Dan’s Pilot Times

I realized last night that I never realized wrote about my first flight in a general aviation aircraft, my “Discovery Flight.” As I mention on my About Dan page, after moving out to Volo, Illinois this past year, and working in Lake Forest, I drive down Route 120 every day from work. Along this drive, in Grayslake, there is “Campbell Airport” (C81). I would see the sign for this strip every day and eventually I had to Google it to learn more about it. They have a nice little website which advertises their $59 “Discovery Flight“. For $59, it was worth a shot…I booked it.

I get to Campbell airport early on a Saturday morning in February 2008 and was surprised at how “small” things seemed. (Comparing that to my cozy Westosha airport now, Campbell is pretty bustling.) Anyways, I meet my pilot for the day (a CFI) there and we preflight a Piper Warrior (here’s a pic of a Piper Warrior – not the one we flew though). He was very nice in showing me (almost a pre-lesson) how to generally pre-flight a plane. We jump in and he tells me about how the flight will go and that, if I was interested (which of course I was), I could handle most of the controls and definitely follow along at all times.

We take off (I did the pull up) and I was hooked…I KNEW I had to continue learning how to fly somehow. Anyways, we putzed around for about 30 minutes in the sky, even flew right over my new home. It was very cool. I would highly recommend anyone even remotely interested in aviation (regardless if you want to become a pilot) to take advantage of these “Discovery Flights” at most local airports…they are just a blast!

Well, I realize this story wasn’t as amazing as I thought it would be, but I think it’s important to share all my experiences about this great journey I’ve undertaken. Hopefully I’ll have a lesson tonight (if the weather cooperates)…and hopefully Saturday morning too! Will write then.

I had my first official flight lesson on Saturday, March 8th, 2008. It was awesome! Since it was bitterly cold outside that morning, my CFI (certificated flight instructor) did the pre-flight exterior check of our 1982 Cessna 152 – he let me stay warm in the plane and acquaint myself with the cockpit. Once in the plane (and not freezing) we continued our very thorough pre-flight checklist before takeoff. We then taxied to the runway, went full throttle and took off into the sky! Once airborne, we practiced a lot of basic maneuvers and worked our way to the airport in Lake in the Hills, Illinois (Airport Code 3CK). I should mention that my CFI basically let me do everything in this flight (literally everything except land the plane). He obviously told me what to do and when, but I performed all the actions. Actually, in my opinion, the physical act of piloting a plane is really not that difficult at all. It’s all the flight theory, learning the controls, navigating, emergency procedures, and stuff like that which requires all the knowledge and training. That being said, I was definitely feeling overwhelmed with the amount of information my CFI was throwing at me, but I managed!

Anyways, once at Lake in the Hills, we landed and stopped into their flight shop where I purchased some of the books and tools that I’d need for training. We chatted it up with a few pilots there and then went back to the plane. We (I) took off again and headed back to our home airport of Westosha (5k6). My CFI landed the plane again and I taxied us back to the hangar.

I logged 1.7 hours of flight time.