Flight 1

A brief history of how I came to the decision to fly... I've always been intrigued with aviation. But it really started in 2008 when I had a job across the street from a Class D airport. At this point I had never even stepped foot on a plane, but I knew I wanted to learn to fly. So a few days a week, I'd take my one hour lunch break and drive to the airport. I'd sit in the parking lot and watch the planes takeoff and land, and I would also watch pilots do their preflight inspections. I studied everything they did and tried to learn as much as possible just by being a bystander. In May 2008, I had my first plane ride. I flew with a bunch of family to Montana. I didn't like it on the trip there, but by the trip home, I was having a blast. Later that year for my birthday, I was given money to take a one hour discovery flight in a Cessna. It was amazing! Afterward, I decided to buy a book from Borders. I read it for a couple of weeks and quickly got overwhelmed. I felt like it was way above me. I convinced myself that I was not capable of really becoming a pilot, so I returned the book and gave up the idea. Then two years later, in 2010, I had the opportunity to fly a helicopter for a half hour for half price. I knew immediately after we lifted off, that being in the air was for me. I also knew that as fun as the helicopter was, I really wanted to fly airplanes. Less than a month later, I found the courage to take my first official lesson. I'm so glad I did.



October 21, 2010


I arrived at St. Charles County Airport at 10am and met my instructor, Justin. We went out to the hanger and spent about a half an hour going over the pre-flight inspection. That involves everything from checking the wings, to the gas, to checking the engine. We then got in the plane and got ready to taxi the runway. Justin and I did the takeoff together. Once we leveled out, he gave me full control of the plane. The flight lasted one hour and we mostly went over the controls and instruments such as the altimeter, throttle, rudder use, etc. The second half we focused on turning in level flight, in a climb, and in a decent. I would guess that he had me do about 15-20 turns ranging from 90 degree turns to 180’s. I got the hang of it after about the fourth turn.

That’s about all we did for today’s lesson. It was very windy in the air today too. I don’t usually have an issue with turbulence, in fact I rather like it, but today it was a bit overwhelming. On the bright side of it, the trees were gorgeous and the river looked beautiful from the air. Once the hour was up we headed back to the airport. Justin did the landing because there was a bit of crosswind, which is hard to handle until you have some experience flying. I then taxied back to the hanger. Once we had the plane turned off we just went over questions and then went inside.

I bought the Sport License pilot training kit which has five books, a flight log, a flight bag, some software, and some navigation tools. I’ll have to buy a headset this week. We went over my homework and then we were done. For about two hours after getting home, I still felt a bit queasy from all the turbulence. That airplane is just so light that you feel EVERYTHING. But overall I had a great time and learned some great information.


Flight Log to Date
Hours flown: 1.0