First flight!

19/6/2012

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So the day finally arrived!

I met up at Helsinki Malmi airport at around 16:00 to start the briefing. Since it was my very first flight we did some extra briefing. Sadly it was raining and it looked really dark for the flight, however the weather was improving. After around 1,5h of briefing and checking the weather as well as filing the flightplan, we were ready and it looked like we could fly. The plane I'm flying in the beginning is the two-seater Diamond DA-20 C1.

We moved to the hangar to do some of the walk-around checks and then we pulled the plane out for the rest of them. The weather was much better now! We got seated, wen't through the checklists and started the plane. The instructor handled the ATC communication and taxied the plane. I was trying the brakes on the taxiway, but the instructor taxied the plane like I already said and took off. He flew the plane out of the aerodrome area and towards our reporting point called "DEGER". We were cleared 1300 feet and below. It was pretty turbulent! He was flying but I had the hand on the stick to feel the movements. When we reached DEGER, it was my controls and we did a lot of turn practicing around the highway to Porvoo and over the archipelago. After hearing "your controls" - the word to switch person flying the plane I just had an amazing feeling flying the plane. I was flying again! We didn't fly all the way to Porvoo, after some time we headed back to the airport. I just loved to fly again! It was almost one year since last time I had the controls of a GA plane. The DA-20 (C1) was pretty easy to control even though it was very turbulent!

We then headed back from flying over the archipalego via a refinery and then via the Helsinki-Porvoo highway back to Helsinki Malmi airport. I flew the plane most of the time until we were really close to the airport, then the instructor took over the controls and landed.

After landing and taxiing to hangar we shutted down the plane and wen't through the checklists. The time the plane was in the air was 26 mins. and the block-time, the time including taxiing etc. was 33 mins. In other words a very short flight, but it wasn't supposed to be much longer anyway. What made it a little shorter was the delays because of the weather and that the ATC service closed at 19:00.

I can barely wait for my next flight, the 27th of June! Here are some pictures:

Me in front of the plane before departure (windy!)
Me flying!
Thumbs up!
The instrument panel, after landing
Stay tuned!

Helge
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    Helge Sakkestad

    Welcome to my road-to-PPL blog! First of all, PPL means Private Pilot License for all of you who didn't knew. Second, the language of the blog will be English because of the various nationalities of my friends and readers.

    My name is Helge, and I'm 16 years old. I'm from Norway but I have been living in Finland for about five years. I don't speak Finnish so I do my training in English. Thankfully my flight school is very professional in English. I have been dreaming about flying for a long time! I always enjoyed flying (as a passenger) when I was a little kid, and after I tried Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 in 2004 I became even more interested. In 2006 many happenings became the start of my huge interest for aviation, and I started to fly FS again after a break caused by the fact that the simulator had some error and was unable to start. I managed to fix it but before that I had already purchased FS98 and FS2002 in the summer. I started to fly more advanced planes in Flight Simulator, and I learned many, many aircraft types so I could recognize the airplanes I saw. Some time after I moved to Finland I really wanted to start flying in a way or another. I was much into ultralights and gliders from time to time, as well as considering PPL. In 2010 I bought the Norwegian "ultralight pack" with theory books because they are the same that is used for PPL training, just a few less books.
    After flying a glider in 2010 I really wanted to start flying gliders but I realized that PPL would be the smartest as my goal is to become a commercial pilot one day, and I always dreamed to fly over my house etc, something that would be impossible in a glider. Also, the PPL hours counts in a totally different way than the hours from gliders and ultralights. But it has its price.

    In December 2011 I was in contact with the flight school, Aeropole, and we agreed to start the theoretical course, shortly followed by the practical course in January 2012. In other words, I started officially with my PPL in January 2012 when the contracts was signed.

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