Twin Oaks on my own and enter the traffic pattern to land there. We could still do some landing practice, he said. So, feeling a little disappointed but completely understanding and agreeing, I turned back and found the course to Twin Oaks.

I located the airport visually on my flight line and flew the traffic pattern to land. We flew the pattern five times and did one flaps-dead drill as well as one go-around. On the last landing he pulled off his headset, unplugged it and told me I was on my own for this one, no prompts and he would not be able to hear me. Of course, he was sitting right there but you get the idea. I landed it just fine. After completing five landings Kelly called it good and told me to taxi to the lawn next to the ramp and park the airplane.

As I was pulling it up to the parking spot, Kelly told me he was going to jump out, and I was going to fly the airplane alone as soon as he endorsed my logbook. I was caught completely off-guard, since we were at Twin Oaks. I think I said something like "I am?" and he told me I was definitely ready, and that I would do great. I felt surprisingly calm and he told me to rely on my checklists and to take my time and have fun.

He signed my logbook and endorsed it, allowing me to fly solo in the Cessna 150, and said "Okay man, you're ready!" He shut the door and there I was alone in the airplane. Rather the letting panic set in, I picked up the checklist, took one quick deep breath, and found myself totally focused and clear-headed, working through the checklist and starting up the airplane, making the radio calls and taxiing to Runway 20. I did the engine run-up and checked the sky for airplanes, then made the call on the radio: "Twin Oaks traffic, Cessna six-six-five-eight-niner, departing runway two-zero, Twin Oaks." I pushed in the throttle, checked the instruments, rolled down the runway and lifted into the air.

I made the left turn upon departure that's required at this airport so the neighbors don't get blasted with airplane noise, and noticed that the little Cessna 150 climbs much, much faster with one less person in it. Now I see why people call it underpowered! I leveled out and trimmed the airplane and continued to climb. It was about this time that I has my "holy sh*t" moment, suddenly realizing what I was doing all by myself. Every now and then I look out the airplane window during a lesson and have a little moment of clarity in which I get a little flabbergasted about the fact that I'm leveraging a number of the laws of physics in a metal can burning gasoline to spin a propeller really fast, just so I can overcome the conflicting laws of what mother nature intended. That and I realize the fact that there's a thousand-plus feet of thin air between me and the ground. "There but by the grace of God go I." That's pretty much what I think. Then I usually say something out loud like, "Woah man, this is fun!"

Anyhow, as I was saying... Lots of extra climbing power available without anyone in the right seat. I was able to climb almost all the way to traffic the pattern altitude of 1200 feet before turning to the upwind leg. I made my radio calls as I transitioned around the pattern, and eventually set up to land. Carburetor heat on, throttle to 1500 RPM, 10 degrees of flaps, check speed, trim for the proper speed. I flew downhill a bit, looking back at the runway on my left. When it was time I made my left base leg turn, added some more flaps, and then turned to line up with the runway on final approach. I was a little high, so I added a little more flaps and checked my speed to make sure I was not getting too slow. Then I floated toward the end of the runway, cut the power to idle, crossed the end of the runway and landed just past the numbers after floating a little. That sound of tires hitting pavement... A successful landing!! The insurance company should be so proud, heh.

I exited the runway to the taxiway, "cleaned up" the airplane (retracted flaps and turned carb heat off - the term has nothing to do with bodily functions, heh) and headed back to the departure end of the runway. On my next take-off, I had to sit at the end of the runway for a few minutes and wait for a couple huge flocks of geese to leave the departure area. Geese are very bad for airplanes, and airplanes are also bad for geese, so it's a good idea to wait. On departure, a rogue flock of geese appeared from who-knows-where and I turned left a little early to steer clear of them. Other than that minor issue, all went well. The plane flew great and my landings were good (especially the second one). After my third landing, as directed, I parked the airplane on the ramp, shut it off, and got out.

My whole body started to shake a little as I put my feet on the ground and the rest of the world caught up to me. Kelly walked over, congratulated me and took my picture next to the airplane. I took care of the aircraft paperwork, and then we sat down to fill out my log book. I got to make my own log book entry for the first time: .4 hours of solo time. Nice!

I have to say again, Kelly is a great teacher. He knows how to take advantage of those "teachable" moments to make truly valid, important and memorable points, and he reads me well. He knows when to push me and when to hold back. I'm lucky to have him as my instructor.

A student pilot's first solo only happens once. After that, it's still solo flying, but first only happens one time. I did mine today around and onto a 48-foot-wide runway at an nice little airport owned and run by the some of the nicest people in the world. Not a bad deal. It was a pretty freakin' awesome day.

Breaking on through

After more than a week off from flying (I was overseas for a work conference), I got back home and caught up on sleep over 48 hours, then headed to the airport for a Monday flight lesson. I showed up early and did a little dry flying in the hangar, just to get my mind back in gear.

Sidebar: While I was out of town, my student pilot and aviation medical certificate arrived in the mail. It was in a review state for a month or so, while the FAA requested medical documentation and it sat on a desk. The people on the phone at the FAA office were very helpful, and I'm relieved it's here since you have to have it in place before you can solo (and obviously before you can be certificated as a pilot).

The airplane I'd scheduled for today turned out to have a flat front gear strut (it happens, maybe a hard landing or it just went low), so we parked it on the ramp and got a different airplane so the crew could do the gear maintenance (and so I could land safely). Once in the new airplane (I've flown all the Cessna 150s at the school, so I am familiar with them all), we got the checklists out of the way and taxied to the active runway, two-zero.

It had been a little while since I'd actually flown, and prior to that I was flying two to four times a week. So after getting off the ground I started to get the feel of the airplane and headed out to the east.

I'd done reference maneuvers before on a couple different flights, but never on a windy day. Reference maneuvers include making turns around a point on the ground (you maintain the same distance all the way around and steer to account for the winds that will blow you away) and S-turns (where you choose a straight line such as a road and make turns to fly half-circles on each side of the road - right turn, left turn, wind ahead, wind at your back, etc). After failing to compensate properly on the turns around a point (and getting too close to the target as a result), I finally figured it out and made a couple decent turns. That made the S-turns a lot easier, and I had a lot of fun making some steeper turns on the downwind side of the turns and did a good job getting straight and wings-level each time I crossed the road I was using as my reference.

Next we crossed to the west and headed to the practice area that's defined over Forest Grove. That area had a nice big hole in the clouds with blue sky overhead, and I started my climb to 3500 feet. About half way there, Kelly pulled the engine to idle and simulated an engine out failure. I got the airplane to proper glide speed and checked the fuel and controls, checked the wind (which was coming from my left - or from the south), and pointed into the wind and said I was going to land in that direction. Kelly said good and we reconfigured the airplane to climb the rest of the way to the west practice area.

Next came some power-off and power-on stalls. A stall is simply when the plane's speed through the air is slow enough that the wings stop generating lift, so they "stall" out and the plane starts to fall out of the air. Of course, when it starts to fall the opportunity is there to sly again (as long as you're not too close to the ground). I found I had a tendency to try to pull back on the yoke a little too hard and to rush the stalls as a result, rather than taking it easier and letting the speed bleed off slowly and evenly. You can stall the airplane quickly and steeply, especially with full power applied, but when you do it that way the tail is pointed toward the ground, so when it starts to fall you don't get any elevator control for a few seconds when you start to recover. Once I started to do a better job of taking my time on the controls, the stalls smoothed out and were noticeably easier to control. I think toward the end of the stalling practice I said I wanted to do one more, then one more, then one more. It was good to fine tune the stalls and get them down.

After stall practice, we headed back toward Twin Oaks to practice some landings on the small runway there. Before my travel break I'd had a good experience at McMinnville airport making a bunch of landings, but that airport is pretty huge compared to Twin Oaks (5420 ft. long and 150 ft. wide), so there's a lot of room to "screw up" in any direction in a small plane and still have usable pavement under you. There's plenty enough pavement at Twin Oaks, but the runway is a much smaller target, at 2465 ft. long and only 48 ft. wide. So, the challenges continue to present new opportunities to improve.

We'd gotten an early start (since I was early arriving and so was Kelly) and had lots of time scheduled, plus I was feeling good still, so we got quite a few landings in. My first one was - predictably - a mess. I was too fast, too high (out of trim) and had to try to slip into a crosswind landing the opposite direction from what I'm used to. But I got it on the runway. Betty, the owner of the air park and the airplanes I fly, told me later she saw that landing. I think she cringed as she watched. Luckily the rest of my landings were much better.

My take-offs are really coming together. I can keep it straight and fly it off the runway without unacceptable drift in the winds, I seem to have a feel for setting a crab angle, and I've found if I speak out loud and talk my way through the steps of departure and landing, I'm focused and tend to be on task. So, that's what I do.

The winds on the ground were not too bad, maybe five knots or so initially and they died off quite a bit later, and also shifted from a crosswind to a headwind. As a result, my first landing was on Runway 2, and the rest were on Runway 20 (the opposite direction) as the winds changed. After that first landing I already described, I started to do quite a bit better and with each one I was able to apply the little things I learned on each landing to the next one. I had a high approach and one low approach but was able to correct for them and get to the runway safely.

At some point during the landings we did, the whole process shifted from stressful to fun for me. I think I even said it out loud: "Wow, this is really fun!" Heh. Kelly laughed and said he was just glad to be back in the air, since the rainy weather was pretty terrible the previous week.

We landed at one point, and were coming close to the end of the already-long session. Kelly asked me how I was doing and if I wanted to do one more pattern circuit, and since I had plenty left in me and was making progress, I decided to do another one.

By the time I completed the landing of the day and almost 1.9 hours of flying, I was feeling pretty good about my progress. Kelly said he really thought I'd had some breakthroughs in this lesson. I have another lesson scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, so we'll have to see if the weather will cooperate again. I'm looking forward to it. Kelly tells me he thinks I'm about ready to do my first solo (which consists of flying a few take-off and landing patterns on your own). I told him that with the past couple lessons I've starting to feel substantially more confident about my still-growing abilities. So, now that I have my medical certificate in hand and pretty much everything else required for the first solo, it sounds like it might be coming up sometime soon. Hard not to be nervous - and a little excited - about that.

A good aviation headset makes a big difference

One of the cool things about flying out of Twin Oaks Airpark is the fact that Betty Stark, who owns the place with her husband, has loaned me a variety of the different headphones they sell in the small pilot shop they have set up in the business office.

One of the brands of aviation headsets they carry is Lightspeed Aviation, which happens to be a local company (they're based in Lake Oswego, Oregon - which is in the Portland metro area). After wearing a couple of the less-expensive headsets from a few makers, all of which were pretty darned good, I tried a couple of the automatic noise reduction (ANR) models, at the strong encouragement of Betty (she's a very effective and patient salesperson, heh).

In a Cessna 150, which is a fairly noisy little airplane, not wearing a headset would be pretty miserable. The planes we fly require you wear a headset to be able to use the radios at all, and the built in intercom allows both occupants to talk to each other easily. What I found was that the headsets I tried were all good, but he ANR ones were noticeably better.

For me, the decision of which headset to purchase came down to two primary differences I noted in the model I chose. First, the microphone picked up my not-quite-loud-enough voice very well, even over the cabin noise. That's a big deal if you want to be understood clearly by others. It also has an adjustable microphone gain setting (which I didn't even have to change).

The second feature was important to me from a safety standpoint. One thing (among many) that you want to avoid doing in an airplane is stalling the aircraft. The plan has a stall warning horn that gets louder and louder as you get closer to a stall. Unfortunately, what I found - especially in a power-on stall situation - was that the ambient noise and headset made it difficult to hear the stall horn except at its loudest. But with the ANR headset I chose, I was able to hear the horn in stall practices from its initial warning stages.

Being able to hear the warning horn was a very big deal to me. Add to the features I already mentioned a couple more cool ones, such as the ability to plug in an MP3 player or a cell phone (which sounds great), and the Lightspeed Thirty 3G headset was all I needed (and then some). When listening to music from the MP3 player (which I don't do now, I need to stay focused on flying as a student), if the radio kicks in the headset automatically reduces the volume of the music player so you can hear the radio clearly. The Thirty 3G is not Lightspeed's most expensive headset (that honor goes to their lighter-weight and Bluetooth-enabled Zulu model), but it's right up there among the best.

The folks at Twin Oaks sell the Thirty 3G for a full $100 less than I was able to find it at any of the other local pilot shops, so if anyone's interested in this model, call Betty at Twin Oaks or get hold of me via email or phone. I'm certain Betty would be glad to sell you one. I doubt you'll find it for less online, even. The online store I checked out at sells it for $50 more than Twin Oaks' price.

Since I have an iPhone 3G, I also needed a small adapter cord so the phone headset plug would fit properly. Here's a link to the adapter on Amazon.com in case anyone else wants to use their iPhone with the Thirty 3G headset. It only cost about $7 and arrived today. I tested it out tonight by hooking up my flight headset and iPhone and calling a friend (to plan a flight for this Sunday - quite appropriate!). I won't be using it for quite some time (and it's not exactly legal with the FCC to make calls from the air, anyhow), but I'll have it all set up when it's appropriate and time for it.

A note about Twin Oaks Airpark's rentals

I think this is worth mentioning. Twin Oaks Airpark, where I'm training, has very reasonable rentals on their aircraft fleet. All the aircraft are GPS-equipped, and the rates are "wet" (which means they include 100LL fuel), which is quite a bit less than most other FBOs in the area. Good for keeping training costs down a bit.

They have seven Cessnas for rent. The four C-150's rent for $75/hour and the three C-172's (all IFR-equipped) go for $99/hour).

For the Piper fleet, they have a cool restored 1948 Cub (VFR), a Cherokee 180 (VFR), and a Comanche 250 (IFR).

You can see the rental schedule for each plane and then reserve the aircraft you want to fly online.

First flights and lessons - I'm flying!

The past couple days I've spent a little time down at Twin Oaks Airpark, a small private airport located on the far west side of Portland, Oregon. Yesterday I spent an hour there, and today I went for about two hours. Both days I learned and flew with my new flight instructor, Kelly. I've always wanted to learn to fly and over the years I've spent quite a bit of time in small aircraft. But now I'm going to put the time and effort (and expense) into learning and practicing everything one needs to know to safely fly a small aircraft.

Yesterday was what they call an introductory ride. Kelly met me and we went to the airpark office, where we chatted with Betty Stark. The Stark family owns the airpark which is on an old dairy farm and has a single runway, several hangars, classrooms and a fuel station. Then we went to our aircraft for the day, a Cessna 150. Kelly showed me the aircraft and together we went though the walk-around checklist. The Cessna 150 is a two-seater and is a smallish aircraft, but is a very common trainer. After checking out the aircraft we climbed in and started the checklist for starting the aircraft. I turned the key and the prop started spinning. Kelly explained some more necessary details about the controls and told me what was going to happen. And then we were off. We taxied from the ramp to the end of the runway and did the engine run-up and final checks on the list. Kelly radioed the local traffic to let anyone flying in the area know we were departing, and he told me to put my hands and feet on the controls so I could feel the aircraft as we departed. He explained each task he was doing as he performed them, from the time we walked up to the aircraft until we were in the air. I think I've found a great instructor. He clearly knows his stuff and is confident. That gave me a feeling of confidence, too.

Once we were in the air, he told me he was going to hand the controls over to me. The next thing I knew I was flying the airplane. Of course, Kelly was still there, light on the controls in case I screwed something up. He didn't overwhelm me with information, but instead balanced the doing, the explaining and the having fun and looking out the window. We spent about 30 minutes in the air (and a little rain from the clouds that were well above us) and then returned to the air park. I learned about the traffic pattern for Twin Oaks (it's a left pattern with a 45-degree entrance). It was a lot of fun, and probably just the right mix of time, information and experience for a first flight.

Kelly gave me a quick-read intro book with some basic information to learn: Controls, attitude, parts of an airplane, climbs and descents, turns. He assigned it as homework and we arranged to meet again the next day at 3pm for two hours - starting with a quick ground lesson followed by some time in the air.

When I arrived today, we went into the small classroom and Kelly explained some of the performance numbers I need to start getting familiar with. It clear to me that there are a lot of pieces of information that will need to become second nature. Today's classroom lesson focused on common airspeeds and engine RPMs for different basic flight maneuvers, plus an introduction to flying the traffic pattern and the proper aircraft configuration for landings. I had a chance to ask questions and took some notes and we headed out for the aircraft (another C-150, but not the same one). Today our time at the aircraft was a bit different than yesterday. Kelly handed me the checklist and rather than having me following him as we did the first time, he followed me as I did the walk-around inspection, checking the aircraft from nose to tail, top to bottom. He told me that the next time we meet, he may have me do the pre-flight walk-around on my own (I'm sure he'll check my work, too). After the outside inspection, he then moved the plane to a safe spot on the ramp and we climbed in. Once properly buckled up, we returned to the checklist and started the process of making sure everything was working, properly configured and ready for flight. I turned the key and Kelly showed me how the ground controls work. It's pretty counterintuitive to get out of a car and climb into an airplane: To steer in the ground you use the two foot pedals (and toe brakes when needed). If you put your hands on the control yoke (wheel), nothing happens on the ground. I'm sure looked pretty funny when my brain automatically told me hands to turn the wheel left or right. I had to force myself to use my feet. Once I took my hands completely off the yoke, however, it got a little easier.

I was taught how to do turns on the ramp, with and without brakes. After that, Kelly had me taxi the plane down the taxiway to the end of the runway, where we then entered the runway and taxied all the way to the end, did a couple turns, and then did the same thing all over again. It was a good opportunity to try to get my brain around driving the aircraft on the ground with my feet. I think some future practice will be helpful in overcoming some of the counterintuitiveness.

Kelly then had me stop on the ramp at the end of the runway, where we did our engine run-up and other checklist items. Then he made the radio call and told me to taxi onto the runway and line up on the center line for take-off. I managed to line it up and then let it point left a bit. After correcting for that (I bet it looked pretty dumb from outside the plane, heh), Kelly walked me through applying full throttle and he controlled the plane with his feet as we sped down the runway. "Okay, you feel that? We're doing a wheelie now," he said as the nose started to lift. A little pull back on the yoke and we were in the air, climbing out. When you depart to the south out of twin oaks, you have to start a turn soon after departure due to a noise abatement area (you'd think if you buy or build a house next to an airport you'd know what you're getting into, but oh well). So after a gradual left turn we straightened out and continued climbing. The airport is at about 270 feet above sea level, and we climbed to about 2200 feet.

The main in-air lesson consisted of progressively moving through various maneuvers and maintaining proper attitude of the aircraft: Climbs, gradual turns, medium turns, descents, trimming the aircraft for hands-off flight, and then combination maneuvers: climbing turns and descending turns combined with ending each of the turns on specific compass headings and returning to straight and level flight. It was really fun.

We were almost right on top of the airport before I even recognized it. That whole awareness-of-where-you-are thing comes with time, they say. For now, it;s enough to pay attention and apply what my instructor tells me. By the time we were ready to enter the landing pattern, my brain was on the edge of overload. 45 minutes of information and sensory load was enough for my feeble brain I guess, so it was good that Kelly was handling all of the landing. I just kept feet on the pedals and fingers on the yoke to feel the controls move. Kelly explained what he was doing as we followed the landing pattern (upon passing the end of the runway on the downwind leg turn carb heat on, throttle to 1500 RPM, flaps to 10 degrees (three seconds pressing the switch), add nose-up trim... then on turn to base leg, dial in 10 degrees more more flaps, engine speed will increase as work load decreases so a little less throttle to maintain RPMs, maintain 70mph, look for the end of the runway on your left and prepare to turn to final... then your final turn, check airspeed and ensure you're moving straight for the numbers on the end of the runway (that they're not rising or sinking), add or subtract throttle as needed and line up... after that, work some voodoo magic, flare the aircraft a bit and put the wheels on the ground without breaking anything - I figure the details will become more clear as I get more experience, heh... then keep the aircraft moving straight down the runway with your feet (back to those feet again) and when all the tricycle wheels are on the ground and it's safe apply a little gradual brake as needed to slow the airplane and taxi off the runway...)

Now I have my first textbook in hand, which is the basis of the ground school lessons (which I am looking forward to). I took a ground school class several years ago at Portland Community College when I was thinking about learning to fly helicopters (I then did the financial math and decided maybe I should wait), and I am hoping some of that will come back and help me this time around. I'm flying to Philadelphia this weekend for a family get-together, so I'll have plenty of time for reading the first couple chapters and answering the questions for each - while on the plane.

I borrowed all the pics here from the Twin Oaks web site. Sometime I hope I'll get comfortable enough to be able to take some quick pics of my own (but for now all I can really think about are the tasks at hand in flying that chunk of metal through the air).