New Camera, and Flight Training in a Cardinal

I got a new camera, primarily to keep in the flight bag. If I can remember to snap a shot or two, I'll have lots of pics to post here. The camera I ended up with is a Samsung TL 105. It was relatively cheap, optical zoom, and it takes really good quality pictures (12.4 megapixel).

Here are a few shots of an airplane I flew the other day, along with that story...


I have been getting to know Tom, a local pilot who owns this beautiful 1967 Cessna 177 "Cardinal" with a 150hp O-320 engine, the same engine in the Skyhawks I usually fly. He hasn't flown it for a while, and asked me if I would help him get familiar with it. Once he checked with his insurance company to be sure that I am covered to fly it, we finally took it up late last week.

This plane flies very differently than most Cessnas, so before we flew, I made sure to ask several more experienced pilot instructors about it. I was told that if flies more like the small metal Piper planes like a Cherokee. I've got some time in a Cherokee Six, and to land it, you must not flare the plane like a Skyhawk. I was told that the Cardinal also must not be flared. OK, easy enough.

After reading up on the Cardinals in general, and going through the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) for this specific plane, I felt fairly confidant about my ability to handle the plane. We started up, and did a long run-up and high-speed (20-25 mph) taxis up and down the runway, so the owner could get used to the ground handling, and also so the engine could get up to operating temp. The plane was in the shop from May 2009 to March 2010, and has only ran twice since (the ferry flight from the shop, and a run-up for about 5 minutes back in March), so we wanted to check the engine out fairly thoroughly. Once we were comfortable with the plane, we lined up, held the brakes, applied takeoff power, leaned for best power since it was a hot, humid day, and then we took off.

My first impression of this plane was that it accelerates climbs like a dog, even though it looks very slick, and has a lot of speed and drag modifications. My second thought was that it handles like a dream. We weren't going up too fast (much worse than a Cessna 172), and we were 180lbs below max weight. Still, out in the practice area, the roll response was great, it was light on pitch, and was an all-around fun plane to fly. We each did some steep turns, climbs and descents at various power, airspeed, and flap settings, and various stalls - all in preparation for the coming landing. One thing I noticed was that the thin, slick wing has very different stall characteristics than what I'm used to. A 172 will mush and slop all day, the 177 has a clear and definite break, even in gently-approached power-off stalls. When the wing is done flying, it is done. It does not hang on to its lift during the stall.

We came in, joined the traffic pattern, and started our descent. We had briefed the landing several times, both on the ground and in the air, and did so again while on downwind. "Remember, we don't flare this plane like a 172, we just barely keep the nose off the ground, and drive it in with power. Coming down too fast? We will add power, and touch down with a little power." Sounds good, and I was excited and happy with the approach and round out. Everything was just picture perfect, all the way down to the flare. The owner-pilot, quite understandably after almost a year off of flying, reverted to the Cessna 172 training, and pulled back on the yolk, faster than I could have reacted. This happened right as our airspeed was bleeding off in the flare and the plane should have been settling. As it was, we were about 6 feet in the air still. Remember how that wing, when stalled, gives up all at once? Well, it did, and we came in fairly hard. After a nice porpoise/tail strike, we caught our breath and taxied off the runway to inspect for damages.

I was really embarrassed. This incident was probably the first time that my inexperience as an instructor caught up with me. A more seasoned CFI would have had the yolk blocked, so that the other guy couldn't have flared in the first place. As it was, we both got a very vivid lesson - him about how the Cardinal likes to be flared and me about always being ready for anything with anybody. I've been told that the most dangerous thing a CFI can do is trust their client or get distracted. That lesson has been hammered home.

As we are looking over the nose and tail, a golf cart comes over with another one of the FBO's CFIs, an office regular, and the owner's wife. Apparently the landing looked as bad from the FBO porch as it did from the cockpit. I was kind of afraid that Tom would be mad at me, but he wasn't at all, and felt like he had learned a lot from me from startup to shutdown. We found no damage, and decided to go up again for another attempt.


Very soon, we found ourselves on final approach again, and this time I definitely had the yolk blocked with the palm of my hand, but Tom was making all the control inputs. I was just a little more ready to take control if needed. We came over the fence right on altitude and airspeed with about 1300RPM. Held the yolk steady, brought the nose up to its straight and level position as we crossed the runway threshold, and slowly brought the power to idle as the plane settled to the runway with a gentle chirp of the wheels. It was truly one of the most perfect landings I have ever seen - in any plane.

We called it a day, tied the plane down, and talked about the flight there on the porch. The owner was still very happy with me, which (frankly) surprised me, I was still very embarrassed. He wants to fly again, and thats OK with me, I know we can both handle the plane. One of the mechanics based on the field checked the plane over for us, and confirmed that there was no damage at all, except for some scuff marks on the tail skid, just like every other plane on every ramp of every airport in the country. We are planning on flying together again in a week or two, right now he is tied up with work.

This flight has caused some drama between the various CFIs at the school though, and I sort of feel like someone sat there that evening and watched me do something they knew would get me in a little bit of trouble. Nothing much came of it, but office politics seem to be coming to a head, and I'm (thankfully) not really in the middle of it.


In other news, Francis (the first guy I put through a private license) called, and has a couple of his friends who want to learn to fly, and he is going to set them up with me. Thats great, because I get to keep any customers I bring in, whereas people who just walk in the office door get assigned according to seniority. I could definitely use one or two more guys all to myself, its been an unusually slow week (though one of my guys just "graduated" and the other is on vacation, so things should be back to normal soon).

Look forward to more pictures soon!

First Private Pilot: PASS!

Well, 37 months after my first flight, 4 months after getting my instructor rating, 9 weeks after getting employed at a flight school, 6 weeks of hard work for my client and I, and 45 hours in his logbook (40 is the minimum number required), my first Private Pilot applicant, Francis, passed his checkride (interview and flight test) on his first attempt.


(click for larger, higher quality photo)

We met at the airport Friday morning, about 8:30am. The sky was overcast at 1500 feet, not visual flying weather. It was OK though, the cloud layer was just the result of very moist air and the high pressure system dominating our weather. I knew it would rise, thin out, and eventually disappear as the day warmed up. We went over last-minute details, he got a flight briefing and updated the flight plan to be used for the test with the most current wind forecasts and made sure no flight restrictions had been issued over night. Another CFI from the school was taking an instrument student to the examiner, and was to call us when that person's flight test began. That should have given us plenty of time to fly to where we were going to meet the FAA third-party examiner, about 45 nautical (50 road) miles away.

After making sure everything was in order, we loaded the plane, and launched about 10:00 am. By this time, the clouds were up to about 2,500 feet. At least a 3,000 foot ceiling is needed to fly all the required maneuvers, so we were still a bit concerned. Still, there was plenty of clearance for our short hop.

Upon arrival, we congratulated the new instrument pilot, and my client's test got underway. I had arranged with my student and the examiner to sit in for as much of the test as possible, I wanted to have a good idea about what I need to improve upon as an instructor. First, the three of us gathered around a computer and filed the applications digitally via IACRA, the FAA's new system for such paperwork. That all went smoothly, and there were no problems, so we found an empty conference room and began the test.

The oral portion was straight by the book, and covered many topics. My guy was doing really well, and the examiner was impressed. It only lasted about an hour. In that time, they covered all of the special emphasis areas of checklist usage, including collision avoidance, positive aircraft control, and wake turbulence. They discussed regulations (a couple of which I need to emphasize more during training.), which went well. The main ones covered were 91.103, 91.205, and 61.113 (required preflight action, day VFR required equipment, and private pilot privileges and limitations). When they discussed airplane systems, I realized that I need to review this stuff before the test despite having covered it very early in training. My student did very well, but I could make the process better than it is. He was asked how center of gravity location effects stability of the airplane, which he talked about perfectly. That is part of my personal emphasis areas: aerodynamics.

All in all, the oral went very well. Francis was less nervous for the coming flight, the examiner was impressed, and everything was looking good. The clouds had risen to 4,000 feet or better, so they took off for the test, and I caught a ride over to the passenger terminal to grab a bite to eat. It was about 1 o'clock.

I was much more nervous than Francis though, because I noticed after the oral test that the maintenance logs for the plane were not in the conference room, not in the plane, not in his bag - no where. These logs, for those that don't know, are tremendously important. They also have to go with the airplane to a flight test. Without them, the plane loses about 50% of its value, it becomes unairworthy (because it is no longer possible to prove that all required inspections have been done), and its generally a very bad thing. I thought that if the logs were gone, the best thing I could hope for is to get yelled at, fired, and told never to come back.

Back in the FBO, I watched a world cup game and tried not to think too much about the logs. I had already looked in every corner and every room of the building, looked in the plane, and asked the staff if anything had been turned in or put behind the counter. No luck. I figured I'd wait until the new private pilot came back, then confer with him again before calling my chief pilot and seeing what he wanted me to do.

I saw the school's little Cessna taxi in and shut down on a far corner of the ramp, and I went over to find out how it went. The test was a solid pass. They hit all the practical test requirements including a simulated cross-country flight, navigation, diversion, flight by reference to instruments, simulated emergency, steep turns, slow flight and stalls, ground reference maneuvers, and various takeoff and landing techniques.

The three of us sat down to de-brief, and the examiner later told me in private that this was one of the best applicants he has seen in quite some time. He was well prepared, flew safely and accurately, and was generally very good. I tried to make a joke about not wanting any of my students to have as bad a flight test as mine had been (I didn't pass my test on the first attempt with this same examiner several years ago). He didn't seem amused, but thats OK. I felt good at having produced a safe, competent pilot in a short time. I was also happy that I didn't make him over-prepared. Often times, a CFI's first student or two is way over prepared in terms of hours logged, but we finished in only 45 or so hours.

When we called home, the other CFI, Russ, told us that the maintenance books had been found - the instrument pilot had accidentally grabbed the logs for our plane and his! Russ wasn't initially going to tell us, and let me sweat it out a little more, but since we asked about it he let us in on the joke. He apologized later when I told him I spent 2 hours looking for them, and had the entire FBO staff helping me. No harm, no foul, but I was certainly stressed for a while there.

All in all, it was a good day. Francis passed, we have another pilot in the world, I seem to be doing very good work (well, at least the examiner, the other CFIs I work with, and my students all think so), and it was a fun day for the most part. I have another guy ready to solo, and a pre-solo flier who I'm working with, and things are moving right along.

There is really only one major problem with the whole deal - I need to find another client!

So, my logbook is about as behind as this blog...

Whoa, sorry I've been so delinquent in my posts. When I started this, I hoped that I would be able to post more often once I had more things to do. As it turns out, I've had too many things to do to keep up. I'm going to write up a couple events from the previous ten days or so, starting with the most recent "fun flights," then summarizing how all my students are progressing.


Yesterday I was in the office waiting for a student to come in about 45 minutes. One of the other CFIs came in, saying he had to take a Bonanza to the other airport (about 5 miles away) and fly a twin-engine plane back. As he was walking out the door, he asked if I wanted to come along. Of course! I had my headset in my hand and was out the door in about 0.002 seconds. I have wanted to fly a Bonanza for a long time. They are high-performance, complex single-engine planes made by Beechcraft, pretty much the Mercedes of light planes. I am rated for complex and high-performance planes, but haven't ever flown a plane that is both at the same time.

I slid into the left seat and took a quick minute to locate the controls. I ran through the checklist to get the engine and radios going while the other guy was briefing me on the takeoff procedure and appropriate airspeeds. We started up, did the run-up, and made it to the end of the runway. There is definitely something special about a high-performance plane from the moment you start the engine, but the acceleration on takeoff is always a huge treat. I have noticed that the trainer planes I fly seem to move so slowly to me lately. The students feel like they are landing at 1000mph and to me it feels more like 10. Well, the Bonanza moves at a much more appropriate speed for an aircraft, things were happening quickly, but not too fast to handle, and it was a fantastic. Pitch for 95, gear coming up, accelerate to 105, trim it up, and we are at 1,500', just like that. Brought the power back to 25" manifold pressure, set the prop at 2500 RPM, and it was already time to start landing.

As we were landing, the strikefinder detected some lightening about 25 miles away, and the sky was getting dark. Not wanting to be stuck out, we put the Bo in its hangar and got into the twin. I didn't get to fly it, sadly, but it might have been a bit more plane than I'd be able to handle. It was a cool feeling, literally, to be in a plane big enough to have an air-conditioning system. We got out of there and took off for home, landing about 30 minutes before the storm arrived.

The trip in the twin was cool, but now I know why everyone wants a Bonanza. It handles like a dream, lots of power, easy to control on the ground, and many gadgets to play with on the panel. I was really pleased with myself, that after flying Skyhawks so much I was able to hop into a new airplane type and pretty much fly it like a pro. I'd need about 9 more hours (and it rents for $200 per hour) in one to qualify for insurance coverage, so I won't be flying one solo anytime soon, but I can't wait to fly something other than small Cessnas again. Its looking like I'm going to get checked out in a Mooney M-20C pretty soon for only the price of gas. I've always liked Mooney planes, and they have a well-deserved reputation as being easy on gas, so that should be a fun, cheap plane to move up into.


In other news, I have 3 full time students. The doctor I have been working with for two months is going for his private pilot checkride tomorrow. I think that I'm more nervous than he is, as his performance is at least as big a test of my competency to teach as it is a test of his competency to fly. We have been going over so many things, reviewing material, practicing maneuvers in the plane, and filling out applications and log books. Every time I go over the list of things to do, I think of one more item to add. I'll be going with him and sitting in on the oral portion of the exam, and I'll be there to fix any endorsements or paperwork that needs it. I won't be able to go on the flight, as the plane would then be improperly balanced to perform some of the required maneuvers, but I have talked with the examiner, and he is happy to give me a private de-briefing. I have done my best, but know that there is a lot of ways I can improve, and I really think that the examiner's feedback will be tremendously helpful.

I am as excited for one of my other students (the college guy) as I am nervous for the doctor. The college guy is getting ready to fly solo for the first time. We only fly once a week, but the last 3 or so flights he has flown really well, and we covered all the required material. He has bounced around between several instructors already, and I'm happy that I have been able to get his training moving along. I would have let him fly solo yesterday if he had completed the paperwork. Next week, its going to happen. He has been training on and off since last fall, and is quite ready. We are going to start navigation and cross-country flying soon, which should be fun for him at least, because it is something different. I have discovered that I enjoy the pre-solo training much more than the flight planning and navigation stuff. That is definitely a weak area of mine, and I need to put some serious thought into how to organize and present the material better.

The third guy who has sort of become "mine" is also making progress, but he is challenging to me in a different way. He really wants to solo, and then finish his license in 2 or 3 weeks. I don't know that this is a realistic goal. We have worked very hard on the pre-solo stuff, but neither of us feels like we are making progress. I've not traditionally been a very blunt person, but I think I need to get better. Also, since my impressions of him have been colored by our time together, I think the best thing for us is to have him fly with someone else for a second opinion. This is one situation where the experience I don't yet have would be a great asset.


As far as the job itself goes, it can be quite a lot of work. I've never been terribly detail-oriented with regard to paperwork. This is a real handicap in aviation. For example, I got a call from my supervisor this morning asking me why there was a big gap in the logbook for one of the planes. Seems that my student forgot to record his solo flight in there, I forgot to record yesterday's lesson in there, and I forgot to write up purchase orders for both flights. Not a big deal, and something I can fix when I go in later today, but something I need to get better at.

One way I think I can do this is to create a checklist for arriving at work, before a lesson, after a lesson, and before leaving the airport. I have joked about the fact that only pilots, who use checklists for everything in flight, would create a checklist to hang on the wall for closing the office. Well, it seems that I need to make my own system of checks for taking care of my job. Not really a big problem, but embarrassing none the less. Apparently my paperwork skills need the most attention, because there are aircraft logs, purchase orders, my logbook, my students' logbook, my time sheet, the fuel log, and the fuel invoice to fill out after every flight. Considering all this, combined with being at work 6 or 7 days a week, sometimes for 8 to 12 hours, preparing lessons for students, and trying to have some personal time, and its easy to see how a blog can slide a little bit.


Anyway, thats pretty much my situation right now. I'm sure I'll write again Friday night or Saturday about the Doctor's checkride. For now, trying to stay out of the heat and miserable humidity. The air has been so thick and hazy, visibility has been poor and the real horizon has become a stranger, even in visual flight.

Cuttin' Shirt Tails!

What a day today was! Started out with a one hour lesson this morning with Mubashar. We did some air work, then some landings. He is at that point everyone goes through where we both feel like little progress is being made. We will continue working on Monday, and I'm optimistic that we will make progress again soon. I'm starting this new thing where I try really hard not to schedule myself every minute of every day of the week, and I actually wound up with a Saturday off. He seemed a little miffed about not being able to fly tomorrow, but honestly, I'm not too sympathetic. I'm not completely convinced that flying once or twice every single day is the way to go, and it will help improve relations with the more senior CFI at the school, who really only works weekends.

Anyway, after that was done, I met Francis. We were planning on using a lot of the rest of the day, first to prep for the written test, then to plan a dual-instruction cross country flight to Sporty's, about 100 nautical miles away. Once there, he was to take and pass the written, then we would grab a bite to eat and fly home. Well, this went well, but we took about an hour longer than planned to do the prep work and plan the flight, then actually get in the air and underway. Actually, scheduling and estimating how long any given activity will take is the bane of my professional life right now. It seems like a 1.2 hour lesson takes from 9:00am to noon. We finally got airborne, but by that time clouds had started to form about 1000 feet below our planned cruising altitude. Nice real-life lesson for him about how to deal with the unexpected on a flight, and how to re-work the performance calculations on the fly (literally).

Following a somewhat meandering course (and reviewing VOR tracking and intercept procedures), we arrived at Sporty's. After a quick glance around the pilot shop, he got started on the written test and I parked it in front of a weather computer. Thunderstorms were a'brewin' all along our route of flight home, and a particularly nasty line was stalled out right at our home base. Having started the written around 2:30, we were running a little later than I thought we would. We discussed the possibility of this before we ever took off, and agreed that if we had to wait until temperatures dropped in the evening, an 8 or 9pm arrival home wouldn't be a problem. Remember the old saying "time to spare, go by air?" Well, today was the day it was written for. Flight Services told me "you know how we always warn you guys about outflow, wind shear, and hail around storms? Well, today we really mean it." About 4pm we decided to take the crew car, head into town, and grab a bite to eat while we waited for the storm lines to roll north of our route. Apparently, it was pretty bad at home, because everyone who knew we were in the air from the flight school was calling us to warn and/or check on us. Headed back to the airport, filled the tanks, and finally, at about 5:30, we took off again. This time the clouds were much higher, the air smoother, and we got flight following from Cincinnati Approach and Indy Center, who was extremely busy trying to deal with a ton of airline deviations going into Port Columbus for the evening push.

Once we arrived in our home area, we saw that there was good weather - the storms on radar had either dissipated or moved on down the road, just as radar had shown they would. Landed in the clear with a ceiling above 12,000' and plus 10 miles visibility with absolutely no wind and more than 40 miles from the closest storm cell with not a trace of turbulence the entire flight. I really hope Francis learned something about weather decisions and got something out of the lesson. At the very least, I hope his first cross-country trip taught him that having to deviate from the plan is not only OK, but is often the wise thing to do.

At any rate, we got home, called all the people who were worried, and thats when I popped the big surprise. "Either take the plane we just flew, or take the plane we usually fly, but pick one and go fly it yourself. I'm going to sit here on the porch with a handheld radio and watch you." I wanted to sign his solo flight off 2 weeks ago, and a bunch of little things (plus a little stalling, I believe) have stopped us so far. Tonight was the perfect night for it, with beautiful weather this evening. He preflighted the usual plane and I did some paperwork as I watched him taxi out and do the run-up. About that time, one of the usual airport crew, Fred, showed up, and I told him that it was a first solo. He grabbed his camera and ran out to the runway to take some pictures.

As Francis was lining up to take off, I'm not sure if I was more nervous/excited than he or not, but I know it was close. Its a huge responsibility for both of us. The takeoff was textbook, but the first approach was a little high. I had told him to expect much better climb performance out of the plane with my big rear-end gone, but I had forgotten to tell him the plane would glide a lot better as well. The radio in the plane either had the squelch set too high, or my handheld was too weak to transmit, but he couldn't hear me on the radio. I was wondering what to do, and if he was going to try and save the approach or go around. After a timely go-around, he put it on the runway three times in a row. The first two touchdowns had just the slightest bounce to them (maybe 12 inches), and the last was absolutely beautiful. Francis shut down in the tie-down spot and Fred shot some more photos of us in front of the plane. Then he handed me a pair of scissors. "You know what to do." I looked at Francis and asked if he minded if his shirt was completely destroyed. Then I took the scissors and administered the traditional post-solo reward - the back of your shirt, handed to you.

This tradition is probably one of the oldest in aviation. It all started when Orville landed the Wright Flyer after that first 13 second flight on a Carolina beach, Wilbur ran over and cut the back of his shirt out with some scissors! Actually, there are conflicting stories about where this all got started, but many claim that, during the pre-WWI and WWI era, instructors had to tug on students' shirt tails to get their attention, then to shout instructions - there were no intercoms in those days, and open cockpits and radial engines are much louder than the inside of a Skyhawk. Once students could fly by themselves, removing the shirt tail was a sign to other pilots and students that the person no longer needed an instructor to fly an "aeroplane".

Anyway, it was a fantastic day and night (with the exception of getting home at 9pm). I'll really try to post some pictures in the next few days if I can a few copies. I really need to get my own camera. We both had some "firsts," had an enjoyable and challenging flight home, I found my paycheck on the desk in the office, and I have the weekend off!

Quick note about a busy day.

Had a great day today. At the airport at 9:00am to fly with my most recent student, let's call him Carl. Carl is having a really tough time figuring out the relationship between pitch, power, and how the trim control factors into that relationship. I have been trying to come up with a lot of different demos, explinations, and diagrams to explain it, and we have been beating the basics of flight by visual reference to the horizon over and over. We are making a little progress, but I have been afraid that he would get discouraged.

After our lesson today, he asked to talk with me for a minute, so we went into the office and shut the door. I was afraid he was upset at not making progress or something, but he just wanted to thank me for being so patient, not getting annoyed by having to say the same things over and over, and generally helping him to keep track of what is going on. He also told me that I was a very good teacher, and was glad we were flying together. I was beaming when we left there, that made me feel very good, and I am glad that my hard work is being recognized.

I also flew with another instructor's student, Robin, while she practiced crosswind landings this evening. She was planning on flying solo, but the winds were higher than both her endorsement restrictions or her confidance level; so when the other CFI called and asked me to fly with Robin, I gladly accepted. She flew great, and did four stop and go landings with absolutely no help from me. I really hope that her confidance rose a little bit, and I am pretty sure that she would be OK by herself.

All in all it was a good day, and I feel like I'm doing my job well. Can't wait till tomorrow when I fly with my weekly student, Dustin, I fly with Carl twice, and my ready-to-solo student Francis, who will solo provided he gets there before dark and the winds aren't tornado strength.


Also, I decided to take a plane up by myself tonight around sunset. I was only up for about .4 hours, but did 5 landings, and really got to practice my skills, which was a blast. Best $30 I have spent in a long time. I did maximum performance takeoffs (made over 200' altitude by the end of the runway), grass takeoffs and landings, a simulated engine out return from Vx during the crosswind turn, and a short field landing that I was quite proud of. The best part was, I sat in the pilot seat, not something I do a lot of these days.

Rain doesn't guarantee a day off, but thats how it worked out today.

Don't get me wrong, I love flying. Today, however, I was glad to be able to call my scheduled student and cancel our lesson due to weather. The morning started out dark and wet. After about 1pm the day clouds broke up and the sky cleared completely, but the wind is really howling along the river where the airport is located. I'm really happy that this little cold front pushed through and a big rain fell. It has been so hot, humid, and hazy all week long. Now that the weather has changed, I'm hoping this coming week is a little more pleasant.

The only reason I'm glad I was able to stay on the ground today is because I have been so busy all week. I flew with at least 2 or 3 students each day (sometimes more), and had a few other things to do as well. Then, Friday night and all day Saturday I shot video for one of the based-pilots. He owns a Cardinal and a video production company that sells videos at events like recitals, graduations, etc. This is his busy season, so he hired me temporarily to help with all the events. If I never hear "Pomp and Circumstance" again, I'll be alright.

I'm rambling though. The point is that I have been busy, and will be glad to return to the office (i.e. the right seat of an airplane) tomorrow morning. Before that comes, and I get swamped for another week, I'll tell you about my favorite flight this past week...

It was Friday afternoon. 95 Fahrenheit in the sun, hotter on the ramp, and I had had a couple of students that morning. Between the early morning, close to 100% humidity, and dragging planes around the ramp all day, I was pretty miserable. About 3:30, I began preflighting and fueling a 1976 Skyhawk in preparation of flying a photographer. It was supposed to be a short flight, starting at 4pm. I had to leave the airport no later than 6:15pm to arrive at one of the afore mentioned video shoots, so I wanted to get off the ground as soon as the photographer arrived. Well, he got there about ten till 4, but I had noticed the sky darkening and the temperature dropping pretty rapidly, so I called to check the weather.

Flight Services told me that VFR flight was not recommended, though I think that IFR flight would have been equally foolhardy - there was a monster storm bearing down on us. It was about 30 miles west moving about 25 knots, and 1 inch hail had already been reported. After hanging up, I pulled up a radar image on my phone and made the decision: photo flight cancelled.

I went over to meet the photographer and discuss some options with him. He was a cool, mid-40s hippy named Tom, and if he reads this post I hope he doesn't take offence; I say "hippy" with a tinge of admiration and jealousy. Maybe in the next life. Our mission was to fly about 12 miles east and take shots of an outdoor music festival they hold every year called "Appalachian Uprising." The photo company's main work is to travel the country each year and take aerial shots of these kinds of festivals. Apparently the folk music scene has a few more financial resources than they did back in the days of Dylan, Biaz, and Garcia. Anyway, we talked about the weather and agreed that it would be a bad idea to fly. We needed about 45 minutes to complete the flight and I didn't want to either A) get sucked into a storm, B) have to land out and be stuck at a different airport and thus miss my video job, or C) try to race a thunderstorm back to base. Luckily, he completely agreed with my assessment of the situation and left the decision up to my experience. We decided to wait a bit, track the storm, and see what happened. We also looked at the details and decided that we could make the flight in 30 minutes, rather than 45.

On schedule at 4:45, exactly the time we would have been trying to land, the storm hit. Pouring rain along with lots of thunder and lightening proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that we made the correct decision. There were 3 or 4 of us stuck in the FBO, a couple other young pilots and the photographer. We talked about a lot of different things, and generally had a good time watching the storm blow by.

It cleared out around 5:30, and we discussed the possibility of making the flight. By 5:45 we checked the radar, called the festival to ask about local weather conditions, and were in the air. The deal was that we would head home by 6:05 no matter what, and if I got headed east and felt like we were getting too close to the weather, we would go back home also. This wasn't a problem though, that storm moved out of the area pretty fast (as I had suspected after watching it for an hour and a half). I was doing my best to be smooth, professional, and efficient as I did the startup, runup, taxi and takeoff. Got the airplane trimmed, leaned, and contacted approach control for flight following. The air was (thankfully, almost miraculously) smooth, clean, cool, and free of the haze and grit of the past week. We headed east, but were unsure of the festival's exact location. Flying IFR (you know, I Follow Roads), we found it in short order, and I made sure to maintain legal altitudes and distances from outdoor assemblages of persons (the FAA's language, not mine) while side slipping into the wind to give Tom opportunity for some really good shots. Two trips around the area, and he calls "good to go" while closing the window. Full power and a radio call to approach and we were on our way home. Entered the pattern, landed well enough to get a compliment, parked and secured the plane, wrote up a purchase order and ran the credit card in time to get in the car by 6:15.

Why did I like this flight? Its simple. I got to exercise good decision-making, deal with weather, still accomplished the mission on time, and had a lot of fun flying. I made it to the video shoot on time, and really felt like a competent, professional pilot. The best part was seeing Tom in the left seat looking through the shots on the way back though. He was very excited about many of the shots, and found 3 usable ones in the first 5. If the customer is happy, than I usually find it easy to be happy as well.

After a nice break, I'm back in the air.

After Thursday's photo flight, I had to go out of town for a few days. Got back very late on Sunday night, and spent the day with family for the Memorial Day holiday. I had been scheduled to fly with Francis Monday night, but the weather just wasn't up to par (low broken ceilings with moderate to heave rain all over the area and thunderstorms brewing on the horizon).

I did get to fly with Dustin this morning, around ten. He is still doing well. The flying is great, and we are starting to work on some advanced landing techniques. I think that he will certainly solo before the end of the summer. My main concern is with some of the ground school stuff, however. We are now going to meet twice a week - once to fly and once to work through the other material.

Speaking of ground school material, Francis needs to take his written test as well. And the pre-solo test. As soon as he brings me the pre-solo test filled out, I'll sign him off to solo, and if he doesn't bring it soon, I'll sit down and do it with him in the office. He is more than ready, and will do a great job. We need to get him soloed, on a couple cross country flights, and then off to take his flight test for his private license. I'm really proud of him, and its really cool to think back only one month and see the progress, especially considering that I've been his primary CFI. We are both happy, and I'm looking forward to seeing a polaroid of the two of us next to an airplane get pinned to the wall in the next few days.

Tomorrow I'm staying busy. I'll be doing some cross-country planning and flying with John, a guy my age I have talked to a lot around the airport. His CFI is busy and gave us the green light to work a little. I'll fly with him to Parkersburg in the morning, then he will fly there and back by himself in the afternoon. At 4:30 I have a new student, and Francis again at 6. Meg and I are going to get up early and have breakfast before I go, because its looking like I'll be gone the entire day, 8 to 8 at least.

It could be worse, at least I have work to do. Actually, I'm very happy with what I'm doing. It would be nice to be able to be picky about when I have to fly, but that will come someday. Right now its still unreal that my job is to fly airplanes, and I love it.

Photo Flying

Had a bit of fun today, even if "today" started about 7 hours after "yesterday" ended. Woke up at 6:30 and flew with Francis about 7. We had to pick up an IFR clearance to get above the fog/haze layer - visibility was only 2 miles. As soon as we got 100' off the ground, the sky was clear and we were above the layer. Huntington Tri-State Airport is on top of a hill, so it looked like an island in mist, and that is where we went to practice taking off and landing the plane while waiting for the fog to burn off.

I am really happy with how he is doing. The deadline of June 24th for getting his license is fast approaching, but we have a detailed, realistic plan to get him finished up. We are flying again Monday (he can't fly this weekend because he is on call), and if his landings are as consistent then as they were today, I will be signing off my first solo student Monday or Tuesday. Shortly thereafter, maybe Friday, he will go take his written, and then he is off to work with Bill Peters (who will also be giving the exam) so that he can pass in the minimum time possible.

We finished flying about 8am. I started fueling another of our planes in preparation for my photo flight at 8:30. Got ready, met the photographer, we discussed our route, checked fuel requirements and weather, and took off into a rather hazy morning. Flight visibility was probably around 8 miles, and didn't really get better because the air is so humid. We flew a big square, about 40 to 60 miles per side. We would climb up and cruise to the photo site, then descend and fly a tight square around each structure or feature. We took shots of schools, highways, and other things the engineering company had built or was in the process of building. We also took pictures of the Air National Guard project at the Huntington Airport and the Bluestone Dam construction project. It was a lot of fun, and it really felt good to be able to fly so precisely. Hell, it felt good to fly. With students, I log all the time, but often don't actually touch the controls at all unless I sneak some corrections in during the landing flare. Today, I was the only pilot aboard, and actually controlling (as opposed just commanding) an airplane was a treat.

Now I'm done for the week, and while I can't wait to get started on Monday, I'm glad to have a couple days off.

Living the Dream (is hard, sweaty work)!

It is 10:15pm as I sit down to write this. I am exhausted, tired, sweaty, hungry, have a slight headache, and couldn't be happier. Today was my first day of really extensive flying with multiple students. This morning around 9:30am, I got to the airport. Met my student, Dustin, at 10, and we went and flew for an hour and fifteen minutes. By that time, the day was warming up a lot. We hit it hard, doing landings, going to other airports, some high air work, ground reference maneuvers, and even a little bit of ground school. As soon as we landed, one of the guys from the maintenance shop wanted us to take him to the airport across the river. My student and I were both hot and hungry, but free flight time is, after all, free flight time. I did a lesson on "how to go into and out of airports with a control tower" on the fly, literally. We got almost another hour of flying out of that endeavour.

The actual lesson with Dustin went really well. Every time he flys (once a week) he does better, and I'm very pleased with our mutual performance. I think he could probably solo in June if we keep after it, but there is a lot of new things to cover between now and then. Russ and I both think that maybe 3 lessons every 2 weeks, or 5 every 4, would help his progress a lot.

Anyway, by the time that was all said and done, I was very hungry. Ran across the road to Taco Bell for lunch, and ate it in the FBO (the office). There really isn't a cool place on the airport, except for the office in the maintenance hangar. I didn't want to turn the A/C on in the FBO, so I opened the doors and windows to get a breeze, and sat on the couch to study for my Instrument Instructor written test, and maybe to take a nap. Actually, neither got done, as I found myself answering phones and talking to airport regulars who were wandering through to get a drink or rest. I had a really nice chat with Gene Gill, a really nice, older Canadian native who now lives here. He flys powered parachutes whenever the weather is nice, and it was nice today; with a light breeze and fluffy, white, fair-weather cumulus clouds. I also answered a call from a man who was in Kentucky and planning on flying his Piper Cherokee 6 in this evening. He asked me questions about the airport for a minute, but we were cut off when the cordless handset's battery died. I couldn't find the call-back number, and he never called back.

After a long, hot afternoon in the office, Russ had me fly with one of his students about 4:30. Russ had to go home, but his client had some time off and wanted to sneak in some landing practice. We flew for about an hour, and he had some really great landings. Of course, it was hot as hell, even at 90mph with the windows open. The last couple landings wouldn't have won any contests, but they were most definitely average, and I was really just an advisor mostly. This guy is right at the verge of soloing, and I really want to get my students to this level. Hell, I was proud of him, and I didn't even do anything. It is really cool to be able to see someone just getting to the point of correcting themselves and really flying.

After that series of trips around the pattern, I ran across the road again, this time for dinner at McD's. My food today wasn't very healthy, but at least I'm not the stereotypical, poor, Ramen-eating CFI - yet.

I came back and started working on a lesson plan for my other main student, Francis, who was supposed to arrive around 7:45. I went for a walk along the runway (it was still pretty hot and humid) to gather my thoughts about what we need to do. The reason I wasn't sure about a plan is that Dola flew with him last, and I wasn't sure what they had covered. After I came up with some ideas, I went inside and made a plan. I got the map and plotter out, and made a maze-like itinerary of intersections and airways for us to fly between here and Charleston, WV. My plan was that, if Francis had done short runway and grass field takeoff and landing techniques, then we would fly the Charleston route, working in the various types of landing as well as introducing navigation by VOR stations and emergency procedures. This would have put us out well past sunset, which isn't a problem, but would have made for a really long day for both of us. If he hadn't done the various types of takeoffs and landings, then thats what we would do - until dark.

Well, turned out that he hadn't done them, so we took off and started around the pattern. He seemed a little nervous about actually taking off and landing in the grass. I remember when I first did it, it seemed really strange and a little scary. Nowadays, I almost prefer a nice sod runway to a paved one (unless its raining). We did a couple grass operations, then moved on to short field techniques. That was going OK, and (given his previous pattern of extensive study between lessons) I have no doubt that the next time we go out, his procedures will be excellent.

As we were doing our lesson, a Cherokee 6 entered the pattern and landed. I chatted with the guy on the radio for a while - he was the man who had called earlier that afternoon. Its a good thing I was out with Francis, because everyone has usually gone home by that time of night. He landed and shut down by the fuel pumps, we did two more landings. On the last landing, I asked Francis to talk himself through the landing - I would remain quiet unless something was seriously wrong or he had a specific question. His last landing was firm, but good, and I was quite pleased. If he keeps flying every day, he will solo in a week I believe.

After landing, I ran into the office, grabbed the key, unlocked the fuel pumps, helped Francis secure the plane, de-briefed the lesson, ran the owner of the Cherokee 6's credit card for the fuel, wrote up the 3 million forms for all the transactions, locked the building, and drove the transient pilot and his luggage to the hotel that is, almost literally, located at the end of the runway. He was a nice guy, and we chatted for a few minutes after I dropped him by the hotel. I got on the highway, headed for home, but I felt like something wasn't quite right. About 2 miles down the road, it hit me - I had forgotten to lock the fuel pumps up! I turned around at the next exit, raced back to the airport, and locked the pumps up. I have already gotten "reminded" to lock both locks on the office door (I had only locked one a couple times), so now I'm paraniod about the locks. Got that straightened out and headed home.

Now I'm sitting out front of the apartment, drinking a cold drink and enjoying the night. It was a long, hectic day, I was at the airport (in the heat and sun) for about 12 hours. I got about 5 hours of flight time, and made just over $100. Thats about comparable to the restaurant job last summer, but today was a whole lot more fun. I'm not sticky, I don't smell like frying meat, and I spent the day doing two of the things that I love to do - fly and teach. I am going to fly at least once tomorrow evening on a longer flight, and again Thursday morning. Thursday late morning I'm going to be flying a photo mission, which should pay well and be a lot of fun. Its shaping up to be a great week. If I could fly as much every day as I did today, I couldn't really complain about anything at all. I'm finally, really, making a (very modest) living flying airplanes. It seems unreal, but it is real, and it is really satisfying to have achieved another one of my goals.

Workin' hard, and hardly workin'

Night flying is fun (but take lots of flashlights)

I've had a busy couple days, flying-wise. Yesterday I flew with the student that has been assigned to me, after about a two week break, and was surprised that there wasn't really any rust for him to knock off. Its funny, I'm starting to observe different strengths and weaknesses in the various students. This one can stall and flare, the other can nail the steep turns and has better coordination, etc. So far though, its a lot of fun for me to work with these guys. My student is just starting to work on landings and, even though I had to make a small control input here and there during the landing flare, he has the approach portion down like a pro, its pretty amazing (to me, at least). That went well, and we are going to start working on maneuvers and landings in the same lesson, rather than really only focusing on the maneuvers. He is sometimes prone to getting air sick. I have been looking for some kind of solution for him, but I'm thinking that perhaps we found it yesterday. By 2pm, the day was starting to warm up (finally!) after a long, cold, overcast morning. We were taxiing around with the windows opened, like normal, when I mentioned something about maximum window open speed being equal to the never exceed speed. The client thought it was a great idea, let's fly with the windows open. Sounded good to me, I like doing that also. We stuffed all the loose items into bags or seat-back pockets and took off. To tell the truth, I was a little chilly, but we certainly had plenty of ventilation, and the windows fall closed when approaching a stall, which is another cool "hint" to point out to the learner.

Now, on to the flight that inspired this post's title. The guy who wants to fly every day and get his license before the end of June has had to work a little late the past couple days, so we decided to go ahead and do a little night flying. He is almost ready to solo, so it has been very productive, and flying at night gives us a lot of things to talk about, like optical illusions, risk management, judging the approach, flight planning, equipment, weather, etc. Anyway, two nights ago we went out and just got in three stop and go's before we decided to quit before the fog formed. We could see big, stringy masses of fog starting to roll out of the valleys into the river/city/airport areas, and the temp was rapidly approaching the dew point.

That flight went well, and he wanted to get a lot more night practice, so he would feel more confidant in the dark. We went up again yesterday evening, planning to head over to a nicely lit uncontrolled field with a visual glide slope (VASI), then go to the local controlled field to see their approach lighting (except their approach lighting is broken), then make the 5th and final landing back at home base, which has low intensity dusk to dawn lights only, and trees at each end of the runway.

Things were going well. There was a very high overcast, visibility was about 8 miles, and the city lights made good references to navigate by. We started doing stop and go's at the big uncontrolled field, but my student wanted to come in high and fast. I think it was probably subconscious, due to being unfamiliar with the airport and a little uncomfortable with the darkness. We worked on it some, and got 3 landings over there. We were going to do one landing at the towered field, then head home. I believe we were both starting to get tired by 11:00pm, and his last touchdown was the worst of the evening - we landed very long, I asked him if he wanted to head home, but he wanted one chance to redeem himself at the towered field, so we went around once and landed again. This one was much nicer, but as we were taxiing to takeoff again, our landing light winked out! This has happenend to me so many times that I was exasperated more than anything, but I could tell that he was a little unnerved by it. After all, to get home we would have to fly over trees and land in a dark field at 70mph with no headlights. Well, it sounds a lot more dangerous that it is, I was planning on making him land without the light anyway, just in case it ever happened to him for real. In my limited flying time, I've had to land without it several times (in addition to training), and once had to land with only that light - the airport lights were inoperative.

Anyway, I reminded him of the lights-out techniques we talked about before takeoff, and said "let's go home." We took off, using only the sight picture of the runway lights, and climbed out normally. Entered the traffic pattern at home base, and started letting down at the normal location. Without a visual glide slope, he had to judge the approach based on the shape of the runway lights, and look for obstructions based on being able to see (or not) all of the threshold lights. As it turned out, the approach was not as high or as fast as the others, and the flare and touch down (judged only with peripheral vision and the apparent height of the edge lighting (along with just a tiny bit of coaching) was the smoothest of the night. I think it was a very good learning experience for him, and he is all ready for his night cross-country flight later on in training. For now, we will hammer out the other types of landings by the light of day, and I have the feeling I'll probably be recommending him to solo sometime this coming week.

Flight instructing - never a dull moment!

OK, so it wasn't an emergency, but...

Thorndike's laws of learning - Intensity: The more intense the material taught, the more likely it will be retained. A sharp, clear, vivid, dramatic, or exciting learning experience teaches more than a routine or boring experience.

I've been told that during the first 100 hours of dual instruction given, the CFI learns at least as much as his students. Today, we both learned something, and had a very beneficial post-flight discussion on emergency procedures.

After a routine briefing, preflight, enging run up, and taxi, I was prepared for another normal takeoff. After all, I've had 6 or 7 hundred in my life, many in the plane we were flying today. Of course, in hindsight the fact that the altimeter was 100 feet off could have been a clue to the coming excitement. As it was, the discrepancy made me think "I should tell the maintenance shop on Monday morning that the altimeter is off." 75' is the error allowed for instrument flight - VFR doesn't even require a sensitive altimeter, and it did seem to work.

During the takeoff roll, everything looked fine, and airspeed came alive just as it always does. However, after we cleared the trees I noticed that we weren't climbing. Sensing that our airspeed was high, and seeing a lack of climb, I was about to chide my student to fly the proper airspeed when I realized that the speed was actually lower than it should be. VERY LOW. Of course, the old joke that money makes airplanes fly wasn't too comforting, we needed airspeed and altitude, and weren't getting either. I asked if the throttle was completely open, and if the engine was generating maximum power, he said it was. We weren't climbing, and each time we tried to raise the nose, our airspeed bled off to extremely low levels.

About the time Mr. customer said "I think you had better take the controls" I said "my controls." The instant I took the yolk in my hand, I could tell that everything was OK. The stall warning was not close to going off, the controls were nice and firm due to proper airflow, and the engine was normal. Then the lightbulb winked on, ever so slowly in my head. I reached up and pulled open the valve for the alternate static source, whereupon the airspeed popped to life, altimeter twitched, and the vertical speed indicator showed a healthy climb. The entire sequence of events lasted for about 15 seconds, but it seemed more like minutes. For those that don't know, these three instruments are driven by air pressure measured at a tiny hole in the side of the plane. When this hole is blocked, the altimeter freezes and vertical speed goes to zero, while the airspeed begins acting like an altimeter - when you go up airspeed drops and when you go down airspeed increases. The alternate static is just vented to the cabin, which is almost, but not quite, equal to outside static air pressure.

Back on the ground, we checked the static port, and it did not look blocked. Best guess is that yesterday's hellacious storm blew some water into the static port, plugging it up. Later on in the day, a mechanic blew the lines out and the plane was completely normal - I even took a couple of nice teenagers for a discovery flight in it later this evening. The front seat passenger did a very nice job controlling the plane, and all had fun.

Other than the time I aborted a takeoff due to a minor radio issue, this is the closest I have actually come to a real "emergency." I'm sure the people back in the FBO suddenly became as anxious as I was when I radioed our immediate return to the runway (we later flew a normal pattern once the problem was sorted out). While my main job is to insure the safety of the flight, my other job is to be sure the student learns as much as I can get him to. I think now that he would have learned a much more valuable lesson (primarily self-confidence in an emergency or abnormal situation) if I had kept my hands off the controls. I'm not sure how I feel about the overall outcome or how I would do it next time - both things I need to figure out before my next takeoff. That said, we shared a productive "teachable moment" on engine out and partial power situations on the ground, I drew the connection that takeoffs like today's are exactly the reason we learn power-on stalls*, we grabbed another plane, and had our normally planned lesson.

I also met Tim again, and he would like me to go up with him in his new Cessna 177 Cardinal while he gets comfortable with it. The insurance co. doesn't care if the CFI has any Cardinal time after all. Cool! Appointment made after we couldn't fly today - the operating handbook was missing. He will bring it from home when we fly on Wednesday.

*power-on stall principles are how I knew we were completely safe the moment I took over. None of the signs of stalls or low airspeed (like mushy controls, horns, airframe buffet, etc.) were encountered.

Power On Stalls - My Client and I Both Need Some Practice, I Believe...

Had a very interesting day Thursday. I didn't think I'd be flying, so I headed to Mom's house, about 18 miles away, to clean some of my things out of her basement, and do some laundry along the way. As I was passing the airport, the chief instructor called me, but the phone connection didn't allow us to actually communicate (love AT&T). I decided to just stop in and see what he wanted. He had just wanted to let me know about another opportunity to clean vehicles, and also wanted to see if I wanted to call a few long-lost customers to check up on them.

Before long I was on the road again. I threw some laundry in the machine and drove the 4 blocks to my grandparents' house to visit for a while. I had been there for about 40 minutes (and eaten some tasty hot dogs) when one of the clients I had left a message for earlier called me back. He wanted to fly in 30 minutes, sooner if possible. I pulled radar up on the computer really quick and then hopped in my car, headed for the airport, about 25 or 30 minutes away!

We met, briefed the weather situation, and elected to fly. It was a very typical late summer afternoon, with some building clouds and possible thundershowers (none in the local area). I wanted the client to get some experience making this kind of decision, so we talked about it and then I let him decide what to do. After he elected to go, I told him about some caveats related to this type of weather pattern, handed him the airplane key, and sent him to do the preflight while I sold some fuel to a guy who had just walked in the FBO.

We took off and headed to the practice area. I wasn't doing anything except observing and offering advice - exactly the level of proficiency a future private pilot needs to obtain. We reviewed some of the maneuvers learned on previous flights, then moved into power on stalls. I am trying to implement some of the instructional methods I have been reading about in books like "Train Like You Fly: Guide To Scenario Based Training" and "The Savvy Flight Instructor," including offering only one opportunity to have the student demonstrate a "best ability" attempt at a procedure, and trying really hard to allow mistakes to develop enough that the guy who is paying me actually learns something.

We did power on stalls at 65% power, 100% power, with the wings level, and while banked. Quite a workout for both of us, and it was humid enough that I could see little beads of sweat on the client's face! Next time, I'll open the windows, and show him how the windows will shut themselves when approaching the stall (and keep us cool the rest of the time).

I was doing the best I can, but some more experience would be nice. I was trying to think of different ways to explain the stall recovery - my client is having trouble keeping the plane from wanting to spin during the stall break. Also, about half the time he wants to dive rather than gently reducing the angle of attack.

We are both making progress, and I am excited for the next lesson, when we review stalls and start throwing in some ground reference maneuvers like turns around a point, but I have some planning to do in the meantime.

Also between now and then I am looking forward to my main student, Dustin, coming back from vacation, and I have a few ideas I'd like to propose to Russ and Dola about finding more students and marketing-type activities. I'm thinking that some collaboration in trying to get more students for all of us would alleviate some of the tension around the airport.

Students, wax jobs, and rain...

Woah, its been a busy week. I can't believe I've not written for so long. I've had several students and spent 18+ hours detailing a twin Cessna 310. Yeah. It has a huge surface area, and was really dirty with bad stains, but I got it cleaned (Meg helped for a few hours Monday), and I waxed the entire thing. I haven't had time to catch my breath, much less write.

The high point of the week was when I had the same student two days in a row. I flew with Dr. Lee on Sunday and Monday mornings. It was really cool to be able to work with a student more than once, and to see him learn. I found that he is a really fast learner while we sat having an informal ground lesson on Monday while waiting for the fog to lift. The two lessons were geared toward slow flight and stalls - I really think I got the intended skills across, and I really tried hard to get him to feel the plane, to really get a sense for how it flys. These two exercises are used primarily to teach real-world feel for angle of attack. Lee was able to fly right at minimum controllable airspeed like he had been doing it for years - the holy grail of an "immediate stall upon further increase in pitch or reduction of power" was exactly where he was by the end of lesson 4!

It feels really good to be able to teach someone something like this, and he really enjoyed his time with me (at least, thats what he said).

I had considered taking the offer to fly the jump plane for the parachute jumpers, but the flight school told me that as long as I worked for them, I wouldn't be allowed to fly commercially for anyone else. I didn't realize this was a condition, and its OK for now. If good opportunities come along or I don't get enough work with them, however, then I'll have to consider other options. For now, I'm very happy to stay with them - they have done some favors for me, to say the least.

Right now we are in the middle of a 4-day rain, so the flying has been a bit slow (read: it hasn't happened since Monday). I'm hoping that, as the weekend rolls along and the sun comes out. I'll get back into the thick of things, but tomorrow I'm going to take a nice day of rest before starting the wash job on a Cessna 210 that is in the shop.

A Student Of My Own

Flew with a student today. My student. Russ and I talked last week, and he is really swamped these days. Asked if I would help out, and of course I would. He told me to call Dustin, and if he agreed, then I'd be his main instructor. So I did, and Dustin did, and so I have a student that is not just someone I will fly with once. I will fly with him every time. Its my job to plan lessons, make sure he understands the information and procedures, and can safely pilot an airplane. Oh, did I mention that another part of the goal is to accomplish all this in the shortest amount of time and money possible?

So anyway, we met at the airport around 3:00 this afternoon. I actually got there a little bit early and checked the fuel and oil, then locked the plane again. I wanted to see him do the preflight inspection and make a decision about the airworthiness of the plane. Well, after Dustin arrived, I called flight service and got a standard briefing while he got the plane ready to go. After a quick discussion about the day's weather (fair-weather cumulus, warm, possible light turbulence) We briefed the takeoff, flew it, and headed out to the practice area at 3,500'. The first exercise was slow flight. I asked for various airspeed and flap configurations, all the while asking questions about what control does what, etc. After a little bit of that, we transitioned into a power-off stall: the most benign variety. After two of those, we headed over to Tri-State Airport. Nice long runway, no trees, and a little wider than home base. The purpose was two-fold. First, I wanted to get Dustin some practice at dealing with a control tower. I also wanted to see how he would do trying to land. We talked about how the exact same skills we had just practiced were the same skills used in landing. I talked him through the arrival and landing in the same terms. On the first flare, we ended up a bit high and started to balloon, but it was something I nudged the yolk subconsciously and then subsequently forgot about. I should have brought that up in the post-flight debrief. Next time for sure. I think he, at least subconsciously, figured out what was wrong with that first flare though, the next two were great. After two really nice stop and goes at Tri-State we headed back home for one final landing. Dustin did a fantastic job on each one, and overall it was a very successful day.

I can't wait for the next time, and I'll be hard at work putting together a lesson plan for this coming Sunday when we fly again. I'm going to have to give it a lot of though. Its up to me to progress with his training in a logical and productive way, and I want to be sure to do it right. Its easy to show up to pinch hit, and just practice what a person did with their CFI last time. Its also easy to start from scratch with someone that doesn't know anything about flying. Its a lot tougher to start somewhere in the middle.

That said, my first inclination is to go for some ground reference manoeuvres and start throwing in some emergency procedures (or at least starting to talk about them). He has spent a lot of time doing high air work. Its also time to start adding partial power-on stalls and banked stalls. Unfortunately, he seems to get motion sick kind of easily, so we are hoping that as he gets used to the sensations of flight more, we can do more aggressive procedures.

Anyway, I'll be thinking about it for several days. Its a good thing we are flying in the morning. Maybe if the air is very smooth we can do some new things. Thats always good.

One final note: tomorrow will be 3 years to the day that I took my first flight in a general aviation aircraft. What a long way to have come.

Good Times In Calm Skies

I had a good night last night, flight with one of my airport friends. If you remember from my April 11th post, Hank owns part of a 1970 Mooney M20-C, and is preparing for his instrument rating flight test. I went up with him as a safety pilot again yesterday evening. We took off and he set a course for Charleston, WV. We picked up flight following from the local TRACON (air traffic control), and he got situated and put the foggles on (glasses that limit vision to the instrument panel only). Luckily for me, my job was to look out the window for other air traffic and to keep an eye on things. Not a hard job yesterday, it was a beautiful evening. The hills are finally, really green again. The water of the rivers looked amazingly clean and blue, and everything was lit up very well - there was not a cloud in the sky to block the increasingly golden rays of the sun.

We arrived in Charleston's class Charlie airspace, and were given vectors to the ILS approach for runway 23. Right as we crossed the Kanawha river, I covered up the artificial horizon with a post-it note. Simulated instrument failure! This is the one instrument that does not lag behind what the airplane is actually doing, and is the most useful in instrument conditions. I played it a little nasty too, I covered it up right as we passed over a factory and then the river, which Hank couldn't see. I knew we would hit an up draft, then a down draft, then back to calm air in quick succession. You know, just doing my best to help prep him for the examiner, who may also play such a trick. It didn't phase him even a little bit though, and we made a nice approach to 23. ATC turned us onto the final course a little late, and by the time we were established on the localizer, the glideslope had already dropped out of the bottom. Down we went, and it all came together beautifully, with soft morse code-music playing over the NAV 1 radio. (for the non-pilots, air traffic control (ATC) made the approach a little tricky for us, but this is a situation that is only as common as it is annoying, but not dangerous at all. The controller was very busy at the time, so a forgivable oversight).

Gear down, approach flaps in, trim setup, Hank made a very soft touch and go out of the bottom of the ILS, and we began following the missed approach procedure. After switching to departure frequency from the tower, we were cleared to hold west of the Charleston VOR (a ground-based radio-navigation station) as published. Entry was good, made it around the race-track pattern once, and exactly half-way around the outbound turn, I covered another instrument, this time it was the heading indicator. This is a fair thing to do, he has to do an approach with both of these instruments covered for the test, and since they are driven by the same power source (vacuum power), they often fail together in real life. This made things very interesting - the plane is a little more work to control with 2 out of 3 gyroscopic instruments out of service. Of course, its good to practice with a safety pilot onboard while in beautiful clear skies rather than in some crud and scud some rainy day on an approach to minimums. We came back around, intercepted the final approach course inbound, and Hank shot the VOR-A approach back to the airport. At the appropriate time, distance, and altitude, he called the end of the approach, I said "look up!", and he then could see what I could see - that we were exactly where we were supposed to be.

We turned back west and headed home. Flew a long, VFR, straight in approach at home base, and shut it all down. The sun was just setting as we were touching rubber to pavement, there were 2 or 3 people sitting on the front porch of the FBO, and all was right with the world. Hank and his wife Deborah invited me to eat Mexican with them - of course I couldn't turn that down, and it was an enjoyable (and spicy) meal.

Hank called today around 2:00pm to thank me for the help in getting ready for the test, and to let me know that he passed with flying colors today. Passing a flight test is always a nice feeling for somebody, and its infectious.

In other news, Russ let me know that I can take charge of one of the students at the flight school - the same guy I flew with a few weeks ago - now that I'm on the insurance. Excellent news, I'm excited to get started.

Also, a Cessna 310 (8 or so passenger twin engine plane) is going to be in the shop this coming week, and it needs washed, waxed, and the interior detailed. Oh, all right, for $15 an hour I'll wash planes all day. I'm expecting a good job to take about 20 to 24 hours if I work hard at it. Thats about double what I have usually made at the restaurant in a week, which is good, because tomorrow (Saturday) is my last day of working in restaurants. I can't stand it any more, and I reason that a college graduate (as of May 8th) and commercial pilot can surely find something else to do to pay the bills.

More to come this week I hope, so stay tuned. Washing the 310 (I'll try to remember to snap some pictures) and a possible trip to Detroit, which has been brewing for several weeks, are both coming up. Who knows what else may happen?