First Flight Lesson

(I started taking flight lessons in April of 2011 and took some notes after each of the early lessons. Expect to see some bloggings about that on this blog...)

We started off with Ponce, my 'CFI' (Certified Flight Instructor in "aviation talk"), giving me a brief overview of what we're going to be doing in the lesson and how the flight would go and what I should start studying and memorizing.

Next we walked out to the plane and Ponce showed me how to do a preflight check using the checklists for the plane.

We took off and it was the first time since I was 12 that I had taken off in such a small plane and definitely was a new sensation and feeling. We flew around the "practice area", an area near the airport behind the mountains that is designated for flight training, making some turns and did some slow flight it was a bit nervous and exhilarating at the same time.

After a few more turns, we headed back while Ponce handled all the Air traffic controls, I was flying the plane and I had a really great landing. Even Ponce said "Wow, I've never seen that before, such a good landing on a you're first lesson!" I remember thinking all during the landing that Ponce was going to take over but he never did and all I did was hold the stick back slowly. This wasn't a foreshadowing of what was to come because I struggled with landings later in my flight training.