Waaaaaaay back in 2010 I took my first flying lesson. I've always loved flying - even after the countless work-related and personal flights that I've racked up over the past quarter century. So taking that flying lesson was super exciting.
And then four years went by without another flight lesson.
Why the long lapse between my first and second lessons? Simply: Time and money. Turns out that pursuing one's pilot's license consumes lots of both.
My next few lessons were in 2014. I continued to dilly dally around taking only a few lessons for the next few years. It wasn't until 2017 that I finally decided to bite the bullet and just go for it.
And today - after a year of focusing on my goal - I was rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime experience: my first solo flight.
It was as exhilarating as you would expect. :-)
In addition to all the flight lessons that I've been taking, I also spent the last week cobbling together a gizmo (see left) that came in very handy on this special day.
What's it do? It deals with the annoying fact that Apple intentionally makes it challenging to record audio from an external source. The black iPhone-looking thing in the photo is - surprise surprise - my iPhone.
Plug an external microphone in. Nope no go.
Plug in audio from an external device like a stereo. Nice try.
Plug in audio from an aircraft's intercom... You've got to be kidding.
Nothing quite warms the heart like knowing that your $$$* iPhone refuses do something as rudimentary as recording from an external source.
Thanks to an informative video by Nick Cyganski, I was armed with the info that I needed to construct a gizmo to enable me to record the intercom audio. The first version of the gizmo (which I'll complete later) is smaller and is built to last.
The prototype version of the gizmo in the photo above is built atop a breadboard because I quickly realized that if I had foobar'ed any of the connections (especially the connections for the audio jacks), I was going to get stuck in a never-ending infinite loop where I would go back and forth between the airplane and my mad scientist lab and never quite get the connections right. Using the breadboard would enable me to rewire on the fly (err I mean on the ground) if needed.
Turns out - amazingly enough - I didn't need to do any rewiring. The gizmo worked the very first time in the plane. And because of that, I have videos - complete with audio - of my very first solo flights.
If things go as planned, I'll soon finish the first version of the gizmo. I'll show photos when it's done.
In the meantime, enjoy the videos.
Warning: As you'll soon discover, I need to rig up a better mount. The vibration during take off is annoying. That and I need to wipe the dead bugs off of the windshield.
Today was a great day. As if my first solo wasn't enough, I also got to do this. :-)
Special thanks to my flight instructor, Harry Ishikawa!
* I decided to refrain from bitching about the actual cost of the phone because I didn't want to come off sounding like it was a humble brag. Suffice it to say it's an iPhone X, so it's stupid expensive.
And then four years went by without another flight lesson.
Why the long lapse between my first and second lessons? Simply: Time and money. Turns out that pursuing one's pilot's license consumes lots of both.
My next few lessons were in 2014. I continued to dilly dally around taking only a few lessons for the next few years. It wasn't until 2017 that I finally decided to bite the bullet and just go for it.
And today - after a year of focusing on my goal - I was rewarded with a once-in-a-lifetime experience: my first solo flight.
It was as exhilarating as you would expect. :-)
What's it do? It deals with the annoying fact that Apple intentionally makes it challenging to record audio from an external source. The black iPhone-looking thing in the photo is - surprise surprise - my iPhone.
Plug an external microphone in. Nope no go.
Plug in audio from an external device like a stereo. Nice try.
Plug in audio from an aircraft's intercom... You've got to be kidding.
Nothing quite warms the heart like knowing that your $$$* iPhone refuses do something as rudimentary as recording from an external source.
Thanks to an informative video by Nick Cyganski, I was armed with the info that I needed to construct a gizmo to enable me to record the intercom audio. The first version of the gizmo (which I'll complete later) is smaller and is built to last.
The prototype version of the gizmo in the photo above is built atop a breadboard because I quickly realized that if I had foobar'ed any of the connections (especially the connections for the audio jacks), I was going to get stuck in a never-ending infinite loop where I would go back and forth between the airplane and my mad scientist lab and never quite get the connections right. Using the breadboard would enable me to rewire on the fly (err I mean on the ground) if needed.
Turns out - amazingly enough - I didn't need to do any rewiring. The gizmo worked the very first time in the plane. And because of that, I have videos - complete with audio - of my very first solo flights.
If things go as planned, I'll soon finish the first version of the gizmo. I'll show photos when it's done.
In the meantime, enjoy the videos.
Warning: As you'll soon discover, I need to rig up a better mount. The vibration during take off is annoying. That and I need to wipe the dead bugs off of the windshield.
Today was a great day. As if my first solo wasn't enough, I also got to do this. :-)
Special thanks to my flight instructor, Harry Ishikawa!
* I decided to refrain from bitching about the actual cost of the phone because I didn't want to come off sounding like it was a humble brag. Suffice it to say it's an iPhone X, so it's stupid expensive.
