The Flying Fish

Head hung low, brain hurting, I dragged my feet outside as I thought about the exam I had just written; Maths. Ugh! Morale had hit rock bottom, so I took my phone out in the hopes that something exciting was happening on Facebook. I slid my phone open and saw that there was a calender event. Confused (I don't normally set these things), I opened it. "Went solo". A smile instantly appeared on my face as I remembered one of the biggest, happiest days of my life. All thoughts of maths vanished, and there was a spring in my step as I walked to the car. "It's been a year since I first went solo. Woohoo. I'm giving myself the day off! I'm going to go for a flight!" Well, I did give myself the day off, but I didn't get to fly; Murphy was at it again and the wind was really pumping. So I decided to leave the Yellow Beast in her hanger and take photos instead. I wish that I had photos after I'd gone solo, or that I'd been chucked in muddy water, o...

So things have been pretty quiet lately. I've only flown twice since the third and the 19th. On the 3rd I had a bit of a scary experience; I almost ground-looped the plane. For some reason I couldn't get my landings right, and for the first time since I started flying I thought "Am I ever going to make this thing stay on the ground? What if I can't do it?!" Luckily I eventually hit the ground and stayed there (after a few jarring bounces). But now I've started with school mock exams, so everything else has been put on hold, much to my disgust; I now have a beautiful Canon 40D in my possession, and all I want to do is take photos. But due to time constraints (and a small memory card), I'm unable to do this. Although, I DID get to go to Cape Town International yesterday, so I took a couple of photos there. I can't wait until these exams finish: - AAD 2010 is coming up soon - I want to do a few cross-country flights - School is almost over... FOREVER! Woo...

I’d say that July was quite a good month flying - and photo - wise. I took over 600 photos, unfortunately very few of those are actually good, but anyway. I also flew the Cubby, a Piper Cub, and a Tiger Moth. Flying the Cub was quite strange, and the biggest problem for me was that there was a delay when one opened the power, so you have to be very careful, especially when on the ground (brakes don’t work very well). The Tiger however, is an absolute dream to fly, and she’s even a pleasure on the ground, despite the lack of brakes. It’s quite something sticking your head out of the cockpit, wind blasting you in the face as you fly the Final approach, alternating between watching the ground, checking the speed (using the primitive airspeed indicator on the wing), flying, and trying not to be blown away. One also flares a lot sooner in the Tiger as it has ‘long legs’. Awesome! The really cool thing is that I can log the times of both those flights. And I’ve finally started a new page in ...