Spring has still not sprung

This picture perfectly describes how we've been feeling lately. We're starting to wonder if spring will ever get here. It just doesn't seem right to be building snowmen in the middle of April. The weather has been wreaking havoc on the flight schedule and it has had all of us feeling a little gray. Gray, gray, gray. Where are you sun?

A Kodiak on the airfield

I’ve been able to have my first flight in a Kodiak! It is the new missions airplane that NTMA is moving to in order to meet the future needs of our missionaries. The Spokane Turbine Center is a non-profit company that is hoping to train missionary pilots in the airplane so each mission doesn’t have to keep one in the States to train their pilots. It’s a pretty expensive machine and costs a lot to operate so it would save a lot of resources to have one cooperative training center. STC will have two simulators and one airplane in a hangar right next door to Moody’s. It’s a really stable and easy to fly plane, but has very advanced computer instrument and navigation systems that will take a bit of getting used to.

p.s. - the shirt matching the Kodiak was a complete coincidence!

March Update

A slow start

The students are all back in school, but we’re off to a bit of a slow start. The first part of the semester was meant to finish up some of the training that the weather didn’t allow us to do before winter. This included tail wheel training for several students, a few flights at night, and some flying in the airplane with retractable landing gear.

We started flying the tail wheel airplane, a two seat Decathlon, but after a few days of feeling pretty bad by the last flight I put a Carbon Monoxide detector in the plane. Turns out it was bringing quite a bit of Carbon Monoxide into the cabin. Usually this would be caused by a problem in the heating system, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. The mechanics are trying to make sure the engine compartment and cabin are properly sealed off, hopefully it will be ready to go on Monday

The weather is still a bit of a factor so we haven’t been able to get too many night flights done. Cold night temperatures and cloudy/rainy/foggy weather don’t make for great flying conditions for a small airplane. We have had a few nights with scattered high clouds so we take advantage of those.

Moody bought a used C-182 RG for retractable landing gear training, but it needed a new engine installed before we started training students in it (they got a good price for it since the engine had so many hours on it). That work should be done soon and hopefully by the end of next week we’ll be flying it.

In the mean time we’re working with the student’s on their commercial pilot ground school. There’s a lot of information to be learned for their check ride later this semester. They are also involved in the maintenance projects in the hangar, I’ve been turning a wrench a bit too!

My first loop!

Last week Moody hosted a two day flying safety seminar. One of the speakers was Clarke McNease from APS Emergency Maneuver Training in Phoenix. He taught for about 4 hours on “upset recovery”, which is essentially how to control the airplane in unusual situations. I was able to do 2 flights with him to put some of his techniques into practice. We would turn the airplane upside down and descending toward the ground and I would roll it upright and climb back away from the ground (we were really high up and never got anywhere near the ground). We also did some aerobatics to learn what the airplane can do and be more confident in it. It was a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity! Moody is considering bringing some of the training into the curriculum and if they do I’m hoping I can be part of that and spend more time with Clarke to be able to teach the material myself.

March 11th - Celebrating 8

"Where there is love there is a light that cannot be described,
a circle that cannot be broken,
a joy that cannot be surpassed.
For where there is love
there is God"

Wow! Thank you Lord for the eight years of my life spent with this amazing man. It is hard to believe the journey we have been on in those eight short years!

Jas and I were trying to remember where we spent our eight anniversaries....

1. A weekend at my aunts' beautiful cabin in Christopher Creek. We even were surprised with snow.

2. We were somewhere in Baker City, OR in the first stage of training, but we can't quite remember what we did for our special day!

3. Mirielle came a month before our our 3rd anniversary. We splurged and went to Houstons in Scottsdale, (my mouth is watering just thinking about it) and left Mirielle with Grandma and Grandpa. I remember that I couldn't find any clothes that fit to wear out for a special night.

4. We had arrived in the Philippines the month before. I think that we went out to the one special restaurant in town?? Not really quite sure.

5. I had been as sick as a dog and in the beginning of my pregnancy with Kellan. Our friends brought over Chow King (fairly mediocre Filipino Chinese food) since I was actually having a day that I could get out of bed. We realized during the middle of dinner that it was our anniversary.

6. We spent our special 6th anniversary with our friends the Barkmans on a 6+ hour van ride to our flight base on the northern island for a field safety seminar. We did have the special treat of stopping at McDonalds for lunch (and yes, it was a special treat to be able to go to McDonalds).

7. We have absolutely no recollection of what we did last year for our anniversary. Everything from last spring is a bluuurrrrrrr.

8. This year we probably wont forget because we had an unresolved discussion from the night before...... Need I say more??

As you can tell, we're really big on romance. HaHa!! I'm thinking that we need to start saving up our pennies for our 10th anniversary. I think that doing something special would be well deserved!