Wings on High.

Second Flight!

Couldn’t get enough the first time around, so we went back for more.  We started out fairly early, around 8 or 9 am (definitely early for me), but I was too excited to care.  My wife was with me again, so she got some instruction by proxy, until about halfway through.  We left BFI, and it was a bit cloudy so we had to be careful about where we went, since we’re going VFR only.  Well, we found an opening through the top and went up above the cloud layer.  It was beautiful.  It was like flying on pillows of snow.  The sun was shining down, the clouds were silver below us, the air was calm and smooth, it was astounding.  I’ve watched a number of YouTube videos of folks going cloud surfing, so my instructor let me get a bit closer to the clouds (probably more than we should have!) and start winging them.  It was the most phenomenal feeling.  The DA-40 has the G1000 in it, complete with XM radio.  We tuned in some Bach and piped it through the headsets while sailing about.  Have now rediscovered ‘bliss’.

After getting up a bit higher and doing some basic maneuvers, we needed to find a hole to get down.  We found one, but it wasn’t very wide, at least for me to make through in anything but a nose dive.  My instructor took the opportunity to demonstrate an emergency decent.  THAT was a thrill…  Made it straight down after a series of descending turns, and brought us in under the cloud layer.  Definitely a good time.  After coming through and leveling out, we made for the coast, and took it into Hoquiem.  There was some ice starting to come down, so my instructor was very ready with the controls.  We made it down safe though, and went into the pilot’s lounge for a quick break.  We got ourselves ready, and my wife piped in that she was really keen on giving it a shot too, after having seen two flights of mine, and watching my flying dozens of hours of MS Flight Sim on our TV at home.  So she got in the left seat, I got in back, our instructor got in the right, and off we went!  She did very well for the first time up in the air.  Her uncle had a small plane which she’d flown in a couple of times as a kid, but she said she’d never flown before.  Well, you’d never know it.  It took her some time to get used to the controls, but she caught on very quick, and was making very smooth, coordinated turns before I realized it.

Then things went a little south, tho through no fault of hers.  We started to try and head back to KBFI to land, but there was a snowstorm in our way.  In the middle of April, at 3500 feet.  So our instructor made the call to deviate and take us down to Bremerton.  We came in, taxied, and parked for lunch at the airport diner.  Had a nice lunch (I had breakfast), and got a chance to chat with the instructor for a while.  We talked about careers, what got him into teaching, why we’re flying, etc.  My wife told him that I’d freaked her out by watching all these YouTube videos of airplane disasters.  I saw it as a learning opportunity, seeing what went wrong on planes or during demonstrations, so I was fascinated by the events.  My wife, as someone about to get up in a plane, was less than thrilled about my choice of viewing.  So she tells our instructor, who mentions that he agrees, that that would probably freak him out too.  I’ve stuck with the YouTube videos of Hoover’s airshow since…

So after lunch, we get back in the plane, I’m back to flying left-seat, and we take off and make it back to BFI.  It was a fairly short hop, since we were now an hour or so later on our return than we intended to be, and we all had appointments to get to.  Short though it was, I landed the plane, brought us back in, and we put the plane away.

Definitely an interesting second flight.  But, I can say with certainty that I’m hooked now.  I’m investigating the local CAP chapters to join, finding the various pilot organizations around, and finding new and interesting ways of talking about flying any opportunity I get.  I’ve also got a ton of photos I’m going to post up, so look for edits and added photos.