So last night was my first time flying a plane all by myself! That flight is one where you just take off, go around, land again, and do that twice more.
And lucky enough for me the plane was available again this morning early, so after a couple hours of sleep and pushing it back out of the hanger, I’m off again!
Seems weird not to have someone sitting in the right seat! Plane actually feels pretty roomy this way!
So for my first flight away from the airport by myself I’m just flying over the nearby lake Ray Roberts and the rural area on the north side. Just going to do some practice maneuvers, try and draw some shapes in the sky! Before I start though I needed to snap a picture. It’d be way to easy to just cruise and enjoy the view, but I gotta practice!
Winds were a little weird today, so my circles were not a great success. Had some other traffic as well which forced me to abort a few of them. Good practice though, and tons of fun.
Next up, on Friday, is a cross-country trip up north to Ardmore and back.
I haven’t posted about this yet because so far it’s absolutely boring going around in circles and no time to take pictures. Some statistics though:
- I now have 34.4 hours of time flying over 23 flights. Minus the 1.7 today and the 0.9 yesterday means I had my first solo at 31.8 hours, after 22 flights with instructors.
- I have now landed a plane 114 times. It took about a hundred before I was consistently okay.
- I have flown 5 different aircraft across 3 different types.
- I’ve flown with two different instructors, split about evenly between them.
- I don’t have mileage count, that’s not something that really gets tracked. For reference though today’s flight was about 150 miles. I’m probably at about 2500-3000 miles flown, never getting more than 50mi from the airport.
Now I’m stuck to the ground until Friday morning, which means it’s time to get back to studying the books! So much yet to memorize.
Congrats, Josh!! This is amazing! We are absolutely delighted for you. I can’t wait to get my first ride (hint hint), whenever you get to have in-law passengers, lol!
Congratulations! How exciting to learn to fly! I am in awe.
Is this solely for your own interest and curiosity or is there another purpose in mind?
I’ve always wanted to, but finally had the ability to go for it! If it all works out it’s a career-change/2nd-career, and if it doesn’t for some reason it’s still an amazing journey that’s incredibly fun and challenging!
Can’t carry passengers until I officially have my license, but we’re moving pretty quickly through the rest of the training, so hopefully by next time you’re here!