Instructor Training II

Well I passed the CFI Knowledge Test (formerly known as the written exam) yesterday - got a grade of 90% which was better than I felt going in, as I have been crazy busy lately between trying to make a buck and getting ready for the holidays.

So that means I now can begin in earnest to learn how to instruct others in the fun of flying and using an airplane.

Who's gonna be first??

Let me know!

Instructor Training

Recently I began training as a flight instructor. On the 17th of November I passed the first written test known as the FOI, or Fundamentals of Instruction. This is the first next step in my flying adventure, and I can hardly wait till I actually get to train someone.

Wanna be the first? Let me know!

As I mentioned previously, I am working with a new flight school, TailWind Aviation. We are located at Centennial Airport (KAPA) and also fly out of Front Range (KFTG) and Erie Municipal (KEIK). I will detail more of our operation in this space in the future.

For the present I will be flying mainly the light sport airplanes, or LSAs. Last weekend I got to fly the Gobosh G700 out of Erie Municipal. What a kick! Weighing in at only 800 lbs with max takeoff weight of 1300 lbs, its 100hp Rotax engine makes it fairly jump off the runway. It's got plenty of power and performance, even here at 5,000 ft MSL.

Has a control stick rather than a yoke, and a plexi bubble canopy with a 360 degree view. It's so much fun I can hardly wait to fly it again.

Well, back to studying for the CFI written test.

Then looking for my first student pilot . . .

New Digs Soon

I've recently gotten involved with a new flight school, which is my sorry excuse for not having written anything in a while. I know, I know . . . I said I'd be writing more and then I don't write for three months . . .

In the interim, I've flown about a half dozen times - now right at 100 hours total time. Did a sight-seeing trip I donated to my kids' school, and which was bid on and won by a gentleman who took a good friend up for the ride. We had a great time, as always for me anyways, and he and his buddy will have some good memories of that ride. We flew over Denver and took in some good views of the stadiums - Invesco and Coors fields where the Broncos and Rockies play - unoccupied of course! Then we did a couple circles over his house and so that was pretty cool for them.

Anyways, the new school is at Centennial Airport (APA) just south of Denver. I intend to continue training for instrument, multi, and then flight instructor. When I have spent some time spiffing up the website, I'll post it here.

The philosophy of this school is somewhat different than previous - we will be spending a lot more time in the sim for training, then apply the training in the airplane. It's an approach that seems to make training a bit more concentrated and intense and at the same time, less of a bite on the wallet. A further emphasis is on using the airplane - going somewhere rather than flying circles or rectangles. Not at all being critical of other schools, it just seems to make more sense to learn how to make flying a useful part of one's life.

Oh and I forgot to mention, the plan is that I will be staying on at the school as an instructor when I have completed all my training.

So, stay tuned for updates on the training and other happenings as I move forward.

More Stuff and Some History

Not that I think my occasional stories don't amuse or induce reflection, but I've been thinking that you may be inclined to return more often if I provided an incentive for you to do so. Such as more cool stuff to check out.

So, while I intend to ratchet up the frequency of my writing, I also plan to add aviation-related features to make this site more interesting and useful. And more popular.

I've started the expansion by placing a few new items on the sidebar to the right: links to common and useful aviation sites as well as an awesome video clip, links to home-based business opportunities and, yikes, a Google ad (but it is for aviation-related products!). These resources will continue to grow and, I trust, become useful to you.

You really should check out the Mid-Atlantic Air Museum site - it's located in Reading PA where I'm originally from, and is based at the Reading Regional Airport, General Carl A Spaatz Field (RDG).

This is also the location of the annual World War II Weekend, which is held the first weekend in June and is the largest gathering of WWII re-enactor groups in the country. It's a really cool event with a large contingent of resident and fly-in WWII warbirds, period clothing and a Glenn Miller-style dinner and dance, a simulated WWII encampment and mock battle, and numerous flight demonstrations.

The MAAM is also in the process of restoring to airworthiness a P-61 Black Widow. This aircraft crashed in the New Guinea jungle in 1945 and remained there until its recovery in 1991, and it is one of only four still in existence. Very cool story here.

Not coincidentally, Spaatz Field remains near and dear to my heart, as this is the first airport I ever saw and visited but even more importantly, my Uncle Jules' house was directly under the glide path for runway 36. My family often visited him and Aunt Peg on Sundays and I was captivated the first time a plane passed over, and each and every time since.

Now that I am a pilot, I can tell you that those planes were on short final to land on 36 about 1/2 mile north of my uncle's place so they were pretty close to the ground at that point. Probably no more than about a couple hundred feet.

From about the mid-60s and into the 70s, the Reading Air Show was one of the country's premier shows and attracted (if my memory serves) hundreds of aircraft manufacturers and suppliers who set up exhibitor tents all over the ramps. There were also food tents and of course planes parked, open, and available to explore.

Being an actual kid at the time, I was like a kid in a candy store wandering around in a sugar daze, checking out the food, exhibits, and planes, too overwhelmed to actually talk to anyone.

Oh, I also took some pictures of the flight demonstrations. Like several thousand maybe.

I have a pretty decent library of images from that time, but most are on paper only, the film having long since disappeared into some black hole. Old paper at that, but they may scan OK. Well before the days of digital photography I'm afraid but we'll see . . .

The flight demonstrations were truly amazing (to me) and included guys like Bob Hoover, who did amazing things with his Aero Commander and his P-51 Mustang, which is my favorite warbird of that era. The Navy Blue Angels also performed every year, and I made it a point to get to the airport every year for about five or six years in a row to get flight-line photos of the pilots and planes.

My wonder and fascination with airplanes and flight were born in my uncle's back yard and nurtured by the air shows at Spaatz Field.

But I'll talk more about the air shows another time . . .

Shake, Rattle, and Roll

To continually improve my landing technique, which the Good Pilot Handbook says is one of the more important skills to know, I was practicing some touch-and-gos the other day at Erie Municipal (EIK) which has a pretty short runway of 4700 ft.

No offense intended, but the concrete runway there is not in the greatest shape, having some shallow wear-ruts and expansion joints which can make landings and takeoffs, well, interesting at times. As a bone-fide pilot myself (and speaking only for myself) I can say with good authority that pilots like interesting. Keeps ya on yer toes, if ya know what I mean.

Anyways, did three really good soft-field landings, where you keep the nose wheel off the ground until it just eases down from lack of airspeed to keep it up. I applied full power to take off after the last one, and as the plane accelerated it began to vibrate, getting more and more intense until I was convinced I had somehow gotten a flat tire.

Hmmm . . . interesting. Do I take a chance that there really is a flat and take off knowing my subsequent landing would be . . . um . . . troublesome (at best)? Or do I abort and check things out?

Accelerating through 45, 50 knots, vibration intense and still increasing.

Decision time.

Actually - no decision, really. (I know, I know - anticlimactic)

If there's one thing that's been fully ingrained in me by flight training and my instructor, it is the sense that safety is the most important skill a pilot can ever master, and I chose to exercise that skill right then and there. Because as I've mentioned before, gravity is always turned on and landing with possibly just two out of three fully-inflated tires would not be pretty. Probably mess up my day.

I pulled the throttle to idle, aborted the takeoff and as I taxied over to the ramp, realized that the vibration had stopped. Shut 'er down, got out, and my eagle-eye noticed no flat tires or any other obvious vibration-inducer. Such as a missing nose wheel or a broken gear strut. Even the shimmy-dampener on the nose wheel looked OK to me. Course I'm not an A&P mechanic but usually I can tell if something's broken or not . . .

Called over to McAir (my flight club/school) and spoke with our chief flight instructor. We decided to call the mechanic for a look-see, meanwhile he'd drive over from Jeffco, er, Metro Airport and we'd fly the plane back together, assuming nothing prevented it.

The mechanic on-site at Erie was an amiable sort as he hopped out of the golf cart he used to get from the hangar to where I was on the ramp. He examined the plane just as I had, but probably his trained eye knew more of what exactly to look for.

He found - nothing.

But he did explain that when landing or taking off on a less-than-perfect runway, airplanes can encounter a groove or rut and if you do it just right, you can set up a harmonic vibration (AKA mechanical resonance) in the wheel/airframe system.

He also mentioned that the Cessna Skyhawk 172 (which is what I fly at the moment) is particularly known for this fun feature.

And that it feels just like a flat tire. Huh. Interesting. Allrighty then.

Our CFI Justin arrived and sheepishly I related what the mechanic had said, feeling a little like the boy who cried wolf. "You definitely did the right thing" he said, reinforcing the safety mantra. He did offer that if that happens again, to add some back pressure (on the control wheel) to lift the nosewheel and see if that eliminates the vibration. But still better safe than sorry and no reason at all to feel embarrassed.

So then we took off without incident - no vibration, nothing - and landed back at our home base.

Still being a relatively new pilot with about 90 hours of total flight time, I am keenly aware of the important roles that safety and decision-making play in having a good outcome to a flight. As my time and experience build, I intend to keep those factors topmost in my mind.

One of the more sobering aviation 'zines I read is Aviation Safety. It contains incident and accident reports and it's incredible (to me) the way in which some pilots - even high-time pilots - make, shall we say, ill-advised decisions. Many of which stem from one of the factors that pilots are trained against - the "it-can't-happen-to-me" attitude.

Not that I will never make a bad decision but my goal (as is, I'm sure, the goal of most if not all pilots) is to minimize them and trust that my skill and experience don't get in the way of clear thinking.

And so far I have not made any bad decisions. Knock on wood. Forgot to untie the tail once, but that's another story . . .

Til next time . . .

Away for Three Weeks

I had not flown in three weeks and I was just flat-out itching to get in the air.

Ol' Leo definitely had it right: "For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return." [Leonardo Da Vinci]

Weather and other responsibilities had conspired against me for what seemed like forever, but today was a beauty morning and I pre-flighted my plane as quickly as I could, double-checking everything so as not to miss anything in my eagerness. By now, the preflight inspection is fairly routine but I must make myself focus - do not want to miss anything because gravity is ceaseless and unforgiving.

Especially of pilots eagerly seeking to escape her grasp.

Wind calm. Not a cloud to be seen. Add full power, roll down the runway, smoothly rotate and rise into the still morning air.

Indescribable, the feeling of watching the ground drop away beneath me as my craft lifts me into the fluid blue sky. The air flowing over and under the wing of my plane, carrying me above the smog blanketing the area.

I seem to breathe more easily up here. I belong here. Relaxed. Calm. Thrilled beyond words that I am able to do this.

Relaxed and calm, yet more focused and more alive than down there, because I know for sure that my actions determine my fate up here in a very tangible way.

Heading north to Longmont to practice landings and takeoffs, there is somewhat surprisingly little traffic this day. Except for a flock of ten large birds a little off to my right - pelicans. Gotta keep an eye out for them and others. Big birds like pelicans, herons, hawks, and eagles can put a serious hurt on the thin skin of my plane. Maybe even make it uncontrollable. Small ones can too but the big ones are especially dangerous.

Approaching Longmont (KLMO) from the south, wanting to practice my short-field and soft-field technique. Do a couple short-field landings, touching on the markers, still a bit long but reasonably acceptable.

Then I nail a soft-field landing to really write home about - kept the nosewheel off and the plane on the mains halfway down the runway before pushing full power and climbing out again. A thing of beauty I said to myself! Ryan - you'd be proud of me.

Jumpers (skydivers), more pelicans, and a few other planes to keep tabs on, then I'm out of the pattern and headed back to Jeffco, or rather, now it's "Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport" or Metro. I rather liked Jeffco but I suppose Metro will grow on me . . .

Couple more touch-and-gos at Metro, then a full-stop landing and taxi to McAir, my flight school/club. Fun and adventure over for now, but boy what a great start to the day!

I might even do some work.

First Flight

OK . . . well, here goes nothing . . .

. . . is what I audibly said to myself as I leaned over and checked the right-side door lock and became aware that the cockpit had a strangely open feel . . . probably because my instructor, who until now had occupied the right seat, was waving to me from about thirty feet away on the ramp waiting for the right moment to snap a photo.

Of me in the airplane.

Alone.

I was about to fly my first solo.

And that’s how it is with this first installment of Flightblog - not knowing exactly what to expect but excited and confident that with my knowledge and training, all will be well.

And as it turns out, well, I’m still here to talk about it so . . . there ya have it. Not that I expected anything else, that is . . . first solo went great, just a couple times around the pattern at Vance Brand Field (KLMO) in Longmont, CO, and landed without breaking anything - just like in training, smooth as silk. Well, almost.

As I jump into the blogosphere to chronicle my adventures as a newly-minted aviator, I do so with a similar mix of anxiousness and exhilaration as when I first powered down the runway with an empty right seat – not knowing exactly what to expect but confident that at least some of you may enjoy my stories and observations, and perhaps contribute some of your own.

And just as I anticipated my first solo landing, I look forward to sharing my adventures and hearing about yours!