My first solo flight

On Friday, October 23 a lifelong dream of flying a plane alone came true. I had my first solo flight. Since Monday, I've been working towards getting my private pilots license. The first major milestone on this journey is flying solo.

And I did that on Friday. My flying instructor Eric and I started early morning on Friday to fly to Henderson, a towered airport in Las Vegas, a few miles away from Las Vegas'  McCarran International Airport.

The FAA requirements for a private pilot license needs 3 solo landings at a towered airport and the closest towered airport to St. George, Utah where I was doing my training was Henderson.

We arrived here at around 12 in the afternoon and had lunch at the airport restaurant. While walking towards the terminal building, we met a few people and realized that there was an accident a couple of hours ago, a mid air collision. One plane made it back to Henderson, and the other made an emergency landing on a dry lake. Not a good omen to start with.

I wasn't too hungry as I had butterflies in my stomach. It all depended on how well I did, whether Eric would allow me to solo. It was a big decision as he was putting his CFI license, his plane, the airport and least of all my life on the line when he signed me off to solo.

We went around the pattern practicing landings and I wasn't doing too well. Some people are born to fly. Some aren't. I was in the latter category. I'm still figuring out what I'm naturally good at. So far I haven't found it. But not having talent has not stopped me earlier and I wasn't about to allow it to stop me this time. I worked hard, did my best and tried to compensate for my lack of talent in other ways, like following a structured and consistent process.

Finally at 1700, Eric said, give me 3 more good landings and I'll allow you to solo. Somehow I managed to pull off 3 decent landings and Eric allowed me to solo. He signed off my logbook, took his radio and walked to the side, so I could takeoff and land.

I was nervous. So nervous that I switched the radio to mute, and could not hear the tower respond to my request for taxiing. Finally I gestured to Eric to come over and he came and corrected my stupidity. I feared he may change his mind about whether I was ready. Luckily he didn't and let me go ahead.

"Henderson Tower, Sky Hawk One Seven Two Charlie Bravo, request taxi to active with Papa", my first nervous words as a single pilot. "One Seven Two Charlie Bravo, taxi to Runway Three Five Left." I repeated the instructions and started taxiing to Runway 35L.

Holding short, I went through my checklist and made my call "Henderson Tower, Sky Hawk One Seven Two Charlie Bravo, holding short Runway Three Five Left, ready for takeoff, request closed traffic". I got the clearance, "172 CB, cleared for takeoff, left closed traffic.".

With sweat on my brow, I started my taxing, lined up, put the throttle to full, and away I went. I rotated at 60 knots and I was airborne. Once that hapenned, it became progressively easier. I made my 3 landings comfortably and picked up Eric, who was relieved that I had survived, and more importantly his plane was intact, to fly another day.

Dear Future Me

A couple of years ago when Reia and I were chatting I wondered about a website or service that would allow us to write to our future selves. I was thinking in terms of reminding ourselves of commitments we make to do things in the future and have us receive those commitments at a future time. So we could reflect on what we have or have not done.

A few days ago, Reia sent me the site that does this. And they explain what they do far better than I ever could.


"
What is this?

Usually, it's the future that will reflect back on the present. We decided to flip that around.

So send your future self some words of inspiration. Or maybe a swift kick in the pants. Or just share some thoughts on where you'll or what you'll be up to in a year, three years...more? And then we'll do some time travel magic and deliver the letter to you. FutureYou, that is.

Getting a surprise from the past is actually kind of an amazing thing - just check out all the people on Twitter and Facebook that agree.

FutureMe.org is based on the principle that memories are less accurate than e-mails. And we strive for accuracy.
"

https://www.futureme.org/


You should check it out and send yourselves a few mails in the future. I did.

Lesson learnt from a Mumbai street cleaner

Earlier this week I had an interesting and unbelievable experience. Ivy dropped me for a client meeting at Nariman Point in South Mumbai at around 8.30. At that point of time it had very few people and the City Workers were cleaning the streets.

As I said Bye, I realized that I did not have my wallet. I immediately assumed that I must have left it at home. I asked Ivy for some money, so I could get back to office.

At that time, one of the cleaning workers walked up to me and checked, "Kya yeh aap ka hai". (Is this yours ?"). He was holding my wallet. You could clearly see a reasonably large amount of money. I said Yes, and before I could thank him, he had walked away.

I was still kind of lost trying to fathom what just happened. What could have been a tragedy or at the very least a painful cancellation and reinstatement process since the wallet had my credit cards, drivers licenses, money, ... just became yet another normal day.

In my stupor, I walked towards my clients office. And then I realized that I had forgotten to do what matters most. Genuinely and adequately thank the folk who were responsible for making a really miserable day into an amazing one. I walked back and after some searching finally located the person who had found my wallet. After profusely thanking him, I offered him some money as a reward. He refused to take it, and said, "You have thanked me, that in itself is reward enough".

I learnt one of life's most valuable lessons. To do the right thing, without any expectations and being happy when you get a small Thank You, will make you a very happy person. After all, isn't life about being Happy.

I also learnt that those who have, want more, and those who don't are happy with the little they do have.

To Santosh and all the millions like him, Thank you for being the way you are in spite of the zillion hurdles life keeps throwing at you.

Valley of flowers

Over the last 2 days Ivy and I along with 7 of our closest family friends visited Kaas, the valley of flowers. It was beautiful. And the trip memorable. A wise songwriter once wrote, ".. a picture paints a thousand words ...". And since all of my pictures are in my head and not easily distributable, I've taken the liberty of showing a few that I found, on the net.

You should definitely consider visiting Kaas in September or October. Fore more information visit the official site:
http://www.kas.ind.in/

And for more pictures visit:
http://www.kas.ind.in/index.php/flower-gallery