I finally soloed!!
It felt so amazing and so weird at the same time! Not having my CFI next to me gave me a sense of independence in the aircraft and gave me a huge boost of adrenaline when flying. It went great, although I thought I could’ve done better on my landings, 3 in total, but I’ve heard that if you can walk away from a landing, it’s a good landing.
I hope that this chapter is the first of many and I can’t wait to share my future accomplishments.
I don’t have good pictures because I forget when I’m focusing on the lesson, so I usually get one before my preflight.
My CFI and I have been working on my takeoffs and landings so that I can solo. I’ve done two lessons working on them and so far, my approaches have been significantly improving but I am still perfecting the final flare when I am about to touchdown. This aspect has been a little bit of a struggle, mostly because I believe I am focusing on the runway right ahead of me instead of looking down the runway as most people encourage to look there instead. I do have better touchdowns when I remember to look down the runway, but I will just have to keep working at it and develop an “eye” for my touchdowns.
(1) My View as a Ramp Agent! (2) Editing my first batch of plane spotting pictures! (3) One of the finished Products. Enjoy!
Hi All!
I hope you are all having a wonderful summer.
2024 has been quite the year for me. I began flight lessons and online ground school and I finished my first year at college.
2024 has also been a huge mental battle for me. I remember just one moth ago laying in bed thinking about my year thus far. I had no motivation to fly or continue with ground school lessons, I thought about my dreams of flying commercially less, and I was generally unhappy. I had distanced myself from my closest friends, and I had very frequent anxiety and gastrointestinal issues which sent me to the ER after a myriad of doctor visits at one point all of which I had never had before.
That night I realized halfway into 2024; I had been depressed for six months. As someone who always had a goal in life to fly, to laugh, and to work out, I never thought I would be depressed.
I blog about this to bring awareness to the fact that anyone can deal with mental health battles and that its extremely hard for those in the midst of a battle to realize they are struggling. Life can throw us all curveballs that depress us and traumatize us as they can to fill us with utter joy and pure determination. However, realization is the first step to recuperating from any mental health battle and thus I am now doing better each and every day.
For me, for the last few months my focus shifted from flying and this wonderful community to recovering from my mental health which physically sent me to the ER and through numerous doctor’s visits due to gastrointestinal issues which went undiagnosed for four arduous months.
As I work on myself each and every day and the clouds begin to clear in my life, I am determined more than I ever have to fly again and to complete ground school as swiftly and to the best degree I possibly can. My dream of being a commercial airline pilot is once again filling me with determination and an amazing purpose! Two weeks ago, I returned to the airport to work as a ramp agent again this time contracted to Frontier Airlines where I will even be trained for loadmaster, pushback, and potentially station training manager duties! I also contacted my flight school’s owner to discuss flying again, and I have begun Sporty’s ground school training again. I also now plane spot which serves as an activity which brings me peace and tranquility. It’s a great mental reset. And like always I work out every day.
To anyone struggling physically or mentally, just know struggle is temporary. Even on your worst of days. Find your life purpose(s) even in the darkest of times, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Even when you feel horrible, love yourself and live life undeniably and confidently.
I’ve been kinda slacking on posting my flights that I have been doing but I’ll get you all brought up to date on them.
I’m still trying to perfect my landings to be able to solo but my CFI and I went to KGRI (Class D Airspace) and I worked on my communications with a tower.
Then later in the week, we scheduled the same flight again, but instead of my CFI doing the planning and helping me determine the cruising altitude and runway to use I did all of that and it was pretty amazing being able to make a plan then execute it exactly like it was made up.
I’m hopefully going to solo pretty soon so I’ll keep you guys updated on that!! 
On the 29th of June, I held my very first Hangar Jam! I’ve been busy flying and working so I couldn’t get this posted sooner. It was awesome to play in front of a crowd and spread the light of aviation and music. I’ve been getting a few more hours in the seat and am starting to become more fluent with the controls and getting more proficient in maneuvers.
On Saturday I was given the opportunity to fly in my first Skyhawk 152. He is a member of the AAA (Antique Airplane Association) and wanted to take me up and fly me to my flight lesson. It was my first flight lesson with my new instructor. It was kind of a hard cross wind but it was a good time. It was great to get back in the seat and get some hours!
Hi all! I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the warmer spring weather. In February and March, my flight training was placed on hold because of my health. I had an ear infection and bad stomach/digestive issues and therefore was forced to tend to myself rather than fly. As a result, I became rusty. I forgot how to execute steep turns and stalls properly, among other maneuvers that I was well versed in just weeks ago.
Finally, after three months, I am much healthier. I can consistently weight train to my liking in the gym, and I have found great additional health benefits in going to the sauna every day and adopting a regimen of supplements. I have also had one flight since.
All this is to say, that health is paramount in aviation. Without a healthy body, nothing is possible. Fight training takes discipline in scheduling out days to a lot for flights, studying, and ground classes. Additionally, it also takes discipline in taking care of your body and treating it as if it were a high-performance car. If you fuel your body with bad fuel and neglect to care for it by exercising, your body will not perform well, and vice versa. Flight training is so much more than flying!
Here is what I did to turn around my health (I hope this can help someone who is looking for ways to improve theirs too):
-Sleep early (sleep is everything, our body recovers during sleep, and sleep changes the chemistry of our brain and body)
-supplement regimen including multivitamins, vitamin C, and more
-weight training at the gym every day
-daily sauna sessions for 15-25 minutes at or around 290 degrees Fahrenheit
Hi everyone,
Hey!
Unfortunately, the weather has not been the best lately, so I have not been able to go flying. I’m going to talk more about music at some point in time, but first I wanted to talk about how I’ve really seen music become more connected with my other interests. I signed up for this short, 1 month long, intro to mechanical engineering class, going in with very little expectations. Turns out that it is a project-based class and that the goal of the class was to build an instrument out of household materials. How cool is that?
This project stemmed out of when classes were online the past few years and engineering had to be implemented from a variety of different places. What a better way to get more creative and resourceful than using household materials to build a project?
It took me forever to come up with what type of instrument I even wanted to build out of everything imaginable and possible. Within that I did some research that I’m sure people are interested in. I came across the question of, what even is music at its very core? And one response to it was this piano piece called 4’33” by John Cage and in the same vein the Monotone Silent Symphony. I would encourage you to look it up if you don’t already know about it. If you don’t have the time, it’s basically a whole piece where the performer doesn’t play a single note on the instrument, but sits there in silence, and the music that is made comes from the audience’s reaction. It’s the whole idea of how silence is just as important as everything else in music and how music is a performance. Around the same time, I saw a poem my classmate from high school wrote who goes to a music college that relates very well. He talked about how in music “space has power too” and how “maybe you have to write 99 notes to realize the power of 3.” I don’t know, I think that’s just speaking to me right now, how intentional we can be with the littlest things in music. What do y’all reading this think? And do you have a really strong opinion of what music is or can be at its core?
Anyways, I decided on making a kalimba, aka a sanza, aka a thumb piano. The kalimba originates from the mbira instrument out of Eastern and Southern Africa. The kalimba consists of a wooden board, usually with a resonator, with attached (metal) tines that are constructed to create different pitches when struck/plucked by fingers.
At first I had no idea what type of materials I could come up with from living my very simple college dorm life. But, with some time, ideas came up. At college, they often give out these metal water bottles, basically like 1 use plastic bottles, but metal. I can add in a picture for reference. So, I wanted to do something with them because I had access to them. I decided to take my kid scissors that I brought with me to college and see what I could do. In the end, I just cut flat strips and realized that I could make noise with them. Thus, a thumb piano.
The kalimba I made is composed of different length tins strategically placed on top of a bridge that is held together by a sound box. The materials I used for this are a small 22 x 6 x 1.5cm box, a hair tie, and strips of metal cut from a water bottle found in the recycling bin. The hair tie acts like a bridge: part of the metal goes under it once and over it the second time. Changing the length of the tin from the second hair tie to its end changes the frequency that the tin resonates.
Now, this is where my project turned into more engineering, because right where I left off was nowhere near being done. My instrument had to be tunable and it had to be part of a band of other homemade instruments.
The tuning process was rather difficult. To make a long story short, most of the different ways I tried to tune the instrument did not work because the devices I was using could not pick up the frequency of the kalimba when the sound was not constant, but rather plucked. My solution to this was to set up a drone on my phone or a different device and use my ear to match the kalimba to that pitch.
I have attached below, pictures of my instrument and the song that my group decided to play together. I hope you enjoy!
-Jovie
I made the Kalimba on the bottom left. Can you guess the song that we played?
Hello everyone!
The past few months since my last post have kept me quite busy, and excited, and in this post, I’m going to tell you why.
The first thing that I’d like to share is that I have been accepted to Penn State University for their Meteorology program! This is my number one school, so this is quite exciting for me. They also have one of the best and most respected meteorology programs in the country. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my plans are to major in meteorology while doing AFROTC, with the end goal of being a pilot in the air force. If I can’t be a pilot in the air force for some un-foreseen reason, then being a Meteorologist in the Air Force would be my second choice, as I have always been interested in and fascinated by weather. That is why I’m planning to major in Meteorology. But my career goal is still to fly. Of course, having a deep knowledge of the weather would also aid my skills and decision making in aviation.
In November, I was also named Senior of the Month, which is a pretty big deal at my school. All the teachers come to together to choose the senior of the month based on academics, achievements, accomplishments, and general actions of the student. I’m excited about this because of how it looks on college and scholarship applications. I also have just started my winter job. I work for a nearby ski resort as a ticket checker, and am an avid skier myself, in case you didn’t know.
Unfortunately, my flight training is still at more or less of a stand still, but I’m working hard at applying to scholarships to get going again. I just got done filming and editing a video of myself talking about why I want to be a pilot, as well as some other things, for a $5,000 scholarship being distributed by an organization called Make-A-Pilot. I’ll make sure to share the video to my social media and tag FMA so everyone can watch it when I submit it. I also put a link to it down below. I learned that I unfortunately did not receive the EAA Ray scholarship, but that doesn’t deter me in the least bit. I still plan on applying for the version of the Ray scholarship that my EAA Chapter distributes. In the meantime, I have finished Sporty’s Learn to Fly ground school course and am taking the tests they require to get my endorsement for the FAA knowledge test, which I plan on taking soon.
Now for the biggest, and most exciting, news. I’m proud to announce that my brother and I, also known together as Pyxus, have released our debut album as of today January 2nd, which features seven original tracks in the folk rock/newgrass genre. It can be found on all streaming platforms, and is also for sale online in CD and digital download form. I do hope you all go and check it out! I’ll leave the links to our website (which is where you can order our album) and our social media below. Just copy and past them into your search bar.
https://pyxusmusic.bandcamp.com/album/pyxus
https://www.facebook.com/pyxusmusic/
Here’s the link to my Make-A-Pilot Scholarship Application video. I’m not much of an editor, but I think I did alright. Let me know what you think!
Cheers, and Happy New Year!
Jake Myers
