Little background on this next series of videos...
Received the following about 2 weeks ago via PM on You Tube.
This is XXXXX "Lisa" husband and was wanting to know if you would take her up with you. She is an air traffic controller at Memphis center and you have spoken in air. Its her 30th birthday January the 26th and she loves your video's. I think we will be in Tunica but nothing is set in stone. Thank you so much for your time and God bless. Jake
My response was
Sorry for the severe delay in my reply. I had my niece and nephew in
town (no parents) for the weekend and now handed them back off to the
kids (best kind of kids, returnables!)
Only the 28th would work for me since I am off every Friday, I just
can't sneak out of work on Wednesday and Thursday. If the 28th
doesn't work, then I suspect 2nd or 3rd weekend in February we can
make this happen. I really would want to make this happen, just a
matter of getting things lined up.
If 28th will work, then what I can do is check on plane availability
down here in Madison MS (near Jackson MS) as I would fly up your way
(very short 1 1/4 hour flight) to any airport you felt would work best
for you. Tunica, Olive Branch any one of those works great for me as
flight time isn't much difference from where I live. Nice things
about airplanes is distance is by the way the crow flies (straight
line), so from Jackson to Northern MS isn't that much difference in
time no matter what airport I fly into..
Subsequent emails tied up any loose ends and now yesterday...
Wow, 4.8 hours of pure ecstasy!
Flights could not have gone any better (always an exception or two)
Meet up went exactly as planned even though I was 10 minutes late due to unforecasted headwinds of 20 knots. I land, and was marshaled directly into the front of the FBO. Jake (Lisa's husband) had Lisa all confused since they were not at the flight school but in the OLV terminal but didn't let on. When I pulled up, he said come on and walked out the door. Lisa was thoroughly confused, like are we allowed to. Without missing a beat, Jake came up to the plane and said, hey I would love to peek inside. I of course said Hey Jake, and you must be Lisa. Lisa says, do I know you? I stood at attention and said, you don't recognize my voice with a huge chesire grin ear to ear. She said, say something more to help me. I replied back, ok, Good morning Memphis Center, Sundowner.... and I couldn't even get the tail number out fast enough she squealed of delight! It took 10 minutes to bring her down to earth and this is before she realized we were going flying to KTUP! Then it took another 10 minutes to bring her down to earth with this news!
We saddle up, I asked if she wanted to do the ground calls, she was too excited, so I took that. I of course on the ground gave her basic 101 flying with the controls and said once we get out of OLV and KMEM Bravo clearance, I will turn the controls over to her. She was flabergasted. Take off, get bravo clearance, turn the controls over to her and she could not stop staring at the altimeter LOL. I said, do you stare at the speedometer when she drives, she of course said no so I told her, no different than a car, glance once in awhile. We hook up with Memphis center and sure enough, we get a controller she knew. Blew her mind to outer space to the point she was shaking with joy. She said to the controller, is this (forget the name) and the controller said yes, who is this? She said, this is Lisa XXXX, and the shock of the Memphis controller was priceless I have all this recorded, so need to go through that. . I did tease her as she said "with you at 4500' and I told her, those words are not needed, after all I called in so it's implied I am with you.. LOL
The big lesson learned for Lisa is that even for basic flying, it's so much more than she expected. She missed two calls to me, and was blown away that she missed it and I caught it. Yeah, one for the home team LOL. She was amazed how much we have to listen to PLUS fly the plane. Win win situation for ATC and us pilots, no question about this as she experience every component of ATC from ground, tower to approach and center from the pilot side of the microphone.
Flight was wonderful, smooth glass air at 3500 / 4500. We get back to OLV, chatted an additonal 1/2 hour before I skitdaddled out.
Then reality hit and it got "ugly" reminding me about the benefits of NOT owning a plane. I picked up flight following with ground at OLV, assigned a code. Take off, and KMEM approach says my transponder dropped off, to recycle. This was after I was cleared into Bravo. Than I was assigned a 150 heading. Approach said, 21A I said 150 heading, it appears you are going SW. I thought WTF, how did I miss that, my DG says 150. Look at my back up, and crap, something amiss! I apologies profusely explained that I was having DG problems. I ended up using GPS tracking for my heading along with Ipad for situational awareness on the sectional. Transponder dropped off ATC scope 3 times while in Bravo.
Once I got past that, it was uneventful as it gets, but geez, DG and transponder having problems in Bravo doesn't paint a good picture.
Anyhow, great 4.8 hours, what can I say, life is good.
Oh, Iphone worked at 5000 feet so I have a video of me tracking myself on Flight Aware in the plane!
Anyhow, the above is the background. This first video is just my flight up to Olive Branch. Next video will be with the controller in the plane and I will post under this thread.
Video starts from wheels up to shut down. Ipad used for situation awareness on this IFR flight using ForeFlight program . Iphone held 3G at 5000 so I was able to track myself on flight Aware