1st Class - Wonder Boy

Today marked my first official class. The day I went for my demo class with Justice Aviation, my mom's blood pressure shot up to 159. She highly disapproves of my new sport. So far it has worked with using eharmony as my alibi. But what do I say for a Sunday morning 9:00 a.m. lesson? Farmer's market.

I woke up this morning to a foggy looking sky. I made a mental note to schedule future classes in the afternoon to allow time for the fog to burn out. I still headed over to the flight school to get some ground work done.

I will be training under Chris, my new CFI, and he is a mere 24 years of age. First the 19 year old CEO and now a 24 year old CFI. I did not feel like grandma at this point. I AM grandma! How is he going to get me to shut up and listen? With his ferocious looking uni-brow? But then again, they do call him "wonderboy" around here. We shall see.

While we waited for the fog to burn out, Chris gave me a METAR tutorial. A METAR is a surface observation of the weather from the airport taken at the end of each hour. It relays information about the wind direction, wind speed, visibility, weather/sky conditions, etc. Basically information that will determine whether you can fly under Visual Flight Rules ("VFR").

By 10:00 a.m., visibility had improved significantly and we can finally go flying. I literally flew out of the classroom but my excitement was soon torpedoed by the extremely detailed pre-flight checklist. I spent the next half hour crab-walking around the plane lifting, prodding, pulling on various parts of its body while learning the correct vocabulary. My head began throbbing in the cockpit when I death-stared the dials that death-stared right back at me. Chris patiently reviewed gauges purpose. I had done this before but now I have to actually memorize. There is a ton of information to learn and it can feel a bit overwhelming. I guess this explains why the drop out rate runs as high as 70%.

Next my CFI proudly announced that I will be communicating with the air traffic controllers today. I choked. To show me that he was serious, he quickly jotted down a script and handed it me. He told me that there exists a formula with talking to the air traffic controllers and it goes as follows:

1. Tell them who you are
2. Tell them where you are
3. Tell them what you want to do
4. Repeat their instructions back at them.
5. NO YAPPING!

I rehearsed the lines a few time, pushed the little button found on top of the left handle of the yoke and blurted it out as quickly as I could. They repeated something back at me and I jerked my head towards Chris with woeful pleading eyes screaming RESCUE ME. He did and got us cleared to taxi up to the run-up area.

I wore flats today hoping that it'll improve my control of the rudder pedals but the plane still snake danced up to the run-up area. It is thus not the shoes. It really IS me. We went through the Run-Up check and Before Take Off check and I was later instructed to communicate with Santa Monica Tower to request for clearance to take off. This time I did not fudge. I do not know why they make me so nervous.

To be finished....

Flight Time: 1 hr