Study, study, study!

'ello!

Well, I only have a handful of flights left before I get that spiffy instrument rating. I can hardly wait to jump in the twin engine Duchess that sits out there so lonely on the concrete... I guess that's just life, sometimes- looking forward to intensely that I lose myself and forget to look around or even behind.

WARNING: PERSONAL PHILOSOPHY JUNK ENSUES! I try to keep a good mix of looking ahead, around and behind. Its all good stuff. I'm excited to be entering the throes of a career as a pilot, but I'm also thrilled with the experience of learning so many things about it right now. And then, of course, I love remembering what my first few flights were like... all good things. Sure, there were some scary moments, some stupid decisions, some failures, some successes, some proud moments as well as humbling moments, sometimes to the point of being a downright slashfest to my pride. There will be those things in the future as well. I'll be right sometimes and I'll be wrong sometimes. But those things are all good as well, in Light of the bigger picture... hm...

Well... Friday's flight was intense... so much turbulence... but I guess flying on instruments just sort of attracts that type of thing. I've never been carsick or airsick and I usually don't have to deal with nausea even in small amounts. But Friday was impressive. It was a warm day and the direct sunlight didn't help. Add to that some crazy winds from all directions, including from above and from below. Why, at several points, I was positively flying through the air towards the ground, but the air around me was rising so quickly that I was actually gaining altitude. That. Is. Frustrating. Gr. Rawr, even. Hmph. But I just told the rising queasiness to uh... ahem, kindly banish itself from my attention. It worked, and I rerouted precious energy and attention that was being wasted on feeling sick to being put to work watching instruments and listening to my instructor. It was a good day, overall... I'm still walking, the plane's still flying, and I don't owe and money on maintenance!

Tomorrow, I'm not sure where we are flying... I think we are going to actually file an IFR flight plan. Maybe this is a good time to go through that process with you, the trusty reader, just so you'll know. Cool.

Okay: flight plans. So, guess what! Planes don't always just kind of take off and go to wherever they want to go. The pilot usually "files a flight plan." This is a sort of list of important information about how and where the pilot intends the flight to go. This includes things like the type of airplane being flown, the route that the pilot plans to take, how fast he/she plans to fly, how long it will take, what altitudes will be flown, etc. There can be quite a bit of very important information related to the flight in a flight plan. When a pilot knows he/she will be navigating using Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) rather than Visual Flight Rules (VFR), they will note this on the flight plan as well.

This flight plan is kept on record and is used for many purposes. This lets the folks at Air Traffic Control (ATC) know where you intend to be at certain times. From there, they can do their best to space airplanes out and help keep things flying and not falling. IFR flight plans are very serious and are followed very precisely. VFR flight plans are, too, but the navigation is much, much less precise. IFR plans involve very specific clearances from ATc that the pilot must read back over the radios and follow precisely. Basically, a flight plan is the pilot letting ATC (and, potentially, rescue efforts) know where the plane is going to be.

So, back to tomorrow's flight. We may actually file a flight plan to somewhere other than College Station because a certain part of the Instrument Landing System (ILS) is out of service here. Maybe we'll just shoot some GPS approaches... hm... I'll try to explain approaches in another entry. Maybe I'll do a series on them, or something... its a lot to cover...

At any rate, we've talked about some personal ideas of mine, flight plans, and some other random things... I think that is good for today. Also, I'm tired and sleep is a good thing...

...correction, sleep is a great and amazing thing that I hold very near and dear to my heart. Yes. Mmmm sleep. I'm smiling just thinking about sleeping. So here is a short snippet that I've never come across before and I thought it was kinda funny!

A young and stupid pilot wanted to sound cool on the aviation frequencies.
So, this one time he was approaching a field during the night time.
Instead of making any official requests to the tower, he said: "Guess who?"
The controller switched the field lights off and replied: "Guess where!"

Have a good one...