He’s flying where?
Ok, Joel had his first powered flight for CAP this morning. It was at Centennial airport (which was nice because it’s closer to us.) We got there and he was the only cadet that showed up! That turned out to be a good thing because he was able to do 2 flight syllabi instead of one.
The pilot sat down and they went over the flight syllabus and the air charts and then he said, ‘Once I take off you’re going to fly the plane to Pueblo.’ I’m not sure whose mouth opened more, mine, James’ or Joel’s. I wanted to say, ‘You know he doesn’t know how to fly, right?’ But, since no one else was saying anything I kept my mouth shut. (This is what we call, getting your feet wet!) The pilot went over everything, even what to do if they crash landed and he was knocked out or dead. He said, ‘If we crash and I’m dead, go over to the this panel and pull it out, grab the radio and the GPS, our beacon will give out a signal so all you need to do is turn on the radio and GPS and tell them our position.’ Oh, yeah, that’s reassuring, I know be prepared, right?
After more tips they went outside to do a pre-flight check on the Cessna.
His best info. was ‘Never believe anyone when they touch your fuel tanks, always go check them yourself.’
They went around inspecting nuts and bolts and screws.
They checked the fuel in both wing tanks (for water) and underneath the belly of the plane (I’m sure that’s not the right term.) He made Joel get up and check the fuel top off on the top of the wing.
They located the handle in the rear for pushing the plane off the runway, checked the tail and rudders and checked the propellers. Capt. Bill said that a nick as small as 1/16th of an inch could cause the propeller to shred in flight (no nicks reported!) After the check they went in and grabbed lunches and then we stayed inside while Joel climbed in and the pilot made sure he could reach the pedals (with a few seat cushions.) Then Joel taxied the mile and a half to the runway, oh yeah that was the other thing the pilot told him. He would be taxiing down to the runway, which would be closer but this one was closed for re-striping. So Joel taxied the plane 1 ½ miles to the runway, then the pilot took off. When they got in the air he handed Joel the controls all the way to Pueblo, an hour long flight.
We went to eat lunch and waited for an update. Joel called us when they landed in Pueblo and said they would be going through the air museum and then they’d head back a little early (winds were coming up.)
We got to the airport just as they landed and saw Joel taxiing back to the hangar.
That was cool! After the flight they came in to sign log books and paperwork and Capt. Bill said that Joel did great. He was only nervous (Joel, not the pilot!) before they landed in Pueblo. There was a big C-130 plane in front of them that was landing first, so Joel had to follow behind that plane (and I guess besides being a bigger plane it caused some wind to blow at the plane.) While we were talking the pilot said he grew up in Houston. He not only grew up across the street from where we had our first apartment, he went to the same elementary, jr. high and high school as James! He was a little older than James so they weren’t at the schools at the same time, but they knew some of the same people in the area. I thought that was pretty neat. Joel had an awesome time and James was so jealous that he’s going on a discovery flight on father’s day and plans to get his pilot’s license. (He’s joining CAP too.) Joel can’t get his license until he’s 16, but if James gets his in 3 ys. (the goal) then he can take Joel up and get him his license. James asked the girls if they wanted to fly in CAP and they said, ‘Oh, we’re fine, we’d rather dance.’
We headed out to King Soopers again to sell more lemonade. I thought since it was hotter we’d do better, but they only made $31 in 1 hour 15 min. I guess that was about the same since we stayed longer the day before, but it was so sunny on the front of the building we were getting hot and Hannah was running around so we packed it up. Total for 2 days though, $75 for K-12’s pediatric cancer lemonade stand fundraiser, not bad. (And we finally watched Battlestar, it wasn’t that great.) Here is Maisy with her green mustache (she was rolling in the yard trimmings like it was snow.)
