Arctic Flying

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a pilot. But as I went through life one thing led to another and that dream kept getting pushed off. Early this month I started on a path of accomplishing that dream by beginning my ground school, which I have now all but completed. There are a few obstacles to getting your pilots license in Kotzebue, Alaska though. One, they don't have a testing center for your ground school test and two, they don't have an FAA certified doctor with the required equipment to give you the FAA physical. So I will be conducting both of those while we are down in Seattle for our wedding. However I did begin my flight training last week. 

This is a direct representation of Brenden taken from the internet ;) ~Paige

I don't think I have ever been so giddy. When I came home, Paige had dinner and a glass of brandy waiting for me with the movie Top Gun ready to play. Could you ask for more?!?! The answer is no, she is amazing. Needless to say I loved my first flight. It was simple, we went through all of the airplane checks before I drove the plane on the ground for about 15minutes getting used to taxiing. After that my flight instructor called in with our flight plan and told me to taxi to the end of the runway. As I was taxiing out there, he was explaining what I needed to do to take off. Once I got to the end of the runway I turned the plane around and my flight instructor said, "well, lets get going other planes are coming in." So I began my first trip down the runway. As I added pressure to the throttle the plane picked up speed and before I knew it I was pulling back and the plane started to fly. I was a mixture of nervous and ecstatic as I watched the runway disappear below. My first action was to fly along the winding cost to the training zone. So I banked left, with instructions from the instructor and did my best to learn to control the plane as the coast line went in and out. We spent the rest of the time doing ascents and descents, 180 degree turns at a 30 degree rate and 360 degree turns at a 30 degree rate. I continuously wanted to clench the "steering wheel" with both hands and each time I did my instructor would yank my right hand off and say, "Fly only with three fingers (thumb, index and middle finger) on your left hand." All while this was happening I was capable of keeping the aircraft from losing or gaining more than 100ft on my turns and was able to ascend and descend to specified altitudes without over/undershooting them. My flight instructor was impressed with this as it was only my first time flying. As time went I quickly became comfortable with the controls and throttle all while watching the horizon and checking my various gauges telling altitude, airspeed, rate of climb, direction and RPMs. 

At the end of my training I flew the plane back towards the airport, entered the airports flight pattern and began my descent to my first ever landing. I felt surprisingly comfortable approaching the runway and kept a close eye on the center lines and the lights to the side of the runway. "Red over white you are doing all right." As the plane approached the runway my mind started to race, do I need to do this, should I be slower, faster, to the left? But I kept all of this worrying at bay and touched my plane down dead center of the runway, taxied toward our hanger and ended my first flight. It seemed over too fast and all I wanted to do was turn the plane around and head back out. I haven't been able to do much flying since then because of the weather. This will be okay because this weekend Paige and I fly down to Las Vegas for Memorial day weekend (I am meeting up with my groomsmen for a bachelor party and Paige with her mom for a girl's weekend). When we return Paige heads out to a village for week (a perk of both our jobs is village trips to remote Alaska, more on this later) and the weather is supposed to be great. That means I should be able to get a lot of flying time in next week and the week after that before Paige and I head down to Seattle for our wedding and then Greece for our honeymoon! 

Obtaining my pilot license will probably take all summer because there isn't a school up here. The instructor and I both have a full-time jobs and we will have to work with our schedules to get my time in. The good thing is we have 24 hours of sunlight so we should have plenty of time. The down side of 24 hours of sunlight is I have to do an "X" amount of night flying hours and we don't have any night! I will have to fly down to Anchorage or Seattle to meet this criteria, oh well!

This is a picture of the main runway during the summer that I took from the internet.