May 2008 Archives
Today was a really good day in the airplane for me. I went up to practice some of the maneuvers that I'm worried about and did them really well. At least, well enough... I think... to pass the checkride. I also made five pretty good landings, which allowed me to reach a tiny milestone. I have now made 200 landings.
So that's what's going on with my flying. What I wanted to write about is a question that a few people have asked me when they find out that I am learning to fly. They ask, why I fly. I really haven't been about to find the words really. I mean, other than for as long as I can remember, when I've been in an airliner I spend most of my time looking out the window. There is also a sense of exhilaration as I fly and see the world from a perspective that not many see. There is also the challenge of it...planning a flight, finding your way without roads, using nothing more than some checkpoints on a chart and a compass. But that answer doesn't really capture the essence of what it means to me to fly. It tells only part of the story, but doesn't really capture how I really feel. At least, until I saw the YouTube video embeded below. Harrison Ford became a private pilot several years ago and he put into a few short words, near the beginning of the video, exactly what I couldn't express before.
So, here it is... here's the reason I love flying... from Harrison Ford's "Just a Pilot" short:
Up here I don't think much about except flying.... what my duties and responsibilities are, and everything else just kind of falls away....Everything else just falls away. It fixes a lot of things. A bad day at work. A bad day at home.... No worries... everything else just falls away.
Updated Pilot Log
Today was suppose to be my FAA Private Pilot Practical Examination (aka checkride). I was scheduled for 10am with Smitty. An 86-year-old FAA Examiner who has been flying since before World War II.
I say "suppose" because it didn't quite happen. The ceilings were low (clouds broken at 1700 feet AGL) and I just didn't feel comfortable flying from McKinney to Addison without being able to approach the airport below an altitude of 2500 feet. Instead, I drove down to my Designated Examiner's office and performed the oral portion of the exam.
The oral exam took about 45 minutes to an hour and in that time Smitty looked at my paper work, started additional paperwork, and began to tell stories about flying. His stories served three purposes. First, he was trying to set me at ease with his conversational style. Second, he testing me. As he is relating these stories, he's asking me questions. After I answer, he'll add useful information to the answer and to his story. This brings me to the third reason. He's actually teaching me... making me think and giving me pointers and things to remember.
Anyway, I passed the exam and since I decided to scrub the flying, we went to his schedule book to see when he was available for the flying portion. Sadly, I gotta wait until June 6. Eh... I guess that's okay. It gives me a chance to sharpen up some of my maneuvers.
After I got out of the exam I saw that the ceilings were a bit higher (3500 feet), so I went out to McKinney and decided to fly. I got up in the air and it was really windy and really bumpy and tried a couple of maneuvers and didn't do them well at all. After about 20 minutes I decided to quit for the day, so I came in and greased a really good landing. I had a left crosswind and upwind wheel on the main gear gently kissed the pavement first, followed by the downwind wheel, then brought the nose down right on the centerline. I was able to roll out to Taxiway C without having to apply the brakes much at all.
I now have 42.4 hours of flight time and by the time I actually take the practical exam my guess is I'll have another 4 or 5 hours, weather permitting.
I've been worried about my checkride all week. Not necessarily because I'm worried about failing. I'm a little nervous about what to expect, but I'm feeling fairly confident and I have two more opportunities to straighten out any problems before Saturday. What I've actually been worried about is the weather. Will I have good weather so that I can even go on my checkride? I've been watching the extended forecast for Saturday, the 24th, for the past several days and every day it has been either isolated or scattered thunderstorms.... Not good flying weather.
But... I looked today and it seems things are trending the right direction as you can see from the image below from Intellicast.com.
This forecast may change, but if this forecast is correct, I cannot ask for better weather for a checkride. We'll see what happens.
I've logged 2.4 hours over the last two days. I flew yesterday and today in preparation for the checkride this coming Saturday (24th). I don't know how well I'll do, but I have, I think, cleared a mental hurdle and which is, I have developed a pretty good comfort level in doing some of the maneuvers that are required for the test. So, I'll meet with my instructor on Wednesday and Thursday to prep for the oral portion of the checkride and do some flying, then it's over to Addison Airport on Saturday morning. One worry I have... The forecast for Saturday is scattered thunderstorms. I may have to reschedule the checkride, but I have a few days yet to see how the weather plays out.
Sunday was kind of a fun day. I flew down to Addison to check out where I need to go for my checkride. That's always interesting because of how much traffic Addison deals with. The procedure is to check the ATIS frequency for any terminal information, then contact DFW Regional Approach, when you're inbound, then get handed off to Addison Tower. It's not too bad except when Regional Approach is so busy it takes them forever to respond to you. Anyway, I checked out the FBO where my Designated Examiner offices, then departed Addison and made my way east of McKinney Airport to work on Steep turns. I did nothing but steep turn after steep turn after steep turn, one to the left, one to the right, over and over. Then headed back to McKinney to go home.
Today, I stayed at McKinney and practiced more steep turns, then a forced landing, then did some turns about a point, an s-turn then headed back for some landings. Did a soft field landing, a short field landing, a slip to a landing, then quit for the day.
One last bit of business. As you can see below, everything has now been crossed off the list for earning my private pilot certificate. Nothing left except the checkride.
At least 40 hours of flight time, to include
At least 20 hours of flight training from an instructor, including
- 3 hours of cross-country flight training in a single-engine airplane
- 3 hours of night flight training in a single-engine airplane, to include
- 1 cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance
- 10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport.
3 hours of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments, including straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, radio communications, and the use of navigation systems/facilities and radar services appropriate to instrument flight3 hours of flight training in preparation for the practical test in a single-engine airplane, which must have been performed within 60 days preceding the date of the testAt least 10 hours of solo flight time in a single-engine airplane, to include
Three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.5 hours of solo cross-country timeOne solo cross-country flight of at least 150 nautical miles total distance, with full-stop landings at a minimum of three points, and one segment of the flight consisting of a straight-line distance of at least 50 nautical miles between the takeoff and landing locations
I did some solo flying today. I logged 1.1 more hours. Now I have 39.5 hours. Technically speaking, I need just a half hour more to meet all the minimum requirements.
As far as the recommendation for the checkride is concerned, I basically have it. My CFI told me to go ahead and schedule a checkride at Classic Aviation at Addison Airport. That's where my Designated Examiner has his office and accepts appointments. Unfortunately, the soonest I could schedule an appointment was Saturday, May 24. I say unfortunately because I was hoping to get this done next week, but at least the extra time will allow me to continue to sharpen my skills a little more.
As for today's flight, I worked on some landings (short field, soft field, slips to a landing), then took the plane out east of the airport and did forced landings (cut the engine's power to idle to simulate an engine failure, and glided down to a couple of hundred feet above ground in a place to touch down), did some steep turns, then did some turns about a point and some s-turns... I finished off with a power on stall and a power off stall, then headed back to the airport and ended up landing behind a Hawker (raytheon) jet.
My plan is to do some additional solo flying next week, then Wednesday and Thursday before my checkride, work some more with my instructor on the oral portion of the checkride as well as some additional airwork. Then Saturday morning, I'll fly the plane down to Addison and do my checkride. And with luck, I'll be a private pilot a couple of hours later.
Today the winds were light and the skies were clear, so we worked on a number of things. We completed my required hood time. After that, we worked on forced landings, steep turns, short field and soft field landings, and slips to a landing. I got to log another 1.1 hours of time and we talked about scheduling the checkride for next week.
Since we met another milestone it's time to break out the requirements list and see cross off another section (or two) off the list.
- At least 40 hours of flight time, to include
At least 20 hours of flight training from an instructor, including
- 3 hours of cross-country flight training in a single-engine airplane
- 3 hours of night flight training in a single-engine airplane, to include
- 1 cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance
- 10 takeoffs and 10 landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport.
3 hours of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments, including straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, radio communications, and the use of navigation systems/facilities and radar services appropriate to instrument flight3 hours of flight training in preparation for the practical test in a single-engine airplane, which must have been performed within 60 days preceding the date of the testAt least 10 hours of solo flight time in a single-engine airplane, to include
Three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.5 hours of solo cross-country timeOne solo cross-country flight of at least 150 nautical miles total distance, with full-stop landings at a minimum of three points, and one segment of the flight consisting of a straight-line distance of at least 50 nautical miles between the takeoff and landing locations
I need 1.6 more hours to reach 40 total hours of flight time, then I'm done with the prerequisites. I'm scheduled for some solo time on Friday and another couple of lessons to sharpen things up, and then, just the recommendation from my instructor and I'll be done.
Today was not really a good day to prep for the checkride. The visibility was more than 5 miles, but the ceilings were around 2000 feet. It was marginal VFR, which is good enough for flying if you stay out of the clouds, but not really good for doing stalls and steep turns and such. You need a little bit more altitude to keep those maneuvers safe.
Instead, we just put a big dent in my remaining instrument time today. Mostly we did holding patterns. We picked an airspace fix out east of the airport called SLANT. We basically made for the fix and as soon as we overflew it started a standard rate turn to 180° in the opposite direction. A standard rate turn is a turn with a bank of 15° and takes exactly 1 minute to turn 180°. So you time the turn for exactly 1 minute. Then fly out 1 minute, then turn 180° in exactly 1 minute back toward the fix... and so on. What makes it tricky is the wind. You have to crab into the wind to prevent being blown off course, so even though inbound might be a heading of 090°, you might have to steer to 115°. So we did that and practiced holds (very important to master in instrument flight) and after that, we actually flew the GPS approach to Runway 17 at McKinney.
This was quite interesting because the aircraft I was in has a new GPS with WAAS installed. WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) is the latest technology that improves the accuracy of GPS to the point that a WAAS approach is more accurate than ILS. In short, WAAS has an accuracy of 16 meters laterally and 4 meters vertically. So, we punched up the RNAV17 approach to TKI on the GPS and activated the flight plane and it routed according to the published approach plate (RNAV17_TKI), and made for KARLA, then using a standard rate turn, turned to VELCI, then a standard rate turn to IKOTY where we picked up the LPV (Lateral-precision with vertical guidance) otherwise known as the glideslope, reduced power and trimmed for 90 knots and just tried to keep the needs on the instrument centered (horizonally and vertically) as pictured below.
When we got to about 200 feet, I was given the okay to remove the foggles and land the plane. This is not an easy task when you've been looking down at the instrument panel for an hour and now have to look outside the window and line everything up and land, but I was able to put the plane down just fine, even with a higher approach speed than normal. I think I even landed with no flaps.... And I almost forgot, the Aritificial Horizon was acting weird during the flight, it was indicating a lean to the right when I was straight and level, so we covered it up and practiced IFR with a partial panel. Not easy and not fun. IFR flying is a lot of work... your eyes have to constantly be on the move and have to monitor altitude, heading and level flight with no outside references. When you throw in turbulence and crosswinds, you can really get turned around in a very short time.
Overall it's a good experience, but it's very exhausting.
To recap, I need 0.6 hours of instrument time and 2.7 hours of overall time to have met all the prerequisites for the FAA checkride.
Updated Pilot Log
All of my cross-country work is finished. All of my night work is finished. I have the required solo time (10 hours), I have the required dual instruction time (20 hours). Prior to yesterday's lesson, all that was left was 4.8 hours of flight time to reach 40 total hours, 3 hours of time in preparation for the FAA checkride, and 1.7 hours of time operating the aircraft solely by reference to instruments (simulated IFR or "hood" time).
After yesterday's lesson I have 3.8 hours left to reach 40 hours of total time. 2 more hours of preparation for the FAA checkride, and 1.5 more hours of "hood" time.
What we did was set up a mini-checkride. When we were cleared for takeoff, I maneuvered the plane to the end of the runway and started a shortfield takeoff. The idea is that you have 1000 feet of runway and there's a 50 foot tall obstacle at the end of it. So you have to get airborne and high enough to clear the 50 foot obstacle prior to being 1000 feet horizontally. To give you an idea of what 1000 feet looks like at the airport, refer to the image below.
After the short field takeoff, I had to perform three different types of landings. First, a short field landing, where the 50 foot tall object is at the approach end of the runway. I have to clear the object and stop the plane in the same 1000 feet. Next, a soft field landing. I bring in power as I flare the plane and keep the plane up for as long as I can, and when I do touch down I keep the nosewheel up for as long as I can. The last type of landing is a slip. I use no flaps but to make the plane descend, I yaw the plane using the rudder to create drag and make the plane sink, then align the plane with the centerline just before flaring.
Those went relatively well, I had a little more trouble with the soft field landing, but I attribute that to the wind more than anything else... but I will need to practice and develop the technique a little more before the actual checkride.
After that we asked for a southeast departure and were approved at our discretion. As we climbed out, I put on the foggles and we did some hood time. During that hood time I was asked to turn the plane to different headings, then my instructor took over and put the plane in an unusual attitude and told me to recover. I looked at the airspeed indicator and saw that I was gaining speed fast which meant we were in a dive, so I immediately cut the throttle to idle, the looked at the artificial horizon to see how we were banked and proceeded to level the wings and pull out of the dive to straight and level flight. No problem.
After that, he told me to take off the foggles, did a couple of stalls. First we did a power off stall. In that type of stall, we setup as if we're landing on a short field and keep pulling up until the plane stalls. As soon as we sense the stall, we let the nose drop down and put in the power and establish best rate of climb. I had a little trouble with actually making the plane stall during the power off stall, but did much better with the power on stall, we start climbing as if we're taking off but keep pulling back on the yoke and until the plane stalls. When that happens, the nose just needs to be dropped to recover. This stall went much better.
After the stall practice, my instructor said, "ok, you just lost your engine, find a place to put it down." I pulled the power to idle (to simulate the engine failure) and I saw a field up ahead beyond some trees that looked good, so I trimmed the plane for best glide (65 knots) and made for the field, when we got down to about 1000 feet of altitude (500 above the ground), and it was obvious we would make the field, I was told that my engine came back online. Success.
We then climbed to 1500 feet and found a water tower and did turns about a point a few times, then did a couple of s-turns, and finished off with some steep turns. The first steep turn was a bit difficult to control, I let the nose drop too much and lost a couple of hundred feet of altitude. Once I got used the site picture (i.e. where the nose would be in reference to the horizon and the angle of the horizon relative to the cowling), the feel of the turn, how much to back pressure to use, and how much rudder to use, I did pretty well.... we did a few of those successfully and then made back for the airport.
Overall, my instructor told me that I would have passed the checkride and that he felt like I would be ready within a week. I just need to sharpen up a little more and schedule some time to talk about the oral portion of the checkride.
