I had a really great Sunday today! Not just because my daughter is celebrating her 31st birthday (Maybe it was 29, I had better check…). I flew my first solo flight!<\/p>\n
Here are the details, and I know that those who know me realize that there will be life lessons contained within.<\/p>\n
Today, July 27, 2008 was forecasted to be yet another hot and stormy July day here in the Washington DC area. I had not been able to perform my first solo on Saturday because there was too much wind coming across the runway for a rookie like me to handle. So, we scheduled the first solo for a nice calm Sunday morning starting at 6AM. I know this sounds early for most of you, but I have firmly settled into a routine of walking every morning at that time anyways. <\/p>\n
Early in the morning you get your best shot at having calm winds and no thunderstorms to rain on your parade. So I rose up before the light and drove to the airport where I prepared the plane for its first flight of the day.<\/p>\n
The airport I have been using is called Bay Bridge Airport and although it is small, it’s a nice place to stay out of the big jets at BWI. There is also a lot of beauty being right on the Chesapeake Bay at the base of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on Kent Island.<\/p>\n
My flight instructor called and said he was running a bit late and asked me to taxi the plane from the hanger to the fuel pit where he would meet me. After doing a thorough pre-flight check on the plane I hopped in and started it up. The only detail I missed being a rookie is that is not good practice to start an airplane while still in the hangar. The only damage done was to the glass on a picture frame the tipped over from the wind created by the propeller.<\/p>\n
While I was moving the plane down the taxiway, I glanced again at the plane that was flipped over at the end of the runway in the grass. The previous day, a student and his instructor took a wild ride when the plane bounced off the runway and the student overcorrected while trying to continue the landing. Luckily nobody was hurt at all, just shaken up quite a bit. This was a danger I wanted to avoid.<\/p>\n
The lesson and the solo went without a hitch. My first landing was arguably my best. On my third try I came down a bit faster than I wanted to, and my plane bounced. I could see the crashed plane out of the corner of my eye, and I quickly made the decision to go around. I finished a few more landings without a hitch, and my instructor granted me my certificate along with a “well done”.<\/p>\n
I looked at my watch and decided that I still had time to make it to the 9:15 service at church, so I hit the road. About halfway, I remember that I still had the key to the hanger in my pocket! I turned around and also remembered the glass I left on the floor of the hanger. I decided that the wise thing to do would be to return to the hanger and clean up the mess I made. This would be much more important in the long run to the Kingdom of God than sitting in church.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, I still had time to make it to the 11:15 service at the church. Mark’s topic was Proverbs 22:3:<\/p>\n
“A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.”<\/p>\n
This made me think of my 3rd landing where I saw the danger and took refuge. I aborted the landing attempt. If I had kept going, I may have suffered for it. I believe the other wise decision was to take the key back promptly and clean up the broken glass in the hangar.<\/p>\n
All of this made for a truly blessed worship experience this morning.<\/p>\n
-Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a really great Sunday today! Not just because my daughter is celebrating her 31st birthday (Maybe it was 29, I had better check…). I flew my first solo flight! Here are the details, and I know that those who know me realize that there will be life lessons contained within. Today, July 27, … Continue reading First Solo Flight<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-miller-family"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":121,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116\/revisions\/121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwg1wga.recoverme.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}