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.