PPL-A Flygcertifikat

First off, this happened a few weeks ago, 15th March, anyway,,,

A friend of mine and I had vicious plans on how to spend a few bucks in a really short and fun way, how about flying? I’ve been playing with remote controlled helicopters for a while, and my brother’s even working on a private helicopter license, so what should stop me from entering the arena as well? NOTHING, I say NOTHING :D… So…

After a few weeks of emailing back and fourth with one of the flight instructors at Eskilstuna Motorflygklubb we decided that the 23th February would be a good date for our excavation.

Then the 23th came and the weather didn’t allow us to proceed so we stayed home in Västerås and decided on another date, the 15th March. I’m telling you, that was the longest 3 weeks of waiting ever, but the 15th came and the weather looked good (Or… the flight instructor called and told us that the weather was good ;)). So we walked our tired asses to the train and went to Eskilstuna where out instructor would come and pick us up with his car, as it’s over a Swedish mile from the train station to the airport… So the train arrived and we went outside to wait for the car…

(Me, to the left, and Maiden, to the right)

The car arrives and out steps the instructor, a funny little man with a very confident look. The car ride went on without anything explicitly writable happening, other then making my stomach uneasy… the fact that soon one would be crammed into a tiny bucket of metal soaring a few hundred feet above the ground was awesome =D.

We arrived at the clubhouse around a quarter to eleven and sat down inside for a short talk and a look at the map and then we where off to the aircraft. The instructor did the preflight checklist and then it was time to enter the aircraft, a small Cessna 172M from, i think, 1973.

(Leaving the clubhouse, front view of the airplane, and a sneak peak over the pilots shoulder)

We decided that I would begin, fly for an hour and then change with my friend. I went through the checklist with some help from the pilot. I never knew that gyros spun THAT fast, with a high whining noise, then headset and some other things, Then came the engine, damn loud was it. Flying without ear protection is out of the question.

(The cockpit)

Taxing just up to the runway, some more checks, like spinning up the engine to 1800rpm (i think it was)… You could really feel how the machine tried to crawl it’s way out of the brakes,, It felt like a something that was trying to push it’s way out of a cave that was to small, don’t wanna be on the wrong side of the fan…

Taxing some more to the start of runway 18 (I didn’t know that there names really meant something until just recently =D)

At the start of runway 18 the pilot/instructor took over completely and a minute later or so he gave the controls back and WOW!!! I was FLYING!!! AWESOME!!! I didn’t do anything too advanced, I’ve only flown 4 times before (back and forth to Bulgaria and Greece). This is now officially, As of that day I had flown for a longer time then I’ve driven a car.

(Me, myself and I)

Once in the air there isn’t much to say, some more pictures my buddy took.

We found a clearing in the clouds that we circulated up through, b e a u t i f u l =D.

Once on the ground we took a break, a real student came who didn’t have time to way for an hour came before Maiden (the friend) could take his turn, so we had some time on the ground, a walk over to a faraway hangar with an airplane who’s wings where about 5 feet to long to fit inside, then a long walk back to the club hangars, which was now open with 2 men inside so we took the opportunity to ask a lot of questions (at least I did =D)

Then our pilot returned and we prepared for our second flight, with me in the backseat this time, me and the camera :D.

This time the instructor showed us how it felt to stall, he had shown it once when I was flying before, but this time he showed how it felt when just one wing stalls, we even had the opportunity to feel both 2G and being weightless :D again, AWESOME :D.

Then the day came to an end, and we missed our bus stop, and by doing so we missed our bus too, and had to walk about two Swedish miles to the train station, where one was in the gutter of E20, that was about as tiresome anything could be, but the day was still amazing, but I missed a meeting and dinner with my mom, brother and god mother + family, which I’m really sad I did as I had been looking forward to it for a few weeks, and I’m really sorry if you read this!!!

Other then the unfortunate event with the bus stop that hide itself the day was as perfect as it could be,,,
ps. I’ll no try to add pictures to this post,,, never tried that before ;)… just have to save it first, and scale down every picture :P

Tags: Adventure, Cessna, Cessna 172, EMFK, Flying

This entry was posted on fredag, april 18th, 2008 at 20:51 and is filed under Utflykter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.