Cruising and flying. 53l gas for 260km (not in the airplane…). Finally found a house.

Wow. I just sat down since it felt like I actually needed to post an update again. And guess what – it has been ten days already since the last time. Just realised how time is flying here. It’s quite shocking – in New Zealand I would have walked 300km in this time and probably seen a lot of different landscape…

But here, time almost flies like in a normal “life” again. The last days have been awful busy though. Everything had to be done parallel – flight training, ground school and the first two exams, the search for the house and unfortunately I also had to move five more times in the last ten days – that didn’t help. It’s amazing – you hit the city and you get sucked into the all day problems and hassles. Sometimes I wish myself back into my tent… I urgently have to go back to nature soon! At least the beard doesn’t stop growing. Even though I decided to get it trimmed a little bit after I saw this picture… ?

But there are also really cool and exiting things happening. The “VBB” (Vancouver Bearded Brothers) have finally found a hipster house to stay. Right in the hotspot of Vancouver “Kitsilano” – downtown and close to the beach. It’s a 100 year old house with a nice wooden floor and has charm. We also have a cool garden – so almost back to my old life… ?

We’ll move 1st August. That will free a lot of time. Have spent hours on craigslist to find used furniture during the last days. Saturday we have a 16ft truck to pick up all the stuff across town. Really looking forward to move together with Arno and Sam. The “bros” are really cool and we share a lot of interests as cooking, fitness, outdoors and more. So it will be a very good and pushing environment to make most of Vancouver and the summer during the next month. Can’t wait to put the guys in a plane and fly around the Rockies and Vancouver’s surroundings soon…

My new toy is of course also great fun. I enjoy the rides around town and to the airport. How will I ever be able to drive a reasonable car in the future? The sound is just frikin awesome. Can’t help it – sometimes I just have to hit the gas pedal full force to get this deep grumbling sound… ?

Invested three hours in cleaning. Now she almost looks new again, smells amazing, the leather seats are shiny again and is good to go for the summer. The first reality check was a real one though – 53l gas for 260km. Efficiency pure! Rock on ?

I was also reminded twice last week on my history… Once on my way to my airport and once in the Airbnb – how did that thing get here???

But now the real fun part – FLYING! I really enjoy this part. I am out at the airport almost every day flying and practising. My instructor is satisfied with my progress and I am just having a lot of fun. Even though I have to say that I still have a lot of respect. I wouldn’t call it scared but a decent portion of respect. Especially after we did practise recoveries from some of the things that can happen – stalls, spins and spiral dives. Stalling a plane is actually really easy but fortunately the recovery is not to difficult either. But the first time we did spins I almost shi* in my pants. You pull the aircraft up quickly until it stalls and at the same time you hit full rudder – the consequence is that the plane stalls, falls over and backwards to one side and then just spins downwards with the nose down ? If you are used to flying with commercial aircrafts manoeuvres like this feel completely wrong! And when Sergi told me that we’ll do spins tomorrow I have to admit – I had a slight feeling of discomfort. The first spin was also really scary – especially in the Citabria since Sergi sitting behind me and I can’t see him. But once I did it for the first time and actually saw that the recovery procedures work and it is not difficult to recover the plane it was fun – we did quite a few afterwards… ?

In the last days I put a lot of focus on my landings. I still had a few to many bad landings where I had to overshoot and do it again. That had to improve before my first solo flight. But today was a good day. I did two hours of circuits with many different types of landings – slow landings, soft landings and normal ones. Feeling better now and I have the feeling that I know get the hang of the end part of the flare…

I also bought a GoPro yesterday when I saw that there was a pre-installed mount for it in the cockpit. Gave it a first try today and it is actually really cool. Now I just have to figure out better how the camera works and then I’ll take you on one of my next flights ?

But flying of course is not only spins and fun. It also requires a decent amount of theory and work. The fun part is – I am really enjoying it. Even though I did not have as much time as I wanted during the last days it is just great to sit down and learn again. First time since university I guess. But it’s amazing how easy it goes if you are interested in a topic. Maybe because I am generally interested in physics, navigation, etc. or maybe as well because I am doing something jus for fun and because I am enjoying it. But it’s amazing how easy it goes an how I actually crave to continue reading about the background. Something to remember for a possible future job – if you really like it, it’s going to be a lot easier…

I also had to do my first two exams: the so called PSTAR which is a test of flying basics, aviation law, procedures, radio calls, etc and my radio licence. Good as gold!

I am all cleared for my first solo flight. If everything works out it might even be tomorrow, already!

Looking forward to the weekend as well now. I have three friends coming over and one of them will also bring my loved and missed golf clubs. Finally! We’ll go out to Fury Creek, take out the beast and play some nice golf (hopefully… ?). Looking forward to participate a little bit more in the Vancouver city and outdoor life once the housing thing is sorted out…