• 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?
• 15- If They Can Do It
• 16- Avoiding The Stall
148th
Day of Training
- Current Anxiety Gauge Reading -
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.

I checked out your recent flog entry and saw a bunch of  that I could REALLY relate to.

The scheduling of people around weather was always my biggest problem, too, especially at the start of my long years of lessons.  Then there was the "surprise" of a plane > 20 years old, what with leaking sumping valves, flat tires, "iffy" radios, etc, etc.  Then there was the fact that I was 48 and my CFI was 24!

My pilot buddies, most of whom I saw DAILY at the hospital, had one greeting for me (I could have my head wrapped in bandages, a leg in a cast, etc - it didn't manner):  "Have you soloed yet?" and I had a standard answer - "NOT YET - I'LL LET YOU KNOW!".  Then I'd usually hear DAILY (they were all younger than I and THEY were the ones repeating themselves constantly!), "I soloed after doing only one preflight and never even SITTING in the plane," to hear them talk.  One soloed after only 10 hours, but then again he'd spent years flying with friends and probably could've safely taken off, flown a pattern and the landed before their first official lesson.

Anyway, friend, keep flying.  I saw the little LSA (Remo, was it ... I don't know much about all of the LSAs out there) in your flog. It looks like something that I'd LOVE to fly.  Maybe because I never planned on taking long trips in a small plane, I never worried about the cruising speed on such aircraft.  I really like landing a little faster than 50 mph or Kts, though, NOT because the airplane is near a stall, but at 65 or 70 (or 80), you GET down a little faster and that keeps you from fighting crosswinds and gusts for extended periods of time.  There are ultralights that land at 30 mph or so, and while I know that they'll fly FINE at this slow speed, I've seen pilots taking what seems like FOREVER just to land and having to fight the wind!

I'm on vacation in Iowa, so if you feel a weird blip in the Force, it's because I'm getting near MN!

Tom Griffith
• 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?
• 15- If They Can Do It
Entry #16 May 26th, 2010 • Avoiding The Stall
Well, it's been twenty days since my last confession, uh, I mean last entry. And it's been a busy twenty days! First, I drove over to Anoka Field to catch the landing of the Hamilton Standard Metalplane.
I almost missed the landing shot,
I was looking at TCA's newly refurbished Remos light sport aircraft.
I was wondering what it would be like
to land at 50 knots.
Seems very genteel, compared to
the 80 knots required for the SR-20.
I'll rent it someday, and find out.
Now, where was I, oh yes, the Metalplane! An intrepid pilot, (sorry, I didn't catch his name), flew the plane for the first time in 30-some years (!), from Fleming Field in South St. Paul to Anoka, for further restoration work, ordered up by the new owners. I heard it was planning to make an appearance at Oshkosh this year.
Meanwhile, in a hangar not far away, this priceless 1911 Steco
was being donated by Denny Eggert to the Minnesota Air National Guard Museum.
This plane, with trycicle landing gear, and optional floats, has an incredible history that will be told when it is displayed at the new museum being built out at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. It's an incredible Minnesota aircraft.

Boy, can you imagine flying this thing? You really had to be brave to pilot your own flying invention in 1911!
Over at Crystal Airport, my son Riley and I pulled up just as Walt Fricke was putting his new acquistion back in the hangar.
It's a beautiful T-6, that will be a great addition to the local
T-6 Thunder team of flyers. It's a pretty tight squeeze for Walt's hangar though.



But what about me? What about my progress flying?
I'm still at it, but it's going very slowly. I used to think the hardest part of learning to fly was getting the money together. Now I think it's finding the time. All of these images of other airplanes are meant to symbolize my busy life. It's always something-- the weather, the plane's schedule, my schedule, my instructor's schedule, more weather. It's been tough to get in even one session per week! That has to change if I'm going to make significant progress. People are starting to ask me, "have you soloed?" Nope, and I won't be on anybody's timeline but my own, in that regard.
But, I am having fun. So, stay tuned, Chris and I are slated to fly again tomorrow, and hopefully a lot next week! My progress may be slow, but it hasn't stalled.