flying 10 Jul 2007 03:53 pm
tonto rides, err flies again
Yes, yes — I know. I’m posting something here again. You’ll just have to deal.
So — what has been going on? Life, weddings, and more life. I’ll spare you the details for now, maybe I’ll try catching up later.
I’ve caught the flying bug. Bad. I blame his greatness. But to be fair, I think I really caught the bug a few years back while in Boulder,CO for a CFS brewhaha. I’d gotten introduced to the world of build-it-yourself aircraft and well — my “must have every detail” nature got me digging. Long story short: I’m the next Red Baron, just you wait and see. I will flour bomb your house too, or your dog.
Last night I went flying with a guy from work. His hangar was located on “Lighting” at Flying Cloud Airport located in Eden Prairie here in the greater Twin Cities. We climbed into N2307A and away we went. As it turns out, the MSP airspace here is fairly open, you just have to stay below 4000 feet for most of the metro. We flew within 1500 feet of downtown during a wonderful sunset, it was funny how cool the city looks from the air. We cruised out to the MN/WI border near Stillwater where I took over, and then down the Mississippi to Prescott, WI and then did a detour to fly over my home here. We headed south and did some 30 & 45 degree turns, some VOR work, and then used the VFR map to locate our position (god bless MN lakes and perfect compass aligned roads). I managed to get us back to the airport and executed my first pattern entry, downwind, base and final approach with VAPI before Don took over to get us back on tera firma. All in all, a nice 2 hours of flying in a kick of a plane.
Yes, the bug is firmly implanted now. I’ve scoped out a local community college that does a summer ground school course and I’m looking at the FCM airport facilities for other options. Now all I have left is to wait out our lease, buy a new house, fix up said house, upgrade the truck to something from the modern era and viola! I’ll be set!
on 12 Jul 2007 at 14:43 1.dlt074 said …
zomg! money sink! money sink!
flying is the bestest though! i did one flight and decided i would either pony up all the money to get my license or wait till i could pony it all up front. still waiting on that, but you know flying would be a good end of the world skill… it is after all the fastest way out of a city. hmm ponders that extra money after the Ru is paid off.
my flight took us out over the tacoma narrows bridge. nothing like it.