Back In The Saddle

I was able to get back in the airplane today after nine-day layoff due to travel. It was great to get in a lesson, and I had a lot of fun doing more slow flight, steep turns, and stalls. My CFI has also been building up my “hood time,” which is flying with “foggles,” plastic safety-type glasses that allow you to only see the instruments and not outside the aircraft. That hood work isn’t really necessary until later in the private pilot curriculum, but he’s been having me fly 12 minutes (and today, 18) of hood time the past few lessons to get me proficient more quickly. I enjoy it, and the simulator is great training for this. Today I did turns, climbs, climbing and descending turns while maintaining airspeed, and slow flight all under the hood. That all went well.

IMG_4206

Another fun part of today was the TFR (temporary flight restriction) in place in the Philadelphia region due to the Democratic National Convention. The TFR meant we needed to get ATC clearance to fly, broadcast a squawk code, and fly with ATC flight following throughout the lesson. We had Philadelphia approach on the radio the entire flight, which was really cool, and which made me realize how realistic PilotEdge is (very). And coming back to the field I made the calls to Philly approach, which was VERY cool.

A great lesson today, and I’m having a great time real-world.

Leave a Reply