Airborne at last

Tuesday 18th July, 10:55am: the moment the wheels left the ground on my first flight with Oxford Aviation.
I'll amend this post when I have more time, but I'm up at 4am tomorrow for an early flight. Meanwhile, here's a piccie of the aircraft I flew today.



************* Update ******************

My head is now swimming with information overload. I did my second and third flights today (see HERE for some pictures taken this morning).
The training is progressing fairly quickly, considering I have zero flight experience prior to this. For my first flight we spent a lot of time going over all the check list in detail, carrying out a proper pre-flight check and walk round, then taking time over the pre-taxi, pre-take off, top of climb, cruise, and all the other checks that need doing. Quite a lot to take in, but with time and practise it should come together. I didn't do much flying for lesson 1, just some very basic turns once we had made it out to the practise area just over the other side of the mountains.
For lesson 2 (7:30am) I was on the radios calling Goodyear Tower and requesting clearances etc, and carried out the take off on runway 21. For reference the ATIS was information Mike, wind was 120 at 8 kts, temp 33 degrees, dewpoint 18, QNH 29.91, runway 21.
Once out in the practise area we ran through lesson 2, which covered secondary effects of controls, and the effects of flaps. I had more time in control, but was still obviously getting a feel for it all.
For lesson 3 (11:30am) I performed the take off and flew the aircraft out past twin lakes and onto the greenfields practise area. By now the temperature had risen a few more degrees and the ride was pretty bumpy. For take off the ATIS was information Papa, windo 060 @ 6 kts, temp 38, dewpoint 16, QNH 2989, runway 03. We covered off what was required for lesson 3 - what 'straight and level' means, and how to trim the aircraft. I was struggling with this as the aircraft was being thrown around the sky by all the thermals - no sooner had you trimmed it were you fighting to hold your altitude and heading.
We then headed back to Goodyear airport to perform some touch-and-go's. I called up ATIS and got information Quebec - wind 120 @ 10 kts, temp 38, dewpoint 16, QNH 2987, runway 03. This gave us a 10 kt, 90 degree crosswind across the runway, which had us 'crabbing' the aircraft in sideways. Lovely.
Here's where I made a 'slight' error. Bear in mind this was my first attempted landing ever, and it was not the best conditions.... anyway... I was doing as instructed, keeping airspeed just above 70kts, 1000ft markers half way up the windscreen, and all the while fighting to keep the aircraft on the centre line of the runway. Unfortunately my grip on the controls was not all that light - ok I was hanging on for dear life - and when the main wheels touched down it was fairly rough - enough to bounce us back up into the sky. Whooops. Gilbert had done his best to stop this happening, but he couldn't wrestle the controls off me! No harm done, we applied full power and climbed out of there - Gilbert telling me I need to use a lighter touch, as he wasn't strong enough to overcome my inputs on the controls (he's only little, bless)
He was really good about it though, and we just did a quick circuit and had another go - and the second attempt was a good bit better. Although to be fair, Gilbert was mostly in control and I just followed what he was doing with the controls.
On the climb out for the second time, Goodyear Tower called us up and told us to stay on the centre line and not turn for the regular circuit. We did this, then 30 seconds later we got a call from Goodyear Tower asking us to state our intentions, as we had passed over the I10 and were heading for Luke Air Force Base airspace. Gilbert had a 'discussion' with ATC over the instructions they'd given us, then we turned back and headed round for a third landing. I'm pretty pleased to say that this one went really well - I got the aircraft down bang on the centre line and held it there. We then taxi'd back to parking, and that was the end of lesson 3.
All in all, a pretty good day. It's been a long day (was up just before 4am) - and there has been a hell of a lot of information to take on board.
I went down to Goodyear airfield earlier this evening and checked the shedule, I'm down for a 14:00 flight tomorrow, so I can have a bit of a lie in then get stuck into some work before the flight. Will hopefully not get screwed over by sheduling again like I did today, and will get time to fill in the mass & balance sheet and ATIS information.

Well, I think that just about covers it. I daren't proof read what I've written, but there's a good chance most people starting to read this blog entry will have fallen asleep by now.

Ciao for now!

Simon



P.S. Don't forget to check out my main website for some pictures from flying today.