The noseprints are still there. They're not in the way and they won't interfere with my laughable attempts at graceful landings. I am in no hurry to get out the Plexus (tm) to remove them.
From takeoff to landing of her first flight, my grandaughter looked out the side window, getting quite good at identifying features on the ground. Swimming pools were an easy catch, lots of farm buildings, and--to my surprise--a group of people on horseback. I've never noticed a feature like that.
Maybe because it takes some time for someone in the air to figure out exactly what one sees on the ground. And if a pilot spends a lot of time looking at the ground while flying, the pilot is quite likely to hit it. Landing on a runway is the ideal case; but fields, forrests, rivers, and sides of mountains represent possible, albeit less desirable, options. It has all been tried.
My granddaughter had that time to look down, though, and used it with enthusiasm. We also managed to overfly a shopping mall near us, and the Delaware river. She picked out the bridge that we cross on the way to the beach in New Jersey. The house was hard for her to find because the pool was covered, but that's OK. Hopefully she will see it next time.
My wife promoted herself from nervous passenger to aviation tour guide on this flight and helped out locating the landmarks. Having a tour guide along on an intro flight is a good addition to the do's and don'ts of intro flying, and I'm glad my wife thought of it and volunteered to do it.
After about a half hour, we asked, "Are you ready to go back?" My wife and I had promised a nervious mom that we would fly for less than an hour.
"No!"
Okay, we could fly around for a while longer. I was having fun and so was she.
The headset was a new experience for my granddaughter. I had her try it on at home as a consolation prize after a weather cancellation of a previous sight seeing trip. She thought the headset was cool and smiled, but I sensed a bit of "what's the point of this." Her younger brother, apparently unencumbered by expectations or perhaps having a more recent memory of Bee Movie, got into the headset, talking into the microphone and grinning like a, well, little kid.
When I turned on the radios and intercom after engine start, though, she got it; I looked back for the grin. And moments later, she was just using the headset like an experienced pilot, chatting away in a normal tone of voice...no big deal. She's a quick study.
I expected a reaction on take-off, but it didn't happen. But she's like that. When she's faced with something new and interesting, she focusses on it intently. That's a big change from her gregarious everyday face. And you can see it in her face. Well, I couldn't at the time, I was flying the airplane, but I have seen that contentration before. I knew the silence meant she was taking it all in.
Advice for introductory flights includes limiting turns to standard-rate. For light airplanes a standard-rate turn means it takes two minutes to complete a complete 360-degree circle while holding a bank angle of 17-18 degrees. And sure enough, standard-rate turns did not attract my granddaughter's attention. But a 30-degree bank turn, regarded in aviation as a perfectly normal turn, got attention: "Whoa!" So I now have anecdotal evidence to support the advice.
Having been rebuffed in an attempt to return to the airport, we fly on. Her new school was within the planned sight-seeing area, so I flew over to it. That school also happens to be a depot for the buses. I had some trouble finding it, but my granddaughter did not. "They look like pencils!" Yup, they do. Son of a gun. School buses do look just like yellow number-2 pencils from an airplane.
My wife also provided essential help in allowing me to deal with the airport traffic pattern on our return. The two of them had a running conversation and allowed me the priviledge of operating "sterile cockpit" during that high-workload phase of the flight.
The landing was OK. Not one of my best efforts, but good enough to avoid a "Whoa!" from the back seat.
My granddaughter hasn't talked much about a repeat trip. But I believe the seed has been planted...We'll see. Whaddya know? She left me wanting more.
