Flight with the Old Man

After a year since our first flight together, and my first flight with a passenger, my Dad and I again returned to the skies to venture up to Keene, NH.

Taking him up in one of the new 172S models that I have been training in, he got to see what flying is like in a plane that is a little newer than the models he used to train in 25 years ago!

Departing out of BED on a beautiful, clear, calm day, I dialed KEEN into my GPS and we climbed up to 3,000' for our trip. Without having to do all the hand flying that my instrument requires, I was free again to try out the autopilot. Being sure to set it up right and keep the throttles set appropriately, I turned out the system and instructed it to hold 3,000' and fly direct to Keene Airport. Piece of cake. The only problem was...it's not fun! You still need to pay close attention to be sure that everything is working, so you are doing all the same work without the fun of flying. So I kept disconnecting it and hand flying until I wanted to try another feature out, or be able to focus out the window to take a picture or two.

After we passed Mt. Monadnock, the runways came into sight and I set up on the downwind to bring us in. With no other plane in the pattern, the approach was normal and we landed without any issue. Taxiing over to the ramp, we parked and took a few minutes to stand up and stretch our legs.

On the way out, we watched a Hawker 850XP corporate jet, and an old WWII Waco depart ahead of us. Talk about the old meeting the new! On our climb out we flew right over my old roommate. Ben's, home and sandpit in his back yard, before turning to head back to BED direct. The flight back was a little faster with a slight tailwind, and since Hanscom was now very busy, they had me do quite a bit of maneuvering in the pattern before clearing me to land.

Overall another great flight! Training is fun and interesting, but nothing beats getting someone else up in the air to enjoy what makes me so happy.

"To some, the sky is the limit.

To those who love aviation, the sky is home."

Lono and Goose Take to the Skies!

So it finally happened. I was able to trick Marky into putting his life in my hands and taking to the skies with me. Since he was to lazy to actually drive down to Bedford, I agreed to pick him up at Pease in Portsmouth, and begin our journey from there. We really couldn't have asked for a better day either. With the cold front having moved through the day before, the skies were clear as far as you could see.

Unfortunately, as in EFA tradition, they switched aircraft on me at the last minute and gave me the biggest lemon in the group. N65719 is a beat up 1983 172, that was also experiencing problems with its ground handling. I was warned before the flight, that on the ground, the aircraft would not turn left without applying the left brake. Superrrrr. I also discovered as I rolled down the runway at Bedford, that the shimmy dampener was broken and the damn plane shook like crazy when you were going about 30 knots on the ground. This was going to be one hell of an experience for Marky!

After picking him up from Pease, we got permission to do a few passes over downtown Portsmouth so that he could take a few pictures. As usual, I could hear his camera snapping away, and after making a pass over the River then in towards Portsmouth High, I turned us North and we climbed up to a more comfortable cruising altitude of 3,000 feet. With relatively smooth air and light winds, we made pretty good time up to Ossipee, where Marky was able to get pictures of White Pond and Mount Washington in the distance.

We didn't spend much time loitering up there, since the forecast was calling for the winds to pick up a bit, so after making a low pass over the pond, and another low pass over Gary's house I turned us towards home. Marky was a bit of a wuss and didn't want to try his hand at flying, but that's about what I would expect from him. Wuss. (Kidding of course)

The flight back was relatively uneventful. The air was pretty smooth and there was not any traffic to worry about until we were back in Portsmouth Tower's airspace. As we came back into the pattern, there was a Navy P-3 Orion doing touch and goes, using the call sign Lancer. We flew the pattern on the opposite side of the field as him, and Marky was able to get some great pictures of him as he turned to final just ahead of us. I still think the C-130 is a lot cooler...but the P-3 is growing on me a bit.

Our landing was pretty uneventful, although that damn shimmy dampener shook us like crazy. But by the time we turned off the runway, we were going slow enough that the shaking had subsided. I dropped Marky off after a brief visit inside Port City Air, and before long was back in the plane preparing for departure. Marky had gone over to the little viewing area off the end of the approach end, and was able to snap a picture of meet waiting for the giant Navy plane to land before I would be cleared to depart.


Overall this was a really great day, and I'm always thankful and humbled when someone trusts me enough to take them up into the skies. Thanks Marky!