While the week this week wasn’t particularly of note, the weekend has been great! Firstly it was Eid yesterday in Australia but a lot of the world is celebrating today. What’s it like where you’re reading this? Eid Mubarak to you if you’re celebrating!
All the calendars predicted Eid to be today here as well so I kept my schedule free for the Sunday and then had to do a last minute work reshuffle to get the morning off to go to prayer. Thankfully, a friend swapped with me last minute. It did mean I had to be on call and do an epidural blood patch, which is not a common thing at all. I suppose it helped keep my skills fresh!
In addition to Eid, Melbourne weather was super foggy this morning but cleared to a beautiful day. That meant that I FINALLY got a chance to use my booking and go on my first flight! Technically it wasn’t a formal lesson but we did go through some theory and I actually got to fly the plane.
I wish I had more photos but because the weather had been quite ordinary and was significantly better today, there was a lot of air traffic over the city so the instructor had to be on the lookout and neither of us really got a chance to take the phone out and take some photos. Better than crashing I suppose! 🤣
There were several moments of sensory overload where trying to balance moving in 3 dimensions while trying to listen to the control tower and keep the plane within the flight range was overwhelming but for a first timer, the instructor left most of the controls to me for the duration of the flight. After take off, the rest was quite smooth. Landing on the other hand, is a scary affair having to slow the engine and point the nose of the plane to the ground and pulling up in the last few moments…
Overall, it was fun yet challenging and very different to the day job. I think I will definitely pursue this as a hobby time permitting!