- Jul 19, 2005
- 2,895
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- Country
- United States
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- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
Since late November the weather where I live has been pretty crazy, ranging from snow storms, to wind storms, and then an entire week of pea-soup fog! I was getting pretty antsy, wanting to get up in the air again and was sure that this last weekend would be like the last--foggy! Fortunately, I was wrong!
Sunday morning I woke up to the brilliant surprise of an absolute cloudless sky! Yippee! I let my girlfriend and some of her family that would be joining us around noon that I was going flying and offered to take them up. Her aunt and uncle were quick to say yes, so after a nice lunch, we all headed up to the airport to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL sky. Once I got there, it was clear I wasn't the only one with that idea. There were airplanes EVERYWHERE! It was one of the busiest days I'd ever seen at that airport.
I took her uncle up first, and I did a touch and go followed by a full-stop landing. Flying a slower airplane, I didn't want to bug the other pilots in the traffic pattern. Next up was her aunt. She had a real blast up there, enjoying the beautiful scenery and the perfectly smooth air. The area has been haunted by a lingering temperature inversion, which is what was causing the fog and this smooth air! I noticed that while on the ground (142 feet above sea level) the temperature was 50 degrees F. At 2,500 feet the temperature was 60 degrees F! Some inversion, I'd say!
My girlfriend went up last and we took a look at the local area, admiring the beautiful mountains, Puget Sound, the many (flooded) lakes and rivers, then came back in to land. Total time for that day was 1.5 hours. What a rush it was to FINALLY take up passengers! The last time I was able to share my love of flying with people was back in 2002 when I first received my private pilots license!
So now to the pictures! On Monday we were blessed with yet another perfect day. So, this time my girlfriend came along with me and brought up my camera, to snap some fun shots.
Departing Arlington Municipal Airport (KAWO) in the trusty old Aeronca 7AC Champ...
After taking off I headed west toward a town called Stanwood to take a look out at the Puget Sound. This photo is looking Southwest, and shows the Olympic Mountains on the horizon.
Trying to put the aeronautical chart (map) away without opening the door (again). The door latch is pretty old and warn, so we use bungee to help keep it closed. Since the door hing is at the front, it is pretty tough to open it while in flight due to the airflow around the fuselage (body) of the aircraft. But when it does open, it still has about a 3 inch gap between the door and the door frame. lol
Alright, I couldn't go without taking a picture or two of my own... this is obviously looking out the front of the aircraft to show what my view is like while flying. That thin wire sticking straight up is the fuel level indicator. The fuel cap (on the nose) has a piece of cork attached to this long wire. The longer the wire appears to be, the more fuel we have! The shorter it gets, the less fuel we have, due to the cork floating on top of the fuel. This is what it looks like with full fuel.
Mug shot. Here I am, taking a silly self-portrait while my girlfriend flies the airplane.
Recently I've been looking at a really cool type of photography, it's called Tilt-Shift and uses a funky lens that makes images of full-scale objects look as though they are actually miniature. Since I don't have the $$ for the real deal, I decided to toy around with PSP XI a bit... here are those results:
Gotta get some shots of the Champ after another fun flight! The flight lasted .4 hours (24 minutes) and cost me only $35! This Champ was certified in 1957 and is one of the newest Champs you'll find as the aircraft began production in the early 40's.
It was quite fun sharing the airspace with this beautiful Dornier Alphajet. There is a company that owns several retired military aircraft including this German Alphajet and an L-29 and L-39. For a few tens of thousands of dollars, you too can get certified to fly light attack jets!
I hope you all enjoy the photographs! Hopefully I'll be able to go up a couple more times this week and get some more shots.
Sunday morning I woke up to the brilliant surprise of an absolute cloudless sky! Yippee! I let my girlfriend and some of her family that would be joining us around noon that I was going flying and offered to take them up. Her aunt and uncle were quick to say yes, so after a nice lunch, we all headed up to the airport to enjoy the BEAUTIFUL sky. Once I got there, it was clear I wasn't the only one with that idea. There were airplanes EVERYWHERE! It was one of the busiest days I'd ever seen at that airport.
I took her uncle up first, and I did a touch and go followed by a full-stop landing. Flying a slower airplane, I didn't want to bug the other pilots in the traffic pattern. Next up was her aunt. She had a real blast up there, enjoying the beautiful scenery and the perfectly smooth air. The area has been haunted by a lingering temperature inversion, which is what was causing the fog and this smooth air! I noticed that while on the ground (142 feet above sea level) the temperature was 50 degrees F. At 2,500 feet the temperature was 60 degrees F! Some inversion, I'd say!
My girlfriend went up last and we took a look at the local area, admiring the beautiful mountains, Puget Sound, the many (flooded) lakes and rivers, then came back in to land. Total time for that day was 1.5 hours. What a rush it was to FINALLY take up passengers! The last time I was able to share my love of flying with people was back in 2002 when I first received my private pilots license!
So now to the pictures! On Monday we were blessed with yet another perfect day. So, this time my girlfriend came along with me and brought up my camera, to snap some fun shots.
Departing Arlington Municipal Airport (KAWO) in the trusty old Aeronca 7AC Champ...
After taking off I headed west toward a town called Stanwood to take a look out at the Puget Sound. This photo is looking Southwest, and shows the Olympic Mountains on the horizon.
Trying to put the aeronautical chart (map) away without opening the door (again). The door latch is pretty old and warn, so we use bungee to help keep it closed. Since the door hing is at the front, it is pretty tough to open it while in flight due to the airflow around the fuselage (body) of the aircraft. But when it does open, it still has about a 3 inch gap between the door and the door frame. lol
Alright, I couldn't go without taking a picture or two of my own... this is obviously looking out the front of the aircraft to show what my view is like while flying. That thin wire sticking straight up is the fuel level indicator. The fuel cap (on the nose) has a piece of cork attached to this long wire. The longer the wire appears to be, the more fuel we have! The shorter it gets, the less fuel we have, due to the cork floating on top of the fuel. This is what it looks like with full fuel.
Mug shot. Here I am, taking a silly self-portrait while my girlfriend flies the airplane.
Recently I've been looking at a really cool type of photography, it's called Tilt-Shift and uses a funky lens that makes images of full-scale objects look as though they are actually miniature. Since I don't have the $$ for the real deal, I decided to toy around with PSP XI a bit... here are those results:
Gotta get some shots of the Champ after another fun flight! The flight lasted .4 hours (24 minutes) and cost me only $35! This Champ was certified in 1957 and is one of the newest Champs you'll find as the aircraft began production in the early 40's.
It was quite fun sharing the airspace with this beautiful Dornier Alphajet. There is a company that owns several retired military aircraft including this German Alphajet and an L-29 and L-39. For a few tens of thousands of dollars, you too can get certified to fly light attack jets!
I hope you all enjoy the photographs! Hopefully I'll be able to go up a couple more times this week and get some more shots.
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