Teaching people how to fly…

Monday (3/24).  Cool, I’m driving to an airport to get paid to fly.  Coolest thing ever.

First few days involved getting the uniform (white polo, khaki pants;

pics to come), HR paperwork, and getting familiar with the lay of the land.

Also was assigned a senior instructor for ground training to go over

the student syllabus, airplane checklists and flows (memory items).

On day 4 I started flying my new airplane.  It’s a Diamond DA20-C1 (pics to come).  It is a two seat, very sleek little airplane.  It uses a control

stick instead of a yoke which I thought would take some getting use to but ended

up being very comfortable and easy to fly.  It’s definitely fun to fly.  I went up with

a senior instructor who ran me through basic flight manuevers so I could get used

to the airplane and how it handles.  Also had to get comfortable with my new airport,

Falcon Field (FFZ).  It is a neat airport, more general aviation oriented than Williams

Gateway is because of the shorter runways.  Still, there are plenty of neat things to

see since the Confederate Air Force has a base there and regularly flies a B-17 (Sentimental Journey) and a bunch of other neat airplanes.

Next week I take my checkride with the chief pilot.  After successfully completing

that I’ll be assigned my first group of students; probably 3 or 4.  Next post will have some pics.

Well, after getting hired at a large flight school I’m starting to think that soon I’ll be responsible for teaching people who have never flown a plane how to fly safely.  I seriously can’t wait to start!  I’ll be posting here very much how I posted in my ‘Learning to Fly’ blog (azcraigfamily.flyblog.com; link at right).  I anticipate posting several times a week at first and then less frequently as time goes on, we’ll see.  I start on 3/24/08, more to come then - thanks for reading!