Helicopter Flight

Ever since I was a little girl I wanted to be a pilot. My dream finally came true on April 30th 2011. For some years now I have also had a dream of riding in a helicopter. So I was able to fulfill both dreams in one event. I had the opportunity to fly yes I said fly a helicopter. It was a lot of fun but it was a lot harder than I had expected. But it was an amazing opportunity and one I will never forget.

It may be a little helicopter but it did the job. I guess you can call it the smart car for the sky!

The T shape handlebar is like the steering wheel called the Cyclic. The cyclic is held with the right hand. It is very sensitive and you don't have to pull to one side or the other very much to turn the helicopter. To point the helicopter toward the ground you push the cyclic forward and will send you into a nose dive if you don't pull back up on it. At the left hand (which you can't see) is the Collective throttle. It is used to get you in the air.

You also use the antitorque pedals to steer when you are closer to the ground and you have two pedals one to send you to the right and one to the left. They are not as sensitive as the cyclic is and so it was a little tough to get use to the difference and think you don't want to push to hard but then you are not turning so you have to push a little harder till you get it just right. My instructor Laura had me follow a yellow line in turning a corner and then heading back toward the airport and keeping in line with the yellow line. It was a little tough at first but then I got the hang of it. She told me I did a really good job for my first time.

What a beautiful day to go flying.

This picture to me looks like I stepped right out of TopGun I just forgot my sunglasses. Ha Ha!

My instructor Laura and Me after my flight we both returned in one piece.

It was a successful flight!

They also recorded my flight and here are a couple of inserts for you to watch and see what I saw on my flight.

Up in the air.

Using the antitorque pedals to steer. 

Air force Base

I work next to Hanscom Air Force Base and so we have planes and jets flying over our building every day. They are not to much of a distraction for the most part. The ones that really get people out of their seats and drawn to the window are the fighter jets. They are really noisy and really neat to watch. One day we had 8 fly over. We are near the landing strip so we see them coming in for the landing. I was able to get a couple of pictures of some the other day and thought I would share them. 

Look hard you can see it in the trees.

This one was really good. 

Cirque Eloize ID

Saturday, March 14, I went to Cirque Eloize performance. It was really neat to see. The performance was full filled and very entertaining.

This girl is so incredibly flexible it didn't seem like she had a single bone in her body.

I would not want to be the one on top of 9 chairs stacked doing a handstand.

This guy was a phenomenal juggler. The one crouched down is walking between the juggler and the balls and the juggler doesn't miss a beat.

This guy did all kinds of dance tricks on a pole that was about 20 feet in the air. It was incredible to watch some of his moves.

There was a trampoline down below and they would jump on it and run up the walls. The first guy started out up on the wall and fell so everyone thought he really was falling then all of a sudden he flies back up. It was really cool.

They could do some pretty neat things with jump roping.

This was really neat. She was so graceful and elegant with her moves.

Here is a short video to give you a quick glance of what I watched.

Fencing

I decided I was going to take an introductory Fencing class. It was a lot of fun and very intersting to learn about Fencing. One of my most favorite classes was the day we were odd numbers of students so I had the opportunity to fence against my instructor. It was nice to duel with someone who knew what they were doing. I felt like I learned more in the 5 minutes dueling with him than I had for an entire class before dueling against another student.

I am the one on the left and Cheryl is on the right.

For the most part you walk away from Fencing with minimal injury. You wear a plastic breast sheild plate to protect your chest. But when you are practicing you can't protect yourself and have to let your opponent  attack you without giving a parry. So this may result in bruises if you are hit in places the plastic doesn't cover.

These were the worst set of bruises I got from Fencing. They were tender for the first few days but now not to bad. 

Look at that nice lung which resulted in me winning the bout. So I scored the point. The important thing with a lung is to always make sure your arm is striaght before you go at your opponent otherwise your arm will get in the way.

Vaho and Martha

Vaho Iagorashvili is my instructor, he is a native of Tbilisi, Georgia, is a three-time Olympic Pentathlete and a twelve-time World Championship medalist. At the 2004 Olympics, he was the oldest athlete ever to compete in the grueling five-event sport. At 40, Vaho still managed to come in ninth. In 1988 he won the bronze medal at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. He has also competed in two Goodwill Games, earning medals three times and the gold in 1986. In 2003, he won the gold yet again at the Pan American Games