Saturday, February 28, 2004

Gliding I have recently (within the past few months) decided that I am no longer going to pursue a career as an airline pilot. It's been a tough decision, but I would rather be home with my family on a daily basis than fly jets. Plus, I would have to significantly decrease my family's standard of living for a decade before we were back up to where we are now. I am definitely not giving up flying, though. It's like an inoperable brain tumor-impossible to be extracted from my life. I will continue to work part time as a CFI. Eventually I will feel compelled to buy my own airplane. I am also very interested in becoming a glider pilot, maybe even a glider CFI. About a month ago I paid a visit to Morgan Valley Soaring where the owner expressed an interest in me becoming a CFIG so he could get out of the back seat of their old, uncomfortable Schweizer 2-33. It sounds like fun to me. 12:13:01 PM    comment []

	Thursday, February 26, 2004

Boris Trajkovski The President of Macedonia perished in a King Air. It's the old fog/rain/mountainside story. I am an instrument-rated pilot, so I can imagine the conditions and what the pilots were dealing with. I don't think King Airs have CVRs, and I am curious what kind of radar coverage they have in Macedonia, so we might not ever know if the pilots even knew they were in trouble. 6:10:34 AM    comment []

	Monday, April 21, 2003

Rained Out, Part II Once again, the forces of nature have conspired to prevent me from completing my CFI. I had the flying part of my checkride scheduled for this afternoon, but it just so happened that some storms were rolling through right then. We've had 48 hours of brilliant sunshine, a gorgeous easter sunday, and I can't catch a break for a few hours. Now it's not going to happen until at least saturday. That is, of course, if I am not taking care of a new baby by then. I guess I am lucky to have all of this going on in my life right now. 9:53:30 PM    comment []

	Saturday, April 19, 2003

Rained Out I started my CFI checkride yesterday, successfully completing the oral portion of the test. It wasn't too bad, but there were some things that I didn't know. Fortunately they weren't major. I didn't get the impression that I was ever on the verge of failing, so I feel pretty good about it. Kelvin Hiatt, the designated examiner that I am using, seemed fair and thorough. The oral part took over four hours to complete. When we were done with the oral part we went outside to look at the weather. It was crummy. We had some rain and low ceilings over the Ogden west practice area and over tooele valley, the two places that would be appropriate for the checkride. So, even though there was a good ceiling over bountiful, we went back inside and he filled out a letter of discontinuance, giving low ceilings as the reason. We did not determine when I would finish. It's nice to have such a significant part of my checkride over. Plus, a lot of the aprehension I had about it is gone because now I have an idea what the examiner is like. I will keep you posted. 8:45:41 AM    comment []

	Thursday, April 17, 2003

Ready for Another Checkride What a difference a day makes. Everything is working on the Commander! The gear limiter switch was replaced this morning, and the CHT is working, too. I just hope that nothing decides to stop working overnight. I did get to go flyig today by myself and with Matt. By myself I did all of the landings and take offs that could be requested on my test. Short, soft, normal, crosswind, and 180 degree precision emergency approach. I felt very good about all of them. Then Matt and I went and we did commercial ground reference maneouvers, stalls, lazy 8s, etc. before coming back and doing a few landings. Again, I felt very good, and Matt said that I was ready. I think I just might be ready. After flying Matt endorsed my logbook. I think I am ready. Let's just hope the weather works out. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. After I successfully complete this checkride, I will only have 4 checkrides left: Instrument Instructor, Commercial Multi, Multi-Engine Instructor, and finally Airline Transport Pilot. Cool! 6:59:26 PM    comment []

Little Green Lights The fun never stops. Here is an update on my quest to become a CFI. Yesterday I had a flight scheduled to polish up some of my maneouvers with my CFI, Matt. I was very much looking forward to the flight. I figured that flight plus thursday's flight would sufficiently prepare me for my checkride on friday (tomorrow). It was all going to work out. Well, I show up to the airport yesterday and waited for the plane to get back. As I am waiting in the FBO, I hear over the radio "91W has a gear indicator light that is not green." It was my instructor and another student. They did a low pass, and everyone agreed that the gear looked fine, so they decided to land, which they did safely (thank goodness). Unfortunately, upon inspection it was determined that the gear limiter switch was broken. Also broken was the CHT guage,  and the transponder was still reporting high. I was grounded. I made sure to raz my instructor's other student, "you broke my airplane!" She is strongly considering switching to the comanche for the remainder of her training. The mechanics assured me the thing would be flying again by the next morning (this morning). If it is, then I may be able to squeek a flight in today before the weather deteriorates below VFR. If I don't fly today, I don't get signed off for my checkride, and I will have to reschedule AGAIN. On top of all this, my wife could pop at any second. She's 80% effaced. If things don't work out today and tomorrow, I can imagine having to cancel again because my wife is having a baby. Of course, that would be more important than a checkride. 6:47:39 AM    comment []

	Saturday, April 12, 2003

Humility People who fly airplanes usually posess qualities such as confidence, a sense of adventure, intelligence, and attention to detail. One less frequently found quality in pilots is humility. I am no exception. I have a tendency to think I am pretty good at this flying thing. Well, my flight yesterday helped me remember to be humble. It was supposed to be just a regular pre-checkride check, and I was going with an instructor named Ann St Peter. My regular instructor, Matt Bradshaw thought I would benefit from going with somebody else. I agreed that it was a good idea. So, I went through my normal preflight checks on the Commander N4591W and we strapped ourselves in. Ann was pleased to see that she was not going to need her booster pad to see over the instrument panel. She is a little vertically challenged, but a fantastic CFI. I began running through the engine start checklist, and got to the point where it was time to engage the starter and fire up the engine. So I started cranking the thing over, and it wasn't starting. It had flown earlier that day, so I didn't think it would need priming. After a few tries, though, I decided it could use some more gas, so I primed it according to the checklist. Cranked it and it sputtered a few times and died again. What gives? Finally, after letting me wallow for a minute, Ann casually mentioned that I may want to put the mixture at full rich if I wanted the engine to run. Garbage! *$#&#*!!! That would cause me to fail on my checkride. Finally, I got the engine started, and pulled myself together. We took off and headed north towards the practice area west of the OGD VOR. We messed around, watching the CHT which had spiked to redline after liftoff. It crawled back down, so we continued. We did just about all of the commercial and private maneouvers. My steep turns stunk. I busted the altitude standards a couple of times. My chandelles were aweful. Ground reference maneouvers were good, as were my lazy 8's, slow flight, and stalls. Those things were the high point of the flight. We finally and mercifully decided that I had had enough. We headed back towards skypark. I set up to land. I let the thing get a little bit ahead of me, then I let it get too slow on final. I was supposed to be demonstrating a normal landing, but I ended up doing a fantastic short field landing, except I touched down about 20 FEET in front of the extended threshold. SUCK! Totally disgusted with myself, we taxied back to the hangar. Ann was great, she said this was the reason we do these stage checks, so that we get this kind of flying out of our systems. All of her students do their worst flying right before a checkride. That was some solace, but I still flew like crap. I pulled myself together and went by myself this morning. Things went much better. I had better success with maneouvers, and three really good landings, including one soft-field landing with a wheely that lasted almost until I was ready to turn off onto the taxiway. All in all, I think I will be ready for my checkride next Friday. But one thing is for certain: I won't be forgetting to be humble for some time. 11:34:13 AM    comment []

© Copyright 2004 Dave McNamee. Last update: 3/2/2004; 9:38:03 PM.