Building a Plane. Yes, I did just say that.

 Well friends I pulled the trigger on building my own plane using the Sonex, LLC aircraft complete airframe kit. We (my husband is helping too) are still waiting for our pallet of stuff to arrive. I really look forward to working on this together. I don't know if we are going to kill each other or be in perfect zen. Time will tell. 

We'll be building the Sonex B-Model. It has gone through some redesign since the legacy Sonex model. Has more cockpit room, extended range, larger space for avionics, and a few other things you can find out about on their website. You can see this in the 20 sec Ad video below. 

Mark Schaible, former GM, as of the 2022 new year is now the new owner of Sonex. Hence the name change from Sonex Aircraft to Sonex, LLC. He had been with the company for the last 2 decades, so it will be great to see what he does moving forward. You can watch the following YouTube video to learn more about this new switch of hands.

The owner community is like one large family. People with different experience levels all with the same goal, build an affordable aircraft. There is a forum and Facebook group filled with builders, enthusiasts looking to build, and those that have built. 

I'm super excited to see how the process works. Planning on keeping track of it all using KitLog Pro. I'll post that information once I get that account going. Some folks have kept track of their builds using Blogger and I guess I could as well, but I really liked the way Kit Log was set up. 

Anyhow, did I say I was super excited? Ha! Well, I really, really am. I look forward to receiving our shipment. It's going to be a huge pallet of parts! 

Cheers for now! 

Nothing Like Flying

Many of you have been following my blog for some time now and understand how much I love motorcycling. However, this past year and a half motorcycling has taken a bit of a backseat. I have been learning to fly and it has been a life-changing experience. Let me explain. 

The art of learning to fly is like a child learning the basic fundamentals of how to do things on your own and how to be a good human being. Flying teaches us how to be aware of our surroundings, what the difference is between good and bad decision making, how to manage risk, how to plan and prepare, how to understand your overall health and well being, and most of all how to have fun. On top of that, flying has made me a meteorologist minus the degree to prove it.  However, I was lucky enough to be accepted in the Skywarn program under the National Weather Service umbrella. Meaning, I have a certificate to prove it!    

Back in March, the wind and weather were calm. It was a cool and perfect spring morning. My instructor surprised me with, "I'm hoping to solo you today". I felt like someone punched me in my stomach. Riding a motorcycle was one thing, but flying a plane all by myself just made me nervous thinking about it. At least if I drop a motorcycle, the ground is right there and believe me I've done it a bunch of times. Especially when I first started learning how to ride. Now I had to fly an airplane alone! My instructor went up with me a couple times and then finally said, "drop me off, it's your turn". 

As I taxied off the runway to drop him off, I begin sweating like a running back who just ran 90 yards. I shut down the engine, he hops out. I take my jacket off because the heat was just building up. I go through my checklist to start the plane up again. I taxi over to do my engine runup and checks.

Then I radio to ground control for a taxi clearance:

Me: "Binghamton Ground Sportstar N29EV"

ATC: "Binghamton Ground, go ahead Sportstar N29EV"

Me: "I'm on the west ramp requesting to stay in the pattern I'm ready to taxi with information Bravo" ATC: "Sportstar N29EV, proceed to runway 10 via Lima Kilo"

Me: runway 10 via lima kilo 29EV

Taxing to runway 10.

Hold Short line at runway 10

When I get to the hold short line at runway 10

Me: "Binghamton Tower Sportstar 29EV is ready for take-off runway 10"

ATC: "Sportstar 29EV cleared for take-off runway 10, winds blah blah, cleared for right traffic"

Me: "Cleared for take-off runway 10 right traffic"

My take-off solo flight in an Evektor Sportstar Max, LSA.

Landing #2.

Taxing back to the west ramp after a successful solo flight of 3 take-offs and 3 landings.

Just like that, I had flown a plane all by myself. By the time I had my third take-off and landing, I was confident in my skill to fly the aircraft. I was still sweating, but I believed in myself. I was thinking the whole time "Wow, I just flew an airplane". It was scary, it was fun and it was hard. There was nothing easy about it. Out of my three solo landings, the second one was the best landing to date. I wish that wasn't so, but you only get good at something by doing it often and learning from mistakes. I guess flying has also taught me to never give up. It's a new passion that I have found, that I have felt empty without. 

You can follow my progress and flying adventures on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mytube24ever

Well, folks, I would love to write some more, but I have a flight lesson in an hour.

Edwin A. Link - Inventor of the "Link Trainer"

You are probably scratching your head trying to figure out who Edwin A. Link is. You can think all you want, but if you don't follow aviation then you will probably never figure it out. Unless of course, you are a historian or enthusiast of history from that era. 

As for me, I happened to move to Binghamton, NY where the airport is actually named after Mr. Link. I have been learning to fly with Aero-Techniques, a flight school located at the Greater Binghamton Airpot-Edwin A. Link Field. I had never heard of this guy before. His pictures are posted all over the FBO (Fixed-Based Operator, aka business taking care of the general aviation flights coming in).

One of the posters found around the FBO that explains what instruments are found on the panel.

1936 -Edwin A. Link with Amelia Earhart. Amelia trained in the Link Trainer prior to her flight around the world.

I saw an early model of the Link Trainer on display at the Glenn Curtiss Museum in NY.

Here is a great video found on YouTube by user okrajoe . It describes the experience the pilot goes through to obtain instrument training.

Mr. Link was born in Indiana but had moved to Binghamton NY, so his story goes. In Binghamton is where he designed the first simulator which changed the aviation industry forever. I have yet to experience flight training in a simulator. They have come a long way since the Link trainer.

I hope one to get the opportunity. Have you ever done flight training in a simulator? If so, it would be great to hear how your experience went.
Thanks for reading this brief history lesson on Edwin Albert Link.

To the Atmosphere and Beyond

A quote from Socrates,

"Man must rise above the Earth — to the top of the atmosphere and beyond — for only thus will he fully understand the world in which he lives." 

The photo was taken above the Chesapeake Bay.

I am not a man, nor have I made it to the atmosphere and beyond. I have however gone up far enough in a plane to fully understand the world in which I live in.

We are mere droplets of color on a charted map that does not judge us by who we are. Towns, cities, lakes, streams, and railroad tracks may separate us but they do not confine us. At 3,000 feet in the sky, the world below me shines with beauty. My charts used for navigation guide me along a path of wonders. A bit lower and I can see women hanging clothes out to dry in their yard. A boy riding his bicycle down a rural road. A farmer tending to his fields. A kayaker taking on one of the finger lakes. Factories with smoke billowing out of the tall exhaust pipes. Solar farms larger than life out in the middle of nowhere.

When I see this world through my eyes as a pilot, the world does not speak back to me. It does not tell me, that farmer was a Republican or that lady was a Jew or this town is filled with racists, or that river is polluted by that factory, or that college has sexual assault cases pending against it or that town is an LBGT community. My navigation charts do not label the world we live in, in such a way that we as humans label ourselves and the things around us. We judge we persecute, we hate, we disrespect, we show no discipline, and we allow for the violation of our own space to occur.

Why have we lost sight of the beauty around us? Is it an attempt to just lash out at everything that has ever undermined our well-being. For every time you never got to go to the movies, or spend the night at a friends house, or missed out on a party or lost a job to perhaps a better candidate. or heartbroken by those we thought we loved the most.

While many do not have an opportunity to sit as a pilot in a cockpit and view the world below them. Many do have the capacity to open their eyes and hearts to see and feel what is right there in front of them and surrounding them daily. We become blinded by the mundane human daily rituals of life itself. We no longer take the time to appreciate the beautiful, the ugly, the delicious or the distasteful. We have almost stopped learning.

I think Socrates had it right. We need to seek a path so far beyond our reach in order to truly understand what is going on around us. How will you make that happen in your life? Let's start a conversation. 

AVIATE, NAVIGATE, COMMUNICATE

Learning to fly has actually begun to translate in my life outside of flying. As a pilot, you are taught to "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate". Basically, control the airplane, get it to where you need it to go, and then tell communicate where you are. We are taught that doing anyone of these out of sequence may lead to a deadly outcome. In life, we aren't really given rules of survival at such a basic level as this. As a pilot, it's these three words that define your survival. They are so key that I literally make notes of these words all over the place; my kneeboard, the corner of my computer screen, on the first page of my flying books.  

When in the cockpit we as pilots are always faced with constant changes. The wind, for example, it never stays the same. You could have started out your flight on a calm day and finishing your flight with wind gusts while landing. Very nerve reckoning! All the flight planning in the world can still leave us in an outcome we weren't ready for. That said, the other part of this "three word" survival checklist, if you will, is risk management. 

It's summed up by the acronym P.A.V.E. A set of words that allow you to really dig deep into decision making. P.A.V.E. stands for "Personal, Aircraft, Environment, and External pressures". Seems to make sense if you are reading this for the first time as a student pilot or perhaps you are reading it for the first time here on this blog. Nonetheless, these words are designed to be implemented before, during and even after you "Aviate, Navigate and Communicate". Seems simple! Follow these rules and you will likely stay out of trouble.  

Landing a 172 at KBGM, with Joseph Rizzo as PIC.

So what does any of this have to do with anything else in life, other than flying? Well, a lot actually. Think about it for a second. A s a child we are taught right and wrong. Depending on our parents and their discipline techniques, those rights and wrongs are either distilled in us or words and behaviors forgotten. If you were raised around religion, then you may have had your faith to guide you through life. Often times many of us that follow a religion end up losing our faith only to later regain it and this cycle may continue throughout your whole life. Furthermore, everything we do is governed by law. 

Whether in our own home, at school or work, in our communities, states or country. All of these act as institutions of learning behaviors for life's' survival. At home, we learn manners. At school, we begin to learn about the world and our community. Our community teaches us social norms or behaviors acceptable in society. Our government reminds us of our freedoms or lack there of, depending on your perspective. 

My point is, why are we, as the people of this world, not given the most basic of survival training as pilots are given. A set of three words expanded with an acronym. Perhaps practicing them in our daily lives could yield a better way of life for us all. "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate". Is it really that simple? Perhaps that has been the answer we have all been seeking in life. Three words with the most basic of definitions, to guide us to salvation. 

Imagine yourself as a child. Imagine your parents kneeled down and explaining to you the rules of life. The conversation may even go something like this: 

Son/Daughter, in life you will learn you have control of your well being. 

You must set a plan to follow. 

Never forget to share your ideas or plan with others. 

Now keep in mind that while you are in control of making your plan and sharing your own ideas, that there are words to help you PAVE the way. 

You will need to evaluate yourself. Are you mentally, physically able and educated enough to survive your plan.

The method or means to getting your plan accomplished would need you to be efficient in the things you need to do to achieve your goals.

All this, while keeping into consideration your environment and any external pressures that will keep you for succeeding. 

These words we utter are the basic steps to life's survival. If you ever forget or lose sight of your way, just remember "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate" and you will P.A.V.E. the way to successful life.

Now you understand the connection the way I do. We all interpret things differently and therefore, my views are my own and yours are yours. Flying has changed my life. I feel that life itself should be taught to us in a way flying is taught to us. Never take anything for granted. Something so minute and overlooked, could be something that changes you and who you are forever. 

No one else walks in your shoes, but you.