lindsay and i jumped out of a perfectly good airplane (if there is such a thing) from flt110 in tullahoma today. yes, we’re perfectly sain. yes, we were well aware of what we were doing. and yes, it was one of the most incredible things i’ve ever done in my life.
for the record, i didn’t have to convince lindsay. she was all about it.
off to tullahoma, where we arrived… paid…. got less than 15 minutes of ground training, which can be summarized: hold your harness, exit the aircraft, enter the …

it’s official – i’m now a faa licensed private pilot!
i took my oral exam and checkride today at murfreesboro and i must say, i’m very pumped!! you can browse back all through my flight training (and misc. comments about flying) and see that this has been a awesome adventure.
it wasn’t as bad (the oral & checkride) as i thought it would be… probably because von has me as prepared as i could possibly be for this. talk about an awesome flight instructor!!
i’ve flown with several different instructors – and i’m …

well, i officially passed the written part of my pilot testing. i did pretty well and look forward to wrapping all that up soon!

i was supposed to fly out to “the country” a week ago, but the plane was scheduled for maintenance, no one told me or von, and i drove up there for nothing. it worked out well though, see the post before this one.
the wait was definately worth it. it was a beautiful day – perfect weather conditions, incredible visibility, not much haze… very nice. it was really cool to see all the color below me in the trees over in the hills. it was something else – i caught myself …

lindsay and i went over to goodpasture’s annual fundraiser day – called ‘cougar day’ to say hello to mom and ace, and so that i could try and hitch a ride in the averitt helicopter. a fellow ghs alum flies at averitt and he comes out to fly folks around. in my book, that’s the best $25 i’ve spent in a while… photos in the gallery.

talk about fun! von and i took to the skies yet again for turns around a point, s-turns and recovering from unusual attitudes. i’d have to say, it was one of my favorite 1.5hrs in the sky. from the get go, von was throwing some stuff out there for me to review… like a soft-field takeoff to start. there wasn’t much wind, so i was able to get the low down on turns around a point in a good stable environment. after a few of those, came the s-turns… which …

von and i took to the skies again, after what felt like a forever long (but only 3 week) hiatus. on the flight plan – my introduction to instrument flying. this isn’t instrument training like you tackle when preparing for your instrument rating, but it sure was awesome. effectively scanning the instruments and learning to trust your instruments completely – and backing up the info they provide to insure their accuracy – is a set of skills that i am excited to learn. i can tell from just a little …

i took 6102H up for a few touch and go’s this morning, which was a great experience – considering the thermals and overall bumpy approaches the summer heat is stirring up. it was fun and i was fortunate to have to opportunity to work on improving my landings in such situations.
after lunch with lindsay, i decided to skip the pile of web work on my plate and swing by the control tower at nashville international airport. von and i will soon start my atc familiarization and i’m been preparing for …

well, at least that’s what gingles and i joke about when talking about flying.* i made my first solo cross country flight just a few minutes ago over to livingston and back. it went very well – it was good for the ole confidence that’s for sure. when you’re dealing with maintaining a heading, trying to make sure that heading is correct, looking for landmarks and maintaining your altitude (which was just below scattered clouds) there’s a lot going on… but i found time to thank the Lord for the …

i love night flying. it was really enjoyable – smooth as glass and beautiful. unfortunately, it wasn’t much cooler : )
flew over the house (found out later lindsay and big dan saw me buzzing by at 020ft) and hendersonville before heading out lebanon. tonight we were in the 150 – which i really like because of the old school flaps. imagine an huge emergency brake lever like they throw between the two seats in a car… that’s what you pull to add/remove the flaps. when those baby’s are extended, she …