AZ: "bumpy" flying...

Thursday (august the 28th) I was scheduled on a flight around noon on the N4177L (the one I flew with the day before). Unfortunatly there was something wrong with one of the main gear struts, so dispatch rescheduled me on the N4149Y in the afternoon. The second mission contained air exercises like steep turns, climbing turns, descending turns, some touch & go's at coolridge, an airport in the south-east practise area. During one of my turns I almost hit a bird ... luckily for both of us it didn't happen :-).
You really have to get used to early morning flights (wake up call at 3:30, engine startup at 5:45), but then the air is still stable. Once the sun starts to rise the air warms up, and certainly in the afternoon the thermal currents can be quit strong. If you have to practise some air exercises it really can be a pain in the ass ... but as long we stay in the air it isn't such a big deal :p.
First Dylan flew for 1.5hr, after a short break at coolidge airport it was my turn. Debriefing, a short swim in the swimming pool and then back to work since my 3th mission was planned in the early morning on friday.
With about 30 minutes delay (as usual there were some technical problems with the BlueOne, the planning program which we have to use to login, fill out our hours etc. plus the printer wasn't working, so I couldn't print my preparation. Not a big problem since the weather radar didn't detect thunderstorms or showers in the vicinity. External check in the morning twilight, cockpit preparation, engine startup and ground check, taxi to the active and there we go! Once you're airborne and doing the climbout towards the south-east up to 3700' you realize how nice it is to have an early morning flight during the lookouts :-)
After my flight I backseated with Dylan and I took some pictures.

AZ - backseat...

Probably we'll have 3 days of for now, there aren't many flights during the weekend and monday is a holiday (labour day).

cheers!

AZ: first mission (M21)

August the 26th: a quick briefing about the archer, a walkaround (external check) with one of our instructors, studying in the afternoon, short night, wake up call at 3:30 o'clock and one hour later towards the airport for our first mission. Although the weather wasn't really perfect for a first flight (thunderstorms in the vicinity), we prepared everything and we were able to take off with only half an hour delay. First Olivier (my flightmate) flew, after him it was my turn ... exiting! Of course the instructor helped me a bit, but I managed to take the N4177L safely into the air and keep it there :-). After takeoff (from RWY 04R) we made a left turn towards the practise area in the north. I did the approach, the instructor the landing. Tomorrow I'll have M22. Again some pictures to make you ppl jealous ;-):

AZ - First fl...

cheers!

AZ: chairflying

Since there aren't many instructors who want to fly on sundays, most of the aircraft stay on the ground. A perfect oportunity to do some "chairflying": practising the flows (what to do when), external check of the aircraft, see which button is where located in the cockpit, find somehow a logical way to advance the flows and checklists, ... . Today in the afternoon there will be again some archers available, so at 4PM we'll be practising again (by the way: temperatures in the cockpit with the door closed can go up as high as 45°C). Pictures (MANY):

AZ - chairflying

and another "small" news item: we bought a car! Stay tuned for more stories and pics ;-)