Past 2 weeks of flying summerized.

Well, it's been a busy past 2 weeks. So far I've logged about 16 hours of flight time and about the same in ground school.
It's going well, I no longer get motion sickness while flying which was a great hurdle to overcome, more of a relief really. I'm more comfortable with the steep banks and maneuvers that I have to do for training and am becoming overall quite comfortable in the plane.

I've cut back on the ground class time and spend more time in the cockpit flying, usually about 3 hours at a time performing all sorts of landings, takeoffs, etc.

Landings are definitely the toughest part and I'm working on making them much smoother. It's all about the approach. You have to begin slowing down before you get to the traffic pattern otherwise it messes up your entire landing. It's been tricky but I'm getting the hang of it.

Cross wind landings are interesting as you have to steer into the wind but compensate with rudder pressure to keep the plane lined up on the runway. You can't land sideways (crabbed) like you can with a larger passenger jet as the wheels are fixed in a small aircraft and would create a bad situation if you landed in a crab.

So anyway, it's coming along. I've completed my night flight requirements which include 10 landings/takeoffs, and 3 hours of night time flight.
Night flying is very cool. I enjoy it immensely. The fun part is being able to fly into an airport after hours when the runway lights are off and while approaching the airport you can turn on the runway lights from the plane by click the radio for different brightness of the lights.
It's a cool sight being able to see the runway lights light up, not to mention it gives you a good idea of where to land... minor detail.

Some of the maneuvers I've had to perform are turns around a point, s-turns over a road, steep 180' turns at a 45 degree bank angle. Cross wind landings/takeoffs, Power on and power off stalls (quite fun) MCA flight which is flying the plane as slow as it can possibly go without dropping out of the sky, i think we got it to under 40 knots which was kinda fun.

Have some more flight time this evening which I'm looking forward to. Seems to ve a little windy today so I have a feeling it's going to be more cross wind take offs and landings.... fun fun fun.

First flights and ground school

Day 1:

Well, the day finally arrived and I arrived at the flight school to begin my first day of school. I'm still very excited thinking about it.
I got all the paperwork out of the way and proceeded to my first class where we touched on basic flight maneuvers, concepts of lift, instruments on the aircraft and over all basic info that would get me started in the great world of flight.
I learned some very interesting things on how lift is created (think vacuum) air pressure systems and how they effect the planes instruments and how the plane flies.

Once we finished class we went up in the plane. The wind was gusting from the west which would mean 270 degrees (have to learn my cardinal directions) which meant for a bumpy ride.
We practiced flying around a certain point in a circle while maintaining a fixed banking turn (turned out to be more like an oval due to the wind blowing so hard). We then practiced holding a traffic pattern and tried to stay on course in spite of the wind.
I learned about radio controls and how to communicate with the tower. Since I'm flying out of the Atlanta area which has one of if not the busiest airports in the world it helps to know how to communicate with everyone in a very busy sky. It's a little intimidating until you start understanding what it means, then it makes a whole lot of sense.


Day 2:

Today started out with more ground school at 8am in the morning (early for a Sunday). Different instructor this time around. We went over the next chapter in my book and went over the quiz which I got mostly right.
There's an immense amount of information to learn with all this and it's hard sometimes to keep up, but I'm getting there. I'm fairly exhausted (mentally) when my 4 hour session is done as there is an information barrage that I constantly have to organize, process and act upon. But it's going well and I'm having fun doing it.

Today we went over more instruments, basic load/weight characteristics of the aircraft and how it behaves in different types of situations depending on the load, bank and other factors.
lots of emphasis on taxiing the airplane and navigating through busy airports.
If anyone wants to get an idea of some coursework I'm doing right now, go to: http://flash.aopa.org/asf/runwaySafety/
This will give you a course and then run you through a test to see how you did. It's like learning all the road signs for driving without ever really having seen them before.... let me know how you do. :)

Anyway, the flying portion that day was much easier on my stomach or I'm getting used to it faster than I thought I would even though some of the flight maneuvers we did would have sent me hurling previously.

We tried some steeper turns, banks, and overall flight characteristics of the plane my. my instructor was very keen to show me how a plane can more or less fly itself once you have everything set right. He proved this by putting the plane into a vertical stall, yes, pretty much straight up until the plane lost air speed and started pointing down to the ground... kinda cool really. It felt like a roller coaster ride, just without the screaming people all around you. heh heh.
The point of this was to prove the plane would right itself, which it did after a series of bobbing up and down for a while. Think of it as a big wave that gets smaller every time it crests.

We did some climbing turns, descending turns, turning to cardinal bearings, more radio communication.

We found a few planes out there while we were flying around. One guy was performing aerobatics, hanging on the prop, spins, hammerheads, etc. Very cool to see from the same level or above. Needless to say, we stayed clear of him.

after almost 2 hours of flying around we headed back to the airport, radioed for landing clearance and began our approach to runway 27. Overall a great flight and a great experience. I'm looking forward to the next flight. Next class is Tuesday evening where I will most likely cover ground school. All the instruction so far has been 1 on 1 which has been great.

More to follow soon........

Starting flight lessons this weekend!!!

Well, I finally got the call from my flight school saying that I have been cleared to start my lessons.

I spoke to my doctor this morning who said that since I have been asked to take a blood pressure medication to keep my levels down, they want me to be on the medication for at least 30 days to make sure everything is fine and there are no side effects. Once that happens I can get a letter from my doc stating that everything is fine and under control with no side effects and I'll finally get my medical certificate.

Since I won't need it until it's time to solo on my own (very nervous about that, but excited at the same time) I can go ahead and start my flight lessons and before I'm ready to solo I should have everything under control and ready to rock, or fly....

Anyway, I'm thrilled about this and can't wait to get started.

I thought this was a cool picture of aerobatic maneuvers.

Cleared security check and Sleep Apnea test

Good news day!! I got my all clear from my ENT about my sleep apnea. As far as their tests are concerned Sleep apnea is 100% controlled and there are no issues there. Hopefully the FAA will accept the test results and allow me to continue from there.

I also heard back from TSA who had received my fingerprints ran them through their system and gave me the all clear to start my flight training!!! YES!!

Now just one more issue to clear up regarding my slightly elevated blood pressure and I'm good to go. Checking with the flight doc tomorrow to see what my options are.