My Flying Career

Well, I have officially flown an approach to minimums due to weather!  What an exhilarating experience! Took some friends for an evening flight last Friday to get some dinner in Scappoose, Oregon (KSPB). Before I was assigned the LOC/DME 15 approach, I snagged the local ASOS (Automated Surface Observation System) and it was reporting a ceiling of 2,000 broken. Sounds like a piece of cake approach. The FAF (Final Approach Fix) was 1800 feet, so I should be out of the clouds by then. Well, I got vectored around for the approach, reached the FAF, descended to the step down fix, and I was still in the clouds. Now I’m at 1100 feet, reached my next step down fix and descended to 600 feet. STILL in the clouds! I can look straight down and see the ground (A little scary, I tell you what), but straight in front of me is nothing but that misty fog Oregon is known for. I reached my last step down fix and descended to the MDA (Minimum Descent Altitude) of 460 feet. And as soon as I got to about 500 feet and began to run through the Missed approach in my head one more time, there it was! Perfectly lined up! It was amazing! At that moment, I truly felt like all that training under the hood down to “simulated” minimums was put to good use! I was definitely not planning on shooting that approach to minimums, but once I landed, I could see that sure enough RIGHT above the airport it was about 2,000 feet broken.  But out to the north, where I was shooting the approach, it was nothing but fog.  Having said all that, I learned a valuable lesson.  You can’t necessarily trust the airport weather observation for the approach.  You can really only rely on them for weather AT the airport.

One of the guys I took with me on that trip, Nick Lopez, is a really good photographer, and he was in the back with all of his camera gear snapping pictures.  So I thought I would share those pictures with all of you.

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Met with my instructor yesterday to discuss the nitty gritty before our first lesson, tentatively set for April 1st.  We went over a little bit more detailed syllabus, signed some paperwork, filled out a logbook audit, which is basically every crazy combination of flight hours you can think of.  Dual Night, Solo Night, Total Night, Dual Night X-country, Solo Night X-country, Total Night X-country, and so on and so forth.  It took quite a while to fill out.  I can’t imagine having to fill one of those things out if you had like 1000+ hours.  Took me long enough with ~140 hours.

After working through all that, I went down to the FBO store and bought a Seminole POH (Pilots Operating Handbook) & laminated checklists and the Cessna 172P POH & laminated checklists.  Yay! More books to read!  I’m actually very excited to have the Seminole POH.  After going through the King Video’s it will be nice to know, when they say “this is only for hydraulically actuated props”, to be able to know, “Hey, the Seminole has Hydraulically actuated props!”.  :-)

So between now and next week, I will be memorizing checklist items, reading the Seminole POH and building some more time in the club plane.  How very exciting!

I consider all my flights an adventure.  And I could probably find something interesting to write about for each one.  But this flight, I don’t have to “find” something interesting.  It found me!

I started out on an IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) flight plan to North Bend, OR.  Cruising along at 7000 feet, I encountered a bit of icing for the first time!  Now in a 1974 Cessna 172, a plane that is 35 years old, and an engine that is past TBO (Time Between Overhaul), you/I don’t want to push your luck with ice!  There just isn’t a whole lot of power there to keep you airborne when you weight more and the camber of your wing has changed.  I opted to divert to my alternate of Eugene.  Shot the ILS perfectly and re-thought my afternoons flying.

My new plan is to fly to Hillsboro (KHIO) see if my new Instructor is there and say hello.  Well when I left, it was moderate rain at Eugene, but I knew the rain would stop before reaching Corvallis.  I took off in the moderate rain and began a climb to 6000 feet.  At about 4500 feet, the moderate rain became moderate snow.  Once reaching 6000 feet, I began to pick up some more ice.  I asked to descend to 4000, they granted my request, and the ice slowly began to slide off.  Once I arrive in Hillsboro, unfortunately my instructor wasn’t there to surprise, so I took off and started heading home.

I was kind of tired of all the hard IFR flying and the icing.  And Salem’s METAR showed VFR, and it was only about 30 minutes away, so I decided to fly back VFR (Visual Flight Rules).  Well about 20 miles north of Salem, I hear Salem Tower say they have 3 miles visibility and hear reports of 3/4 mile visibility coming to their area.  So again, I decided to divert to McMinnville (KMMV) and wait it out, or file IFR out of there.  After waiting about 30 minutes, there was a wall of moderate rain between McMinnville and Salem.  Salem’s METAR reports VFR and 4500 broken.  So I decide to file IFR out of McMinnville and after taking off, I found out it was a good choice. Salem was IFR again and I had to shoot the backcourse (which was fun because I hadn’t done that since my checkride!)

All in all I got to experience light icing for the first time, diversion and crazy weather.  A very fun and educational trip, but man am I mentally drained.  Flying single-pilot IFR with no autopilot or GPS is just one of the hardest mental workouts ever.

On another note, I have a meeting with my instructor on Monday to “officially” enroll me in the school and to go over my more detailed syllabus!  I’ll let you know how it goes probably on Tuesday.  And don’t forget to check out my pictures.  I left my digital camera at the FBO in Salem, so I had to take these with my iPhone.  So they aren’t the most detailed.  But they are better than nothing.

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Well not a whole lot to tell, but I have been studying hard trying to be as prepared as possible for my first lesson of my multi-engine rating.  And for those of you that have watched any King Schools DVD’s (or VHS’s), I’m getting to that point where if I hear Martha say “Stay out of the trees” one more time, I’m going to punch something.  I’ve started to see it coming and quickly hit the next chaper button on my dvd player…hehe

On the time building side of things, I’m still trying to get more total time.  But holy crap, the weather here has just been terrible.  I flew down to Corvallis a while back and was planning on checking the VOR instruments and I couldn’t find the VOR ground checkpoint.  The A/FD said it was located on the south side of the terminal ramp.  Well it was night time and I couldn’t find the darn thing.  I wish they would put the location on the airport diagram.  Anyway, after taxiing around at night looking for the thing, I decided just to head back to Salem and do an airborne check, checking the two VOR’s against each other.  The problem with that is I think they are BOTH a little off.

Anyway, I’m rambling…I’m just waiting for a little better weather and thought I would update you all on the happenings, or lack thereof.

I received my loan check in the mail yesterday.  I have never seen a check this big before in my life.  Too bad they have to show how much you owe back on the same page.  What a downer there.

First things first, I plan on purchasing the Instrument and Multi-Engine ground school courses from King Schools and start studying for my knowledge tests.  A lot of people think the Kings’ videos are boring and I can definitely see why, but for some reason they work for me.  I have used them on my Private and Instrument knowledge tests, and got above a 90% on both.  So no complaints coming from me.

I also will start flying as much as possible to accumulate as much TT (Total Time) as possible in the club plane I use at Salem.  I plan on making as much of this TT cross-country time as well.  Might as well hit two birds with one stone right?

Hope the weather holds out, I need to do a VOR check before I can fly IFR in the club plane again.  And it hasn’t been too promising.

Well in my first post I said I would talk a little about the process I used to pick the school that I would be completing my training at.  This process was filled with much research, advice from pilot’s I respect, and prayer.  Originally I was going to go through the “Fast Track” program at ATP (Airline Transport Professionals, Inc.).  My wife and I decided not to take that route because we were newlyweds and not seeing each other for 3 months was out of the question.  And even though they provide housing, it is only for the student, so my wife would not be able to come.

My next choice was Delta Connections Academy.  They were just finishing up their brand new campus in Houston, TX at the time.  My wife and I were planning on flying down their to check it out and find a place to live.  Ya know, just scope out the area.  We had heard both good things and bad things about Houston and of course the bad things are what stuck in our minds.  ”It’s hot and humid, the crime rates are really bad”.  Needless to say, it would cost more than twice as much to move to houston and go through their program with moving expenses, living expenses (I would not be able to work much while attending school), and school expenses.  With the seemingly endless downturn of the economy, their just aren’t the school loans their used to be.  So even if I wanted to go to Delta Connections Academy, I wouldn’t be able to.  I look at the glass half full.  That decision was easy.  I can’t go, so I won’t go.

Then my instrument instructor mentioned that I should just stay here, get my ratings through Hillsboro Aviation and work for Ameriflight when I build enough time.  It would be cheaper, I’ll make some good connections here on the west coast (which is worth a lot in this business),  I can do school at my schedule and work part time and best of all, I wouldn’t have to move.  Seems like the perfect plan right?  Flawless in fact hehe.

Well we are about to find out…I anxiously await my first day at Hillsboro (April 1st, 2009).  Meanwhile I have been saturating myself with flying.  Reading blogs (check out my blog roll), re-watching my King Schools Instrument DVDs, flying on Flight Simulator practicing approaches, anything and everything I can do to keep myself pumped up and ready to roll.

In conclusion to this post, I am happy where I am at and where I am going.  And on a slight side note, my work decided to keep me for Tuesday’s and Thursday’s!  Which is fantastic and a huge load off my mind.  So I will be going to school Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and working the other two days.

See ya next post!