Thursday, June 12, 2008

Friday is flying day!



I am leaving earth for a couple hours friday. I have a biennial flight review with my instructor, Noel, (who is 72 yrs old, we would have flown earlier this week but his blood pressure was too high and couldn't get a medical certificate, but his doc gave him something and its ok now so the doc passed him). Anyway we are off 10 am in a cessna 152, a plane he says "its kinda ratty but it'll do." He said to look for him on the ramp: "I'm an old man with white hair and a white beard." Santa? he sounds like a real character, the exact kind of instructor I want. I mean, you don't want some narcissistic prick who has no sense of humor. We will go over basic navigation, turns, climb descend. I think I will need a 3rd hour to get signed off, some hood time. Turns out I have over 13 hrs. of instrument time. I should really consider going for my commercial rating along with instrument rating (most pilots who get Instrument rating without getting commercial do so because they don't have the overall hrs, I have about 260 total time, which is enough.) I read that pilots who just go over 250 hrs are dangerous because they actually think they know everything and have a tendency to get sloppy - I will remember that. 152's are fun planes but they don't have much power esp. for slow flying connected to instrument training. Noel says he doesn't do much plane instruction, he is more into glider instruction. They fly gliders out of Grove City airport - I might consider that. UPDATE: Noel and I flew for about 45 min. The plane (it is kind of ratty) had a wasp nest in the fuel air tube, we had to run a wire in the tube, and then add more fuel to use weight to flood wasp crap out, didn't work, so Noel put his mouth over the fuel filler on top of the wing (this involved standing on a ladder) and he blew into the fuel tank, wasp crap came out the air hole, and then the fuel went back in his face. He had to wash off after that. We finally got rolling and did some turns, climbing, descending, and one landing. Whew! I was rusty. I need at least a couple more landings. Noel is career Air Force mechanic and flight engineer, Air frame and power plant licensed, also licensed instructor. He has seen it all. Alot of fun!

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