Mark's Pilot Log

I finally started using my CFI certificate today. I've done some ground training, but nothing formal, and up until today, my scheduled training flights had been canceled for various reasons.

So today I got my feet wet by giving a BFR and doing a checkout flight for the club's Archer. The executive summary is: I really enjoyed it.

My "student" has been flying longer than I have and has over one hundred hours flying Archers (along with lots of hours in other Pipers). The only issue was he hadn't flown a powered plane in a couple of years (just some glider time). So we started out with a thorough preflight to cover all the systems on this particular plane and then taxied out to the runway. A normal takeoff to start, then off to the practice area. All was going well, but it was a little windy and getting windier. This resulted in a bumpy ride so our stalls and slow flight practice where challenging, but successful. We went over the engine out procedures, then flew on to Miami (Oxford) University to do some landings.

We practiced all the various takeoffs and landings: normal, short field, soft field, and various flap configurations. I could definitely see his rust, but it wasn't too bad and he was obviously competent, so we headed back home to sign him off.

So I signed my first log book with 1.8 hours of training. When it was all over, I was looking around for someone else to fly with. In the end I just took the Saratoga for a sight seeing tour on my own.

It was fun. I'm looking forward to my next lesson.

We took the Saratoga to Clevelend this weekend to visit with family. We were supposed to go on a fishing trip on Lake Erie, but some unforeseen circumstances put a kink in that plan. Since we already had the plane reserved and reservation for boarding the dog for the weekend, we decided to make the trip anyway.

The flight up was beautiful. There was hardly a cloud in the sky. It was somewhat amusing. There were a few mild bumps. Nothing major, but my wife doesn't like any bump. I had the autopilot on, and I think the autopilot tends to induce a few osicillatons when recovering from bumps, so they seemed worse than they were. Our six year old was sitting in the right seat and wanted to fly the plane. I let him put his hands on the yoke and pretend to fly, but he isn't strong enough to overpower the autopilot so he wasn't really driving. My wife, however, just saw him with his hands on the wheel and the plane was bumping and rolling. She wasn't amused. I was.

We arrived at Cuyahoga County with a gusty crosswind and I used a lot of runway trying to make a smooth landing. My wife, not knowing anything about aviation complained about the landing. Thanks for the support.

Anyway, we hung out for the weekend and woke up Sunday morning to rain showers. They were light, but constant and the radar showed stronger showers moving in. It looked like we would have about three or four hours before they got into the area with no breaks until at least Monday, so we packed up and headed out early to try to beat the worst of it.

We arrived at the airport as the showers started to intensify, but the radar showed that the strong stuff was still well to the west. So I went out to load and preflight the plane in the rain. I hate preflighting in the rain. After thoroughly soaking myself, I loaded up the family and started up.

Since I was sitting at the edge of the tie down area with nothing behind me, I decided to do my run up in place so I would be ready to depart when calling clearance delivery/ground. I had filed /G direct to KHAO which would take me right through the south eastern approach corridor for Cleveland's Class B. I knew they wouldn't clear me for that, but I figured it would be easier to let them decide where they wanted me to go to stay clear, so I filed it anyway.

To my surprise, I was cleared as filed for immediate departure. Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, I copied the clearance and accepted the immediate departure. The rain was pretty good by now and I could barely see out of the windshield until we started our takeoff roll. Visibility was still pretty descent for the conditions (about 3 miles and maybe 1000 foot ceiling), but I decided to hold the plane down until we were well above rotation speed just in case I needed to abort. Once off the runway we made a brisk climb out and were cleared to turn on course at about 700' AGL. It was actually a smoother departure than our CAVU departure from Cincinnati on Friday.

They did modify my clearance slightly to steer us clear of most of the Class B, but it was just a simple "turn to 210 until further notice" and about 15 minutes later "cleared direct". It doesn't get much simpler than that.

The most interesting thing was that the flight was smoother when we were in the clouds than when we were in the clear (or at least the haze). We were hardball IMC for about half an hour and in less than VFR conditions for most of the rest of the flight until they lowered us from 6000 to 4000 about 25 miles out of Hamilton. The smoothest part of the whole flight was the part in the clouds. Go figure.

This year I've spent a ton of time training. First my Commercial certificate, then my CFI. I think I've made two flights all year just to go flying. I've gotten a little burned out, to the point that I dove (no pun intended) exclusively back into scuba diving for the last couple of weeks. But today I had to get in my mandatory hour for the month.

My flying club charges you for one hour of flying per month whether you fly or not. This has the effect of giving people the incentive to fly regularly, theoretically keeping current. My problem is that I've been working on my CFI certificate, so I've been flying Pro Aero's Arrow. The CFI checkride must include time in a complex aircraft. (Although I think it's easier to do the whole thing in one plane, some people prefer to do only do the complex part in a complex aircraft and the rest in a fixed gear aircraft that they may be more familiar with.) Since the all of the club aircraft are fixed gear, I needed to rent the Arrow. Just to make things easier on myself, I didn't fly anything else this month. The result is that here it is the end of the month and I haven't flown any of the club planes.

So I decided to take up one of the 172's for a spin. No purpose (other than getting my hour in). I just took off and started flying. I ended up near Oxford, so I did a few touch and go's, but that was it. I just enjoyed the act of flying. It's been a long time since I've done that. Usually I at least have a destination in mind, fly there, have a coke, and fly back, but today, it was just about the flying. And flying a 172 instead of the Arrow and Saratoga (the only other planes I've flown in two months) was a big change. It feels like you're forgetting something: no prop lever, no gear. And since the one I flew was fuel injected, there isn't even carb heat. Not to mention I'm used to approach speeds of 75 to 80 knots instead of 60.

I need to get back to flying at least once a week just to fly. Maybe next week I'll see if we can start up airport night again.

My CFI training is finally over! I passed the checkride today and have my temporary certificate in hand!

This checkride has been the worst one I've done as far as being worked up for it. The actual test itself wasn't bad. You definitely need to know your stuff, but if you are prepared, it's not particularly difficult. Just long.

One thing to remember is that the examiner is not asking you questions to see if you know the answer, but to see if you can teach it. Use the tools at your disposal. Make sure the room you use has a whiteboard and use it. And when you are teaching from the whiteboard, make sure you are facing the examiner when you are talking. My examiner complemented me on doing that and mentioned that a lot of CFI candidates talk to the board. Remember that you are acting as an instructor on this test. Be in command of the information and don't guess at what you are unsure of. Bring your entire reference library with you. Know where to find everything. When the examiner asks you a question that no one on earth would know off the top of his head, pull out the right book and turn right to it.

One example, I was asked how to fill out the address field on an 8710 if your mailing address is a post office box. That's not something that I've ever had to worry about, but I had read the instructions for the 8710 and remembered seeing something about that. So I picked up the 8710, turned to the instructions and pointed out exactly what you are supposed to do. My examiner liked asking questions that required me to go to the FARs, obviously testing me on my knowledge of where to find things rather than what I had memorized for the test.

The only thing he really corrected me on during the oral was one of the wing diagrams I drew showed the wing from the right side instead of the left side like you normally see it. He wanted everything to be drawn from the standard viewpoint. His point was that when you teach weight and balance it's easier to show the view of the left side of the plane (since positive numbers indicating distance from the datum are more logically displayed increasing to the right). So you should make all of your airplane drawings from the same view for consistency.

To be prepared for this test you must understand everything you had to know for your private and commercial checkrides, plus your privileges and responsibilities as an instructor. By understand, I mean you need to know the why, not just the what. You will spend far more time studying for this checkride than you have for any checkride before.

As for the flight portion of the checkride, it's pretty straight forward. Just make sure you can fly every maneuver from the private and commercial PTS from the right seat to commercial standards while explaining exactly what you are doing and why you're doing it. Anyone who can pass the commercial checkride can do the flying portion of the CFI checkride. You just have to practice from the right seat. It took me about 10-15 hours to get to commercial standards in the right seat (mostly the landings). The difficult part is being able to explain what you're doing while you're doing it and understand how to correct the mistakes students will make.

I really think that if I wasn't so worked up over it being a checkride, it would have actually been fun. But it was a checkride, so fun doesn't really describe it.

I'm just glad it's over...

This year we went back to the Outer Banks for our family vacation. We took the Saratoga and now I'm more in love with it than I was with our old Cherokee Six. With one exception: the pilot seat needs more padding! My butt was sore after the first hour.

I was starting to get a little concerned about the decision to fly. Last year we drove to the Outer Banks. It took over 13 hours and $165 speeding ticket. I vowed then and there I would never drive on a long vacation again. My wife vowed to never be stuck in a car with me that long again. So this year we flew again. The plan was to depart Sunday morning bright and early and arrive at Dare County Airport before noon. We couldn't check-in until 4:00, but I wanted to get there before the afternoon summer pop-ups started. Well you know what they say about the best laid plans...

The first "problem" was that the Saratoga was getting a new engine. It was scheduled beginning the Monday before we were to leave. Since Murphy's Law indicates that there's no way the engine would be done before we were scheduled to leave, I was, to say the least, frustrated. The last thing I wanted to do was drive, and no other plane was available for the week. Fortunately, the engine was swapped out by Friday and the plane captain took it out for its initial 3 hour break-in. Here's where Murphy woke up: while he was out flying, the vacuum pump went Tango Uniform.

But luck was on my side: the shop managed to get a new one in the next morning and have it replaced by Saturday afternoon. But that was the end of my luck.

I had been watching the weather the last several days. Tropical Storm Barry was tracking up the east coast. It appeared that I had two choices: try to beat it in or wait it out. Unfortunately, there were the typical afternoon thunderstorms over the Appalachians so we couldn't leave Saturday afternoon and by the time those calmed down, Barry was rolling into the Carolinas. So we spent all day Sunday monitoring the weather hoping maybe we could get out sometime that afternoon. Once again, the afternoon thunderstorms took care of that. Not to mention the entire eastern half of the country was covered by sigmets and airmets for turbulence and convective weather. The worst part, of course, is that the family doesn't understand all of that. All they know is that they aren't at the beach yet. (On a side note, as an instructor, I think that will be the hardest thing to teach a new student: how to make the right go-no go decision while your family is riding you.)

Fortunately, we woke up earlier Monday morning and the weather was perfect from Cincinnati all the way to the east coast. There were a few overcast skies in the forecast, but no thunderstorms or turbulence. So I filed my flight plan and off we went.

The visibility was below VFR for most of the trip, but it was haze, not clouds. We only spent a few minutes in actual clouds. Unfortunately, with the new engine we had to maintain 75% power, so we couldn't get any higher than 7,000 feet, so we did have a few bumps to deal with, but on a whole it was a very easy flight. Especially with the Saratoga's autopilot coupled to the Garmin 430. Normally a flight that long leaves me pretty drained, but with the autopilot, I was a little stiff, but not totally exhausted.

Landing at Dare County was, as usual, bumpy with the gusty winds, but I was expecting that. Departing the following Sunday was a little less bumpy, but we left first thing in the morning so the winds hadn't really picked up yet.

The trip back was about like the trip out. Dare County doesn't have a frequency to use for clearance delivery, so I opened my flight plan in the air with Washington Center. Again, needing to maintain 75% power, I had to fly back at 6,000 feet for most of the trip. When we got to the mountains, I asked for 7,000 on the off chance they would give it to me, but they didn't so I needed to climb to 8,000 for a while. I couldn't maintain 75% power, so I had to do that portion at 65%, but that shouldn't hurt the break-in any.

By the time we got home, the temperature was building so we had a bumpy final 20 minutes, but the visibility was amazingly clear for this time of year. I had the airport in sight and canceled IFR 15 miles out. For this area, this time of year, visibility over 10 miles is almost unheard of.

Even with the one day delay leaving, I'm glad I chose to fly instead of drive. Driving would have meant an extra 20 hours of travel time, which almost makes up for the lost day.