Scenic Flight for my Friends

Yesterday I had the opportunity to rent a plane from Thunderbird, where I train as a student, to take a couple of my friends on a scenic flight around the cities.  It was a great day to fly.  Eric and Laura are soon going to be moving out of the country to use their skills as a nurse (Laura) and an English Language Teacher (Eric) within community development.  I can't take credit for these, but Laura got some neat pictures.

3 reasons I Like the iPad Air

I recently got an iPad Air for flight training purposes.  I love it!  Here's why:

1. Size: the Air is 9.45" x 6.67" x 0.30" and weighs 1.03lbs. In other words, it feels really light and doesn't take up too much space in my flight bag.  Cessna and Piper cockpits are not roomy.  Usually, I'm brushing shoulders with whoever is sitting next to me.  For this reason, some people go for the iPad mini.  But the screen size of the mini just feels too small to me, like I'd always be straining to see or zooming in.  The Air is just right. I use this Knee Board while flying.


2. Apps: In my opinion, some of the best apps for flying are most intuitive while using the Air.
I'm excited to start using ForeFlight.

3. Movies: Not related to flying at all, but I'm a big movie guy.  Most of the Blu-Rays we own come with a digital copy which I can either download to the device or store in the cloud. It's great for traveling.

And finally, my wife used an app to trace this picture of me on my first demo flight.  The app didn't generate a sketch...my wife did! Pretty awesome.

Private Pilot Check Ride

Me and my instructor, Greg

I am licensed to drive a car, a motorcycle, licensed to teach K-12 Phy Ed & Health, licensed to hunt, and now... I am licensed to fly!  I passed my private pilot check ride today.

Last weekend I went in to take my Private Pilot check ride.  I started early with the oral exam of the practical.  Because this is my first check ride ever, I wasn't as nervous as I might be for the next ones, mainly because I didn't really know what to expect.  I felt excited for different areas of operation. I feel confident in my knowledge of aircraft systems and cross country flight planning, but I wasn't too confident about the regs because there are so many and the quantity is daunting!   If I fumbled through some areas, I powered through others and my confidence returned.  When I checked the weather for our flight after the oral, it was clear that I should make a choice to discontinue the exam.

We finished today by completing the flight portion of the exam.  To my surprise, it was probably the best flying I have ever done.  Lately, I have felt like I can perform the maneuvers pretty well, but there seems to be one that gets away from me. But this flight was just pretty! Once we landed the examiner said that if I can taxi back to park the plane without any incident, then I am a private pilot.

It took me 57.70 hours.