Yesterday [September 3rd, 2008] was a very special day for me. I made my first flight at OATC and logged my first flight hour!

I was scheduled to fly on aircraft CS-DPD, a C152. Our Estimated Time for Departure was 09.00 LT. Since this was my first flight, the instructor – António Teves, a fellow Azorean – met me at the control tower to show me where I could see the weather forecast and NOTAM’s and also explain to me how I should fill the flight warning so that ATC from Cascais knew what we would be doing.

As soon as we got to the other side of the airfield we both checked to see if all the airplane’s documentation was valid. As soon as we were done with that we were advised that we wouldn’t be flying CS-DPD but CS-AYG instead. After having reviewed all the documentation for our new airplane we headed out to the aircraft.

I performed the walk around to check the aircraft’s general condition, fuel onboard, etc with the instructor explaining what I should be looking for.

The start up was made by the instructor while I followed what he was doing.

(After start up)

While taxiing to the holding point of runway 35, we performed some more checks to see if all was working properly and then we waited for our turn to take off.

(Crossing runway 35/17)

As soon as the landing traffic vacated the runway we were instructed to perform an immediate take-off because of another aircraft on final (Cascais has about 90.000 aircraft movements per year, making it the second busiest airfield in Portugal) . Once again it was the instructor who was at the controls but I kept my hands on the yoke and feet on the pedals until we reached our rotation speed at 55 kts, time at which the instructor handed me the controls and told me to rotate the airplane. I struggled a bit to keep the aircraft on the runway heading after departure and when I finally had it under control we had an engine failure… It was just the instructor who had taken all the power off the aircraft, forcing me to start gliding down to the runway still below us. I remained calm but that was really unexpected!

During this first flight I was also shown the work areas, where student pilots go to train – this is actually one the main purposes of the first flight. While we were in one of the work zones, the instructor took control of the aircraft and flew some awesome maneuvers. Really exciting stuff!

After that, I had control of the aircraft again and we flew to Bravo point to start our approach to the runway.

As we flew on the left base leg for runway 35, a red Extra 300 took off, climbed almost vertically and joined the left downwind of runway 35 as well. We jingled the cessna’s wing to see if the guy in the extra did some acrobatics but I guess he didn’t notice. Too bad

(The same Extra getting ready for another flight a couple of hours later)

Just like as when we took off, both me and the instructor flew the airplane to the ground. I thought we were much higher and if Teves hadn’t pulled a bit on the yoke I would have made a bit of a hard landing but fortunately it was ok.

We left the runway and I taxied the aircraft to the same apron we had left one hour before.

The night before I was so anxious that I couldn’t sleep but I was so excited with this first flight that I was full of energy as soon as I started driving to the airfield. It was really fun and I am eager for the next flight, which will be really soon!

(Checking the fuel quantity after the flight)

Many thanks to André Garcez for the photos!

Thanks for reading.