A Brand-Spankin' New Certificate

So after months of studying I was ready to go and take two FAA written tests in order to earn the Ground Instrument Instructor rating. The two exams I was prepared to take were 'Instrument Instructor' and 'Ground Instructor.'

One of the challenges that pilots face is to make the most efficient use of any and all money (and time) spent in advancing a career in aviation.

Each time you take an exam it costs you some money, $100 each. So you better be certain that you're taking the right exam at the right time.

On the morning of the day I was to fork over my $200 and take the tests, I was sitting in our office at TailWind Aviation, looking through the Federal Aviation Regulations — aka the FARs — one last time to make sure I really needed to take these exams.

You might wonder, well why didn't I do that before? The answer is that I did. But, you have to understand something about the FARs. And that is that, being written in bureaurocratese, the language in the FARs is somewhat... challenging... and often requires multiple readings to gain clear understanding.

Add to that the fact that there is an awful lot of knowledge overlap in the library of possible exams, presumably to cover the myriad pilot rating situations that arise.

After I don't know how many readings and discussions of the FARs over several weeks, my instructor and I decided on this day that by virtue of the two exams I already passed, 'FOI' (Fundamentals Of Instructing) and 'Instrument Rating Airplane,' I had the necessary qualifications to obtain the rating.

A quick call to the local FSDO (Flight Standards District Office) confirmed that I did indeed have the right stuff.

So now I am officially an FAA-certified Instrument Ground Instructor.

What does it mean?

Well, it means that I can work with students in our AST-300 simulator at TailWind, teaching tasks and habits related to instrument flight and flying in general. The sim is currently configured as a Beechcraft 1900, a twin-engine aircraft often used by regional or commuter carriers.

Being certified, I can sign student logbooks for simulator time, making it all official-like. And that means I can get paid for MY time.

And that's the whole point — a small step toward making a living in aviation.

Now all I have to do is rustle up some students...

A Li'l Ole Film Clip by Harrison Ford

In support of AOPA's ongoing efforts to promote flying and flight training, here are two links that I think are timely and appropriate:

This first one is a pretty cool clip featuring Harrison Ford done by Studio Wings, an awesome group of aerial production specialists.

Here is the AOPA Let's Go Flying! website: www.aopa.org/letsgoflying

In my last post I mentioned that I was traveling to the Indy 500 on assignment. Well now that the piece has been published I am able to freely talk about it. I'll just sum it up by saying it was one of the most incredibly fun and exciting experiences I have ever had!

It was a TOTAL GAS!

Oh, and the race was fun too.

I can now say that PilotMag was the publication for whom we traveled on assignment.

You can read the article Auto Pilots written by my friend Jeff Mattoon, with photos by yours truly and some by Jeff. Subscribe to PilotMag and you'll get a whole lot of adventure flying stories with every issue.

Be sure to also read Jeff's writeup of OUR story, Flying the Acclaim to Indy

I'll tell my side of the story here soon, promise. Things have been cruising along for me in my web and print business but I will make time to write.

I am still working on the Indy photos, which means shrinking them to use on the web. This is a bit more work than you might think: I took nearly 500 shots in the six day trip, so it's been a chore to go through and pick the ones I like best.

Ya'll come back now heah... soon!

Assignment: Indy 500!

OK so I've been hinting and holding back on all my facebook friends what's been in the works just since last Saturday.

Well here's the scoop — I'm going to the Indy 500.

And not just going as a spectator, but flying there on assignment by a national aviation publication along with Jeff and Bruce, two associates from my flight school — TailWind Aviation.

Our assignment: interview several Indy car drivers who also happen to fly/own airplanes with the purpose of exploring the connection between flying and driving race cars. We'll be gathering video, still images, and material for written articles as well as website content.

The way it stands now, Jeff's the interviewer and I'm the camera guy. Media credentials are already in place and interviews are lined up with two drivers at this point, planning to add one or two more once we arrive.

A very cool personal aspect of this is that my cousin John has worked on numerous pit crews over the years, and he will be taking us around and introducing us to his favorite crews, drivers, and owners. He's a personable guy and very well-known on the racing circuit so I'm sure we'll be meeting plenty of folks.

In a most fortuitous convergence of interests, Mooney Aircraft will be providing the plane for the trip. Their national sales director will be accompanying us and of course he's a pilot so I'm eagerly looking forward to logging some valuable flight hours with him.

Bruce's brother owns a Mooney and prior to departing I'll get checked out in it so I can be PIC for at least some portion of the trip.

I am so thankful for such an exciting opportunity to experience an event of this magnitude . . . to meet and interact with some of those immersed in it . . . and get to fly too!

Just doesn't get much better!

Stay tuned for blog posts and facebook updates throughout the trip . . .

Getting To The Point

Just a short little post today.

So I've been studying for two FAA written exams, the Instrument Instructor and Instrument Ground Instructor, and you know how sometimes you work and work to learn or prepare for something and at some point you think, well, I just gotta do this NOW.

I am just about at that point with these writtens

. . . and I won't repeat the crude expression that describes this state of affairs but it's something about . . . or get off the pot. You get the picture.

Passed the first exam in the series a few months back, and I'm sure I'll do just fine because these two cover the exact same material. Finances (or lack thereof) were the reason I chose to put them off, and now that that situation has improved it's time to continue moving forward.

Always moving forward when possible.

Passing these two writtens will give me the credentials to get the Instrument Ground Instructor rating and then I'll be able to start earning some income working with students in our simulator at TailWind Aviation.

Working in the sim is by far the way to go for instrument training because most of what you do in the airplane - instrument procedures - can be done very realistically in the sim, and there is an almost exact knowledge transfer to the airplane.

Sim time is much less costly than the airplane is, and the added advantage is that if there's ever a question or problem you can put the sim on "hold" and work through it.

Can't do that in the airplane.

Anyways, another day or so of review oughta do it.

Till next time . . .

Those Crazy Student Pilots . . .

. . . you never know what they'll do!

Had a pretty decent flight with one of my students the other day . . . until the very end that is.

Practiced some steep turns and that's about all we had time for, since we spent the better part of our time talking during preflight about airport and radio procedures, airspaces, and such. Jim (not his real name . . . he'd kill me) had not flown in some time and we wanted to be on the same page as much as possible before winding up the rubber band in the airplane and defying gravity again.

See, one thing that's important to remember as a pilot is that gravity never ever quits or gets turned off. Very, very important to know.

[As an aside, one of the interesting things about instructing is that, at least at this point in my training as an instructor, I am learning just as much as the student is.

Only in a different way.

For example when I demonstrated a steep turn, I discovered that I really have not mastered them from the right seat yet. Sort of embarrassing that the instructor (me) had to take a couple tries to do a decent steep turn.]

Anyhow, back to my story. We were sort of (but not really) pressed for time since Jim had to return to his other life on the ground. So we headed back to the airport from the practice area.

Now Jim is a fairly advanced, competent, and careful student pilot with about 15 or so hours under his belt, and probably will solo soon.

But before he does, he's gonna need to get a better handle on landings.

Without going into extreme detail, landing is probably the most critical phase of flight. Not that the others are trivial because no phase of flight is trivial, but landing probably requires more focus, eye-hand coordination, and an understanding of the physics of what exactly is going on when the plane gets close to the ground and how you make it do what you want it to do.

Which, in this case, is make contact with terra firma as smoothly as possible. There's a good reason it's named terra FIRMA - it's pretty dang firm.

Part of this procedure involves pulling back on the control yoke to make the plane sort of level out, or flare as we call it, when the plane gets within about 20 or 15 feet or so of the ground. Depends on the type of plane, approach speed, and some other technical stuff like that.

During the flare the energy (speed) of the plane dissipates, the plane quits wanting to fly, and then it settles gently down to the ground on the main wheels, which are the wheels generally located under the wings or fuselage.

As opposed to the nosewheel, which, coincidentally, happens to be situated under the nose of the plane.

Ideally, the plane should be on the verge of entering a full stall just as the main wheels softly kiss the ground. Rarely happens that way, but you try.

Always trying for perfection.

Proper execution of the flare requires that the pilot sees where the plane is in relation to the runway as the plane descends toward the aiming point, and at just the right moment you pull back on the control to raise the nose of the plane.

We had done a couple touch-and-gos, and Jim did a great job on them. But on our last one, I think Jim was thinking about what he had to do at work or some such thing, but his mind was definitely not on the rapidly-approaching landing.

Because somehow he forgot to pull back.

When I realized that we were about to drill into the runway with our nose wheel - which is NOT a good thing - we were about 8-10 feet off the ground. So I not-so-gently took over, pulled back on the wheel and added a bit of power.

Now when I added that bit of power, it was just a bit too much of a bit and the plane did a little tiny balloon back into the air so I slowly pulled back on the power to bring us down.

We still landed just a bit harder than I like to, but not nearly as hard as we would have. Had I not pulled back on the wheel, we'd be filling out forms for the insurance companies and possibly the FAA too.

Or worse.

Anyways, all's well that ends well and as they say, any landing you walk away from is a good one. I don't necessarily buy that but . . . on this day I'll take it.

What I learned - very dramatically - was this: never assume that just because a student has done something right the first time, (s)he'll do it right again. And to go with that, until I'm convinced that the student's actions and focus are consistently the right ones, I will talk him or her through each and every procedure before we do them.

Amen to that.

One Step At a Time

OK, so I have had some difficulties the past few months, primarily financial. Which of course leads to challenges in most other areas as well, in this case putting a severe crimp on my flying. I did take the opportunity to begin doing lots of time in our FTD or flight training device, otherwise known as a simulator, so I haven't been a total slug.

I won't belabor the point about my troubles because I am fully aware that there are a great many people besides myself who are being financially hurt and stressed out by the current state of the economy, and the reality is that I am better off than many of them.

For which I am most sincerely grateful.

And as they usually do, things have taken a turn for the better and I am once again my positive and optimistic self. It also means I'll be ratcheting up my aviation activities, the most immediate goal of which is to take the Instrument Instructor and Instrument Ground Instructor written exams. Passing those, in addition to the exams I've already passed, will permit me to obtain certification as an Instrument Ground Instructor, which will allow me to sign off on student logbooks for simulator time.

That means I can then start earning some income doing what I really want to be doing - aviation.

Woo-hoo!

It won't be much to begin with, but as they say, every journey begins with a single step. And then another, and another.

One foot in front of the other.

One step at a time.