Just a Vapor

Quite literally my weekend flew by. I think I’ve mentioned a few times that I have been in training for my private pilot’s license. Saturday was my first Solo cross country flight. I’ve been trying to get it in for 6-7 weeks, but the rain that we’ve been having in Minnesota has prevented me from flying until now.

I’m not sure exactly what the requirements were for this flight, but my instructor asked me to go at least 75 nautical miles and 2 airports (not counting the one I departed from). The first leg was to Sauk Center, about 100 miles northwest of Minneapolis. I got myself up there just fine. Then the second leg, I headed to Little Falls (home of Charles Lindberg). It was only about a 20 minute flight for this leg, and I didn’t do as well as getting to Sauk Center. I thought I had the airport in site when I was about 15 miles away, and headed towards it. Once I got to, and over the airport, I realized I wasn’t at Little Falls, I was at Camp Ripley. The buildings at the airport were far too military looking to be a little airport at Little Falls. I got out of there as fast as I could (with no apparent trouble), and found the airport I actually wanted. After a quick landing and taxi back, I was off to return home.

I must have either calculated my heading wrong or the wind drastically shifted because I was heading southeast back to the Twin Cities and found myself going a bit north of my desired flightpath. A quick poking around with the in-dash GPS unit and I figured out how to put in my desired destination and point the airplane in the right direction (they don’t teach you how to use GPS in flight training because they want you to know how to navigate without it.)

One thing I liked a lot was that I had the Minneapolis air traffic control watching me and was in constant radio contact with them. My greatest fear when it comes to flying is a mid-air collision. Having them on (which is completely optional and up to the pilot) really helps because if there is another airplane in the area that I don’t see, they will warn me. It’s nice to know that even though I’m in the airplane by myself, I have someone helping me stay safe. That’s something I’m sure I will use often when I am a licensed pilot.

Just one more of those flights and a cross country at night with my instructor and I’ll be ready to start practicing for my test. It has taken a long time so far, but I’m getting close to the end. The next bump in the road is going to be my instructor though. The company that owns the flight school is getting rid of the flight school, and will focus on the rest of the business. My instructor has to find a new job, but I can follow him when he does.

This takes a lot of patience. I’m on my third instructor since last summer, and my fifth since I started taking lessons (I got to my solo back in 2001 and had to stop, I started back up last summer). Weather also causes a lot of lessons to be canceled. I’d recommend it to anyone interested though, it’s a lot of fun, and will open up a lot of vacation destination options when I’m done.