My Flying Career

Well, I have that on top of the world feeling once again. I just passed my Private Multi-Engine Land checkride! It felt so good to log my first few hours of PIC multi time! Instead of paying all that money for non-PIC multi time.

I learned something from this multi-engine training experience. I am better at learning knowledge as apposed to learning a skill. This is the first checkride (since my private) that I had to learn a new airplane. And not just a new airplane, but brand new concepts to the plane. So what I took away from this was that I could learn the concepts of how things worked on the plane, and why the plane moved and operated the way it did. But actually flying the airplane was more tough.  I felt like I was back at square one when I learned to fly the Cessna 172.  I was an infant learning to walk with new legs.

Having said all that, my next step, my commercial multi-engine rating, will be a very challenging one.  As I basically have to do the same checkride, but with stricter margins.  For example I have to do a short field landing on a point +100 feet, -0 feet.  As opposed to a short field landing on a point +200 feet, -0 feet.
I also have to study for my knowledge test.  I’ve gotten above 90% on all my other knowledge tests, and I would love to keep that streak going.  However, I have heard the commercial knowledge test is much harder than the Instrument and Private knowledge tests that I have already taken.  I guess that means I just have to study all that much harder.  Again, my strength, I believe, is in the knowledge, so I’m not sweating it too much.  I am more concerned about learning to fly the airplane to these stricter standards without paying an arm and a leg in aircraft rental (and instructor) fees.

So begins the Commercial Knowledge Test studying.  Back to the King Videos.

An interesting read…

Age 65 Retirements Begin Soon, How Will That Affect the Airlines? – PilotJobs.com: Regional Airline Pilot Jobs
Age 65 Retirements Part 2 - PilotJobs.com: Regional Airline Pilot Jobs
Age 65 Retirements Part 3 – PilotJobs.com: Regional Airline Pilot Jobs

I must say, I’m a little disappointed with the King Multi-Engine ground school course. Definitely not up-to-par with their other courses I have used (namely, the Private and Instrument courses). But I don’t think King is completely to blame, as a Multi-Engine add-on is one of those ratings that is pretty specific to the airplane you are flying.  So they are not able to go into the intricate details of how the landing gear system works, or how the fuel system works.  From my little experience, it seems that their are some pretty major differences with these systems amongst light twins.  So that leaves a fairly large portion of the ground school up to you to figure out (with the help of your instructor of course).

These are things that I have found useful in studying for my Multi-Engine Oral Exam:

• Everything Explained for the Professional Pilot: Excruciatingly Detailed Explanations of Everything Essential for Every Pilot – This is a great book that will benefit you throughout your entire training.  It’s got a very informative section on Vmc as well as some other, otherwise hard to understand, concepts.  If you don’t have this book, and you plan on continuing your education towards a Professional Pilot career, check it out.
• Of course the POH (Pilots Operating Handbook) – This is an ABSOLUTE for getting your rating.  I had to read through the systems section at least twice.  There is so much information their, and sometimes it can be overwhelming, so read it again a few days later.  Also, highlight key terms, so that IF you need to reference something on your oral exam, you can quickly.
• And last but, absolutely not least, is your instructor! – I’m the kind of guy, that if I don’t know something, I like to find the answer myself.  But if I can’t find the answer, or don’t even know where to start looking for the answer.  Your instructor can be your biggest resource.  Not only will he most likely know the answer, but if he doesn’t, he will probably want to know the answer just as badly as you do, and will find it.  Also, on this note.  I HIGHLY recommend you take at least 2-3 hours to sit down with your instructor and fill in the gaps of anything that you don’t know.  Allow him to start prodding and probing for what you know.  My bet is you will find stuff you don’t know, and LEARN it!  I also recommend, if you have the opportunity, to sit down with a different instructor than your main instructor.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  One is it keeps your instructor in check and make sure he hasn’t missed anything.  Second, it gives you a HUGE confidence boost that, “Hey, not only does my instructor that I have been flying with the last few weeks think I can pass my checkride, but this guy does too. “

If you notice, I didn’t put the King Multi-Engine course in that list.  To be totally honest, if I were to redo my Multi-Engine education, I would take the $280 bucks that it costs and spend it on an instructor AFTER I have studyed on my own to fill in the gaps.  But that’s just me, and this post isn’t meant to be a review of the King video course.

I hope some have found this post helpful, and if you have any questions or things to add to this list, shoot a comment below.

Hey Everyone,

Well here’s the lowdown on what’s been happening.  I’ve been polishing my skills in the Seminole to a point where I am comfortable taking a stage check (practice checkride pretty much).  My normal instructor was out of town last weekend, so I was placed with another instructor, and I don’t know if it was the nerves or just not my day, but I wasn’t flying so well…  Little mistakes here and there.  So I opted to do one more lesson with my instructor before taking my stage check, just to at least bring back up my confidence.  Well we did that and I felt really good about it.  So next step…Stage check.   Hoping to get that scheduled this Monday or Tuesday.  It’s been a little difficult considering they were running all the Seminoles they had pretty hard, and just recently, they got one taken out of commission.  You can read about it here.  Kind of a scary story considering I’ve flown that plane a few times.

On the time-building side of things.  I have gotten to fly all over the place in order to just increase my total time.  I’ve flown to North Bend (KOTH) a few times.  I like North Bend, because usually it has the opposite weather as Salem.  If Salem’s got crappy weather, North Bend is usually nice.  If Salem has nice weather, I can usually find crappy weather at North Bend to practice approaches.  It also has some fun approaches to do, however there are a couple of approaches that take you a few miles out into the ocean.  And I don’t know about everyone else, but flying a single engine piston airplane 5 miles out into the ocean at 2000 feet, is just unnecessary.  I don’t think I could swim 5 miles in 40 degree water(or 70 for that matter).  I’ve also flown to Astoria and Tacoma-Narrows.  I REALLY like Tacoma-Narrows.  Just an insanely beautiful flight.  I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t bring my camera on that one.  However, I did see the Les Scwab jet there (I believe it was a Cessna Citation).  For those of you who are in the area, Tacoma-Narrows has a fantastic restaurant on the field.  I’ve only had their burgers, but those were amazing.

Until next time, thanks for reading.

So I need to apologize for taking so long to write this post.  I keep putting it off, and partially I feel I have nothing super exciting to write about.

The last couple weeks we have been practicing steep turns, slow flight, power-on and power-off stalls, Vmc demo, and of course lots of single engine operations.  For the most part I feel like I’m getting the maneuvers down.  I think the only thing I need to work on is memorizing the power settings for the different maneuvers.  But all in all, I’m beginning to feel comfortable flying the plane (unlike at first, when everything was just CRAZY).  I also got to fly for my first time in an FTD (Flight Training Device).  Which is basically a flight simulator with all the controls and a cockpit cutout, but doesn’t move (like a full-motion simulator).  That was kind of fun, it was helpful because we would be 50 feet above the runway, and then my instructor would kill an engine.  And I got to see “somewhat” what that would be like, and how incredibly fast you need to recognize what’s going on. I’ve got Identify, Verify, and Feather stuck in my head.  Those of you who have taken multi-engine training I’m sure know what I’m talking about.  Sometime in the next few lessons I will be doing a single-engine instrument approach!  Which I think sounds crazy hard, but Chris (my instructor) assures me that it’s not as hard as it sounds.  We’ll see.

On another note, I have been doing some time-building in the club plane here and there.  I shot the VOR-A approach into North Bend all the way to minimums, could barely see the airport, and went missed.  Picked up my clearance back to Salem and shot the ILS, went missed, then turned around and shot the back course to a full stop.  What a mentally busy day!  The weather wasn’t “terrible” in Salem, but the approach in North Bend was TOTALLY in the soup and was a lot of fun!

Finally the weather started clearing up and I flew VFR to corvallis, then west out to the beach, then north up the coast, and then east to Hillsboro for my multi-engine lesson.  What a great flight!  Not a cloud in the sky, the beach was beautiful!  I can’t remember the last time I flew to the beach in VFR conditions (without the hood on).  Flying north up the coast I even saw some Whales!  I scrambled for my camera and circled around, but was too late.  That had gone back down and I couldn’t find them again.  Sorry.  However I did take a bunch of pictures of the coast.   Hope you enjoy!

Alright, back to studying.  I’ll try and keep you all more up-to-date and not take so long on posting this time around.

Also, wanted to mention, if you aren’t subscribing to the RSS feed and want to receive email notifications when I post a new blog entry, be sure and subscribe here.

Thanks for reading,

John

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The Piper Seminole I flew

Well I FINALLY had my first day of Multi-Engine flight training.  I was sick on Wednesday and the weather was terrible so I wasn’t able to have a lesson that day.  But Friday was an awesome day to fly!

I can basically sum up my first multi-engine lesson with one word. Overwhelming!  There are only twice as many engines as I’m used to, but there is about 3 times as many things to do.  Not only is this my first time flying a multi-engine airplane, it is my first time flying a complex airplane.  So retractable landing gear, and the constant speed prop are all new things to me, on top of having double the engine controls and instruments.  We flew over to Scappoose to do some maneuvers.  We did Steep Turns, Power-off stalls, and 4 touch-and-goes.  The first touch-and-go was crazy!  Trying to keep track of the manifold pressure, propeller RPM’s and look out the window, AND look at my checklist was just crazy.  But by the 4th time, I think I was starting to pick up on the cues and memorize the checklist items.  That’s the best way for me to learn, repetition.

All in all it was extremely fun, and when we started heading back to Hillsboro, I felt like I was starting to get it.  Oh yeah, one thing I have to start memorizing is the stinkin’ cowl flaps.  Holy cow, cowl flaps up, cowl flaps down, cowl flaps up, etc.  Thank God for checklists.  My instructor said that he thinks I have the basics down pretty good, and our next lesson will be all single-engine operations.  Yay!

Ok, on to pictures, I didn’t take a ton of pictures.  But here are the ones I did take of the plane.  Enjoy!

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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.