Come Fly With Me!

Okay, so it has been a really long time since I have posted. That is a phrase I think I have started all of my posts with. Anywho, the most interesting events in my life right now is all the happenings at school. It is a great conversation piece to say that I am in aviation school. Everyone wants to know if I've started flying yet. I think that is kind of funny because I actually started flying before my classes started.
So, I have reached the coveted time to be able to fly solo. So, on Friday, Febuary 13th (yes, Friday the 13th! Yikes!) I went up by myself for the first time! This is how it went down in picture form...This is the plane I flew solo in. It is called a Diamond DA-20 C1 (affectionately known as a Katana). This plane, 988CT (niner eight eight charlie tango) goes by the callsign Wolf 18 (wolf one eight). These planes are amazing and solid despite how small they look. They are widely known for being some of the safest planes to fly in. They're very good trainers.
My instructor and I actually went up for about thrity minutes and did three takeoffs and landings to make sure he was comfortable with my flying alone that day.


So, turns out he did feel comfortable with me flying alone! Here I am after I dropped him off.
Here I am in good ole Wolf one eight getting the plane ready for departure.
Here I am going through the last of my pre-start checklists. Right after this, I started the engine and made the ten minute trip to the runway. While I was taxiing and doing a run-up check, my instructor went and got a scanner so he could hear my communications with the tower. He stood outside and watched me fly around.
And here I am returning in one piece! All safe and sound. You can't really see me, but I promise I am in there.
And here is my instructor, Josh Williams. He reminded me of my Dad when he put up a stink about taking a picture, and then refused to take off his sunglasses! I laughed inside. This is the guy who has taught me all I know. He is a great instructor, and pushes me to study hard and progress fast. He knows I want to get my private pilot's liscense by the end of the semester, so he is very accomodating.
One last thing. While I was waiting for clearance from tower to takeoff, they told me to "hold short" because of incoming traffic. I then heard them warn all the other planes that an A-10 warthog (a military attack jet) was doing practice instument landings. This means we have to watch out for it's wake (just like a boat's wake) or we could stall and crash. I thought, "great, I've trained how to avoid the wake, but what if I crash?!" Everything was smooth though, and I felt like I was treated to a cool "show" of sorts to be able to watch it do it's practice landings and take offs. We shared the pattern with the A-10 for about 15 minutes. I thought it was cool! Here is a video from youtube of an A-10 just in case you don't know what it is.