Log entry one.

Log entry's will be my way of trying to keep the blog interesting by giving a brief overview of my recent flights.
The flight today was my second with my new instructor. Our goal was to Fly an ILS and VOR partial panel and finish things off with a GPS approach. things started fairly well with my trip to the airport. I got authorized for the flight and was dispatched a 172. I preflighted the aircraft and waited for my instructor. The forecast had been for 8,000ft cloud ceilings and 10 miles visibility at our departure airport (KBTL). Once in the aircraft we received the ATIS and found that the clouds had dropped to 3,200ft but this was still good enough to conduct the approaches under VFR flight rules. The winds however were directly from the east and KBTL was using runway 05 and nearby KAZO was using runway 17. This meant that we would be unable to fly an ILS so we decided to start with a VOR approach. While being vectored to the VOR 05 into BTL however we encountered extremely low visibility and had to request an early vector to the final approach course. Due to the unexpected weather we were unable to conduct the other approaches using partial panel (due to being required to maintain VFR while simulating Partial Panel) we told tower that we would be making a full stop approach and landing and returned to BTL where i made a soft but relatively flat landing. After this we debriefed the flight and will attempt to finish our objectives on our flight tomorrow.

Learning to fly!

This is a post that outlines my experience earning my private pilots license.
first edition.

I was attending a community college trying to save enough money to attend a four year school and fulfill my dream of someday becoming a professional pilot. I had dreamed of being a pilot for as long as i can remember, and i had finally come to a point in my life where i could remotely justify the cost of learning to fly. By getting my private pilots license at an FBO or at a flying club i found that i could save several thousand dollars. So my first step was to find a flight school.
Finding a flight school proved both more difficult and simpler than i had ever imagined. It started with a trip to the local airport, and ended with three. The first and second airports i decided were not good fits. And i made my decision to learn to fly at South Bend Regional Airport in South Bend Indiana. A decision that i am quite pleased with. At the time the Wings flying club had three Cessna 172's and a 150. I trained in the 172's but did get the chance to fly in the 150.
Of all the flight schools clubs and FBO's i have found i think i made a pretty good decision. Though i don't often get to fly the old birds much in South Bend any more the combinations of people and stories have made my experiences in South Bend truly memorable. I would suggest to anyone thinking of learning to fly the first thing to look for in a flight training is an open environment where you are able and encouraged to interact with a variety other pilots to learn from and to look to for encouragement. This is second only to flying properly maintained though not necessarily new looking or even decent looking aircraft. In short safety, safety, safety.

IFR

Just in case anyone reads this and cares. I am in the finishing stages of my instrument rating at Western Michigan University. I have also just had to switch to yet another new flight instructor. So due to our less that ideal scheduling i was without an instructor for several days. However things have started moving along again and I am looking forward to flying as an IFR pilot. If the weather holds up i should get a chance to test my IFR skills in the Chicken Hawk. It may not be fast, it may not be sexy, it may not be low time, clean, or totally reliable, but it is the only plane that we are able to do IFR training in until "Fall of some year" when we get the simulators for our new Cirrus fleet. Ill try and update again soon. PS. my flight to Goshen is still a dream due to my crazy flight schedule.