Pop goes flyin'

This was a mission I've been waiting to accomplish for a LONG time.

I caught a nice tail wind en route to Weschester County, NY from Leesburg, VA.  (137 knots in a C172 is FAST)  This was the first time I've flown a Cessna to the New York area.  Weschester county airport is just north of the New York Class B airspace.

Is that The Freedom Tower off to the distance?  I'll have to fly the Hudson River route next time to get a closer look.

 By the way, navigating with the IPAD is GREAT!!!

The pictures don't do the screen justice.  Even in direct sunlight it is easy to see the navigation page.  No, my plane is not an airliner, I haven't figured a way to change the plane icon to a "chicken hawk" yet!

Just before landing at KHPN to see pop.


I parked at Panorama Flight Service, GREAT FBO!

 Scooping up Dad for a flight!

After hitting the air, we got a nice view of the Hudson River.  We climbed to a good altitude and I took a break flying the airplane!

Aside from a death-grip on the yoke;)  He did a great job!

Extremely focused. 

After landing, my dad said he was extremely proud of me.  I myself felt a great sense of pride in taking pop flying for the first time.  Mission Accomplished!

Flight from Leesburg to Reading, PA

On Wednesday there was a stationary warm front that was hanging from the ohio valley all the way to the east coast.  The weather called for IFR so I filed and hopped in the Cessna along with my good friend Daniel Miller.

I flew the leg going to Reading, PA (KRDG).  It was a smooth ride with plenty of clouds to look at.  I'm getting a real kick out of instrument flying.

The cielings at Reading were pretty low, at about 1000 feet above ground level.  So I flew the ILS for runway 13 and landed.

Malibooz Bar & Grill had GREAT food!  If you ever find yourself at this airport you owe it to your   self and your passengers to check it out! 

After eating, Daniel and I taxied to the other side of the airport to check out the Mid Atlantic Air Museum.  First stop:  the bone yard.

More than just luxury cars!

 The airplanes inside the museum hangar were in much better shape:

Nice!

Wanna go for a ride?

 This airplane really caught my eye:

It's called the "Channel Wing."  It was supposed to have an extremely short take off performance to compete with helicopters.  But like many unique designs it did not catch on.

The flight back was pretty....but bumpy.  West of the warm front were hot temps, up to 30 degrees higher than the 50 degrees at Reading.  This caused towering cumulus clouds with updrafts and turbulence.  It's amazing how mother nature affects everything around you, and I find myself becoming more of a weather geek every time I fly.


Take care and fly safely!

IFR ticket is now wet!

After completing my Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) checkride, I knew the next step was flying into the clouds on my own.  Up to this point, I've always had an Instructor or more experienced pilot in the right seat.  Not today!

I've already proved to my flight instructor and my FAA Designated Pilot Examiner that I was ready for this, but now it was time to prove it to myself.  The weather briefing reported an overcast cloud layer at 1000 AGL (AGL means above ground level).  Perfect for someone of my experience level.

Many instrument approaches allow you to descend down to a few hundred feet above the ground before you have to be out of the clouds to see the airport and land.  Look at bottom right portion of this image:

This is an example of an standard instrument approach procedure.  Pilots use this as a guide to get to the airport safely by reference to the instruments.  This means flying the airplane without having outside visual references (you can't see out the window!).  In the case of this approach, I could fly the airplane all the way down to 250 feet above the ground before I have to be out of the clouds to see the runway.

With the lowest cloud layer at 1000' AGL I had plenty of wiggle room.  I spent the last 6 months learning how to do this, and it was time to put all that training into action!

I flew out of Leesburg, VA, contacted Potomac Air Traffic Control and cut into the clouds.  The one thing I can say is that your body gets confused quick.  My guts told me I was climbing even when I was at level flight.  TRUST YOUR INSTRUMENTS!

I flew towards Martinsburg, WV and wound up between cloud layers.  Take a look:

Being between clouds gives the earth an "alien feel" to it.  I only had time to take this one pic because I was pretty busy!  I did a touch and go at Martinsburg, then went over to Winchester, VA and did another approach.  At this time it was mostly clear, but when I went back to Leesburg I was in the soup again.

I stuck to my procedures, broke out of the clouds at 1200' AGL and landed safely at Leesburg!  My IFR ticket is officially wet...well there wasn't much rain so I guess the proper description would be "damp."

Take care and fly safely!

Year 1 - the first 140-ish hours

When I say becoming a pilot was a life-long dream, I mean LITERALLY I used to dream about flying.  It felt like this voice in my sub-concious that for whatever reason I chose to ignore through out my life.  But I finally stopped ignoring that dream and passed my initial checkride for my private pilot certificate last may.

I'm fresh off my instrument checkride on April 4th of this year, and looking back on those two trials I could not think of any challenge in my life that has brought me more satisfaction.  I have approximately 140 flight hours to this date, and I intend on enjoying this experience of being an aviator for as long as I can.

This blog will document my adventures in the air, to include airport/FBO pireps, ipad app pireps and anything that can help us all be safer pilots!

I wish you all safe skies and see you soon!