I was just wrapping up work this past Friday when I saw a message on my phone from the Purdue Pilots Discord. . . for an open seat on a flight happening the next day! The offer came from Cesare, who as I learned on the flight is a very nice and talented person, researcher, teacher, pilot, and overall jack of all trades with a PhD and multiple masters degrees who specializes in topics such as robotics, controls, algorithms, and systems.
We departed from KLAF in West Lafayette in a Piper Warrior in the morning and made our way south towards Columbus. On our way, we flew right by downtown Indy and I got to learn all about the flight controls and what it’s like to fly a plane, with Cesare even performing some cool maneuvers like some 60 degree banked turns. Once in Columbus we explored the airport there which happened to have a neat little museum that I procured some neat books from. On our way back, we encountered the interesting problem of vapor lock upon attempting to start the engine, which is where exterior heat causes fuel within the engine to become vapor which hinders actual liquid fuel from entering the engine upon startup. After some debugging however, we were able to depart and make our way back to Purdue. The ride back was also neat because we got some light rain, and flew directly over the Indy airport! Besides that, the landing approach for KLAF goes right over Purdue, which is always neat to see from the air. Overall we logged around 2.5 hours of flight time, and I put some of my favorite photos from the trip below. I think it’s safe to say I now need to find the time (and the money) to get my pilots license, because this experience was just so much fun.
