Summer Semester Wraps Up

Well, it's almost time for summer session to end... which means a couple weeks lull, followed by a mostly new set of students and the plunge back into crazy amounts of flight training.

There's not too much interesting stuff going on around here. We did have a group of high school students from Kansas City come down for the Aviation Youth Summer Camp. I had three girls in my group, which was a lot of fun! There's not enough girls who fly!! The first day we taught them how to preflight an airplane. Then on day two, we teach them how to plan a cross country flight and give them an intro to how to land, which was very interesting... the winds were a bit "lively" to say the least. Then on day three, we went out and flew the flights that we had planned the day before, and the next night, the second and third year campers get to go for night flights. I actually had one girl who got sick in the plane, on the day we did landings. She rode along through the other two girls landings before she got to take a whack at landing it too. When we came in on final approach the second time, the wind kicked up, rocked us sideways pretty good... rocked the airplane enough that we had to abort the landing approach. When we came back around, she started feeling pretty icky, so I got her back on the ground as soon as possible, as smoothly as possible.

Getting sick doesn't happen very often, but it does happen occasionally. Most people go for a few flights, and don't get sick anymore, so if you ever do feel nauseous in an airplane, don't let that stop you from getting back on an airplane again!!! As for that girl (I shall leave her name out, since I'm sure she wouldn't be thrilled for me to identify her as "the girl who puked in my airplane"), she got right back in the airplane the very next day, for the cross country flights. She did a GREAT job flying us to the other airport, and didn't feel one bit queasy. I suppose the point of the whole story is 1) don't let getting queasy on a flight stop you from flying again and 2) if you can, pick a nice day, with light winds for your first flight!

So here's the rundown on my students: Clint has ceased working on his instrument rating for now. It was either keep working on it, or be able to graduate, so since he's not wanting to fly for a career, I'd say that graduating was a good choice! He'll be starting his masters degree this fall, and if he wants to, he can keep working on his instrument stuff. He just doesn't have to do it for a grade. James is on vacation for a few weeks, so nothing to tell there. Andrew is making progress on his flight instructor certificate. He's got a way to go, of course, since he's only a third of the way through the course, but he's going to make a great instructor! Whoever gets to be his student will be very lucky. We've just got to work out a few minor problems, like not landing on the runway centerline. Just little stuff, because sitting on the right side of the airplane, everything looks a little different. Paul is making good headway on his commercial certificate, and should be taking a stage check this week. We've actually got to figure out what to do about him, because you're supposed to take commercial groundschool before you finish your flying. At the rate he's going though, Paul is going to finish the flying WAY before he finishes the ground course, which he's signed up for this fall. William is also making headway on his commercial certificate too. He ought to be taking a stage check this week too. Hopefully him and Paul will both still be my students this fall. I'd really like to be the one who gets to sign them off for their commercial checkrides!

For those of you who are getting to go to AirVenture this coming week... I'm jealous! Instead, I will be hanging out here in Warrensburg, flying with my students and working on lots of resumes and cover letters so I can apply for lots of jobs! I love working here at UCM, and I love my students, but working at a school in a job that's paid hourly, instead of salary, has certain drawbacks... namely the fact that every time the holidays hit, my income disappears! So I'm just getting a lot of resumes and cover letters together, and I'm sure when the right job comes along, it will all work out, but until then, where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be!