5/30/09 - first flight as a student pilot!

My wife and I made our way up to Frederick (FDK) to join the club and hopefully get a flight in. Turned out much better than that! I got there and met with the membership director and a few other members of the club I haven't seen before. The Chief Flight Instructor (CFI) pointed me towards another instructor, George, who would get me set up with another instructor to begin my lessons. When I met with George and talking with him for a bit, he offered to be my instructor. We talked for a while and helped other gliders get up in the air, when finally it was our turn to go up - this time I'd be going up in a Schweizer 2-33.

Sitting in this plane actually felt a bit more cramped than the Grob I flew in last week. Also need to be careful of the controls check...George pulled the stick all the way back and...well, it hurt. We'll leave it at that.

We were pushed onto the runway and were connected to the tow plane. I gave the thumbs-up and the wing was lifted off the ground. We moved our rudder right to left repeatedly, as did the tow plane. That was the signal that both aircraft were ready. The wing runner gave the signal to take off, and off we went!

We lifted off the ground quickly as we had a 10-knot headwind. The tow plane soon followed and we climbed 3,000' into the sky. The weather was a bit better today than last week - some heat with healthy looking cumulus clouds. George let me take control for about half of the tow and was really impressed, insisting that I've done this before!

As we came up to release, George began doing what he explained on the ground before we took flight. He climbed a bit above and to the right of the tow plane, and once settled there, dove down gently and to the left. This created a bit of slack in the tow rope, which is generally a bad thing to do - but it's good for release. Since there was no tension in the rope, it's a soft release. So soft that the tow pilot kept on flying straight for a few more seconds while we broke away to the right!

George tried to find a thermal, but alas - the clouds quickly retreated from the field once they saw we were coming. All around - but just out of reach. So we began our slow journey down back to FDK. I was able to take control quite a bit and maneuver to set up our approach. Because the 2-33 has a poor glide ratio, things happened pretty quickly. Once we got on downwind, George took over to turn onto base. Unfortunately we were a bit high, so he opened the brakes and performed a forward slip to runway 30. We lost the altitude quickly and landed perhaps a bit harder than George intended - it definitely wasn't the greatest approach. I was OK with that - what's the point of having everything perfect as a student? It's good to see when things don't go exactly as planned, and any landing you can walk away from is a good one.

And with that short, 12-minute flight, I have officially began my journey as a student pilot.

My wife and I were there longer than we planned, but she stuck with me and was actually having a bit of fun. She's the best, and was very excited to see me flying. She knows how much it means to me - it goes without saying I have the greatest wife in the world to have so much support in something that is so important.

I plan on flying once a weekend, and I will keep up with this and hopefully add some pictures as well in the future!