Flying!!!

My new favorite hobby... flying!! Right.. like I can call it  a hobby- BUT- if I could, I would!!! I was blessed with the opportunity to actually fly with Aunt Martha and her friend Bob. He owns two different planes and said as long as we pay for the gas he would take us whenever we could go! The plane we took was a three seater (maybe four but he had a big tote sitting in the seat..,not sure if it's made for 3 or 4) that is used for longer distances.  The other plane he does acrobatics in- complete flips in the air.  It's a two seater and I plan to go up again sometime before I leave!! Here are some pictures- you have know that the pictures do NOT do any of the views any kind of justice.. I tried to get some good shots but you will all have to go up for yourself to really see the beauty!

Bob said he had to do a walk around and look at the plane.. so I said- "ok"... and watched him- and then he said, well come on!! You can't fly the plane if you don't know what the engine looks like! So... we walked all the way around and he showed me what to look for before take-off.  Don't ask me to repeat everything.. :-)

Every plane has a number. All of the planes in the United States start with the letter N.  This is how they keep track of what plane belongs where.

It looks like a toy in the this picture.

My seat. I could fly the plane from my seat and so could Bob.  We both had the handle and the pedals.  Most of the gauges were on his side, but we were sitting shoulder to shoulder so I learned a lot!



 We all wore the headsets to talk to each other. One of the most interesting things was to listen to the radio- and the communication between the towers and all of the planes.  We could hear the big jets bringing in tourists and I thought that was amazing. Bob said that is the hardest part of learning to fly, knowing when and how to communicate with the towers. Obviously its a huge job.. staying out of the way of a jet is a big deal that they don't take lightly, even for the "toy planes"! :-)  You don't realize how many planes are in the sky until you're up there flying with them. We flew out of the Las Vegas North airport and flew over the strip, which included the heavy traffic from McCarran.

The strip as we were just taking off gaining altitude.

The Stratosphere. It all looked so small from the air.

Just getting to Lake Mead. Gorgeous.

Not clear at all but it shows us coming up on the Hoover Dam.

Flying over the Hoover Dam.

I love this picture...

After flying over the Hoover Dam and a lot of Lake Mead we landed at The Temple Bar Airstrip. It's a very remote area. We called on the radio and asked for a shuttle service to have breakfast at the Temple Bar.

This is the shuttle they sent us. An old van.. I loved it. We tied up the plane and headed to the bar. The breakfast was great.

After breakfast at the airstrip with Lake Mead behind us.

There was a major difference in the color of the water from Lake Mead to the river. It turned from an aqua like blue to the mucky brownish color.




The edge of the Grand Canyon. They have a lot of flying restrictions when it comes to actually flying over the Canyon in a plane.  I guess it is different in a helicopter.


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OK... so I look like a dork in the picture- but it's because I was SO nervous. This is where I actually took over and "flew" the plane. I have no idea how Aunt Martha can look so relaxed!! Bob told me to put my feet on the pedals and grab onto the handles..so I did. He let go of his side and the plane started turning to the left.. apparently I was putting more weight on my left foot, which makes the plane turn. I evened it out and we were ok... He showed me what most of the gauges mean, where he wanted them, and I took it from there.  The handles turn left and right, push in, and pull out. When you push them in you drop in elevation and of course as you pull them out you gain elevation. Apparently I was nervous and pulling back on them more than I thought I was because at one point we looked and I had made us gain almost a thousand feet in elevation.  Bob said, no problem, I'll fix that and pushed them in and we dropped- fast!! It was a very fun experience!!

Me "controlling" the plane. See my white knuckles?

Bob taking a nap... :-)

The Las Vegas Speedway

The views of the valley with the snow capped mountains around it was breathtaking.

Aunt Martha is on the Air Search and Rescue team- so she is used to flying. She recorded a bunch of stats throughout our flight.. which I guess is what they do for every flight. She's pretty awesome like that!

Overall the flight was amazing. I am so thankful I had the opportunity to do this. The views were gorgeous, and the experience in itself was amazing!!