Meanwhile at work

At the moment I have a few more days before Christmas to prepare for the next semester by flying the higher performance aircraft and writing lectures for the upcoming classes.

I have also become the resident logo guy as we look to refresh our image

 Occasionally, I get to see my favorite visitors

 Then it is back to the skies for lessons surrounded by some fantastic scenery

Quick recap of November into December

During the month, I did as much flying as possible with countless more hours on the ground reviewing procedures and prepping students for their big tests.  The time spent away from work was equally exciting spent with the family doing Pumpkin Chunkin,

  building gingerbread houses,

  swimming lessons

making snowmen,

 snow angels

 cookies,

and playing in the snow together. 

November went fast

Between getting the students finished with Private Pilot and Thanksgiving, November was a real blur.

Students

Sometimes they challenge me

But I win in the end

and yes, it is still that stressful

Weather

Knobs and buttons

Clouds

Rain

The view from my terrestrial office

Night Flying

Artsy night flying pictures:

Flying at night is dark, scary and wonderfully different

Some of the aforementioned scenery

Potholes

road map for the sky

a farmers topographic experiment, nicely done :)

"big" airports (KGEG)

Over downtown

Cross Country

October is when we leave the familiar safety of the traffic pattern and local Spokane area for exciting and far off places.  The students learn the basics of navigation and test their skills flying to many other airports.  It is an exciting time and a nice change of scenery out my office window.

Guard Mantis on Duty

But you are still welcome

Baby Steps

My students have all taken their first flights.  Now I taught my boy to take his first steps.  The power of chocolate!

Formation Flying

While not officially part of the program, every once in a while we get to fly close to other planes.  In the real plane, it only happens in the traffic pattern when we are landing or taking off at the same time as another plane. When we want to pretend that we are the Blue Angels, we have to get out the remote controls.  (Yes, we even fly pretend airplanes on the weekends)

Concentration

On to the next phase of flight instruction.  Now that the students have flown solo, we are moving from the science of flying to the art.  Functionally, that means that the flying we get to do now is a little more interesting. More on that later...

Beautiful mornings

The solo shirts are filling the wall and the class is making excellent progress.

Birthday flight

Leslie and I went for a short sunset flight for her birthday. She flew beautifully!

Gentry knows what he likes

Meanwhile...

>

> We just returned from a wonderful wedding weekend in the Midwest. Aside from the wedding, we enjoyed climbing ropes, exploring tunnels and the serious consumption of frozen custard.

Solo flight...

yeah, it is that stressful

First Solo!

I had the privileged of kicking two out of the nest this morning.  That might be close to a record for a guy that has only had his CFI for less than a month.  They flew beautifully and when they returned to earth with the plane intact I kept with tradition and removed their shirt tails.

Back in the day, instructors would sit behind the student in the airplane.  Due to the lack of intercoms, the instructor would pull on the students shirt tail to get their attention and direct them where to fly.  When the time came, the instructor would cut off the students shirt tail symbolizing the students readiness to fly on their own.