First Cross-Country to KBTL

12/15/12

    Earlier this year, I attended Airventure in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Airventure is an event held every summer for aviation enthusiasts. There is much to learn and see. There are things that all ages would enjoy. If you love aviation, I advise you to go at least once. Although, once you go once, you will want to go again. 

    Western Michigan University had a tent at Airventure this past summer and I requested information about their school. Ever since I wanted to be a pilot I knew I wanted to go to Western. In the United States, the aviation program at Western is the third largest. Western's College of Aviation has many ratings you can get to become a professional pilot. There majors are Aviation Flight Science, Aviation Maintenance and Technology, and Aviation Science and Administration. They also have a program to become an air traffic controller. Anyway, once I returned home, I received information about attending an airport facility tour at the College of Aviation. I decided to take advantage of this awesome chance. 

    I scheduled the visit and then decided I wanted to fly there. I contacted Craig and he was free! The morning of the visit arrived and I arrived at the airport early as usual and began the aircraft preflight. Everything checked out OK so when Craig arrived we began our flight planning. This was my first cross-country so we used the flight planning portion as a ground lesson too! 

    After the ground lesson, we hopped in N2419L and taxiied to the end of runway 14. As we began our run-up, we found that the magnetos were faulty. The magneto in an airplane supplies an electric current to the spark plugs. After trying to fix the problem, we discovered that we could not clear the airplane for flight. We had to taxi back to the hangar. I made some phone calls and we were able to switch planes to N6998A. The run-up turned out fine and we flew to KBTL for the tour. 

    After the tour, we flew back to Jackson. The flight home was a little bumpy and rainy but we landed safe! Even though it's a couple years from now, I'm ready to be a bronco at WMU.

Check out the takeoff from JXN: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj90lW8us08