Pug’s Place

Three awesome things just happened. I’ll enumerate first, in chronological order:

First, I soloed Saturday morning! Some pictures my flight instructor took from the ground are up here. Yes, the corner picture has me as the sole occupant of that Cessna 172SP. WOO!

Second, entirely by chance Chris found a Wii Sunday afternoon while shopping at Target and purchased it. Our house now has a Wii, three Wii-motes and some competition brewing over Wii-Tennis and Wii-Bowling!

Thirdly, I just got a birthday present from LIZ! It’s some awesome artwork from Ursula Vernon of a very happy Old One, the one, the only, the Dread: Cthulhu! Oh my gosh, so awesomelycutetotallyneato! Going into frame immédiatement!

So! Soloing!

Saturday morning, wearing a white t-shirt, I went to Stellar Airpark and met my instructor for some touch-and-go practice. It was understood that if I was on the ball that morning and I wanted to, that I would also solo. We took off and Jason (my flight instructor), as is normal these days, leaned back with his hands cushioning his head and said, “Take us to Phoenix Regional, James, then let’s see four touch-and-goes. That number four may be a full stop, we’ll play things by ear.” So I flew us down to Phoenix Regional Airport, flew over midfield and turned into the traffic pattern, ending up a little high on the final approach but did a perfectly fine landing. Jason just reminded me that my downwind leg wasn’t quite parallel to the runway and said, “two more, and then a full stop.” I did two more touch and goes followed by a real to-a-stop landing - my first full stop at an airport other than Stellar, actually (not that slowing down to a stop is very hard).

I pulled off the active runway and taxied back to the “hold short” line, pulled the throttle back to idle and waited. While I had a Zen moment Jason endorsed my logbook and medical for my first solo flight. He gave me some final advice about what to do if I started freaking out while alone in the plane (just in case, I suppose), tuned his hand-held radio, took my camera, shook my hand and shut the door. A minute later I pushed the throttle to the firewall, verified the engine was performing nominally and headed skyward alone! When it was just me in the plane it took off quicker and climbed noticeably faster. I flew the pattern and made two touch-and-goes followed by another full stop landing. They went off splendidly: The first landing saw the winds cooperating. I flared where I should and bumped the plane lightly to the ground on its main gear. My second landing had a crosswind - in the time it took to circle the airport again the wind had shifted 90 degrees and picked up, so landing number two had me tipping my right wing toward the ground to account for the wind. My instructor noted this, of course, and took a picture of my plane in the crosswind attitude, the windsock and his triumphant … grin-thing! Also fun, I did a three-point landing on this touch-and-go. My last solo landing was another full-stop, this time to pick up my instructor who was so kindly taking these photographs from the ground. I dealt with the crosswind again and even better judged my landing point: I put the main gear down either on or really really close to the runway numbers, an age-old landing precision metric.

I picked up Jason, and after he buckled himself back in we taxied back to the runway’s end and headed home. My nerves weren’t shot yet (apparently they should have been, hrmmm) so Jason gave me more work to do on the way back: while I was flying us back the GPS “failed” (Jason turned it off), the radio navigation “failed” (Jason scrambled the controls) and - to make matters worse - my maps and charts “blew out the window” (Jason tossed them in the back seat), so with just my eyes, my compass and my knowledge of the area I had to once again navigate home. He enjoys giving me these exercises, sometimes while also pulling the throttle to idle and telling me the engine failed… I’m sure they’re good for me. Oh yes, the white shirt… There is a tradition among pilots that after your first solo your flight instructor cuts off your shirttails. This dates back to open-air cockpits and the oldest method instructors used to communicate with their students in the pilot’s seat: yanking on their shirttails! Well, I was no different: after we got back to the office and my log book was signed off that I soloed my instructor took a pair of scissors and trimmed my shirt. I get the decorated cloth back after I am awarded my pilot’s certificate.
And now, the Nintendo Wii! So we only have two games, WiiSports that came with the system and RedSteel, a game I bought. Let me put it this way: It came with one controller. Sunday night I bought a second controller so that Chris and I could play at the same time. Monday afternoon I bought a third so Amy could join us. It’s great fun to play Wii-Tennis or Wii-Bowling with these motion-sensing remotes. I just hope the novelty proves to have some staying power, but by all indications it should. Side note: Chris and I are hosting a LAN party here on Saturday and despite 10 people coming over with high-powered computers, we’re wondering whether people are going to end up more interested in the Wii…

Finally, I gots ART! I received this package today from Ursula Vernon and murmured, “Who is this person and why is she mailing me something stiff? And the address is handwritten to me - no mistake about that…” I came in and opened it immediately, wondering what was in my hands. Out slid two pieces of cardboard, between them a sheet of computer paper with my name and address upon it and beneath that… CUTE CTHULHU! I immediately decided it must have been from Liz. I showed it off to Chris and Amy and looked up the artist and was duly impressed - as if the lovely print wasn’t impressive enough! This is being framed lickety-split!

So that’s what I’ve been up to since I got back from Boston last week. Oh yeah, I was in Boston, did I mention it? Oops… Anyway.

Other interesting things: I’m figuring out a time to head back to Florida for a long weekend visit in early August and Stephen is plotting to come out here in two weeks to enjoy the chilly humid air– Wait, Phoenix, not Boston — hot dry air.

Will I blog more? No one can predict…