Misadventures in Studentpilotism

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…

I got it! I have passed the Commercial Pilot checkride and am awaiting my temporary from my school. Although my confidence wavered near the end of my training I did fine and am generally pleased with my performance. In one week I will begin my training for my Multi engine rating in the Cessna 310. That will be an immense amount of fun seeing as the 310 is one of the beefier multi engine trainers.

So as of April 11th, 2008, yours truly has an instrument rating. Cue the confetti and balloons. I suffered through many hours in the Frasca and still bear the scars the foggles left on my face but ultimately it all paid off. Both instructors I had through the duration of the course (as it took me more than one semester to complete, I was reassigned instructors) were very thorough guys, a quality I found to be invaluable in instrument training. Dotting your “I’s” and crossing your “T’s” becomes a very crucial part of flying under IFR, especially in IMC. At this point, given the option, I would much rather file IFR than navigate the route VFR due to the increased security it offers and the practice you gain with the ATC system (i.e.: learning how routing works in the real world and how much ATC appreciates decisiveness). But, all that aside, I lay now a mere week and a half away from my commercial pilot checkride and I am terrified. I feel incredibly unprepared, as I have fewer than 10 hours in the aircraft and my training hasn’t been that intensive. Moving from the C172R to the C172RG to the C182RG a la 1978 has been quite the transition. I’m just beginning to figure out how not to cause an earthquake upon touchdown and yet I’m expected to have mastered the performance maneuvers. Inconsistency with subtle improvement best describes my performance at this point, and my skills have reversed themselves. Prior to this course, my steep turns and slow flight were the talk of the town but now I struggle with these basic tasks. I used to be horrible at my emergency landings and lazy-eights, but now those two top my list of “within standards” maneuvers. And the Gleim puts me to sleep every night. That has to be the most boring text ever printed, yet the most valuable to every aspiring pilot. I carry it like a bible hoping it will stick come race day. But, I digress. Tuesday will be my last flight, a dual with my instructor after which I fully expect him to schedule my checkride. Still, if only I could get myself some more time in the plane…

Great flight instructors are sometimes few and far between. Since the new semester has started and I’ve been moved to a defferent CFI, I’ve begun to look at flying a different way. The past instructor I had was a very nice guy, but he was a little lax when it came to making sure I knew what was going on. These past couple solo flights and my dual XC in the C172R have felt good- I feel as though I’m really learning. My understanding of whats going on has improved; no more half-assed eights-on-pylons and chandelles.

I hope the confidence helps me on my checkride (I’m terrible at them), but I still have the written knowledge test to take. Here at SIU, even when you’re not earning another rating, each stage check encompasses a written, and oral exam and a practical (I think). I have my final couple of flights this next week, then its sink or swim time.

Well, I’m back at school at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. I’m still trying to finish up the commercial building time course I’m in and pass that checkride within the next few weeks. Although I don’t anticipate it to be too hard, I’ve been assigned to a new instructor with his own way of doing things and I have a tendancy to become anti-authority and be very easily intimidated on checkrides. At this point I almost wish I had just stuck with doing the whole thing privately, since most people I meet in the aviation program have a general lack of ability to think for themselves and instead they opt to follow the book on everything. And I mean everything. Also, the chief flight instructors thought it would be a good idea to now require us to wear collared shirts and dress pants with dress shoes whenever we’re on the aviation campus. Last I checked, this was SIU, not Embry or Flight Safety. If I had wanted to be someplace like that, I would’ve gone there in the first place. So, I plan to boycott the issue in the hopes that most others will do the same. It’s issues like that that make me want to transfer even more.

When I first started working on my private back in High School, I had a great first instructor. He was in his mid-twenties; not too far out of college. He wasn’t a dick and understood how to get his students to learn to be confident in the airplane. Unfortunately for me, he was soon hired to fly charter for another FBO, and as a result my name got passed onto another instructor. This guy was older, and he obviously thought this made him smarter. He preached to me how he would probably yell at me in the cockpit and that being tough on me will inevitably make me a better pilot. So, I trusted his methods thinking that I would be tough as a rock and well schooled in my maneuvers by the time he got done with me. He refused to send me solo, even in the pattern despite the fact that my previous instructor had me practicing T&G’s solo quite often. He would yell at me when I didn’t know something and I noticed that this was starting to happen all the time (me not knowing something). He would get in the plane and go up with me for two hours straight and we would do T&G’s non-stop. And never did he say progress was being made or that I was doing well. If he ever said “good job” it was quickly followed by a synopsis of what I did wrong. When it came to X-C planning, he yelled at me when I showed up without radials off of two VORs to corroborate my checkpoints, keeping in mind we were in an old Cessna 152 II with a wobbly VOR receiver. Honestly, looking at the ground and referencing the sectional was far more accurate. He dragged me on for about a year when I convinced another instructor to ride with me on my night X-C. This other instructor told me I was doing great and commented that I must me near the end of my training. I should have known right then that something was up, when one guy tells me I’m up to par and another tells me I shouldn’t even be allowed to fly in wind over 5 knots. About this time I was only a few months away from moving away to college and I needed to finish up my private before I got there so I could enroll in their flight program. All summer I flew with this guy, and nothing changed. I had all of my time requirements met, my X-C’s were done and I felt ready to go do take my test. BUT my instructor would not sign me off, not after flawless flights and flawless two-hour blocks of T&G’s. It was painful. And to kill my confidence further, he sat me down and charged me $35 and hour to school me for the written test which I knew the required material. He finally caught me up once on something I didn’t know: what Virga was. He jumped on that like a hobo on a sandwich. With a week to go before college, I had passed my written test, but could not get him to sign me off to take the practical/oral portions of the exam. I had no choice but to cut my losses (which were upwards of $7000 by this point). When I moved down to Carbondale to go to SIU I was rejected from my flight slot and told to finish up my private. Which I was able to do at their local FBO within two weeks. To this day I refuse to fly with my old instructor, and have discouraged others from flying with him. I firmly believe that this guy really did not care at all whether or not I earned my license. He became a much richer man due to my AOPA credit card and my summer jobs. If you ever think that you’re falling for someone who doesn’t care about your progress, go up with another instructor, and ask them for a synopsis, as this will often help you gauge where you really stand. As we can all relate, its a terrible but unfortunately necessary feeling to know exactly how much money this is costing you and not knowing when you’ll be able to stop spending.