I’m so glad we were able to take Dunja and fam flying! We had previously planned to fly out to the river “together” (half of us on the way there, and half on the way back), but that didn’t work out, and Steven and I were a bit bummed. But then we were like, wait, flying is cool no matter what you’re doing, even if it’s just flying around the airport for 30 mins! And that’s what we did.
Thursday, August 21st
All week the weather looked great for Thursday, so we booked for Thursday morning. Then Wednesday night there was a chance of fog Thursday morning. Ha, typical.
There was no fog, thankfully. We had some low clouds but it was still MVFR (marginal visual flight rules), so we were good to go!
The day before we flew Dunja asked me what the flying process was like and if Steven would feel up to walking them through some of it. I explained the many checklists and how long it takes to get the plane ready, and that it would entirely depend on the headspace Steven was in if he wanted to take questions and talk during it.
Of course, per usual, Dunja was completely understanding about everything!
And as you can tell from the photo above, Steven did walk Nicholas through the plane inspection! I told Nicholas to get in the front seat for the first interior checklist so he could experience that too.
Flying requires knowing a lot of shit. Steven’s so good at it! I’m proud of him.
The boys went up first!
It was fun to watch them drive off the ramp, do run-up, taxi, and takeoff. I’ve never watched Steven take off before!
Dunja, Clarissa, and I sat outside and could hear the radio, so I knew when they were about to take off. Then we pulled up all the tracking apps so we could watch them. I’m pretty impressed with myself for being able to figure out what maneuvers they were doing based on the pattern and elevation I was seeing (they were doing a circle at the same elevation so I guessed they were doing steep turns, then they started to descend so I figured they were coming out of a cloud, and I was right! I explained to Dunja that it’s important to be able to do steep turns in a circle and not lose much altitude, and how it’s part of your checkride.).
(Super niche) When they landed they did a long base rather than enter midfield downwind so I prompted Dunja to ask Steven why. I was like “he’ll be so impressed you know what base and downwind are!” She’s such a good sport and asked him. Steven explained since ATC (Air Traffic Control) didn’t tell him how to enter the pattern he just did it most expeditiously.
The boys had so much fun!
Then it was our turn! We had to split up for payload reasons. Oops I forgot to lose 50 lbs this year. Maybe next year.
We flew out toward the practice area then found a big cloud opening to fly through.
We don’t do this very often (flying through cloud openings) so it feels special and fun. The plane is at a steeper angle and lower speed. You feel like Maverick. Ha ha.
We made it up and it was gorgeous to see the clouds from that perspective. It’s different from blasting through them on a commercial plane because you can level out and hang out by them (staying 2000′ away horizontally and 1000’ above).
We eventually spiraled down in another opening, which is really fun!
Then headed back!
Dunja and Clarissa clapped when we landed. It was adorable. I did my typical thing and rated the landing—9/10.
And that was that! It was so much fun to take them up and share that experience and view with them. There’s nothing like it!!! I hope we get another opportunity to take them flying in the future!
