Yesterday, I got to do something pretty fun. My step-father's nephew recently bought a flight school. We were able to get an opportunity for my son (age 12) to do what is called a discovery flight. It's basically a scaled-down version of a flight lesson to see if a person would be interested in continuing with a pilot's license. My only condition for allowing my son to do this was that I got to ride in the back and take pictures. So, yesterday was that day. We had also arranged for my wife to get a flight since it was her birthday. It didn't end up being a lesson like it was supposed to be, but she still had fun flying around downtown Fort Worth (and I rode in the backseat of that flight). Then after those 2 flights I got to go up in a Cirrus Turbo (which is a really cool aircraft). This plane belongs to the owner of the flight school, and he wanted to take us up in it just for fun. And I got to go on that one. Crazy. I'm not really sure why I get to do such cool stuff, but it sure is a privilege. I spent about 2 hours in the air this day. I got to take 2 trips around downtown Fort Worth and got them to fly around the 7th Street bridge construction that I have been following (and participating in documenting). I don't have much to say about the whole thing except it was really fun and felt more like my birthday than my wife's.

The coolest part was when we landed. The owner told me that he was going to pick up a new plane for them to use in the flight school. He asked if it would be possible for us to do some plane to plane photography of the new aircraft. He wants to take his Cessna up with the windows off and get some shots of his new plane with something like downtown Fort Worth or Cowboy stadium (AT&T stadium?) in the background. How cool would that be? I really hope that works out, and you can be sure you will read about it here when it happens.

So, here are my favorites.

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This was my overall favorite.

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I had to get a shot of my office building.

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I liked having the wing in this shot. I feel like it gives some context to the scene.

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This was the propeller from the Cirrus Turbo. I took this one between my 2nd and 3rd flights.

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I just liked the view of the instrument panel and the control tower.

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Here is my new favorite bridge in Fort Worth.

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The day was really hazy, but I still liked this shot of downtown.DSC_6416

This was such a cool day. Aerial photography was much more difficult than I expected. Sometimes it was difficult to even frame the shot with all of the turbulence. I would love to go up and shoot again, and I am looking forward to possibly shooting the plane-to-plane shots. Fun stuff.

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