CLKI tour & flying

This afternoon I took Jonathan to my dad's cabinet company, Century Lane Kitchens Inc.  After giving him a tour of the showroom, my dad and I took him back to the factory.  My dad did most of the talking out there because things have totally changed, machine-wise, since I worked out there several summers ago.  I don't think I could work a single machine out there anymore since they've all been upgraded and are all computerized and the like.  I did jump in with a few stories, though, and showed him my old edgebander, the machine I was a pro on when I worked in the factory.  But, alas, my favourite machine is only used as a backup now.

After the shop tour, Jonathan and I made a quick trip back home to get his camera, which he had forgot to bring before.  Then we drove back to the shop and jumped into my dad's truck for the ride to the airport.  We parked near the north end of the runway where my dad's jointly-owned plane is kept, but when we tried to get through the gate, the lock combination number my dad had wouldn't work.  He said it must have been changed recently and he hadn't been given the new number.  After several failed attempts to use some small metal items as mirrors to reflect the new number, taped to the inside of the gate, back at us, I finally realized my hand was small enough to get through the chain link and managed to grasp the handle and open the door.  We walked inside the grounds and my dad unlocked the plane and started to do the walk-around.  Jonathan started taking pictures.  I stood around looking at all the wonderful planes, until I finally decided to help with the walk-around by checking the gas, which was a good clear colour.  Feeling like I had been a big help, I used the rest of the time to watch some jets take off and land, while Jonathan documented the same planes on memory card.  Then Gene, a guy who rents air time from my dad and the other owner of the plane, came to help my dad fly and we got set to take off.

Jonathan and I crawled in the back, but waited to put on our headsets until the engine was started.  We kept ourselves busy by watching more planes while Gene and my dad did the pre-flight checks.  Finally they radioed the tower and got clearance to taxi to the runway and soon we had taken off and were flying over town.  We headed north over Duck Lake and Woods Lake and then went east toward my uncle's cabin up in the mountains, which I tried to point out to Jonathan.  After that we flew a little to the south so we could get near Big White, a ski resort about 40 minutes from town.  We had to make sure that we stayed away from several weather areas, but for the most part it was easy to skirt around them.  We also managed to fly over McCullough Lake where we had been the afternoon and evening before.

Decked out with headsets

Then we set our course back to Kelowna and soon the tower was guiding us into a circuit to come in for landing.  My dad tried out the landing and got pretty close until the strong side wind discouraged him from staying in control.  He gave control to Gene, who, since he was in the copilot's seat, had to attempt the landing with his wrong hands on the throttle and yoke.  We bumped down pretty hard and Gene decided, in an instant, to take the plane back up and go around again to try another landing.  He pushed the throttle all the way in and we were back in the air.  The tower gave us new landing instructions and we went around in another circuit.  This time Gene was in control the whole time and he guided us in pretty good.  After we taxied back to the plane's parking spot and got out, Gene apologized for the hard landing the first time, but I thought it was fun so I hadn't minded a bit.  My dad and Gene pushed the plane back into place and Jonathan and I watched/took pictures of a few more planes before we left the airport.  I loved every second of the flight!  For some pics, see the album on Jonathan's Facebook profile.

After leaving the airport, we went home quickly and then went over to my grandparents house for a Friday night supper and a sundown worship where we all had to participate.  It was a good end to the day.