![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pandora_parrotLast night, I flew my own plane for the first time. It was only a half hour... two laps around the pattern. But it was delightful. The experience was fantastic. Lots of errors and whatnot... but fantastic.
I started by getting the plane fueled up. The way it works, I just have to call ahead and it'll be fueled up when I get to the airport, a receipt emailed to me. That's... super convenient and nice!
Then I met up with Sasha, my instructor. She's fantastic. Like really really awesome. It's great to work with someone that is very similar culturally to me. Like... being polyamorous, transgender, femme-presenting, etc... I often have this concern about discussing aspects of my life with any instructor I'm working with. With Sasha... we can just focus on flying and I don't have to worry about any of that coming up because... she's a lot like me in those regards! It's ironic that having so much in common with someone means we can more easily ignore those things and focus on the bits that are important.
The ferry pilot broke the tail cone when we were parking it. Stepping back, the previous owners didn't leave me any of the tools you need to fly the thing. No tow bar. No fuel tester... Nothing. So a lot of things are kind of awkward right now... I have supplies and tools coming in throughout the week to get me up to speed on those things, but right now, we have to make do. Part of that involves trying to figure out how to park the damn thing without a tow bar. The ferry pilot thought pushing down on the tail would be a good idea. It was not. The thing cracked and sent plastic-y pieces everywhere. Sasha wasn't entirely comfortable with the way it looked, so we took it to the mechanic to get taped up.
We did the pre-flight inspection slowly and carefully for a first time, since I had never done this for a plane like this before. Frankly, we did 3.5 hours of ground-based instruction and work around the plane, and I really appreciated every minute of it. There's a lot of new things, and I'm trying to be really careful not to let my prior experience with Cessna 172s cause me to do the wrong thing because I'm used to the other plane.
After the pre-flight, we went down to the mechanic and he fixed that, and also fixed the idle mixture as well. He noticed that one of the fuel injectors seemed to be leaking, so he fixed that as well. We then took it up for a flight. On takeoff, there was a really REALLY strong gas smell in the cockpit. Since neither of us know the quirks of this plane, we decided that we wanted to abort our flight and get back to the mechanic to have it looked at. Sasha landed the plane and we went back over there.
The mechanic tore the plane apart looking for a leak, and found nothing. That's... frankly what we expected, but with it being a new-to-us plane, we didn't want to make any assumptions. It took about an hour or so, so we wound up not having a lot of time to go back up. It was basically one more lap time.
Without the distraction of the gas smell, I got to feel the plane a lot more this time. I even did the landing all by myself. And... wow. The plane handles like a dream. With its big control surfaces, it is incredibly responsive. I'm still trying to fly Cessna 172 speeds, which is bad, because this plane needs to be about 20 knots faster to be happy... but the handling was great. The landing was frankly one of my better ones, though I was a bit off the center line. I definitely have room for improvement, but I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy flying this thing.
What a great plane and what a great experience... I did a bad job of recording tach time and hobbs time, but whatever. That's not important right now. I'll start doing that next time correctly. Especially as more equipment starts coming in to handle this. I also ordered a camera so you can watch me fumble around with the thing. :P
This is going to be so fun. Especially the lack of schedules and whatnot on this. It's a very different experience and a very different world owning the plane vs. renting it. :)
I started by getting the plane fueled up. The way it works, I just have to call ahead and it'll be fueled up when I get to the airport, a receipt emailed to me. That's... super convenient and nice!
Then I met up with Sasha, my instructor. She's fantastic. Like really really awesome. It's great to work with someone that is very similar culturally to me. Like... being polyamorous, transgender, femme-presenting, etc... I often have this concern about discussing aspects of my life with any instructor I'm working with. With Sasha... we can just focus on flying and I don't have to worry about any of that coming up because... she's a lot like me in those regards! It's ironic that having so much in common with someone means we can more easily ignore those things and focus on the bits that are important.
The ferry pilot broke the tail cone when we were parking it. Stepping back, the previous owners didn't leave me any of the tools you need to fly the thing. No tow bar. No fuel tester... Nothing. So a lot of things are kind of awkward right now... I have supplies and tools coming in throughout the week to get me up to speed on those things, but right now, we have to make do. Part of that involves trying to figure out how to park the damn thing without a tow bar. The ferry pilot thought pushing down on the tail would be a good idea. It was not. The thing cracked and sent plastic-y pieces everywhere. Sasha wasn't entirely comfortable with the way it looked, so we took it to the mechanic to get taped up.
We did the pre-flight inspection slowly and carefully for a first time, since I had never done this for a plane like this before. Frankly, we did 3.5 hours of ground-based instruction and work around the plane, and I really appreciated every minute of it. There's a lot of new things, and I'm trying to be really careful not to let my prior experience with Cessna 172s cause me to do the wrong thing because I'm used to the other plane.
After the pre-flight, we went down to the mechanic and he fixed that, and also fixed the idle mixture as well. He noticed that one of the fuel injectors seemed to be leaking, so he fixed that as well. We then took it up for a flight. On takeoff, there was a really REALLY strong gas smell in the cockpit. Since neither of us know the quirks of this plane, we decided that we wanted to abort our flight and get back to the mechanic to have it looked at. Sasha landed the plane and we went back over there.
The mechanic tore the plane apart looking for a leak, and found nothing. That's... frankly what we expected, but with it being a new-to-us plane, we didn't want to make any assumptions. It took about an hour or so, so we wound up not having a lot of time to go back up. It was basically one more lap time.
Without the distraction of the gas smell, I got to feel the plane a lot more this time. I even did the landing all by myself. And... wow. The plane handles like a dream. With its big control surfaces, it is incredibly responsive. I'm still trying to fly Cessna 172 speeds, which is bad, because this plane needs to be about 20 knots faster to be happy... but the handling was great. The landing was frankly one of my better ones, though I was a bit off the center line. I definitely have room for improvement, but I can tell that I'm really going to enjoy flying this thing.
What a great plane and what a great experience... I did a bad job of recording tach time and hobbs time, but whatever. That's not important right now. I'll start doing that next time correctly. Especially as more equipment starts coming in to handle this. I also ordered a camera so you can watch me fumble around with the thing. :P
This is going to be so fun. Especially the lack of schedules and whatnot on this. It's a very different experience and a very different world owning the plane vs. renting it. :)
