Flight training commenced

Today I finally had my first practical flight lesson! During the weekend I had been really worried that I’d had to wait at least one day more, watching the weather forecasts talking about heavy rain the whole day. But when I arrived in Ljungbyhed on Monday morning, after a long journey by train departing Falun at 17:30 on Sunday, it wasn’t raining and there were even blue holes in the cloud cover. With careful hopefulness we walked to the hangar and started our weather briefing at 07:45. One of the Norwegian classes was also on the flight schedule and one of them showed everybody the latest weather forecast, the current weather report for the airport and some detailed charts of the area. The conclusion was that while the schedule for the Norwegian class was cancelled, our class would probably be okay. Since the experienced Norwegians were supposed to do solo flights without any instructor in the plane they had harsher weather limits than us.

Using four planes, the class was divided into three groups flying at different times. I was scheduled for the first round, why I directly after the weather briefing had a personal briefing with my instructor. Since not much is expected of us during the very first flight the briefing was quite informal and didn’t take much time. We went to the airplanes outside the hangar and did a “pre-flight check”, which means walking around the airplane checking that everything looks ok. This is done quite carefully and I will need to know all of it by heart later. Inside the cabin we followed a checklist testing the instruments and checking that they give correct values about the oil, fuel etc. After checking that everything is as it should be my instructor asks for clearance (permission) to taxi (drive on the ground) towards the runway from the airport tower. We taxi to the holding point (queue line) and receive clearance to take off on runway 29R (there are two active runways in Ljungbyhed). On the runway we follow yet another checklist before my instructor gives full throttle and we take off.

Around airports you must usually follow strict rules about what routes you may take and what altitudes you may fly at. And before take-off and landing approach you report what route of the few available ones you wish to take and the tower then (hopefully) gives its permission. We flew mostly straight ahead (to the west) after take-off passing a certain checkpoint at the airport area border and then continued in the same direction until we were slightly north of Helsingborg on the west coast. The view was great seeing the rural landscape, the city, the sea and also the Danish coast on the other side of the narrow strait. When we arrived to this area the instructor let me control the airplane for the first time. I did some turns, ascends and descents for a short while. The instructor showed how to practice engine failure procedure by putting the engine to idle, check the area for a suitable emergency landing spot, and then approach it and prepare for landing. At a few hundred meters altitude the practice is completed and we ascend again giving full throttle.
   

We head back towards Ljungbyhed finding the correct approach route and receiving clearance from the tower. We do a traffic circuit (flying in a rectangle just before landing) and land safely on the same runway we started from. We taxi back to the hangar, park and exit the airplane for the debriefing.

The goal of the first flight was basically to learn the basic procedures of a complete flight, feel the controls a little and learn how to orientate on the map by watching the landscape. It didn’t feel too complicated even though there are a lot more to think about compared to driving a car for example. However it was extremely fun and I’m greatly looking forward to tomorrow and the rest of the week. If the weather doesn’t get worse we’ll hopefully do one flight lesson a day the whole week.

Looking back on last week, we had theory classes as usual until Thursday after lunch, classes ending at 14:20. I wanted to celebrate midsummer festival back home in Dalarna so I took the bus from Ljungbyhed, transferred to another bus in Klippan and then took the train from Hässleholm to Stockholm, and finally another train to Uppsala. I left my home at 15:00 and arrived to my apartment in Uppsala (which I still haven’t moved out from) at around 23:20, so it was a long trip… In the morning of midsummer eve, Friday, I took the final train to Falun in the morning (2 hours trip) and after a short break in Falun I went with friends to Leksand where we joined more people and celebrated midsummer at probably the best place you could do it. The weather was great and we were ten people eating traditional lunch, walking around the town, joining the maypole raising ceremony and finally doing barbeque at a campsite by the lake. During the rest of the weekend I met some more friends and of course my family before returing back to Ljungbyhed by night train Sunday to Monday.

Photos:

I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures from my flight lesson and I don’t think there will be any opportunities soon to use the camera when flying either, but in the future I promise I’ll take pictures!

 

Here are instead two pictures from the midsummer festival in Leksand. There were probably over 15 000 people attending the main event, which would be more than the entire population of Leksand municipality.

Here’s a promotion video for TFHS, very cheesy but yet fun to watch. The airplane I flew today was the small type that appears the most in the video. Enjoy!