Thursday, July 10th

The productive days just keep on comin'.

Arrived at the airport at 7:45am and was handed the key to 997RA before I could sit down. Went up immediately with Sean for my first a.m. flight. No preflight drama this time. First unassisted takeoff. Smooth air and cool breezes all the way to Mid-Way Airport for touch-and-goes. I requested that we do some taxi-and-goes instead, since my nosewheel control during taxi needs some finesse. On the ground the plane is steered with foot pedals (top half is brake, lower half is rudder), and I'm controlling the ground turns with too much brake and not enough pedals. So I landed at Mid-Way, taxied back to the threshold, then took off again... three times. Feeling much better about taxiing, and takeoffs are now an absolute cinch, but landings are still shaky (bounced one of them), but I'm doing them with minimal assistance from the boss. Heavy traffic at the Arlington pattern on the way in, so we had to peel off to do a 360-degree turn right before turning base (2nd-to-last turn before landing) to get some space between us and the Piper in front of us. Fun morning, and 1.6 hours in the book... 3.6 total.

At about 1pm the classmates and I took a field trip to the Arlington control tower. Went up an 8-story elevator, then up 2 more flights of stairs to get to the top, where we were greeted by Ground Control George and Tower Control Tom, both of which I had spoken to on my first two flights. Nice guys, and very accommodating to wide-eyed curious student pilots. Spent a good hour watching the pattern and getting our questions answered in air-conditioned comfort and with one hell of a view. Learned that Arlington is the second-largest general aviation airport in Texas (which is saying something).

It gets better. Returned to my desk to find a birthday card from the folks (thanks, folks!) and a box from Mark which contained a bacon-scented car air freshener, bacon-flavored toothpicks, and bacon-flavored breath mints (thanks, buddy!). My attempt to tie the freshener to the A/C vent was met with considerable hostility. Some people just can't recognize a favor when they're given one, I guess.

Finished the day watching videos and going over the sectional chart. Studied alone at the airport until 9pm. Mundane end to an otherwise fascinating day.

Steep turns and stalls next. Maybe tomorrow, but more likely Saturday.

Pitching for speed, powering for altitude.