Great flight yesterday!

Greebo

Greebo

N9017H - C172M (1976)
Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
10,976
Location
Baltimore, MD
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Display name:
Retired Evil Overlord
I've got a co-worker who's really interested in flying but had never had the chance to sit up front in a small plane before, so yesterday I took him up for his first time.

We got to the airport and he was really into everything - so I walked him through the pre-flight, explaining why we pre-flight and he had all kinds of questions about this control does and what that antenna is for and such. We got airborne at 8:20 AM and flew down to Columbia, MD and found his current home - circled it a few times (Potomac approach was helpful and accomodating as always), then we flew out to Mt. Airy and found the house he's building - and circled it a few times...

Then we headed out to Hagerstown by way of Frederick, just for a quick touch and go (because I still need some XC PIC time for the IR) and then back to Frederick where we stopped for a while, and had breakfast at the Airways Cafe, I think it's called? Nice little spot - I hadn't been in there before. Then we walked around a bit and looked at various planes before heading back, and once we were enroute to EMI I let him have the yoke and fly the plane for about 15 minutes doing S&L flight and shallow turns. He did pretty good for a first timer. :)

Then it was back home cause I had to take the car back to the shop and we were starting to get behind.

We couldn't have had (around here anyway) a better day - clear skies, plus 10 miles visibility - just a tad windy and a little bumpy down low but nice and smooth above 1,500 AGL, and I got to take a new person flying who was really enthusiastic about it! What a great day to be a pilot! :)
 
Pictures from my flight - this is my friend's site, he's supposed to give them to me on CD later.

http://www.opimus.net/FilmStrip.aspx?GroupID=56

And I might even put up the video he took of us on short final in the 90 deg crosswind...

... no... I don't think I will. :) It shows just how much more xwind practice I need. :)
 
Good photos! Looks like you guys had fun.
 
Hey Chuck, glad you guys had a great flight. :)

Greebo said:
Pictures from my flight - this is my friend's site, he's supposed to give them to me on CD later.
Click to expand...

I can't get it to work, dang it. I want to see your pictures.

Greebo said:
And I might even put up the video he took of us on short final in the 90 deg crosswind...
... no... I don't think I will. :) It shows just how much more xwind practice I need. :)
Click to expand...

Oh, we definitely want to see that! ;)
 
Diana said:
I can't get it to work, dang it. I want to see your pictures.
Click to expand...
What browser are you using? It may not work well in Firefox...
 
Say, I have a question about your area.

On the Washington charts, P40 shows the usual permanent ring, and then an outer dotted ring. The dotted ring is the size of the TFR when the President is there, right? If he's not there that airspace is open?
 
MSmith said:
Say, I have a question about your area.

On the Washington charts, P40 shows the usual permanent ring, and then an outer dotted ring. The dotted ring is the size of the TFR when the President is there, right? If he's not there that airspace is open?
Click to expand...
Correct. As long as P-40 is 'As Published', you can fly through the outer white ring.

In fact, we did, on the way back and forth between FDK and HGR.
 
MSmith said:
Say, I have a question about your area.

On the Washington charts, P40 shows the usual permanent ring, and then an outer dotted ring. The dotted ring is the size of the TFR when the President is there, right? If he's not there that airspace is open?
Click to expand...

P40 is the permanent inner ring, the dotted ring is the USUAL TFR that we get when the Pres is at Camp David. Correct.

Jim G
 
Chuck, sounds like a great day, and 90-degree xwind or not, your friend was impressed by the experience! :)

Unfortunately, I can't get the photos to open on my computer at the office. I get a Java popup that says something like "undefined value." Right now I'm using Safari for the Mac. I'll try Camino (my only other option here).
 
I'll be posting them as attachments here as soon as I can get the CD from Ed. :)
 
Firefox works but gives an error on each picture click.

Nice photos, Chuck! Was your left hand cold or is that a habit? :D
 
Cold.

My left hand was injured a few years ago. My left thumb came into contact with the spinning blade of a table-saw. As a result, the artery in the left thumb was pretty much destroyed at a point about halfway up the thumb. I was extremely fortunate that the tendons were not damaged and that the nerves were only frayed.

The long term effects of the injury are very minor - I have full mobility use of my thumb, but I have spots along the scar tissue with nerve endings in them that are in the wrong place - if I touch the middle of my thumb it often feels like I'm tickling the underside of my thumbnail.

And the artery damage in the thumb messes up the circulation. My left hand feels cold almost all of the time, unless its a very warm day and my core temperature is up some. So I wear a glove with all but the thumb removed, most of the time.
 
Greebo said:
Cold.

My left hand was injured a few years ago....
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Wow. Sorry to hear that.

I thought you were in a Michael Jackson kinda mood or something. ;)
 
Its no big deal - I was putting in hardwood floors on a Saturday, and I was making the last rip cut of the job after 11 hours of working on it.

Lesson learned: Don't work with power tools for 11 hours straight.

And surely you can do better than the Michael Jackson reference. :) You have to be able to imagine how often I've heard THAT one... ;)

(Oh, sometimes I tell people who ask about the glove that it was a shark bite, but only in person, cause you get a better view of the facial reaction that way... :) )
 
Greebo said:
Its no big deal - I was putting in hardwood floors on a Saturday, and I was making the last rip cut of the job after 11 hours of working on it.

Lesson learned: Don't work with power tools for 11 hours straight.

And surely you can do better than the Michael Jackson reference. :) You have to be able to imagine how often I've heard THAT one... ;)

(Oh, sometimes I tell people who ask about the glove that it was a shark bite, but only in person, cause you get a better view of the facial reaction that way... :) )
Click to expand...
As an avid woodworker, I recognize the rule. :D

It's early and I hadn't finished my first cup of coffee yet. Smart aleck, unique zingers generally don't appear from this boy until cup three or so.
 
First time GA flyers always want to see their house form the air for some reason. Every one I take uo for the first time finds that the most entertaining part of the trip.
 
Photos!

Attaching now... :) A subset of the 50some pictures he took.
 
And looking at #20, man did I get blown away from the runway once I got past the numbers... woopsie!
 
Nice pictures Chuck. I didn't realize that MD was so pretty. Things are greening up back east too, I see.

Liked the caption on #3 picture. :)
 
Good photos Chuck! I like your co workers death grip on the yoke and feet firmly planted on the floor. no doubut your worked the rudders. How many of us didn't have that death grip when we first started to fly? I know I did. It took a while for me to shake it.

:blueplane:
 
Yeah it took come coaxing on my part just to get him to use only one hand. I figured "two fingers" was too much to hope for. And yeah, I worked the rudders. :)

I did have him stabilize the plane and take his hand off the yoke after he remarked that it kept wanting to turn right...

With his hand off, it wanted to turn left (probably my fat foot) - but I think that helped him see what I meant by overcontrolling. :)
 
Gonna put our server load to the test and see how it handles a couple larger files that I've manually uploaded.

The first is base to final, and you can see how much the crosswind affected my lining up as I turned to final too soon and too steeply:
Base to final

The second is on short final to landing, and it is a little embarassing how far left of centerline I was, even from the right seater perspective:
Final and landing

You need QuickTime to view these.
 
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