Flying: Pleasant and Pressing Parts

On Wednesday I flew for the first time with a passenger who was not a pilot! I took my dad out for a flight to Frankfort, Georgetown, Madison IN, and then back to Clarksville and Bowman field. This course has become somewhat regular for me so it was nice to fly into places that I knew especially with a passenger. My dad loved it though and was completely calm/ didn’t worry about a thing which was helpful. I even let him taxi a bit. On our way from Georgetown to Madison, I was communicating with Louisville Approach for flight following (where they follow you and tell you if there is any traffic in your area and just keep tabs on you till you get near you destination). As I got farther away from Louisville towards Madison, IN they were having trouble hearing me for some reason. I fiddled with the volume and some of the communication buttons to try and make it better but at that point I was close enough to Madison they terminated the radar service and I just went on my way. However, then the communication between my dad and I in the airplane cut out and we could not hear each other. I also couldn’t hear myself through my head phones. I continued to broadcast my position and landed at Madison airport.

We stopped and I asked the people at the desk there about the radios. Fortunately, they could hear me fine. I then called my instructor to see what I should do and he advised me that sometimes the Unicom frequency switch gets turned off or something like that. We got back in the plane and fixed the problem and were off again. After taking off I did a quick radio check and all systems were go! We cruised on over to Clarksville (just 26 miles south ~15 min), got fuel, and then hopped over to Bowman. It was quite an experience to have a passenger and have radio trouble (which I never had had before). But I just trusted that we could get to the airport safely and figure out the problem from there. In a way it was good to have something go wrong so that I could learn what to do and what not to do. God tests our faith this way- in tough situations we need to immediately turn to Him and not get bogged down by failure or frustration but to work things out and trust God to keep us safe and to help us through things by giving us clear minds to work through the task at hand.

Fly with Christ,

Helen