Flight Lesson 4 - and an amazing weekend

Today's flight was spectacular. The weather is amazing (wind was gusting up to 16 knots near Lunken, so it did get jerky during the pattern). There was a showcase of airplanes new and old out at Lunken today which drew a huge crowd. Although, it also brought a delay in my lesson departure.

I met today my new instructor, Brian, who is a very fine person. With Richard's overly busy schedule, I was asked if I minded switching instructors since I'm still new, I'm flexible and obliged. We flew for 1.5 hours today, practicing S-Turns, Turns around a point, steep turns, Traffic Pattern (including takeoff and landing), and a few other items. One of note being emergency landing.

Brian brought the throttle back to idle while we were at 2,000 feet after a decent and we went over the details of finding a field to land in, which instruments to turn on/off, how to call the ATC folks, and such. We were about 500 feet AGL when he finally gave full throttle and brought us back to altitude. It was fun. He said we'd have fun later with other emergency procedures such as steering the airplane with the doors (in case of control loss) which should be fun and terrifying all at the same time.

I was very proud of myself for this flight. I maneuvered very well, bringing questions from the new instructor such as... you don't happen to have a flight simulator at home that you've been practicing on... I sheepishly nodded :-) Or other comments about how well I was keeping altitude during steep turns, or also in the approach, finding the right altitude and keeping good heading. After our flight he was talking to Sharon, the lady who runs the 'business' side of Flamingo Air and he made the comment, "I can't believe Jason's only been up three times before this". I was very happy with how things went. All the reading and review is helping out a lot, and I hope to be right on top of finishing lessons without too many extra hours of paying a flight instructor.

Also of note this weekend, well last night, the family and I went and saw Broadway's Lion King downtown. The show was amazing, the costumes were brilliant, and the singing was spectacular. We were all astonished with how well the show was done. With risk of sounding cliche or well... stupid... it was really magical. When Mom and I went to New York City to visit colleges we saw Beauty and the Beast on Broadway there, and it too was amazing. We've also seen Music Man on Broadway, but I think the way the Disney productions are brought to life is just amazing. Highly recommended from here.

OK, this post is long enough. I'm very excited about this weekend, its been a lot of fun so far, and to top it off tonight we're going bowling! My all time favorite sport.. hah, yeah, you heard me. My ball has been getting dusty since we haven't been going every Tuesday night anymore. If you're in Cincinnati, enjoy this beautiful weather, if you are elsewhere, hopefully it is as beautiful as Cincinnati.

Later!

A ...new... idea

So I'm not going to go into too much detail yet, however, I will say that the development of Singing Flyboy is going to be taking a slight leave of absence for the time being. I have something else up my sleeve. This new idea is a much lower maintenance plan which is always a good thing since I'm putting in 40+ hours at Kroger and 4ish hours in the sky and a rather large number behind the books in preparation for each flight lesson. My new plan is something I'm very excited about. This new plan is not completely an original idea, however, I would refer to it as an innovation. I believe people will enjoy and (more importantly) use.

This being said... I say no more. Stay tuned for more details. My new plan... why don't we call it 'Project Melon' (only because I have a melon scented candle on my desk) is under heavy development right now. I promise, I will tell more, when I know for sure more.

Thanks for stopping by... don't get too anxious over the big release!

Later!

Flight Lesson 3

Well this was an exciting lesson to say the least. Tonight's lesson comprised of a few new areas.

First off, we discussed the traffic pattern on the ground before getting into the plane and flying away. But also before flying away I got to do the Pre-Flight check list on my own (none too exciting but something new). After making a complete fool of bumbling self on the radio to both ground and tower at Lunken, we were off and heading NorthEast towards Clermont County Airport. By this time it was almost 8 o'clock and darkness was coming quick. Once within 5 miles or so of Clermont County Airport we went over the procedures of radioing at an uncontrolled airport... this I felt more comfortable with, no pesky ATC folks to get on my case. (I must point out though, for the terrible time I had on the radio tonight at Lunken, the folks in the tower were very nice and understanding)

'Clermont County Traffic, Skipper 3729 Delta entering left traffic pattern of runway 22 on the downwind at one-thousand eight-hundred, Clermont County'

Richard took the controls and demonstrated flying the traffic pattern to the landing, with immediate takeoff (a touch-and-go). Once off the ground, he gave the controls back to me for my turn. At about one-thousand two-hundred feet we turned into the crosswind (radioing all the time) and climbed to one-thousand eight-hundred turning into the downwind. This time I kept the controls as we descended, turning into the base and then to the final.

Now before, my parents asked me... Jason, did you land the plane? Did you do it by yourself or did the instructor help you. My answer all the time was, I don't know... I think I did most myself, but he helped too.

Well I'm here to tell you, yeah... those landings were mostly him. This one was all me. We touched down pretty hard... hah. From there on we did two more touch-and-go's before heading back towards Lunken.

In the end I flew an hour, and it was pretty dark when done. It was a fun lesson. On Saturday we're going to be working with Stalls... scary eh? I'm still enjoying the lessons greatly.

As for singing flyboy, I haven't had a chance to even look at the website since I posted, I know there are a few broken parts, especially for those unfortunate souls who use IE instead of Firefox, but tomorrow night I don't have much going on, I'll probably work on it a little then. I still have to figure out a few more details before the site goes public with actual ability to make donations/purchases. All in good time though.

I'm getting pretty tired, its been a long day. Dan, Katie and I are running the 10K for the Flying Pig Marathon not this Saturday, but the next... and I'm a little worried about it. Dan and I ran 3 miles tonight, so we went almost half the 10K.

Have a good middle of week, Later!

Singing Flyboy?

Hey everyone,

Just a quick post this time.

I want you to have a sneak peak at my new site that I've been working on. It is just like I talked about in the last post, a way for me to raise money to help offset the cost of getting my pilot certificate. Check it out if you like. Its temporary home is on the Blarged Server.

http://www.blarged.com/singingflyboy

Let me know what you think!

PS. If you can think of a better name that 'Singing Flyboy' please let me know... I'm not sure I like that name all too much... and I want to decide before it is too late and I've purchased the domain name.

Later!

Flight Lesson 2

I just got back from flight lesson two.

Things felt much more under control this time around. It's a good thing :-) My new adventure of this lesson was the radio.
- Who am I talking to?
- Who am I?
- What I want to do...
... wait for response
- Repeat instructions back...
Simple enough. Well I was nervous... ok, I was scared of the people on the other side of the radio. Hah, but it went just fine. I only had a few screw ups, I kept forgetting to tell them who I was on the response.

This is going to be an extremely expensive endeavor indeed. We were up in the air for 1.2 hours... so 1.2(90+40) [90 for airplane 40 for instructor] and we were on the ground talking for 30 minutes... so .5(40)... put it all together and after tax you reach a total of $177.60. Luckily they only charge an 'Airport Tax' of 1.0%. I need to come up with a way for people give me money... hah, maybe I could start a website where I'll make up a song about everyone who donates 10 dollars through paypal, and post a video of me singing it with my headset on. I could call it.... Singing Flyboy... or something... I'll work on that and get back to you.

My one mental note from this lesson is... STOP USING THE FLYING INSTRUMENTS... take a look outside every now and then... or most of the time. I need to pick a landmark and use that to help my navigating instead of all the controls.

That's all for now... Later!

Boy and their toys...

Last post ran a little long, so I decided to put off talking about my latest finds/toys until... well, now. So for the millions of you who have been on the edge of your computer chair, feverishly clicking the refresh button... the time is now.

Today, I would like to tell you about three new (to me) 'things'. First I will talk about Gmail, then Google Calendar, and lastly, well I'll let you know what it is later, its my favorite :-)

Gmail:
Yes, I know, Gmail has been around for quite some time, although it is technically still in Beta. I have had a Gmail account for quite some time, probably since its first Beta release, but I had never really investigated to see its full value and capacity. Google has brought so many amazing things to our techy world, and I kick myself for not giving notice sooner. Ok, so Gmail. Gmail is your normal e-mail account with an amazingly large storage space. I currently have some 2.8 Gigs available for my use, which is almost 3x's my 1 Gig Yahoo mail account. Storage isn't an issue though, so that falls to the backburner. What really makes Gmail unique are its innovations. Folders are a thing of the past to Gmail, we now have Labels. At first I was very skeptical about the labels, as I wanted different mail in different locations, however, Gmail makes it very simple to view only specific labels at a time. This ties into the main reason I am now using Gmail. Sure, I have jasonapawlak@gmail.com, but I never give that email out. I had been using Mozilla Thunderbird for a number of months, grouping all my emails to one location and (an extremely important and) allowing myself to send emails from all those addresses from the same location. Thunderbird was perfect!.... except, my email was on my computer... on only one of my computers.... and not at work either. You see my dilemma? Gmail fixes this issue very quickly. They provide an SMTP server for sending out emails along with settings for all your POP or IMAP servers. Perfect!
I could talk more, but I think I covered all the main points, and I'd like you to keep reading the rest of the post.

Google Calendar:
A very pretty and functional calendar indeed. The best feature? I don't use this feature to its full extent, but I am sure I will at one point. Google Calendar's best feature is its sharing capabilities. Or rather, your calendar subscriptions. You can subscribe to other calendars to overlay your own, so you can keep up with other group/club meetings, and you don't have to worry about scheduling them, you just subscribe to their calendar. Genius. The main reason I use Google Calendar is because Google makes API's so readily available that their applications are so functional and available to so many other applications. In other words, let's talk about the third topic, my favorite.

Cingular 8125:
Ok, all you phone techy's... I know, this isn't really news. I picked up this new phone from cingular just this past week and I am blown away. Originally from HTC under codename Wizard, this phone was released beginning 2006, or maybe end 2005. It's been around, but now it is available at a reasonable (college student) price. I got mine for 50 bucks, yes, it is a refurb, but it works wonders. The Cingular 8125 is a smart phone, so its capabilities are huge. With a very large screen, 1.3mp camera with digital (yuck) zoom and flash, Windows Mobile 5.0 (including Excel, PowerPoint and Word), and best of all... WiFi access being able to pick up B/G signals. I love it. I sit on the couch at home and just surf the web with a nice big screen, and a full Querty keyboard. This phone is now my personal calendar. I installed a 3rd party software that enables me to sync my phone calendar to Google Calendar. This feature is amazing. Also, with a miniSD slot available, I will soon have an addition 4 Gigs storage space in addition to my already 128mb of storage sitting next to 64mb ram, 200MHz Processor. A little on the sluggish side, but what makes up is the amazing battery life. I'm not 100% sure yet of its capabilities in length of battery, because I play with it all day long, but I expect I will be able to charge it every other day, or even every 3rd day with normal use. Good stuff.

Well that sums it up. I didn't go in as much depth as I had planned on any of the three topics, but I think the length of the post is an important factor to weigh, and I believe I got all the general concepts on board. Let me know if you have any questions and I can hopefully dig up some answers.

Weather is looking good,
Looks like Friday I will be flying (and possibly Saturday as well)

Later!
Jason

Emergency Post... Tyler 'Zoolander' Pawlak

Quick emergency post... must get this video out in the open...
Tyler came down and stayed with us last night while Mom and Dad were in Indianapolis. During a grueling game of Apples to Apples... we discovered Tyler's life calling... the life of a male model!

Enjoy :-)

Homeless Herbert

Wow, this past week really flew by. I can't believe I haven't written a post since last Monday. Well I've been keeping pretty busy, and the time just keeps moving. A few points of conversation today.

Flying Lessons:o
First off, I haven't had a flying lesson since my first last Monday. I had one scheduled for yesterday (Saturday) however, with the terrible Spring weather of Cincinnati, it was canceled. My ratio of completed to canceled lessons isn't so great, I'm right now 1 to 3. It's alright now though. I've had my first experience, and I know that I love it, so it will just be an enjoyable hobby from here n out.

Homeless Herbert:
So I've been going back and forth about Homeless Herbert. If you read a number of posts ago, Herbert is the guy that I take out to lunch after church on Sundays. However, the thoughts that are with me are, am I giving this man an easy way out? He seems of sound mind, and I have to wonder, why is he homeless? Is he being helped out enough that he doesn't have to do anything productive with his life? I don't want to be a prop in his master plan to do nothing, but I also want to be able to help someone out who hasn't been as fortunate as I have been. Any thoughts? Another part that plagues my thoughts are of what he gets when we go to lunch. He doesn't pick the cheap fast food places, he decides on nice sub places like Penn Station, where the prices are rather high for the amount of food you get.
This has been our Sunday Lunches:
Week 1: Jersey Mike's with one Giant sub with chips and drink totaling 10 dollars
Week 2: Penn Station with one large sub and one small sub with chips and drink totaling just under 20 dollars, and a burrito from Chipotle with a grand total of 25 dollars
Week 3: Penn Station with one large sub and one small sub with chips and drink, he asked for Chipotle but I requested we only eat the one place... he obliged. Total of just under 20 dollars
Week 4: Easter Sunday, I was home for the weekend and wasn't around to take him out
Week 5: Today, we went to Jersey Mike's and he asked for two sandwiches, I requested he only order one, and so he got the Giant sub with chips and drink totaling 10 dollars.

Is he taking advantage of me? When he greets me while walking into church, he now says, see you after church? He expects it.


Google Mail/Applications:
I was going to talk a bit about my new found favorite web applications with Google, however, this post got rather lengthy rather quickly. So I'll save this for a soon to be post


Better weather is on the way. I'm flying on Tuesday and Friday after work this week. I can't wait, I've been doing my reading and homework, I'm all good to go. Later!

Flight Lesson 1

"Skipper 37147... you are clear for take off..."

Whew! What a thrilling experience! I have to say, I don't think I have ever experience anything quite like flying an airplane before. Ok... so here's a little of what we did.

After checking the weather every 15 minutes all day at work today, 4:45 rolled around and I hopped in the car to head down to Lunken Airport. At about 5:30, Richard and I walked the airplane discussing the preflight checklist along with the different parts of the plane. After waiting a rather long time for fuel, we were finally ready to go. When that engine started and the plane started to rumble, I have to say I got rather nervous. These weren't nervous thoughts of not wanting to do this, they were nervous thoughts of, wow... I can't believe I'm doing this!

After taxiing, we were quick to take off. Taking off was probably the most unexpected experience of the entire flight. I had never been in a small airplane before, and I didn't realize how bouncy it would be. I wouldn't call it bumpy, I wouldn't call it jerky, I would really call it bouncy. They were gentle but defined bounces. At risk of sounding cliche... the ground kind of disappeared beneath us, as we ascended to 3,000 feet and leveled off turned east and heading past the Clermont County Airport, going towards East Fork Lake. We pretty much stayed around East Fork Park and Lake as I tried a few turns. I received compliments on keeping the level altitude while we went through turns (approx. 20 degree turns). Then we tried a few steep turns (approx. 45 degree turns). I had a little more difficulty with them, as I lost a little altitude. Sooner than it seemed, my time was up and we headed back towards Lunken. We saw a plane flying below us, kind of an awkward sight really. And we came into the flight patter on the downwind leg before turning to descend and land. I was actually surprised at how soft the landing seemed. I was really expecting to get jolted, but it was alright. And after a short taxi to the fence and gate, it was over.

I got the student pilot kit, which includes my first headset, pretty neat if you ask me, and my first entry in my log book.



I'm excited to get into these lessons. It seems like an awful lot to keep in mind while flying, but I'm sure it just becomes second nature soon. And of course, I'll keep the blog updated with the latest flight experience. Sorry if I seem a little giddy... its cause I am.

Later!

Exorcise Daily

With tomorrow being Easter, many people are deciding to which church they will descend to and bless with their presence for services. Now its good that these people make the effort to go to church at all, but you have to wonder, if you only go on Easter, what's the point? Is Easter worth double? If so, does Christmas count for more as well? I don't think God has set point values for attending church.

How bad is church really? Well, this one Sunday... we learned about loving our neighbors and forgiveness.... ouch, man, it was terrible, had to sit on my hands to stop myself from waving angry fists at the rotten message... uh, no. Let's just consider the scenario of Christianity. There is this God, who created the world, gave us life and a scene to keep us occupied. Some million/billion/thousand? years later, this guy was born. Now this guy (let's just call him Jesus) walked the earth for 30 some years teaching people the good qualities of character... and if that wasn't enough, healing people... raising the dead... casting out evil. Was he a bad guy? Undoubtedly no. Then two-thousand years later, we're here.

Christianity has morals and beliefs. Let's just leave out the beliefs for now and concentrate on the morals. Helping others, loving others, being kind... sound simple enough, right? If somehow you can't comprehend the concept of God, or the beliefs of Christianity, give it time, talk to people, but one thing I can guarantee you is you can handle the morals.

The other day, I was driving down the highway after work, coming back to the house, and the road was a madhouse. Everyone was doing their best to cause everyone else a headache... well it worked. What if... now just give me a second of fantasizing... What if while driving, when a car puts its turn signal on to change lanes, and you might possibly be in his blind spot, or maybe he can see you, but he's still a little close to your front bumper... What if, you tapped the breaks and let him over. And what if... if you are the driver changing lanes, you smile in the rear view mirror and give a friendly wave of thanks? Our roads would be a much happier place.

One more scenario... What if, you are walking out of Kroger after buying your monthly groceries, and while checking out, the cashier is just going about her business, not looking all too excited about anything, or maybe you can even tell he/she's not happy. What if you just said, "Long day?" or even... "How's your day been so far?" And then you don't stop there, you take the response and continue it, making a conversation. Terrible I say.

You can live with morals, Christian morals are good ones to follow.

This year, this Easter, if you don't regularly attend church, or are having a rough time grasping religion, just think to yourself about what Christianity really is... how can that be bad, I see only good. You need something to believe in, everyone does. Make believing a priority this spring.

Flight Lesson 1 - Canceled... again...

I hate bad weather

Pre Flight - Lesson 1

I would be writing this entry at about 16:15 tomorrow... however, I'll be at work, and even though I could write the entry, I can't use the ftp settings to upload for you to see. That is why, tonight is the PreFlight entry.

Here's how I'm feeling: Excited, nervous, jittery, giddy, happy, anxious, sleepy, hyper... and everything else pretty much. Most of all excited though. I have never flown in a small airplane before, and my first flight will be with me in the left seat with hands on the controls. I am 99% positive that I will love every moment and will not be able to contain my excitement until I leave the ground again.

The weather tomorrow is a little iffy... Ever since that storm on Tuesday that canceled the first scheduled lesson, the air has been bitter cold again nearing record lows in the 20's, where'd my spring sunshine go? It is suppose to shower/snow tomorrow though, and I am hoping very much that it doesn't interfere with my plans. I'm not sure I can really wait anymore. Just a few minutes ago I took my flight around Lunken Airport on my Flight Simulator. I set the time to tomorrow at 18:00 with light rain and a breeze (the possible scenario). I then took off in my Cessna 172SP and took one lap around the traffic pattern at 2,000 feet. With my brother, Dan, by my side, I took us down for a nice graceful landing... hopefully tomorrow will be near the same :-)

So wish me luck, I'll let you know all about it when I get back!

PS. Did you notice the new banner up top? I need to change the side-toolbar colors now to a little darker, grayer blue.

Flight Lesson 1 - Canceled

So right after the last post was... well, posted, I heard the tunes of 'The Office'. So naturally I answered my phone. It was Sharon, lessons are canceled for the day. Friday at 5:30 is our rescheduled time. More waiting... more flight simulator (maybe I can have my commercial pilot license there before I start my actual real lessons) Later!

Ps...
For those who don't know what weather I'm talking about... here's the radar right now:

And may I remind you I am in Cincinnati :-D

Waiting...

1.5 hours until takeoff.... 0.5 hours til the storm of the century... canceled? I really don't know. I called and left a message with Flamingo about 30 minutes ago and am waiting on further word. If I had to guess, which I will, I would guess that since I have paid for 30 minutes of ground instruction and 60 minutes of flight instruction, I will show up and get 30 minutes of ground instruction and be done. I would really prefer to do it all at once though (better for the gas) Another note to make is that in the paperwork that I just signed yesterday, it says that Flamingo will call me if lessons are to be canceled, unfortunately, they don't give a time specification for prior to lesson. So now I wait... I'm nervous, and still excited. Maybe we'll just go ahead and fly through the storm of the century... wouldn't that be exciting... heh, I kinda want to live to see tomorrow.

More updates later!