• A Chronicle on Learning to Fly, by Aviation Photographer Max Haynes • Sponsored by Full Motion Flight Training and Twin Cities Aviation •
• Home
• 1 - And So Begins A Journey
• 2 - First Things First
• 3 - I'm 'Fliming!'
• 4 - In The Air Junior Birdman!
• 5 - From The Ground School Up
• 6 - The Hang Of It
• 7 - Hot Dog!
• 8 - Banking Toward Success
• 9 - Ground Pounding
• 10- Back In The Saddle
• 11- Plain Brain Plane Pain
• 12- Covered in Gleim
• 13- Soloing!!...the sim
• 14- Plane Picnic?
107th
Day of Training
- Current Anxiety Gauge Reading -
- Current Approach To Solo Chart -
If you have a comment about my quest, or a memory of learning to fly, send it in via email. I may post it here, subject to editing.
• Home
• 1 - And So Begins A Journey
• 2 - First Things First
• 3 - I'm 'Fliming!'
• 4 - In The Air Junior Birdman!
• 5 - From The Ground School Up
• 6 - The Hang Of It
• 7 - Hot Dog!
• 8 - Banking Toward Success
• 9 - Ground Pounding
• 10- Back In The Saddle
• 11- Plain Brain Plane Pain
• 12- Covered in Gleim
Entry #13 April 15th, 2010 • Soloing!!...the sim
Soloing made SIMple
I didn't fly this week, I didn't fly last week either. Same old, same old- weather, scheduling, oh, and my instructor is on a cruise ship in the Carribean. But, I'm still flying, still gaining skills, almost every day, by using the sim at Full Motion Flight Training. Being an affiliate of theirs, has its advantages. I'm able to "flim" whenever I want to. So, I soloed the sim. The images below are going to simulate the experience. First, I started from my home field, KANE and did three successful take-offs and landings.
Then I thought, what the heck, why not fly around the metro area and land at all the other airports. Sure, my simulated instructor hadn't approved it, but I was feeling pretty confident. As I flew over Crystal Field - KMIC, I was alarmed by my shadow, maybe this was a bad idea! Coming in for a landing wasn't too bad, although I wasn't used to seeing the DO-NOT-LAND zone at the end of the runway.
On the ground, I realized it was a simulated blimp's shadow, whew! Crystal also has dual runways, something else to figure out. Fortunately, the simulated tower guy was nice about it, and corrected my simulated radio talk.

I followed Interstate 494 south to Flying Cloud- KFCM.
Another handy thing to find out about airports is their elevation. Fortunately, it is about the same as KANE, so after some minor adjustments... ahem, I was able to make some landings here, as well. They may not have been pretty, but so far I hadn't crashed! Then I flew into KMSP, wow, that was confusing, and I didn't even have clearance for Class B airspace.
So, I pulled the power back, declared an emergency, and landed on whatever runway I wanted. They were pretty good about it, but they probably wondered about the extra touch and goes I managed to make with a bad engine. Next stop, Fleming Field- KSGS.
This one is a bit tricky, one runway, so beware of crosswinds...
and B-25s touching down ahead of you.


I did my touch and goes, and then decided to skip downtown St. Paul, and fly between the buildings.
Finally, I landed safely back at KANE, where a simulated representative of the simulated FAA, took away my simulated pilot's license. Oh well, he should have seen me flying by instruments through a thunderstorm, another thing you can do in the sim. Anyway, my instructor Chris is back from the beaches next week, so I expect to apply some...
but not all, of what I did in the sim, to the real deal.

Stay tuned.