How do you fly this thing?

Ahh, good old ground school. My classes didn't differ much from the scene you see above. Well, we didn't get uniforms, and most people didn't have aviators on. The classroom was actually quite dark and dull, and the average age-range was more around 40 than 25. Come to think of it, the scene was really different from the picture above. However, I did insist that my classmates refer to me as Goose.

The purposes of ground school is to teach you the theories behind all aspects of and around aviation. We learned about a wide range of topics - mechanics, physics of flight, human factors, meteorology, navigation, air law, radios & communications, etc. I won't bore you with the details, but I'll tell you that I did enjoy ground school. If history taught me anything, it's that I'm not good at theory and studying of any kind. But I found myself picking up reading material almost any chance I had. I guess being interested in what I study is key for me.

The one negative thing I'll say about ground school is that for me, since I didn't begin taking flying lessons at the time I attended ground school (which one can do if one chooses to do so), every lesson seemed to boil down to one bottom line: the many ways in which a pilot can crash an airplane, and how to avoid this from happening.

In fact, that message was pounded home so much that by the time I took my first real flying lesson a couple of months after ground school, I'll admit that I was weary and a bit anxious of getting into the airplane. However, I trusted that as soon as the airplane would take off and we would be air-born, that all my worries would fade, and I would focus at the task at hand and enjoy my time in the air. Thankfully that's what transpired, and aside from taking off with a faulty, unlatched, opened door on my instructor's side, everything went smoothly. Eeeek. More on that in my next post.