Way too long since a post

Since the last post, I've been doing plenty of various stuff for church, flying, mowing, scouts, etc.

I'll tackle the flying part first. The checkride was scheduled for one day, but the examiner had to cancel, so it was rescheduled for later in the week. As of a week ago, I'm now a Multiengine-rated pilot, both private and instrument. The checkride itself went well overall, except for some muscle memories that I had formed that nearly had me bust the checkride. During training, we had often shut the engine off in-flight, relatively near the ground. However, on a checkride, if you actually turn off the engine anywhere less than 3000 feet above the ground, it's an automatic bust. Thankfully, the examiner spotted what I was doing and rather quickly let me know, in no uncertain terms, I wasn't allowed to do that. :D After I explained why I was going to do it, he was OK with it. Otherwise, everything went well.

As far as church goes, most of last week was spent at our Covfamikoi family conference. Basically, it's our presbytery conference. We were at the conference Monday through Friday. It was an incredible blessing in many ways. I learned so much about the Lord and about His church. The main speaker was Anthony Selvaggio. All of his talks were on various aspects of Proverbs. The lectures were challenging, in a good way. The fellowship with other believers was also really great. I ended up being in the college group, instead of the high school group. That, in itself, took a bit of adjusting to. Oh well.

Unfortunately, I've not been doing too much with Scouts. I've been doing other things. So, as a result, for the first time since 2004, I'm not going to Scout summer camp. That's a big bummer.

However, the reason I'm not going is a great one. I'll be in Pittsburgh, at our denomination's seminary, for a program called TFY - Theological Foundations for Youth. The plan is to be leaving early Monday morning by Greyhound. Hopefully, it will work out. The only potential problem is that I woke up this morning with some pretty good aches and pains, and also a strong headache. During the day, the aches and pains went away, the headache stayed, and a fever hopped on board. Right now, I'm not feeling too bad, but I don't know if it will stay that way. I need to simply trust the One who gave me this disease, whatever it is, and the One who can take it away. Please be praying that whatever I have will get shaken! Thanks!

Another day, another post, another improvement

That plane is getting easier for me to fly. Today, with my 2-hour flight, I nailed it. Steve said I did really well. :)

Here it is, on the ground, with the canopy open.

Semi-side view.

Up the nose. :D

Wingtip view.

3/4 shot.

Here's the instrument panel. Relatively similar to the Star. Not complex at all, once you get used to it.

I'll leave you with this shot. This is with the engine intentionally shut off. If you look carefully, you can see the airport in the background. :D

Another quick post

The training went much better today. The biggest thing was that I figured out a better position for the rudder pedals, which means a better angle for my legs, which means NO CRAMPING!!! :D

Also, I had the feel for the plane a lot better. I also knew what I was messing up on yesterday, and was able to consciously work on those problems. So, all in all, a good day for training.

I have one more intense day of training tomorrow, then some on Saturday. The plan is for the checkride/oral exam to take place on Monday. No written exam (ya!).

Edit: Here's a picture of 198TS, the plane I'm flying. Might get more pictures tomorrow. The picture's with my phone, so it's not the best. Oh well. :P

Quick notes... two of them

The first one is that I started my multi training today. It went well, other than one thing. Steve, my instructor, warned me that the plane would require a lot more rudder input than anything I'd ever flown before. He wasn't kidding. For background information for anyone that might not know, the legs/feet are used to control the rudder. My right leg was cramping and even buckled a little bit at one point afterwards. After a while, it went back to being good again, but... yeah, I'd appreciate prayer that I'd figure out the ideal way to be using the rudder to get max performance and max comfort. :)

The other thing is that I got a new phone. (Thanks, Uncle Charlie!) If anyone's wanting the number, email me, get ahold of me on Facebook, or call my home phone number. If you can't do any of those, leave a comment, and I'll get it to you. I just don't wanna put it up on the blog for anyone and anybot to see. :D

Hopefully, I'll be able to use the phone camera to get some pictures of the plane that I'm flying tomorrow. We'll see. Seeya later!

So, it seems that I had forgotten to post for a while.

Since the last time I'd posted, I've been working a lot on getting my computer back to a functional form again. It looks like I've been able to mostly. Thankfully.

There really hasn't been a lot going on lately. I've biked once (hoping to make it more before long), mowed a lot of yards, or rather quite a few several times over, and done some more driving practice. Hopefully, I'll be getting my license soon.

The two big things lately are both having to do with aviation. One was last night, at our Scout Council Awards dinner. The dinner itself was at a new museum in the county just south of us. While there, I got to sit in the cockpit of a DC-3, which was really neat. However, even better, I was then able to get in the cockpit of a Eurocopter Dauphin, which is a helicopter used by Miami Valley Hospital for their Careflight division. That was tons of fun. Also, at the dinner, I received the award of Tecumseh Council's Youth of the Year, which included a $100 savings bond. Not too bad. :P

I'm pretty excited about what I'm going to be starting tomorrow. Bright and early, I'm heading in to the airport and starting my multi-engine training. I'll be training in a Diamond Twin Star, serial #2. :D I'm really looking forward to the plane and the training. However, most all of my time this week will be taken up with the training. Monday-Wednesday will take up just under 30 hours spent at the airport. Then, we're leaving for Pennsylvania on Thursday, staying at Grandpa's house. Friday is the Preview Day for Geneva (including a few tests, I believe :( ), then we head home that night. I have a little bit of time on Saturday scheduled at the airport as well. Then, the plan is for me to take the multi checkride Monday morning, and then leave that afternoon and get back the following Friday. That time is at Covfamikoi, our presbytery family conference. So... I'm busy.

Hope to be able to update quickly a few times during the next few days, just to let anyone that reads it know how the training is going.

Edit: By the way, I really should include a picture of the Twin Star. Check out this for a picture of the aircraft itself (not the same one, but close enough.) Also, here's a semi-good picture of the cockpit.