Category: Student Members Flying

My first Flight Hours & Solo at Johnson Flight Academy!

Hey everyone! This past week, I had the opportunity to attend one of Civil Air Patrol’s most sought-after flight academies—Johnson Flight Academy—in Mattoon, Illinois. During the week, 17 other student pilots and I were paired with some of the most experienced and knowledgeable CFIs. My own CFI at the academy is currently an executive pilot out of Metro Detroit who was also a pit percussionist in DCI back when he was in high school. Below is a picture of him and me after graduation.

At the beginning of the week, we had a lot of bad weather, including a tornado warning on the first full day, so we weren’t able to fly until late on the second day, which was when I got my first lesson. Before that, my wingman and I had to learn how to preflight the aircraft along with some ground school work during the bad weather. In my first lesson, I learned how to start the engine, taxi, conduct run-up procedures, complete my first take off, and perform basic aerial maneuvers.

On the second day of flying, I got three lessons to work on steep turns, power-on stalls, power-off stalls, S-turns, utilizing the G1000 and autopilot, along with introductory pattern work. Here are some more fun photos from that day with a great view of the sunset.

Screenshot

The day after that, I did a lot more pattern work plus some refinements on my final approach, level out, and flair. I didn’t get as much time since we had to take the aircraft for an oil change for a few hours, but I still was able to get my pre-solo endorsement at around 8 hours. I even made it on the news after doing an interview with a local station; exciting stuff!

Unfortunately, we only had one more day for flying since bad weather was rolling back in, so I had to pack in a lot more time in the pattern to work more on smoothing out my landings. At the end of the day after finishing a few more patterns, my instructor hopped out of the 172 on the ramp and told me to go do it again without him. He signed my log book with my solo endorsement at 10 flight hours and I was on my way for one last pattern for the week, this time on my own. I am very excited to say that my solo went amazing and that my instructor got a great video of my takeoff and landing. There’s also a video of me getting soaked by my fellow peers!

It was an amazing week thanks to the outstanding instructors, staff, and our hosts at Coles County Airport. I’ve got a few more pictures from our graduation ceremony at the end of the week.

A Warm Welcome from FMA & My USAFA Summer Seminar Experience

Hey everyone! I just wanted to give a huge thank you to Mr. Zapp and all of FMA’s sponsors for providing such an amazing welcome package for the Solo Award program. I’m so excited to put everything in there to use, from the flight bag to all the flight planning tools and study materials. I’m so blessed to have all of the support not only from the sponsors, but also from Mr. Zapp and Mr. Knight as amazing mentors. Also, a big thanks to Gleim for the FAA knowledge exam study materials and the navigational tools. Thanks again to all the sponsors, especially the following: Aircraft Spruce & Specialty, AOPA – Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, AviNation, Banterra Aircraft Fiancing, Bose Corporation, Cirrus Aircraft, Flying Eyes Optics, Gleim Aviation, Hartzell Propeller, Honda Power Equipment, Seaplane Pilots Association, Sporty’s Pilot Shop, and Voyage Air Guitars!

This past week, I traveled to Colorado Springs, CO, and had the amazing opportunity to participate in the U.S. Air Force Academy’s Summer Seminar program. I was in Bravo flight with 38 other rising high school seniors. In the flight, I got to be the Guidon Bearer to help guide the flight in drill and some chants. At the end of the week, we were awarded the best flight for falcon/team spirit!

It was a phenomenal experience being able to stay on the beautiful campus, participate in multiple leadership and team building activities, along with tours and presentations some of the academics majors, cadet clubs, and the three main aviation programs. I also enjoyed getting to learn more about the drum and bugle corps club in addition to the cadet led ensembles at USAFA. Getting to talk with multiple cadets there was very valuable for me as I got to see and hear how rewarding USAFA has been for them. I’m really hoping I’ll earn an appointment to the Academy in this next year to pursue my aviation and musical dreams. Here are a few photos of my time there at USAFA:

Hey Everyone! – Who I am

First of all, I’d like to thank the selection board and Mr. Zapp for the honor of this solo award. I cannot wait to use all this support to continue my ground school training and begin my flight lessons this summer. I’d also like to thank Mr. Knight for taking his time to mentor me as I start my flight training.

About Me

My name is Cameron Milleman and I am a Junior at Burris Laboratory School. I first got interested into flying through my uncle who is a pilot for Southwest Airlines. Later on when I was 11 years old I got introduced to Civil Air Patrol which I joined a year later. Civil Air Patrol really helped me to find in my love for the skies through my 5 orientation flights and an in-depth ground school/simulator course. After earning the Carl A. Spaatz Award and leading Indiana Wing’s Government Relations Program, I began striving to earn my private pilot’s license through Civil Air Patrol’s Cadet Wings program before I graduate high school.

Moving towards my musical experience, I started playing piano at the age of 5 with my brother then I picked up violin in 1st grade then eventually trumpet in 4th grade. After picking up trumpet, it became my primary focus for my musical education. In my time playing trumpet, I have earned two gold medals at State Solo and Ensemble, been selected for IMEA honor band twice, participated in two years of Junior All State band, and recently I started teaching trumpet lessons. This past month, my high school’s advanced wind ensemble got its first ever Group I gold rating for the Indiana State School Music Association’s band contest. This was very exciting for me as the trumpet section leader to become part of such a huge accomplishment for our ensemble.

In closing, I look forward to meeting all of you and hearing more from you about your flying and musical experiences while also getting any of your advice!

Best Wishes,
Cameron Milleman

PPC and Instrument Training

Wow, what a crazy 2 months it has been!

On August 1st, I finally got a day that wasn’t rainy, stormy, foggy, IMC, or a hurricane (I live in Nebraska, btw) and had an aircraft that was actually working. After 5 months of bad weather days and maintenance problems, I finally got the DPE in the plane and was able to secure my Private pilot license.

However, since I was extremely late posting about my private, I will fill you in on my instrument training. In a month, I had completed all of my basic Part 141 training and had to close out the last couple of cross-country flights. With a lot of two-a-days, crazy early mornings, and late-night flights, one starting at 8:00 p.m. to 4:30 a.m. with a 9:00 a.m. class the next morning, I got my training done. Now this week on Tuesday, I have my stage 3, then next week I have my EOC, End of Course.

Although I have been busy and sometimes don’t get all the sleep I need, I still wouldn’t have it any other way. In the next month, I am hoping to get my Instrument rating and get on to Commercial right after that.

Thank you all for the support and for being patient with my progress!!

Flight Day One, and a Musical Update!

Hello all!

I am proud to announce that I have completed my first official flight lesson as a Flying Musician Ambassador! Between 5 and 7pm EST, I went up in a Cessna 172 (tail number N420U) from my local airport in St. Mary’s County. My CFI and I flew around the area and reviewed stall recovery, steep turns, and landing which are the areas that I am currently working on.

This past summer, I had a brief run in with a spin where I did the almost unforgivable and tried altering the ailerons while in a power on stall. That experience made it rather stressful to complete steep turns and stall recovery practices, but with the help of my CFI I had much less trouble today with those things, and I am even exited to practice them more so that I can fully overcome this obstacle!

Below I have attached some pictures I took today from the plane! (Everything looks more beautiful in a plane)

Tomorrow, I am to go up again first thing in the morning. I look forward to updating you on my flight tomorrow!

Musical Update

Tomorrow is Memorial Day. In honor of Memorial Day, my brother and I participate in Taps Across America, where musicians across the country play Taps at 3pm local time in honor of those who gave their life for our country. I will be participating on the flute with my brother on the clarinet, as we play in honor of our own family members who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Anyone can participate in Taps Across America. If you are interested in playing Taps in your community in honor of our soldiers, first register on the Taps Across America website linked below, then grab your horn and join us! You do not need a sanctioned event or an audience, just an instrument and a location.

Taps Across America – Taps Across America

To those who are veterans, thank you very much for your service. To those who are family to a veteran, thank you very much for yours.

See you soon!

Thank you all so much for your encouragement and support. I look forward to keeping you updated as my journey continues.

Bye for now!

Hello All!

Hello everyone! This is Lauren Compton posting from Southern Maryland. First things first, a big thank you to the board and to Mr. John for giving me this amazing opportunity. I look forward to keeping you all updated on my progress!

Flight

I was introduced to flying as a new member of Civil Air Patrol two years ago. After completing my orientation flights, I became aware of Aim High Flight Academy, which is sponsored by the US Air Force. Being selected to attend Aim High was an amazing opportunity! We attended ground school and flew nearly every day during the three-week program.

Currently, I am in the process of beginning my journey to solo with Piedmont Flight Center in St. Mary’s County Maryland, where my CFI thinks I can be ready to solo in about 10 hours because of my previous experience. At the moment, I have a total of 18.9 flight hours, mostly in the Cessna 172, through my completion of the Aim High Flight Academy and some added experience through Civil Air Patrol.

Speaking of Civil Air Patrol, I just achieved my Billy Mitchell award! For those of you that don’t know, the Mitchell award represents a CAP cadet completing half of the program and has been awarded to only 12% of all cadets!

Below I have inserted a few pictures and a link to the speech I gave when I was presented with my award!

Music

In terms of music, I just completed my high school flute journey with a superior rating at state solo and ensemble, playing Chaminade’s Concertino- the same piece my mother played in her senior year of high school. I could not have hoped for a better conclusion to my high school flute career! Below is a video of me performing at my flute teacher’s recital, and a picture of my brother and me with our certificates!

The week prior to solo and ensemble, my school band held our spring concert on Thursday evening in which I performed as Principal flute. During the same week, I sang Out Here on My Own from Fame in my school’s (very casual) senior coffee house. Below I have attached video links for both.

As for harp, I recently performed at a Mother’s Day Tea for one of the local churches. It was such an honor to be invited back, as I also played for this event last year. Next week, I’ll be playing at a local senior center. If you’d like to see that performance, please check out my Facebook page, harptunesandtales, to learn about my playing and my non-profit organization titled Tunes and Tales.

Sharing music at so many local venues brings me great joy and has brought me closer to the people in my community! I would love to hear about your musical journey – please feel free to share!

See you soon!

Thank you all so much for your encouragement and support. I look forward to keeping you updated as my journey unfolds.

Bye for now!

Exciting News!

Hello Everyone!

It has been awhile since you’ve heard from me, but I have had some pretty awesome things happen to me in that time that I would like to share with you.

The first announcement I have is that I won the EAA Ray Scholarship from my local EAA Chapter, #122. This scholarship has provided me with the funds I needed to continue on after my solo and finish my flight training. I start again this coming Monday, the 24th!

Secondly, I also received the Type 7 AFROTC Scholarship. This scholarship pays full tuition and fees to any school, capped at in state tuition rate. I am going to Penn State University to pursue Aerospace Engineering.

I want to thank all you who make FMA possible once more, as you got me started on my aviation journey, and have been a big help and motivation for me to continue!

Now for a little product review:

I received a few different goodies a couple months ago from Mr. John Zapp, and some of them I have found quite handy. Specifically, the Sennheiser S1 Passive headset, the Garland low profile pen, and the TUSQ guitar pick holder.

The S1 Headset seems to be made of really high quality materials, and comes in a nice carry-on case that is protects the headset quite well. I have not gotten a chance to use it in the airplane yet, but I’m sure that it will perform wonderfully, as Sennheiser is well known for their music and audio products, and I have no doubts about the audio or functioning quality. But, I will confirm this in a future post when I get the chance to use the headset.

The Garland pen seems like something that doesn’t need a review, because, after all, it’s just a pen. BUT…I have actually been really impressed with this pen, and for some reason, I find it super cool. It just has a super clean look to it, it’s shiny, and super slim. It is the perfect peen to take with you flying, as it isn’t bulky and can be easily stored on your kneeboard or in a pocket. But my favorite part about it is the Hartzell Prop logo that is in acrylic on the top of the pen. I find that to be a pretty cool touch.

Finally, the TUSQ pick holder is a super cool, heavy duty metal holder that fits all of my guitar picks in all thicknesses. It’s really nice to have for gigs, as it just clips on to my guitar case zipper and provides easy access to all my picks. I did also receive some TUSQ picks. They seem like they are ok, but I personally do not use them because the TUSQ logo on the pick is made out of a super grippy material that, at least for me, makes it hard to play. This would be fine for people who hold a pick normally, but I play holding my pick sideways, and this grippy material tends to catch on my strings, making it pretty much unplayable for me. I’m also not usually a fan of picks that have grippy material on it like this anyways. But, if you like that and you play guitar like a normal person, than it would certainly be a good pick for you! Despite this, I still highly recommend the TUSQ pick holder, it has been super useful to me.

Thanks for reading!

Jake Myers