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.  

Extra Curricular

I had the guys up to the house recently for a little extra curricular training.  I guess they had not had enough of the real thing.  We also managed to get outside and throw a Frisbee as well.

and they are off...

We are just three weeks into school.  I have been assigned 4 of the 12 incoming students.  It has been an exciting time already and I have had a blast working with them.  We have been working hard, starting very early in the morning when the air is smooth and flying right through the day.  The guys are making terrific progress, although I think most of the "terror" belongs to their CFI :)