Livin' The Dream...

So I'm finally flying.

On August 25, 2006, a date which will live in infamy, I flew a plane for the first time from takeoff to landing. With my instructor in the right hand seat, we took off from Grand Forks, flew over to a practice area near Crookston, did an aerodynamics demonstration, and then started practicing landings at the Crookston airport. My first landing was pretty rough, my second landing was better, and on my third landing I "greased it in". Then flew back to Grand Forks, and landed. Not very eventful, but very exciting.

Today I flew again, and we practiced slips and crosswind landings, which I had a hell of a time with. We flew to practice area Golf, which is near the town of Northwood, where we were going to practice the landings. For alot of the small airports around Grand Forks, planes aren't required to use radios, or even have them. As we were doing our overflight of the Northwood airport, to check the windsock and look for other traffic in the pattern, I noticed a small red aircraft taking off. We tried to contact him on the radio, but couldn't get ahold of him. Then, as we were making a turn to the south, we both lost track of him, and decided to just fly back to Grand Forks to practice landings. I was doing so bad with one of my approaches that we had to do a go-around, which wasn't a huge deal, and we needed to practice them anyways.

Then we did our final landing, taxied to parking, and shutdown. I felt pretty sick after the flight, mainly due to the fact that I was dehydrated and hungry, and the plane was hot as hell today.

So yeah, I'm finally flying, and hopefully by the end of the year I'll have my Private Pilot's License.