Flying Update

This is just a short post to add some photos of my flying adventures. I have over 25 hours now and should be going solo in June after we return from our Alaskan trip.

I've been a lot of 'pattern' work which is flying that rectangle around the airfield as you prepare to land - takeoff again and then land again. Landings are so bloody hard and the wind is never kind to me. My instructor recorded my landing pattern shape one day to show me that I was a bit wide on some efforts and my pattern was looking more like an egg rather than a rectangle. Practice makes perfect I guess. 

I also had some exposure to instrument flying. While I do use the instruments, I am only allowed to fly when it is visually clear (not cloudy etc). Pilots rely on instruments in bad weather when they cannot see. My instructor put this very un-flattering google shield on me to limit my vision to only the instruments - I couldn't see ahead or out the sides so I was flying only by the instruments. This was not what I imagined. It was very very hard to not have your vision outside and I can only describe it like reading in a car without seeing out the windows. I think I could easily vomit after some time as it can be quite unsettling on your balance. I didn't expect it to  be easy but it was just harder in a different way than I expected. 

We also went to a different airfield to do some patterns and it was right next to the ol' Chesapeake Bay bridge. I loved this. This bridge is sentimental to me as we ran over this in 2016 with a friend in a 10km run. It was a cool thing to do so to fly so close to it was quite awesome. I told my instructor that this would be like taking off at Sydney Airport and flying beside Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

I am currently in Anchorage, Alaska as I write this and will be writing about our adventures in my next few posts. Alaska has been gorgeous. The people are friendly, helpful and the mountains, rivers and animals are incredible. We leave on our cruise today headed for Vancouver and we are super excited about the next 7 days of sailing and tours we have planned. Definitely stay tuned to this bat channel for more bat adventures up on top of the world in Alaska.