Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Given to Fly

Tracy gave me a very thoughtful birthday present. She sent me on a discovery flight with Av-Ed Flight School. That means I went flying yesterday in a very small airplane!

The instructor and I chose a two-seat model, the Diamond DA20-C1 Eclipse, tail number N781MA. I was surprised about 90 seconds after takeoff when the instructor told me to take the controls and fly a certain heading and altitude. I flew most of the flight, other than takeoff and landing. It was really fun!

You can view photos from my flying adventure. The instructor and I took some better photos with his camera, and he should be sending me those soon.

You can also view a map showing our approximate route.

4 comments:

Leslie said...

What a creative gift idea! I am so impressed that you got to fly -- way to go! I'm so glad you had a nice birthday.

holly said...

that is awesome! and nice that it was a clear day and that you could see things so well. I liked your Google maps descriptions, even though I didn't get all the flying lingo. What a fabulous idea Tracy!

Unknown said...

Chris is jealous that you were able to fly. That is really neat you were able to do that.
I'm sorry your presents are so late. But they should be there soon.

Gary S. said...

Holly: if there had been clouds or other weather, we would not have gone. I was going to go on my actual birthday, but it had to be rescheduled because it was too windy. The plane is capable of being flown of course, but the idea was to let me do the flying, which would have been too difficult and dangerous in the wind or clouds (especially clouds).

Tirah: don't worry about the presents. My birthday comes at an inconvenient time, right after Christmas and the new year. (For those not in the know, my side of the family does a sort of "birthday club" where everyone sends money to Chris and Tirah and they buy a nice present for each person on his or her birthday.)

Also, if Chris is jealous enough, they do discovery flights at Airport II. See http://www.aircenterofsaltlake.com/training.html and click the Rental Rates link.