Basically it all comes down to financial reason. I am coming close to the end of my full time Internship in which I will be going back to school and working only part time. This will deflate my bank account very quickly causing more loans. That just isn’t fun.

When I went in to flying I went in with the mindset of it being a hobby (yes, a very expensive hobby). I put together a very extravagant, very detailed budget in Excel and went to town on keeping the budget on track. I was very successful until a point. There came a point in my budget when something changed. A social addition was made and suddenly I really wanted to spend money in other ways. For nearly three months this continued. I was taking less flight lessons in order to accommodate the increased spending, but this was just increasing the amount of time to obtain my certificate. Once this temporary social addition’s visit was up, I came to my realization…

Over the next six months, until I start working full time again, I would be able to have fun in only one way (that involves money), flying lessons. I could make it work, but every penny I found would go to the flying fund. I am about to be 22 here in September; I am in college and living with friends. Flying is my hobby… how much fun would I have if I spent all my time, energy, and money on taking the plane up once every three weeks for an hour or so, just flying in circles (cause I wouldn’t have the budget to take a fun trip). My other option is to take a little break, have fun with friends by going bowling, going to bars, maybe taking a weekend road trip… and then next spring start flying again to finish off my lessons. To me (especially seeing it in writing) the choice is obvious.

I talked to my instructor, parents, and friends, who all agreed with my reasoning. I am very confident that I made the right choice. I love hanging out with friends, and much of the time that involves spending a little money. Sometime in the future as well, maybe I’ll start seeing someone and like to spend some time and a little money on them… I would love to have that option.

Who knows, maybe I’ll strike it rich with flyingpage.com and finances won’t be anything to worry about… but I’m thinking cautious now. I already feel less bogged down about money and spending, and it makes me a happy camper. Any comments?

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During preflight we were checking lights and noticed that the landing light was out of commission. Kind of against regs to fly without the landing light… but, we’ll survive. We still have our strobes and nav lights. Taxiing to 21L my eyes become fully adjusted to the unusual lighting.

Take off was normal, just a little dark, especially with no landing light. We got into our climb, turned crosswind, turned downwind and departed on our heading of 086 for KUNI over in Athens (the Ohio University Airport)

Soon after we were up in the air ATC calls asking about our transponder. We were showing up as a target with no altitude… after smacking it around a little bit we got the OK from ATC. In the meantime our right strobe light stopped working as well. Occasionally it would give a little blink, but not enough to be comforting. The left strobe light then gave out as well… good thing for Nav lights, eh? The strobe on the left wing did come on about 3 minutes later though.

We’re chuggin’ through the skies above Clermont Country, reviewing normal night flight procedures along with nighttime navigation. I was a little uneasy (especially with things not working) but most was fine. Not long after departure, Gary asks me, so do you think we should turn around? He’s always asking me these loaded questions, and I can never tell what he’s going for. I answered with that if I was by myself I’d be turned around and back on the ground as quick as I could… but since he was up, I had full confidence that we could handle ourselves. He shrugged an OK and we continued.

After getting about 45 miles to the east of Lunken, near Hillsboro, the lights on the instruments started a methodic dimming process along with the amps meter. This was going on when we had the alternator on… and the alternator off… no good. I think it had something to do with only having one strobe light on, and the capacitors were discharging unevenly. I also then noticed, with rising tension… that the plane was only feeding fuel through its left wing tank…

… well crap

So we’re 45 miles out, with 1/4 of one tank of fuel, no landing light and half of our strobe lights, a transponder that is on the fritz… and its bloody dark outside!

**Note: In all this craziness, I do have to make note that I have never seen so many stars in Cincinnati as what I saw up away from the lights. It was amazing, absolutely gorgeous. I had to keep my mind on flying the plane and not on staring at all the pretty stars

Gary makes the executive decision and I pull a 180 heading directly west, back towards Lunken. I’m nervously watching our fuel and making calculations to see if we have enough to get back… 29 gallons full, and burning 6 per hour. 1/4 of 29 is about 7.25 gallons, plus a 10 knot direct headwind… we should be fine to get back, we had only been flying for about 25 minutes. See my error (that I just now realized)… we had 1/4 fuel on one wing, not total. The right wing fuel wasn’t even feeding. 1/4 of 15 gallons is just under 4 gallons, 2/3′s hour, 40 minutes? Scary eh? These calculations, however, do not match what I saw from the cockpit. You can never really tell how much fuel you have from those gauges, but we were just under 1/4 tank when we were landed.

On the way back to Lunken, we kept going over nighttime navigation and what to be looking for. I noticed how many more planes you see flying at night. Gary chuckled and said its funny because there’s like five-times as many flying during the day, and we don’t see them!

Lunken was about 3 miles in front of us and we were descending from just under 2000. Gary asks, can we make it with power off? NO WAY my mind said… “No, I don’t think we can…” Gary thought for a second and reached over and pulled the throttle all the way back. This guy is a freakin’ loony! is all that went through my mind. We’re coasting / dropping over darkness… which knowing the Lunken area can only mean that trees were soon to be our passengers. I was doing my best to keep 70 knots and aim straight for the threshold of the runway, but we just kept dropping. We were going down at about 700 feet per minute and at a level that appeared to me to be just skimming the tops of trees… when Gary said… guess you’re right, and pushed the throttle to max. I breathed a sigh of relief and we continued…

We landed at Lunken just a few minutes after 11, and the tower closes at 11, so we just missed them taking care of us. A little bit of traffic was in the area, but we had no problems getting in and off the runway. I kept wanting to flare well too early during the landing. The combination of not being able to see the runway due to being nighttime and along with no landing lights was keeping the darkness below me a little scary.

We did survive though. We hung around the office until 12:15ish talking about the flight and all the different aspects of night flight. I think I’m really going to enjoy flying at night as long as the plane is in working condition… I’ll have to reschedule the cross country, this time with 3729D instead of 37147… hah… crazy planes…

Have a great weekend!!!!

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Not only were we changing locations of our cross country, but we were going to be flying a four-seater Piper Cherokee with a passenger in back. I was very excited to fly the slightly bigger plane.

The Cherokee felt much heavier than the Skippers, probably because it is, and in addition we had an extra passenger in the back.

We took off from Lunken at exactly 16:00 and went out east towards KUNI where Ohio University is in Athens. We landed, with a touch and go at 17:00 and then turned north to go to Newark, which is just east of Columbus. That leg took about a half hour.

The reason for the passenger was that he had heard about a building that was shaped like a hand basket. And he thought it would be very neat to see it from the air. Well we found that basket, and it was that… a giant building with handles, very funny. I took a few pictures with Gary’s phone, so hopefully he’ll send those my way and I can post them. We landed and stopped for fuel at Newark. The uncontrolled airport was very quiet and laid back. They had cookies, which of course I sampled a few of

Taking off from Newark, we headed back towards Cincinnati on the longest leg of our flight. Nothing of too much excitement happened. I did fly over a hot air balloon, as well as seeing a jet airliner fly above us (probably heading into Columbus). But total flight time for the cross country was 3.4 hours….. took quite the hit on the wallet.

I really enjoyed learning about and flying the Cherokee, it was exciting to try something new. Next on the flying agenda is night flight this week, followed by a night cross country. We’re going to do the Lunken -> Athens -> Portsmouth -> Lunken for the night cross country. Then after that I’m going to repeat the cross country, just solo. I think I’ve broken the 20 hour threshold, so that is pretty exciting for me.

After my lesson I went over to the bar at Wings with Dave, Sharon, and Gary to have a beer and chat. It was a good time. These folks have been in Cincinnati a very long time and know a lot of the history. It is very enjoyable listening to them.

That’s all for now, hope your weekend is going well!

Later!

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If you normally follow my flight lessons, you have probably noticed an absence in blogs. Yesterday I went up for the first time in about two weeks. Between iffy weather last week and being sick, I just never got the chance to fly.

There was a little bit of wind whipping around on the ground so I expected to be tossed around a little bit up in the air, but it was surprisingly smooth. And was it ever clear! On my way back west to Lunken after practicing maneuvers I got one of the most beautiful sights of downtown Cincinnati ever!

I flew Skipper 37147 yesterday, which unfortunately has no window vents… but it has two radios, which I really love. After flying I gave my credit card to Sharon and she remarked, “wow, this card is warm…” I kinda felt like saying… “well… duhhh” She’s lots of fun.

Up in the air, I just flew around mostly practicing steep turns. Nice smooth motions with attention to attitude are my needs. When leveling off after the steep turn you have much more vertical lift, so I kept popping up 50ish feet, until I finally got it right by pushing in the throttle more than you would think you’d need.

I flew over to East Fork Lake and watched a few boats going around. There were also a very large number of boats on the Ohio River. When coming back to Lunken to do touch and go’s I did my landings on 3L, which is not fun. Since Sunken Lunken… is indeed sunken, there is no easy way to approach without buzzing the tops of houses. I survived though

All in all an uneventful day of flying, nevertheless so much fun. I love going up and just cruising around. I decided to be a little more demanding with the plane and go into turns quicker, or ascend/descend quicker. It was fun… like a jet pilot… just at 80 knots… hah.

Fireworks tonight up in Mason!

Later!

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It was quite bouncy up there today.

On the way home I think I left my flight bag on the top of my car when I drove away… have you seen it?

I’m now missing…
- flight headset
- log book (filled out with 14 entries) (I just did my 40th landing today… it was the end of a second page)
- Cincinnati Section map
- Airport Directory
- Flight planning tools
- BE77 Checklist booklet

I think that’s all that was in there. I just want my log book back… sentimental reasons. I can buy the rest again… it sucks to buy it all again, but i really just want my log book back. The new one won’t have ‘FIRST SOLO!’ in really big letters… or at least it won’t be the same.

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During the steep turns I was able to do it perfectly only twice. If you keep constant bank and keep your altitude within +/- 50 feet you feel a burble from the prop wash when you’ve made your complete turn. Its a satisfying feeling.

Yesterday, Thursday, we didn’t fly, but I went in to the airport to work on flight plans more. I think I’m finally getting the hang of it. Gary and I chilled in the back room for about 3 hours just shootin’ the breeze and working on the flight plan. I brought in a 6-pack of Sam Adams Boston Lager for us, and we each had one over our lengthy chat.

I’ll be heading up solo a few times now, practicing maneuvers and such, then I’ll be going on my cross country after Dan and Katie’s wedding the weekend after this one.

Later!

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First off, we were planning on just working on maneuvers, and winds were at 18 knots, gusting to 26 knots… those would have been rather difficult turns around a point. And on top of that we pushed over 90 degrees yesterday with lots of humidity… which means a high density altitude. I think the DA was at 3,900 feet when I phoned the ATIS before the lesson. We would have been at cruising altitude while on the runway! That little skipper would have been in sorry shape yesterday. So no lesson, no worries though.

Next I would like to say wow and give a huge thanks to everyone who visited my blog and sent comments my way. There’s nothing like notes of assurance and confidence when you are in a new endeavor.

For those that don’t know, I posted a link to my post yesterday (with other links to my blog) in the AOPA forum yesterday. I figured it was quite the quirky lesson that others would enjoy reading about (I do apologize for the length… but too much to talk about)

Anyway, I just wanted to give a thanks out there and let y’all know I appreciate the support!

Later, have a good weekend!

PS> I just added a new module on the right side bar. I added a list of blog that I keep up with daily (or at least do my best to). If you are in a feed and see no right bar… well visit my blog and check it out. If you want me to check out your blog, send me a note with the address!

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We started out reviewing how to make flight plans and gathering weather information for about an hour and decided it was time to get up in the air.

A slight change to the lesson this time was we went pretty far and I soloed. After leaving Lunken we got up to 3,000 feet with a heading of 047 and went up to Xenia. The ATIS said there was 10 miles visibility, but I really don’t think there was, it was quite hazy. On the way up the 53 mile trek we reviewed in cockpit flight planning by watching the map and triangulating our VORs.

Once up in Xenia we landed on a gravel runway. I didn’t realize how much I relied on the lights of the VASI to find my proper approach angle and we landed pretty rough. Gary wasn’t phased though… “Not bad for your first not-solid ground landing…” This airport is in the middle of nowhere really. We turned around and taxied back up the runway (keeping the nose up as not to flip gravel with the propeller). We got up to a street and looked both ways before crossing… a car had stopped to let us cross. I want to be driving down a street and have to wait for a plane to cross the street… hah.

An old worn out hanger in need of a new coat of paint was on the other side of the street with a few planes sitting around. One of them was Gary’s plane. Gary is a big guy, and his plane is tiny… I want to ride in it sometime though, it looks fun.

Gary hopped out carefully (we didn’t stop the engine, cause we were in 3729D, the one that always has a rough time getting started) and went over to his plane to do preflight and startup. Once moving, he taxied around me and we crossed the street back onto the runway. I requested that we use the longer grass runway instead of the gravel runway just for my nerves. Gary took off first. As soon as his wheels left the grass I held the brakes, full throttle, then released brakes to get up to rotation speed.

This is panic point #1
======================

I’m up to about 50 knots and the plane starts moving left. I push a little right rudder to straighten out… still going left. More rudder… more rudder… rudder to the ground…. still going left! I’m panicking… The edge of the runway along with its blue bin marking the edge are close to my wing. I look for my speed, I’m about 55 knots… I gotta pull up. Normal rotation is about 65 knots… but I’m about to go straight of this runway, and I figure my 150 lbs will let us pull up early. I pull up and sure enough I can get my wheels a little off the ground. The stall horn blares intermittently as I sweat and look ahead to see if there’s an OK place to set this bird down if I can’t stay afloat. Keeping the plane about 10 feet off the ground I am able to level off and use ground effect to gain some airspeed.

“A little left there weren’t ya….?” Gary jokes over the radio giving me a friendly and sarcastic critique.

We get up to 2500 feet and fly in pattern on the way back south at a heading of about 215. Gary took the lead as I requested and I flew low to his back right. Not too much excitement on the way back to Lunken. I saw a hot air balloon off in the distance which was nice. There was also a rainbow that was only projected on a cloud. I had never seen that before, it was gorgeous!

We are getting clsoe to Lunken so Gary listens to ATIS and calls me telling me we have information Zulu. He then tells me he’s switching over to 118.7, the Lunken Tower frequency. I remembered him saying something about me staying on 130.5 and he would call back with instructions. So I stay on the frequency.

This is panic point #2
======================

I don’t hear anything for about 5 minutes and we are getting very near Lunken. I don’t want to flip to the tower frequency and miss out on Gary calling me back on 130.5, but I soon see Lunken about 5 miles ahead, and I don’t know what’s going on. Lunken can be a busy airport at times, and I didn’t want to be responsible for anything scary. Oh yeah, and about 1 minute before Gary had quickly descended and blended in with the ground… I was all by myself… eh… this is where I really started to get worried. I flip over to the Tower frequency and make a call.

Me: “Lunken Tower, Skipper 3729D North of you about 5 miles, requesting landing” (I couldn’t remember what ATIS information I had at the moment)
Tower: “29D you have a group of two in front of you, but you are clear to land on 21L”
Me: “Lunken Tower, 29D, I’m actually the tail of that group of two, I just lost site of the leader… sorry”
Tower: “29D, you are 3 miles north and clear to land on 21L”

I felt like an idiot… but I would have felt more like an idiot if I hadn’t known where I was going and landed on the wrong runway, or worse… caused grief for some other plane.

While in my final I heard what I thought was the tower telling other planes they were clear to land on 21L. I then was again concerned. He did say I was clear, no? I decided to sound like an idiot again in the name of caution and confirm with tower my instructions.

Me: “Lunken Tower, Skipper 3729D, just to confirm, clear to land 21L”
Tower: “29D, yes, clear to land on 21L”

Hah… yeah. They know those skippers have students in them… but still. The entire ordeal is actually quite amusing in hindsight.

After tying down the plane and walking over to Gary at his plane, he said it was funny listening to me. He said he had wanted to get on the radio and let out a long “Duuhhhhh…” when I told tower I was indeed the second in the group of two…

Wow… what a lesson. I fly again tonight as long as these winds die down a little.

Later all!

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I got to Lunken about 17:30 and talked with Gary for about an hour in ground school sort of deal. We went over writing up a flight plan both on paper and on the computer (which is super easy). We also called the weather-briefing center. The guy I talked to was super nice and helped explain everything to me as we went along, telling me what to listen for, what other options were for the weather briefing and the sort. I have realized that most everyone who deals with your flight (ground control, tower control, weather brief…) are all really friendly and are there to make your life easier. When first starting lessons with Richard, he made comments about how the people in the tower can be jerks sometimes… I am yet to see it though. I have made my fair share of mistakes so far and they have been very kind and friendly about it.

An hour passed and about 18:30 Captain Dave came in and asked if we were going up. He told us that someone had reserved the plane at 19:30… which we weren’t aware of. We were going to fly up to Xenia and do some grass field landings and probably be gone for 2ish hours. Well so much for those plans… hah. I decided to go ahead and go up by myself. Gary agreed saying it would be a waste of my money to bring him up since we didn’t need to go over anything around the airport. So I went out, did my preflight and taxied for my second solo flight. It felt like I hadn’t been in the plane a while (nine whole days!). While doing my run up the engine was running kind of rough when I brought the throttle back to idle, but I figured it wouldn’t cut out on me while I was in the air cause the wind would help keep the propeller going. I took off and got up in the pattern.

In the 0.4 hours I was up in the air I did two T&G’s along with my full stop final landing. It was a fun time. I really enjoy Gary as my instructor, he is quite the character. I appreciate him thinking of my finances ahead of his own finances, it shows great character.

That’s all for now. I fly again next Wednesday and Thursday. The reason I hadn’t flown in nine days was because of the visibility being poor. Those fires down in Georgia are giving Cincinnati a haze and smog alerts all day now… no good. And then the other lesson I ended up not having was because we got in the plane and couldn’t get it started… yuck (there were fireballs coming out the exhaust pipes ) That plane is in the shop now.

Later!

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This lesson was a surprise actually, it was my first cross-country flight. We took off from Lunken 21R and went north to past the Blue Ash airport and over Kings Island. I saw the building where I work, but I wasn’t able to see my house up in Mason without getting a little closer, all the trees are really big. So we continued from Kings Island up to the Lebanon/Warren County Airport where we flew a little bit past, saw Wright Field and turned around to land at Warren County. We taxied off and around the runway before taking off again (not another plane in sight). We headed back to Lunken while Gary (Porter) explained VOR to me and how to navigate with it. It makes logical sense in my head, but completely doing it while flying is another story… I’ll have to get used to it.

We made it back to Lunken where I was told to continue south of the field and radio at mid-field for entrance to downwind of 21R. So at mid-field I start turning to cross at mid-field because we are on 21L side and radio the tower… “Crossing mid-field wasn’t the initial instructions, but that’s ok, enter on the 21L downwind.” What!? You said 21L… well apparently we were both wrong, he did say 21L when he meant 21R but at the same time he never did say cross mid-field which I had done. Whoops… he was very friendly about it. The ATC folks at Lunken are extremely nice, I’d like to go up and meet them sometime.

After the lesson I sat around with Gary for quite some time and we talked about a whole lot of different things… I was there until 8:30, when we had landed just before 7:30.

Overall, it was a great lesson. Gary is a character, I will enjoy his company for the remainder of my dual flights (hopefully he’s my third and final instructor). I enjoyed seeing some places outside of the boring Clermont County airspace as well… turns out Ohio isn’t all just farm land… hah, we followed I71 pretty much up from exit 5ish up to exit 25ish (Kings Island).

Tomorrow I have another lesson, wish me the best.

Later!

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