Catch you later!
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Learnin' through Teachin'
I have started my Certified Flight Instructor training in the airplane now that I am done with Commercial. It is my goal to get this done in 3 weeks or less and it seems as though this might be a possibility. The flight portion of my training is only 17 flights, 4 of which I finished it 2 days. Needless to say I'm hitting it hard. I have a dump truck load of material I need to read in that time which is not surprising considering I need to know just about all there is to know involving airplanes and flight. When I do go for my CFI checkride, it will be the hardest checkride I will have ever taken. Anything and everything is fair game for them to question me on. Even things that I have not been taught by my instructors (as I have been warned.) So, as I dive into the ocean of aviation knowledge I bid you: never fear for I shall return to the realm of blog-dom once my trials have been overcome! (Calling them trials really is misleading because I'm enjoying every minute of this!)
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Commercial Pilot!
Yes its true, I now am a commercial pilot! While this took quite some time, and posting here on blogger was few and far between, it has finally come to be. I had my checkride Saturday in and amongst Newton's Young Eagles fly in sponsored by the EAA. Needless to say the airport was unusually busy with airplanes departing and arriving constantly. It made the checkride all the more challenging, but it was something that I wasn't worried about. As I reflect on this past saturday, I can see the growth that I have achieved over these past two years as a pilot. Dealing with a busy airport was just another thing that I as a pilot will have to deal with the rest of my life. Am I okay with that? YOU BET!
Falling asleep friday night was very hard. Not just because the city of Newton lifted the fireworks ban for the weekend, but because my nerves were starting to get more..nervy as I tried remembering every conceivable thing that might be asked on the checkride. Right as I turned out the light I received a phone call. Dale, who was going to do my checkride in the morning, said he had a flight the next day to Santa Fe and was wondering if I could go with another examiner he arranged. This was fine by me, except that I knew how Dale worked because he was my examiner for Instrument. I was now going with someone who I had never met and was therefore unable to try and predict what questions he was going to ask. The tossing and turning continued for another hour.
I arrived at the airport bright and early Saturday morning with the temp already pushing the 80's. Dave arrived at 830 and we began the oral portion of the exam. It went very well. He ask me an array of questions for an hour and a half, after which all of my brain juice was wrung out on the table. It was time to fly. We got into the aluminum oven and I went through my preflight briefing. As we taxied by the FBO, we saw numerous planes of all kinds lined up on the ramp. From jets to a Fokker Triplane, people were scattered among them admiring the flying machines. I caught a whiff of barbecue as we scooted on by.
Besides the unusually busy Newton Airport, it was a beautiful day to fly! The wind was light and all of my maneuvers went well. We headed back to the airport to do my short field, soft field, and power off accuracy landings. The first two landings went well, but the last was the one I was worried about. Besides the Pylon-Eight, the 180 degree power-off accuracy landing is the hardest maneuver of commercial. It involves pulling your power abeam your landing point and gliding to a landing. It gets tricky: you have to pick a point to touch down at. If you are short, you fail. You only have a 200 foot strip beyond that point to touch down in or you fail as well. Its a very small spot on the runway, and you have to hit it without using any power. Its also difficult to practice because different days have different speeds which change your descent rate. The judgement comes in when you turn on the base leg, and you can determine if you are to high or to low, If you are too high, you can add in flaps, do a slip to get down. If you are too low, you can pull your prop control back which adjusts the propeller to a high blade angle (this reduces drag). You can also add flaps in at last minute which will cause you to balloon, but you'd better know you are coming down after that. Needless to say this was a maneuver that I had been struggling with. To make a long story short, I nailed it and breathed a sigh of relief as we came to a stop on the runway.
Now that I have my commercial pilots license, I'm starting to work on instructor. I'm aiming to get it done by the end of summer (hopefully sooner) but the experience I've had so far tells me that I'll just have to go with the flow and see what happens. I'll do what I can to keep this thing updated. So for now its an adieu and thanks for reading!
Falling asleep friday night was very hard. Not just because the city of Newton lifted the fireworks ban for the weekend, but because my nerves were starting to get more..nervy as I tried remembering every conceivable thing that might be asked on the checkride. Right as I turned out the light I received a phone call. Dale, who was going to do my checkride in the morning, said he had a flight the next day to Santa Fe and was wondering if I could go with another examiner he arranged. This was fine by me, except that I knew how Dale worked because he was my examiner for Instrument. I was now going with someone who I had never met and was therefore unable to try and predict what questions he was going to ask. The tossing and turning continued for another hour.
I arrived at the airport bright and early Saturday morning with the temp already pushing the 80's. Dave arrived at 830 and we began the oral portion of the exam. It went very well. He ask me an array of questions for an hour and a half, after which all of my brain juice was wrung out on the table. It was time to fly. We got into the aluminum oven and I went through my preflight briefing. As we taxied by the FBO, we saw numerous planes of all kinds lined up on the ramp. From jets to a Fokker Triplane, people were scattered among them admiring the flying machines. I caught a whiff of barbecue as we scooted on by.
Besides the unusually busy Newton Airport, it was a beautiful day to fly! The wind was light and all of my maneuvers went well. We headed back to the airport to do my short field, soft field, and power off accuracy landings. The first two landings went well, but the last was the one I was worried about. Besides the Pylon-Eight, the 180 degree power-off accuracy landing is the hardest maneuver of commercial. It involves pulling your power abeam your landing point and gliding to a landing. It gets tricky: you have to pick a point to touch down at. If you are short, you fail. You only have a 200 foot strip beyond that point to touch down in or you fail as well. Its a very small spot on the runway, and you have to hit it without using any power. Its also difficult to practice because different days have different speeds which change your descent rate. The judgement comes in when you turn on the base leg, and you can determine if you are to high or to low, If you are too high, you can add in flaps, do a slip to get down. If you are too low, you can pull your prop control back which adjusts the propeller to a high blade angle (this reduces drag). You can also add flaps in at last minute which will cause you to balloon, but you'd better know you are coming down after that. Needless to say this was a maneuver that I had been struggling with. To make a long story short, I nailed it and breathed a sigh of relief as we came to a stop on the runway.
Now that I have my commercial pilots license, I'm starting to work on instructor. I'm aiming to get it done by the end of summer (hopefully sooner) but the experience I've had so far tells me that I'll just have to go with the flow and see what happens. I'll do what I can to keep this thing updated. So for now its an adieu and thanks for reading!
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