Third Flight - 4 landings

Big fire right off the end of the runway while I was doing pre-flight; tower said it was an overturned explosives truck!

Met Dave, the owner of the plane I'm renting time on - nice guy. We ended up popping the engine cowling after I found that the taxi & landing lights were out. It was just a slipped wiring harness - we put it back together and tied a string on it to hold it together.

Practiced slow flight @ 60kts, holding altitude & heading in level flight and in 15/30/45 deg turns - I actually did pretty well.

Flew back down the west bank of the Hudson river and practicing my new turn skills at 1000' - what a beautiful night to fly - right at sunset.


Then we returned to the airport and practiced flying the pattern and landing - made four landings myself - a little low on the approach for one...
Bob also showed me 2 simulated engine failure landings.

Toured the control tower and met Bill, one of the controllers, who is retiring on Friday.

2nd Flight Day - airport pictures

First Flight!

Frustrating wait for my first flight!

Here's the plane I have time on - it's tiny inside.

Ok, this week has been a bit frustrating from the first flight perspective... the plan was to fly every night this week after work because I was going to be out of town for BSA summer camp part of the following week.

Here's what actually happened so far:

• Monday: Bob forgot about the lesson - I got some good study time in sitting there waiting for him though
• Tuesday: Waited 2 hours for Bob again - turns out that he got stuck in court (no cell phones allowed). Talked with a friendly guy that had just landed his self-built stunt biplane for a while and had a good time - he was practicing for an acrobatic flight competition in Montreal that weekend. What a bare bones plane he had... wish I had taken some pictures
  
• Wednesday: Got there, met Bob, and did learned to do pre-flight inspection on the plane. Discovered that the alternator belt was loose on the engine and it wasn't safe to fly. Spent some time learning about all of the instruments in the plane instead.
• Thursday: big line of thunderstorms rolled through at 5:30 and saw another big line on the horizon, so decided it wasn't a good day to go up