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2/9/07 Career Day at Clintonville High School - I gave short presentations on aviation careers to about 120 high school students, one small group at a time. Clintonville High School had an all-day event where students met people representing variety of careers. I spoke about how I went from a 2000 CHS graduate to working as a flight instructor. When I was in high school, we never had a career day. I hope I inspired someone.
2/12/07 Couldn't Help It - It had been... oh... at least two weeks since my last flight. To me as a flight instructor, that's a millenium. Today it finally wasn't too bitterly cold or windy. I knew I had a night flight scheduled but I couldn't wait. Rarely do I fly solo on my own dime. But I pulled 81Q out of the hangar at 4:30 and put 25 minutes on it myself. A low pass over the runway, some toodling around, and a quick look at the ice fishermen on Lake Poygan, and my flying withdrawals were cured. Later I had a fun flight with one of my ground school class students.
2/16/07 Zero Knots - Somehow in all my flying, I had never hovered or flown backwards in an airplane, a fun thing that instructors and students always get a kick out of. Usually the wind isn't strong enough. You've got to find a strong wind, point into it, and get the plane flying as slowly as possible. I had come close to standing still up there before, but not quite. Today I was giving a flight review in a 172 when we noticed a strong wind above 3,000 feet. We pointed west, put the flaps all the way down, and slowed the airplane to fly just above stall speed. I watched the GPS count down... 20..10... and just when I thought that was all we'd get, it counted down to 6, then skipped to 0. Zero knots groundspeed! We were hovering. We didn't fly backwards, but it was strange and interesting anyway, and enough to make me laugh. Anything to have fun. There's something amusing about it. Now I should aim to outdo my coworker who has gone six knots backwards.
2/18/07 Incredible Sunset - I saw an incredible sunset tonight during a new student's first lesson. We were flying back to Brennand Airport from Shawano, WI.
 
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