Winging It

Lesson 36 – Pilotage

July 14, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 2 COMMENTS

The goal for this lesson was to use pilotage to fly to Poplar Grove, from there to Lake in the Hills and then back to Waukegan. The distance didn’t qualify as an official cross country flight, but it was a very good introduction to what travel by airplane is all about. My basic task was […]

Lesson 35 – A Grass Strip

July 10, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 1 COMMENT

For this lesson, we flew to Dacy Airport to practice soft field techniques on a grass landing strip. It was my first time flying to a field with turf runways and was a real education. This is the way flying was in the early days and it is good to know there are places like […]

Lesson 34 – Starting Stage 3

July 7, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

My first solo marked the end of Stage 2 training. Yesterday I started on the first lesson of Stage 3. This is the dual cross country stage but starts out with maximum performance takeoffs and landings. We flew up the shore of Lake Michigan to Racine to work on short and soft field takeoffs and […]

Lesson 33 – First Solo!

July 3, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom
/ 6 COMMENTS

After my last lesson, Sandy and I talked about the schedule for July. I will be going on an Alaskan cruise at the end of the month so I wanted to schedule my usual twice a week lessons up until then. Sandy said we would get my first solo done before I leave so we […]

Lesson 32 – More Landings at KENW

June 30, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

We made the short hop to Kenosha again yesterday. I am getting familiar with entering the pattern there so that I can fly up on my own soon. My first solo is very close with solo to KENW close behind. The tower gave us runway 24L this time so the entry was to the left […]

Lesson 31 – Landings with a Different Perspective

June 26, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

I had to cancel Thursday’s lesson because of work commitments. Sandy was taking a day off so yesterday I flew with CFI Kim. It worked out fine and it was good to get a different perspective on landings. We stayed in the pattern at Waukegan and did eight landings, one low approach and one go […]

Lesson 30 and An Aviation Weekend

June 19, 2006
/ airshows flying
/ By tom
/ 2 COMMENTS

On Saturday, my wife and I went to the Lake in the Hills Air Expo 2006. The displays and performances were great, but I found that I was most interested in watching how the pilots handled the strong cross winds that prevailed that day. I watched every landing and studied how they fought for the […]

Lesson 29 – Same Thing, Different Day and Place

June 16, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

Instead of practicing landings on runway 14 at Waukegan, we made the short hop to Kenosha to practice landings on runway 14 there. Last time we went to KENW, we flew out to the northwest and then back east to allow me time to get oriented and make all the proper radio calls. When I […]

Lesson 28 – Repeat As Needed

June 14, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

I could just copy the entry for lesson 27 to this one. Again, we stayed in the pattern and worked on landings. The only real difference was that the pattern was more crowded yesterday. Every time around the pattern, something different came up. I had to extend downwinds, bases and departure legs to accommodate traffic […]

Lesson 27 – Landings Again

June 9, 2006
/ flying
/ By tom

I was frustrated with myself after the stage check. I didn’t feel like I performed very well, especially with my landings. This lesson went great though and got me back on track. We stayed in the pattern at UGN and concentrated on landings. Out of the seven I did, four were very good and the […]