My first lesson

When I arrived at the Old T's on the sparsely-populated northwestern corner of Oakland International Airport, I was already 30 minutes late. After poking around the fenced off parking lot, I found no obvious building entrances, and it appeared as if I was shunted outside the tarmac without a pilot accompanying me. I was 30 minutes late partly because of a miscommunication between the BART schedule and myself, and partly because a respectably strong headwind kept my bitty little bike's top speed below 7 MPH for most of the 4+ mile bike ride from BART to the airport. I was hot, sweating, and exhausted, but at least I'm getting exercise.

Lo and behold, before I could give up all hope, up comes a truck with a woman who I would later learn is Ginny, the AAC's maintenance officer. She asks me what I'm doing, and after hearing my story, invites me into the AAC's office building on the tarmac. We found Stephen, my instructor-to-be, nowhere in sight, so it was a relief when he randomly dropped by the office and found me waiting there. He thought I had flaked out, and had canceled the lesson.

Stephen remarked that the weather was not improving. He pointed to a massive, imposing wall of clouds, a cold front moving eastward that in an hour or so would likely blanket Oakland International with cloud cover. I looked at the monstrous bank of clouds and saw the doom of my lesson.

He decided to chance it anyway and put me back on the schedule, then he gave me an introduction to the process of renting an aircraft from the AAC. He then gave me a checklist and a logbook, and we headed out to our airplane, N739UL. We walked through the exterior checklist together, as it consisted of things I had never before done (check the fuel levels and quality, check the various nuts and bolts holding key parts of the airplane together, inspect the prop and fan belt ... you get the idea ...).

Once we had sat our butts comfortably into the cockpit seats, however, it became my time to shine. As I looked out the cockpit windscreen I saw the ominous cloudbank now covering half the sky above me. Time was not on our side, but previous familiarity with the 172SP's cockpit from flight simulators allowed me to locate a majority of the switches and dials with ease, and the engine startup and cockpit checks went quickly and smoothly. That's not to say I rocketed through the checklist, either. I certainly stopped dumbfounded at some items ("where's the alternate static air switch, now?").

One lovely thrill was talking over the radio. He let me talk to ground during the taxi. It felt so profesional! I wonder if the controllers knew I was a nub. I bet they did. Still though, listening to channel 9 on the in-flight headsets of jetliners for years pays off: I had no trouble understanding the air traffic controllers.

So with the engine running, the aircraft freed from its chocks and ties, and the preflight check complete, we listened to ATIS (I set the Kollsman knob without his asking, booyeah!!) and he allowed me to get my clearance. Once I felt I was ready to brave my first comm over the radio, I gave it my best.

"Oakland ground, Skyhawk seven three niner uniform lima at the old T's, request taxi to runway three three, VFR departure to Mt. Diablo."

Okay, so I wasn't quite that good. I didn't say "Skyhawk," I just said "Cessna" (it's the difference between telling someone you own a Ford and telling them you own a Taurus), and I said "nine" instead of "niner" (what a noob mistake). But, other than that, not bad for a first.

"Cessna that just radioed in, restate your callsign."
He didn't need to tell me what to say. "Seven three niner uniform lima."
"Cessna niner uniform lima, cleared to taxi, runway 33, hold short."
Again, my response was without prompt. "Taxi to runway 33 and hold short, seven three niner uniform lima."

A bunch of other aircraft were communicating with ground. I kept my ears open, listening for my callsign, eager to prove to myself and Stephen that I could pick my messages out from the soup.

Stephen taxied the plane to start out, but allowed me to take her to the runup area, where we did our runup checks. Again, familiarity with doing runups in flight sims meant it went quickly and smoothly. On the way to runway 33, ground came over with a message for me.

"Niner uniform lima, squawk 0245." I knew exactly what this meant, and I wasn't about to let the opportunity slide! Without hesitation, I punched 0-2-4-5 into the transponder and responded over the radio. "0245 for seven three niner uniform lima." Stephen seemed pleased.

I understood the controller perfectly. Things were looking good for my future in radio communication. I was eager to talk like a jet jock for the whole flight over the radio, but unfortunately, that's not how it works. Stephen would allow me to communicate for one more step of the flight after each new lesson. So, for the first lesson, I only got the first step: clearance from ground. He would do the rest.

I then taxied to the hold-short line for runway 33. There Stephen took over, contacted tower, received takeoff clearance, and had me hold the yoke and feel the rudders, to get a sense of what control inputs are necessary to take the plane off. We accelerated down the runway and lifted into the air.

Of course, for a big jet like we all fly in, acceleration and takeoff is a monumental affair where a gigantic steel beast trundles down the runway, and makes a mathematically precise slow climb off the ground. For our bitty little 172 though, a takeoff is as casual as taking a leak. We pushed in the throttle, the plane accelerated a bit, and before I knew it we were bumping through the air, gaining altitude.

Stephen transitioned out of OAK airspace and gave me control of the aircraft, having me follow the 580 eastward over the Hayward basin. We stayed just out of Hayward and Livermore airspace where we practiced the four first maneuvers any pilot learns: straight and level flight, turns, climbs, and descents. Aside from my inability to remember to lift the wing and check for traffic before turning, I did swimmingly on all accounts. He told me most new pilots over-correct, and try to fight the turbulence, but I knew well enough to just hold the yoke steady and live with the turbulence. This was a good thing to know, too: With the wall of clouds now well over into the East Bay, the air was as choppy as can be. He told me, "you will not fly in choppier weather than this, I promise you." I was glad to hear that: any choppier and I'd need some dramamine.

Personally I felt as if my altitude control was sub-par, but Stephen didn't seem to want me adjusting the trim wheel or the throttle too much, so I just let the inaccuracies of 100-200 feet slide for now. When we finished covering the first lesson's material, he had me follow the Richmond-Fremont BART line back north to Oakland International (which kept me just west of Livermore airspace). He requested special VFR clearance direct into runway 27R (given that Oakland was now smothered in rainclouds) and assisted me as we lined up with 27R. He was pleased that I knew what a PAPI was, and I used the runway's PAPI lights to acheive the correct glideslope into the runway.

Well, I would have used the PAPI lights, but they went out halfway into the approach! Stephen raidoed to tower that the lights went out, and they confirmed the malfunction. No matter. We eyeballed the approach in. He allowed me to control the descent but took control of the aircraft for the last 20 seconds of the landing. Probably good too, as the rainclouds brought with them a strong crosswind.

After he requested clearance to taxi to Kaiser (an airport service facility), he had me taxi there, where we stopped at a fuel pump. He mentored me as I fueled the plane (something else I had no idea how to do; and indeed I got a lot of gas on the ground compared to the gas I actually managed to get into the plane), and then we got back in and started her back up. He had me do the radios for the final leg of the taxi, back to the Old T's. There we ran through the shutdown procedure, and that was my first lesson.

He mentioned a good 5 or 6 times that my skill level coming in was higher than normal, and that he was impressed, and (this is the best part) that would save me time and money as we would be able to skip more lessons. Years and years of religious devotion to flight sims pays off, folks.

Finally, Stephen gave me some quick instructions on how to get the more obscure among the things I need to bring to my next lesson: 3rd-class medical certificate and student pilot certificate, California driver's license and driving record, and birth certificate. That all needs to be done before next Thursday, since that's my next lesson (5 pm) and I only get the one flight without having produced these documents.

I rode my bike home in light rain from those rainclouds that nearly ruined the day. They didn't dampen my soaring spirits though. I had taken to the skies, controlled the plane professionally, and made a lasting impression on my instructor as someone who was serious about becoming a pilot. This is a good start.

Cost so far: $626.60
Time so far: 1 day
Hours so far: 1.0