Hey everyone, This recent Thursday I had an aviation buddy come up from Dayton to hang out and just show him around my fun little city. On Thursday he flew from his airport up to mine and landed early in the morning. I had made sure to be at the airport plenty early to make sure to watch him land and all that fun stuff. As I was watching aircraft land and depart (there were like 8 jets on the apron at once it was crazy) I finally saw him land and taxi in. As he was, a receptionist for my flight school came up to me and proposed a job to be to work for the flight school! I was excited to hear if the boss would go for it. My friend came in and I showed him where to park, but first I hopped in and we went up in the pattern twice and boy was it fun. His aircraft he rents is a 1960 something Cessna 172.
After we landed we pushed back and tied it down to go have an adventurous day of tennis and other various activities. Sadly the hours passed and it was time for us to get some shut eye so he wasn’t beat for the flight home on Friday. After a good couple hours of sleep we got up had breakfast and headed over to the airport for his departure. As he did the preflight we decided to pull the airplane out a bit so it wasn’t on a down slope. As we did so we noticed the nose wheel not reacting to his rudder pedal inputs (Uh Oh). He finished the preflight and fired up the engine to see if the nose wheel would do anything. It kept turning in a right circle. We laughed in frustration and made about a thousand calls to people like our parents, FBO, Mechanics and multiple others trying to find someone to fix it and finally we did but he was 30 minutes away so we went to the restaurant near by and had some drinks while we waited. We also went exploring in the airport lounge that I had never been in before which had the most comfortable couches ever (No wonder I see the corporate pilots always sleeping in them while they wait for some big shot CEO’s or others to board and leave for another fun flight).
Finally, the mechanic showed up and was able to tighten the arm for the nose wheel steering, it wasn’t a fix but it was a temporary solve of the problem to get it home. As PIC my friend didn’t feel comfortable though flying it back so he decided to call his FBO and have them deal with it.He then ended up spending another night at my place till his parents came and picked him up on Saturday. Overall it was an experience we both learned from, here are 5 valuable things we learned:
1. Dont fly if your gut tells you not to! Your the PIC you make the decision.
2. Mechanics know alot, and Im still am amazed by their abilities to do so much.
3. Airports are way cooler when you look around and find random awesomeness.
4. Those couches were comfy.
5. Old, rickety airplanes should have a forced retirement age.
As for that job, I was offered it and now am part time working for the flight school! It is fun and I am finally glad I have a job being able to be at the airport where I belong. Sorry for the time away from my blog but I havent flown for a while but plan to soon. Dangit I just want my PPL by gosh!!!!!!
Comments Appreciated
Until Next Time,
Pilot Ian
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