It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's DAVE!

Well, today was the big day... my first ride in the mighty T-34C! We had massive thunderstorms rolling through all day yesterday, all night, and into the morning today, but just before I left for my brief this morning, the rain stopped, the clouds broke, and everyone and their dog at Whiting Field made a mad dash for the flight line to go fly. My brief ended up being delayed by about an hour while I waited for my onwing to get back from his previous flight. But I had a good brief and we went out to fire up our plane.

The flight went about as well as it could be expected to go. It was quite a rush to go zooming past puffy clouds at an effortless 170 knots. We flew around the practice area above and around the clouds, checking out important and defining landmarks below while we practice some turns and stalls. My airwork was far from perfect, but I actually got above the course standards on several maneuvers.

I got a little woozy doing some of the airwork, but after a few minutes on oxygen and a sip of water I was feeling better. When we went back down low for the trip home, though, we got down into some bumpy air again, and I really started feeling it. I didn't throw up, but what happened counts as "passive" airsickness. By the time we landed, I'd pretty much drained our oxygen bottle. But that little thing got me home without seeing my lunch again, so it's the hero of the day in my book. I'm sure I'll be fine once I acclimate, probably with just another flight or two.

The T-34 is really a fun little airplane. It's very responsive, but also quite stable and I don't think I'll have much trouble at all getting it to fly just how I want it to on future flights. It's basically a 4,400-lb. Beechcraft Bonanza with a 425-hp. engine on the front of it. And for the next six months, it's my office.