Someone at our church recently made it possible for Joseph to take his first flying lesson. We are SO grateful for the kind, generous gesture. Judging by Joseph’s excitement after the flight, this isn’t going to be his final flight.

Here are some pictures and videos that I took today.

This first picture is of Joseph and Kim as he prepares to go through the flight checklist.

Soon after, Joseph worked with his flight instructor, Gabby, to go through the pre-flight checklist. Gabby’s credentials were impressive. About 12 years ago, at 14 years of age, she broke a record by flying two planes and a helicopter all in the same day.

After checking the fuel to make certain that there were no contaminates in it, he put it back into the tank.

After completing the pre-flight checklist of outside concerns, they moved inside the plane to continue the pre-flight checklist.

Continuing the pre-flight checklist.

After completing the checklist, Joseph headed for the runway. (Click “play” to view the following video.)

After a few minutes, they took off. Joseph told us later that Gabby let him do quite a bit of navigating on the flight. He loved flying! (Click “play” to view the following video.)

While in flight, Joseph texted us to let us know what it looked like from the airplane.

After about 50 minutes in the air, Joseph came back in for a landing. Because of the danger of landing a plane, Joseph told us that Gabby took full control but allowed him to keep his hands on the yoke as long as he didn’t go against what she was doing with the yoke on her side of the plane. (Click “play” to view the following video.)

After taxing down the runway, and waiting for a couple of planes to land, they arrived back at the airport terminal. (Click “play” to view the following video.)

After exiting the plane, one of the things Joseph did was help tie the plane back down.

This final picture is of the very first entry in Joseph’s flight log book. I suspect that there will be many more entries in the years to come. (Not sure if the numbers were private so I blurred them.)

Advertisement