60 Hours with a Legend aboard.

When I landed on my last flight I had logged a total of 59,5 hours (or 59h 30m). So I was excited to hit 60 hours!

This flight,however,was different. I would be taking up a man who is recognized by my fellow aviators as a "Legend". Now I must admit that I was as nervous for this flight as my flight test but I was never going to let anyone know that. I try hard to never impress and rather just do what i'm supposed to do. I think I did that on this flight.After all,it's pointless trying to impress a 747 Captain in a Cessna! We took off from runway 19 and headed to the southern slope of the Helderberg. I kept my eyes on the Hobbs meter. Very close to being overhead my house, while in a steep turn, I hit 60 hours. Graham was at the controls at the time and I felt honored that he was with me. I don't celebrate every 10 hours in my logbook but this was the first time I didn't have to do a 10 hour check with an instructor! Getting back to the flight, Graham taught me some very helpful tips while we were up there. Such as how to find out where you will make contact with the ground by finding a stationary part of scenery(hard to explain in words,easier shown in the cockpit). He also improved my crosswind landing by about a million times. I botched the first one but after he had shown me the correct method it became a lot easier. After the flight he explained some more techniques to help me and advised me on how to better my flying. I don't really know what I was afraid of. He turned out to be an awesome copilot and I can now understand why all his students love him. I'm not going to write much on what he said to me but it was great to be able to share a cockpit with him. I can honestly say that he is exactly the type of pilot I want to be one day.

Thank you for all the interest you have shown in my flying over the years Graham! You are an awesome role model and I can't wait to work through the next step of my flying with you.

It's been a while...

I hadn't flown since February so I was desperate to get back in the air again. I was happy when weather,school and finances all allowed me to take up a family friend of mine.

It's always nice to fly with someone who knows what's going on in the aircraft. No stupid "what does this button do" questions. On the 14th of April we took off from runway 01 at Stellenbosch. We routed south to my hometown  of Somerset West and we flew overhead the mall, Strand beachfront and then a few steep turns over the golf course to try see his house. The weather was near perfect with only a few bumps so we flew rather low through the Helderburg gap back to Stellies which is always an awesome experience. We decided to do some touch and go's and I performed a relatively nice landing the first time(in my opinion anyway). The second time around I let him fly the downwind and base leg. The result was an extremely high final approach so a go-around was initiated.Totally his fault(Joke!).Unfortunately he had a dinner arrangement so we could on do one more landing and it was to be a full stop. I landed rather smoothly and taxied back to the hanger. After we shut down he explained to me how this flight was actually a very emotional moment for him because he went through a circle of teaching me to build and fly remote control airplanes all the way through to me actually taking him up in a full size aircraft. I never thought of it that way but when he said it, it really got me thinking..

Dave, thank you for all your help and guidance over the past couple of years. Your support and knowledge have really helped me to go from models to full size. Thank you for taking the time to teach me about how a plane flies or how engines and instruments work. And thank you for getting up all those early mornings to go to the r/c club or spending your weekends with me in your workshop building planes. You really have been a major influence in my flying and there is always a seat for you in my cockpit.