Misadventures in Studentpilotism

As of 9:45am Wednesday, April 8th I am officially a multi-engine rated pilot.

It took a long eight months to complete but it feels great to finally have it over and done with. The course was simply the most fun I’ve had in an airplane thus far in my training: to have that power resting in your hands is truly a rewarding experience.

The checkride involved an immediate engine failure on takeoff roll, another engine failure right after takeoff with a quick return to the airport and then basic maneuvers and instrument approaches. Even though it all felt straight forward I managed to get myself yelled at during the GPS approach. The way I’ve been taught to fly did not sit well with my examiner’s real-world perspective and as a result I was on the receiving end of a massive schooling in proper course reversal through a hold procedures. Past that an inop ADF made my life a hell of a lot easier allowing me to use the GPS to track to the IAF for the ILS 18L back into KMDH, flying outbound with the HSI was also a piece of cake thanks to it’s no-brain display.

During the ILS to final landing he had me change things up a bit: I normally drop the landing gear a dot above glideslope and keep power at my 120kt setting, letting me down on the GS and keeping speed around 120. He had me set out 15 degrees of flaps and drop gear, necessitating more power. His reasoning was to keep forward pressure on the nose, a point he reiterated with the addition of full flaps about a mile before the runway. At this point I’ve got the nose pointed at the ground and the engines are roaring with power as I attempt to maintain blue line (106) plus ten up to near the threshold. I’m guessing the point he was making was that you might be less likely to encounter an unrecoverable condition should an engine fail around this time. You’re nose is down but angle of attack is still higher, so I’m going to require his clarification on this to figure it out.

That being said, I’m now looking forward to a summer of fun personal flying and then to the fall, when I start my CFI training.

After beginning this multi-engine rating course last August, I’ve finally taken one giant leap in completing it. This morning I met with one of the charter pilots for the University and spent an incredibly informative two hours passing my oral check. Rather than hold me over the coals and accept those typical, canned check ride answers he made it a point to force me to think and answer honestly. I actually felt confident going into this: a feat I’ve rarely accomplished on any other oral check. Flight planning was a weight and balance shift with emphasis on fuel burn changing the CG location and how to prepare for that. From there, aerodynamics with a big hit on Vmc and all associated situations segued to systems for another 45 minutes. Nothing nit-picky, all very straight-forward and overall it beared the hallmark of any good checkride: I actually learned something from the whole experience.

Now I’ve gotta get back to practicing flows on my couch and flying approaches in my desk chair like all normal people. I mean pilots.

The dryspell is over.

After taking a break from flying the Cessna 310 for 11 weeks, I had the opportunity to head into the skies tonight for my XC. It went better than I could have expected and was truly one of those great flights I will never forget.

I planned and filed us up and back to Springfield, IL leaving Carbondale around 6pm. The clouds had been 15,000 to 25,000 scattered to broken all day and I figured we would be swimming below them the whole flight. As I began preflighting it became obvious that things were changing, and a quick call to the ASOS confirmed my suspicions: bases were now 3,400 broken and overcast at 4,300. I’m thinking “oh great, low clouds and dropping temperatures = icing. Time to scrap the flight and go home.”

Thankfully, I was wrong. We took off and shot through the low layer to break out at 5,000 on our way to 7,000.The last orange and purple colorings of the sun were fading, giving way to the darkness of night. My classroom truly has an exceptional view.

Even though the western sky was clear, spotted clouds lay along our flight path and consequently I spent a majority of the flight without the foggles on earning some actual time. At this point it became obvious my instrument scan was a little rusty as we frequently deviated heading + or - 10 degrees and altitude 100ft. This all while I’m trying to re-program the GPS for our direct clearances and ready an approach plate for the approach.

About 40 miles south of KSPI the clouds gave way to mostly clear skies. We were routed under a Citation and retarded the throttles to reduce speed. I needed 2.0 on the Hobbs meter for the trip and the 310 flies this trip in about 1.5 to 1.8. Back under the foggles we flew radar vectors to the ILS runway 22, touched down in a stiff crosswind and taxied back to runway 13. The landing was more of a controlled “plop,” but all three wheels remained intact so no harm, no foul, right?

A quick return flight with a nice chunk of actual instrument time led to a no-brainer radar vectors to the ILS 18L. We rolled a touch-n-go and that’s when the fun began. Winds were gusty and out of the west-southwest, and wrestling a 4,700lb piece of metal with my bare hands proved to be quite the match. Just slowing down and configuring for the pattern was fun enough in this plane, added to that the extra job of adding a crab angle into the wind at night and I’m quietly soiling myself over in the left seat while my instructor acts like we’re on a ride at an amusement park. I managed to stabalize things out smoothly so that by the time we’re on final it’s a pretty straight, clean shot to the threshold. The landing this time around jarrs my bones considerably less and we taxi on in to put the plane to bed.

It was surprising how well things went after my break.  My new instructor is excellent- very practical and a total no BS kind of guy. This week has brought spring break and again I’m not getting any flying done but come next week we’ll be back up zipping around the sky.

I’ve been living the past week in celebration of the reinstatement of my medical- it only took six weeks but hey not a problem, right? Going from leaving for Christmas break a mere few days from a checkride and now coming back and praying that you remember everything is an entirely stressful situation. I don’t want to waste my instructor’s time or my money, so of course the logical action for me to take now is to, you guessed it, study!

At this moment procedures and V-speeds are plastered on my bedroom walls and lately I find myself trying to practice flows in my Jeep while swerving through traffic. Maybe not the safest option but I get the job done.

And this evening, as I prepare for my first flight back in the Cessna 310, a night cross-country up to Springfield, IL (KSPI), I am again faced with the dreaded task of manual flight planning. I loathe interpolation, and of course there is no shortage of this stimulating activity involved in performance calculations. From pounds of fuel to taxi, climb, cruise, descent, approach, missed approach and back to another airport (bearing in mind the E6-B requires you to convert pounds to gallons for every calculation) to take-off roll, accelerate-go and accelerate-stop distances, true airspeed versus calibrated airspeed versus groundspeed and the resultant time between checkpoints to figuring pressure altitude at cruise based upon ground barometer readings I just want to light the whole mess on fire. Lets just head off to the airport, fill every tank on the airplane to the brim, check the windsock and simply jet off to our destination knowing the range of our aircraft is far greater than the distance we plan to fly. I call this my new revolution in flight planning and expect a great following amongst recent flight school grads.

I digress; even though this tedious process may be a chore, I know there is nothing else I would rather be doing. Every day I get to keep living my dream proves to be the best day of my life.

A special thanks to Capt. Denny Flanagan who FedEx’d me a whole case full of great United merchandise! Aviators like him who show support to up-and-coming pilots are the reason why I’ve been able to stick with this path for so long.

Finally, the FAA has released me off medical hold following surgery and I am now a pilot again. Those eight weeks were among the more tortuous in my life, but I am glad to be back to flying.

Rolling back to the airport I found my instructor is now also waiting on his medical to be released.In the meantime I’ve been reassigned to two different instructors who will collectively finish my up here by spring break. Earning my multi rating has been an entirely long process but at the same time has been one of the best flying endeavors I have yet embarked on. The power and speed afforded with muliple engines is addictive. Moving back to instruct in the single engines is going to be a tough step, but at the same time I enjoy teaching aviation so I’m sure I’ll still love it.

I also have some more photos, posts, etc. at http://iflyforfun.blogspot.com/

Bad news. For the second time in my flight training career I had to make the decision to stop flying. I’ve fought equipment and weather issues for the past six weeks in an attempt to finish up my multi-engine course: and I thought I was going to slip past the finish line just in time. Last night I had planned an XC up to KSPI; we were filed, my nest was made in the cockpit and the fuel order was filled. But as the sun set, I stood on the ramp with my flight instructor and faced two very lousy options. I could have got in that airplane, flown my last flight in the course and then spent the next ten days down here waiting for the weather to lift so I could get my checkride in. But instead I chose to pack up my bags and go home. I have sinus surgery on Tuesday, so I can’t really fly after that until the FAA reinstates my medical (provided the planets align and the pope gives his blessing). Staying would have meant saving that for spring break or summer, but what college kid wants to spend spring break with stints shoved up his nose and blood dripping down his throat? Despite the fact that I will return to school and finish the course up in January, it still feels like I am quitting on a goal I set for myself. The last time I was forced to make this same decision was at the tail end of my private pilot training, when I got pushed around my my flight instructor back home to the point that I had been flying for over a year and I was down to one week to get him to sign me off on my checkride. My parents pried the AOPA credit card from my hands and we decided I had to stop. It is hard to accept that sometimes the best thing you can do towards your goal is to quit, and being in this biz longer doesn’t make the decision any easier. So as I stuff my post-it notes and flight plan back into my bag and stick the control lock back in the yoke, I force myself to refocus on the second week of January, when I will be back in the plane.

So again, the time for reckoning is near. My multi check ride is a short two weeks away (maybe much less), and I haven’t flown the plane in a month. Thus, I am screwed. Flying that beast was going great- I had reached a level of competency to the extent where I felt confident in what I was doing. Fast forward to the present day and I’ve forgot flows and v-speeds. So I begin the process of chair flying, drilling the climb-cruise-maneuver flows and practicing my engine out scenarios. Maybe things won’t be excruciating when I finally get the chance to fly the 310 again but it will definitely be an adjustment. Consistent training has been a godsend for me in the past and cases like this where I get the shaft right at the most critical time in the whole multi-engine training course really work to kill my confidence.

To boost this confidence, I rented a C172 and headed home for the night. It was the first time I was able to file IFR under my name and fly approaches solo. No actual; severe clear one day and overcast at 10,000 the next. RV to the ILS 29 into KBMI (home) and the ENL transition to the ILS 18L into KMDH (school). Overall an entirely uneventful trip, but it sure was nice to get back up there again.

Photos at my Flickr account: Here

A friend and I got up real early Saturday and did some local flying/maneuvers. She was nice enough to snap some photos and as you can see watching the sun rise over the misty Mississippi river valley was amazing, to say the least. All photo credits go to Nina.

Link to my Flickr page with photos here.

So a quick bit of self-promotion here: check out page 36 of the August issue of AOPA Pilot magazine and my letter to the editor made it! Capt. Dennis (Denny?) Flanagan is pretty much living the dream that inspired me to stay with aviation from age 6. I just want to fly people. Having boxes in the back would make it a job (albeit the best job in the world), but passengers make it a journey. No matter what cool maneuvers I get to pull while flying with my instructors my favorite time spent in an airplane is when I’ve got a group of non-pilots and we set off in search of a $100 hamburger or just another EAA fly-in breakfast. I do realize that every commercial flight isn’t packed with several hundred happy-go-lucky people just tickled to be up in an airplane on a lazy afternoon getaway. I am not that naive. But I belive that with the right supportive attitude from the crew the passengers really can enjoy their time dancing above the Earth in a giant aluminum tube. It is this belief that I have rooted in me that will one day flourish and I hope inspire others to go above and beyond their basic job description. Growing up the value of exceptional customer service became deeply engraved upon my psyche. Between my jobs working with my father in landscaping and construction, generally admiring his attention to doing the job right the first time, to the paper route I took over and offered my customers a level of delivery service they had never experienced (I made near $1000 in tips at Christmas the first year). Culminating with my jobs at an FBO (red carpet service, prompt and accurate fueling, everything I did was to ensure the crew and passengers had a pleasureable experience), janitor at a department store (it at least built character) and now working Line Service at a University, these experiences have taught me just how valuable customer service is (I apologize for the run-on sentences but this is as much a diary as it is a publication). I yearn for the day I can step into the cockpit and immediately step right back out into the line of fire of our passengers, where I can circulate myself as an ambassador of flight. Sounds cheesy, right? WRONG! I am a pilot: I love to fly and enjoy reading my Advanced Aircraft Systems book even more than the next guy but I see the missing link that I feel many in the industry gloss over: you wouldn’t have a job if it wern’t for the people strapped in behind you. Equipped with this knowledge it is your responsibility to make every effort to sculpt their experience in a positive way. You hold no less responsibility than the Chief Flight Attendant on board when it comes to passenger service. So for heaven’s sake, if you’re stuck on the tarmac for an hour, have some fun with the pax! Moving on, another airline pilot I admire is Kent Wien, who has his own website and posts photos, etc. of his adventures through commercial aviation. I hope this blog will develop into a hybrid KentWein blog/jetCareers website eventually (10 years from now) so I encourage you to check out both: http://www.kentwien.com/   AND   http://www.jetcareers.com/  . I think Doug Taylor is the genesis mastermind behind jetCareers (one of the best websites for aspiring commercial pilots).

Until 3pm Friday, August 29th the largest aircraft I had flown was a Cessna 182RG. It was a little faster than the C172’s and manipulating the landing gear lever and the constant speed prop had me convinced I had finally “made it” into the next realm of aircraft. Let us take a moment of silence for my delusions of grandeur are no longer with us……. At precisely 3:30pm that day, as I ripped down the runway at the controls of a Cessna 310, I realized I had no idea what the hell I was doing. With 570HP at my fingers and the heaviest control yoke I had ever felt in my hands I became momentarily infantile. Have no fear because as quickly as I lost my mind I regained it and again felt like Maverick. Climbing out at 120kts and 1300fpm really makes you feel like you’re flying an actual airplane. You have to plan much farther ahead, accomplish your tasks at a more rapid pace and suddenly a 3000ft runway feels inadequate for your needs. You, my friend, are flying a whale amongst a sea of minnows. That is of course until you get lapped by a Learjet and again feel like the pee-on of a student pilot that you are. Maybe I’ll get to land the thing next time…