The pace of my flying has slowed a bit, mostly because of the approaching winter weather... which is something of a good thing. Our checking account can't keep up with the rate of flying I did in October! I have still managed to fly around twice a week lately- and I've been studying like mad to get through the knowledge stuff for my commercial. I took the written yesterday-- and did reasonably well (89)-- that's good for me as I never manage to do as well on a test as I can in real life. It means I have to really prepare well to do as well as Husband-- he always does better on a test.
Speaking of Husband, I'm pleased that he commented on our last flight that I seem far more confident and comfortable in the plane that in the past. I don't think it was a dig on past performance-- but I have become a lot more in command. It's a little strange to be more confident than Husband, though. I'm not really used to that role (except maybe in the kitchen!). I'm having to adjust a bit to that idea-- but it makes sense given how much more time and energy (and studying) I've done lately. Husband is out right now finishing his stage 3 check for his instrument. I'm very excited for him-- and am glad he was able to find time. His schedule is always nuts.
This past weekend I ended up flying a few times. Husband and I went out to do a practice flight (and to help him knock the rust off) before his final instrument lesson. I acted as safety pilot and he flew all three approaches into OKV, and then one back into JYO. Even though I wasn't flying, it was nice just to be up... and I practiced asking him questions as opposed to just telling him when he was missing something). It went pretty well- and he had a beautiful landing back at JYO-- even with a pretty gusty crosswind. I think he's ready.
Sunday, a friend (R) and I flew up to meet up with a bunch of other 99s (the International Association of Women Pilots) for lunch in Lancaster. It was a lot of fun. I hadn't flown with R before-- I only just got involved with the 99s. She couldn't find an open plane to rent- so I offered for her to fly along with me. She's a great copilot-- very meticulous and conscientious. I was a little nervous at first (I haven't flown with many pilots that aren't instructors-- though I've flown with a bunch of passengers). She has around 400 hours-- in all kinds of different airplanes, which is cool. I thought we flew together pretty well, and am looking forward to more flying with her. In fact, she may join me when I fly down for the Women in Aviation conference in February. It would be great to have company- both for the flight, and for the conference. The lunch was fun, as well. It's fun to meet so many women with so much aviation experience! I'm a bit awed by it.
After flying back to JYO, Husband went up with our instrument instructor while I flew with my commercial instructor. I'm getting close to finishing up my requirements... just a couple more hours in the Arrow, one more night flight, and my medical. I'm hoping to finish within the next two weeks or so. Though, the thought of finishing makes me a little sad, too. This one has been really fun to work on. My instructor is great-- he's very curious about things, so has encouraged me to share articles, etc. He's been working a bunch lately with one of our asst. chiefs, and has picked up a lot of new information. Some of it makes my eyes glaze over a little-- I'm not a very mechanical person. But some of it has been really helpful. This time, we were both a little tired, so we decided to just fly over to OKV for a few landings in the Arrow, and then return to JYO. It had been 10-12 days since I last flew the Arrow, and I've had 4 or 5 flights in our plane since then, so I was a little wary on how well I'd remember things. I actually did pretty well, though I was more tentative than I'd like. I like that he will point that out to me at the end of the flight.
After landing at OKV, he told me to do a full-stop and pull off on the run-up area. Turns out, I had missed that the oil pressure was now showing in the yellow. I think I'd seen it, but it hadn't registered. We knew why-- we had elected not to add oil before the flight, though it was a bit borderline. The pressure was fine when we were prop full forward, but when we pulled it back for cruise, it went a little into the yellow. Given that it was still pretty stable, and only a little in the yellow, we decided it was okay to return to JYO-- but that we would go straight back without any more landings. I think we're going to do a mini cross country next time. I'd like to try doing some approaches in the Arrow to round out my hours. It will be interesting to do them in another plane-- we'll really see how well I do without the G1000! We're also working our way through the systems, so I should get some good ground time next week. I just hope I can make sense of it all. My dad would be impressed, though... looking at things like electrical systems! It brings back memories of him trying to teach me college-level science when I asked questions about my middle school homework.
Husband just called, sounds like he passed his stage check and can do his checkride next Sunday! Woo-hoo! I guess I know which books to pack for our Thanksgiving trip to New York!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Thursday, November 13, 2008
B-17 Pics
I posted a few months back that Husband and I took a flight on the B-17 that came to Leesburg. I never got around to posting those pics... so here they are.
The crowd was pretty big (at least bigger than we expected!). The next shot is Husband strapped in and ready for take off.
Looking out the rear gunner's window. And then looking down the main part of the fuselage.
I think the next is a picture of the radio operator's station... though it may have been the navigator's station. And then the place where they stored the bombs.
The other station- either radio or navigator... this one was on the right side of the plane.
There was a place in the middle of the plane-- where the clear hatch would be-- that you could stand with your head sticking out of the cockpit and look all around. This was one of my favorite parts. Cool to see straight up to the sky with nothing over top of you while flying along.
The gunner's hatch at the front of the airplane-- underneath the cockpit... surrounded by plexiglass.
This is the view from the seat. You feel pretty exposed here. We also noticed how close to the ground these guys were flying. Surprising since the B-17 was used for high-altitude bombing runs.
The engines and props seem very close from the gunner's seat.
View from the cockpit-- notice the different perspective.
The crowd was pretty big (at least bigger than we expected!). The next shot is Husband strapped in and ready for take off.
Looking out the rear gunner's window. And then looking down the main part of the fuselage.
I think the next is a picture of the radio operator's station... though it may have been the navigator's station. And then the place where they stored the bombs.
The other station- either radio or navigator... this one was on the right side of the plane.
There was a place in the middle of the plane-- where the clear hatch would be-- that you could stand with your head sticking out of the cockpit and look all around. This was one of my favorite parts. Cool to see straight up to the sky with nothing over top of you while flying along.
The gunner's hatch at the front of the airplane-- underneath the cockpit... surrounded by plexiglass.
This is the view from the seat. You feel pretty exposed here. We also noticed how close to the ground these guys were flying. Surprising since the B-17 was used for high-altitude bombing runs.
The engines and props seem very close from the gunner's seat.
View from the cockpit-- notice the different perspective.
And a view from further back in the plane.
The pilots-- and the panel, of course.
And-- a picture of the B-17 taken from our plane as we taxied past!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Catching Up on Good Times
I've just realized that I never did post about our long IFR cross country-- and I never posted about the B17 (that will be the next post, I think). We had to cancel our IFR trip once because of weather, but then did finally make the trip in early October. We had great weather for it-- plenty of nice sunshiny, blue skies-- AND to make things more interesting, a portion of actual IMC conditions in both directions.
We decided to fly to Montauk, NY-- to a little airport just north of the Hamptons. We figured it would be an interesting flight up, cool to see all the beach mansions, and a good place to get some seafood for lunch. And it pretty much delivered on all accounts-- though a combination of aviation time and strong winds took its toll on our schedule. I'm not sure if our instructor's wife has forgiven us (or him!) yet for how late he was getting home that evening.
On the way up, we had a spectacular view of New York-- and JFK. Wow. What fun to see all the different aircraft flying in and out of there! I'm not sure of all of the locations of these pictures- but I know most are of NYC and JFK... Those from the area may be able to help my deficient memory...
Then we headed up Long Island to the Hamptons. It was beautiful! Check out the houses (and pools!) in the picture on the right.
We decided to fly to Montauk, NY-- to a little airport just north of the Hamptons. We figured it would be an interesting flight up, cool to see all the beach mansions, and a good place to get some seafood for lunch. And it pretty much delivered on all accounts-- though a combination of aviation time and strong winds took its toll on our schedule. I'm not sure if our instructor's wife has forgiven us (or him!) yet for how late he was getting home that evening.
On the way up, we had a spectacular view of New York-- and JFK. Wow. What fun to see all the different aircraft flying in and out of there! I'm not sure of all of the locations of these pictures- but I know most are of NYC and JFK... Those from the area may be able to help my deficient memory...
Then we headed up Long Island to the Hamptons. It was beautiful! Check out the houses (and pools!) in the picture on the right.
After we landed, the woman at the FBO gave us a ride to the other end of the runway so we could walk along the beach. (Then the van wouldn't start, so she ended up having to leave it there and walk back to the FBO!)
We walked about 2 miles to a restaurant where we had lunch looking out at the water. The pic on the left is of Husband and Instructor- deep in conversation. They didn't seem to want to put their feet in the water (it was COLD). The one on the right is of Husband-- with the ocean in the background, of course!
I flew on the way home-- Husband took this shot of the harbor as we left. The pic on the right is of me landing at ISLIP. Look at that perfect glide slope-- red over white, I'm alright!
Slightly different view of JFK this time-- the overcast started just on the south side of the field. I took the foggles off and had about 45 minutes of actual instrument conditions. Then- it suddenly cleared and we had a beautiful sunset.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Three-Six-Charlie
With my instrument checkride complete, now I can focus on my commercial training. Last week, weather, a broken plane, and our plane unexpectedly going for a wash kept me from flying. But this week, I've done two more flights Three-Six-Charlie. I think I'm learning how spoiled I've been! Three-Six-Charlie is a 1981 PA-28R-201-- the airplane I'm using for my 10 hours of complex time required for my commercial.
It's very interesting, getting to know another airplane. I feel so sheltered-- having only flown one airplane all this time! It's sometimes a little hard to tell if I'm learning things that are new because it's a complex aircraft... or if it's just different from our plane. Flying Three-Six-Charlie is a bit like flying my dad's old suburban... which is not just any suburban, but a 20 year old, very well traveled suburban!
The first few flights in the airplane, I felt like a student pilot all over again. I wasn't sure which instincts to trust-- and which to resist. In the air, the plane felt like "an airplane"- i.e. I know how to level the wings, climb, descend, do stalls, etc. without too many issues. But I found myself worrying a lot about if I needed to adjust the prop, or if the throttle alone would give me the performance.
My second lesson in the plane, we did a little airwork (stalls, steep turns, etc.), and then headed over to OKV for pattern work. The first few patterns were pretty bad- I was definitely getting behind the airplane. I usually caught up in time for landing, but I really didn't like feeling behind. After a few circuits (thanks, Aviatrix, for that term! It's a lot more descriptive in this case!), I started to catch up a bit. The flow was getting easier to manage, and I wasn't needing to be prompted much by my instructor. Then, we tried a few emergency simulations-- power off 180s... Everything fell apart. I found us in a position where I was not sure if we were going to make the runway (without power), and we were still turning, and getting perilously close to the ground. In my head-- I knew to add power, but for some reason, I didn't add it-- or at least didn't add enough. We ended up landing hard-- and not in a way that I liked. After thinking about the situation and my actions, I have a few conclusions. One- be very clear about who is PIC. Don't fall into the trap that if there's someone more experienced in the seat next to you that they will take over or tell you what to do. Two- if you don't know how the airplane glides (at idle), be very ready to power up. And Three-Keep communicating either way!
My next lesson in the arrow went a lot better. I finally felt in control of the airplane. I was consistently flying the pattern without assistance from my instructor-- and had the rhythm down.
With my private instructor, I was given a relatively black and white set of procedures to follow... 90, 80, 70 with accompanying flaps 10, 20, and 30 degrees on each leg of the approach. But-- in that case, I didn't know what it was supposed to be like to land an airplane, so those rules were necessary to help me develop a routine so I could learn what it looked and felt like. Now, I know how to fly, and my instructor hasn't given me set rules-- but has rather been helping me figure them out. Over the lessons, we have been refining our approach profile-- in other words, what power, prop, and flap settings work best-- and when. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate teaching technique or if he just doesn't use those rules... But it's an interesting process to go through-- and I feel like I'm learning more than just how to fly the arrow.
It's very interesting, getting to know another airplane. I feel so sheltered-- having only flown one airplane all this time! It's sometimes a little hard to tell if I'm learning things that are new because it's a complex aircraft... or if it's just different from our plane. Flying Three-Six-Charlie is a bit like flying my dad's old suburban... which is not just any suburban, but a 20 year old, very well traveled suburban!
The first few flights in the airplane, I felt like a student pilot all over again. I wasn't sure which instincts to trust-- and which to resist. In the air, the plane felt like "an airplane"- i.e. I know how to level the wings, climb, descend, do stalls, etc. without too many issues. But I found myself worrying a lot about if I needed to adjust the prop, or if the throttle alone would give me the performance.
My second lesson in the plane, we did a little airwork (stalls, steep turns, etc.), and then headed over to OKV for pattern work. The first few patterns were pretty bad- I was definitely getting behind the airplane. I usually caught up in time for landing, but I really didn't like feeling behind. After a few circuits (thanks, Aviatrix, for that term! It's a lot more descriptive in this case!), I started to catch up a bit. The flow was getting easier to manage, and I wasn't needing to be prompted much by my instructor. Then, we tried a few emergency simulations-- power off 180s... Everything fell apart. I found us in a position where I was not sure if we were going to make the runway (without power), and we were still turning, and getting perilously close to the ground. In my head-- I knew to add power, but for some reason, I didn't add it-- or at least didn't add enough. We ended up landing hard-- and not in a way that I liked. After thinking about the situation and my actions, I have a few conclusions. One- be very clear about who is PIC. Don't fall into the trap that if there's someone more experienced in the seat next to you that they will take over or tell you what to do. Two- if you don't know how the airplane glides (at idle), be very ready to power up. And Three-Keep communicating either way!
My next lesson in the arrow went a lot better. I finally felt in control of the airplane. I was consistently flying the pattern without assistance from my instructor-- and had the rhythm down.
With my private instructor, I was given a relatively black and white set of procedures to follow... 90, 80, 70 with accompanying flaps 10, 20, and 30 degrees on each leg of the approach. But-- in that case, I didn't know what it was supposed to be like to land an airplane, so those rules were necessary to help me develop a routine so I could learn what it looked and felt like. Now, I know how to fly, and my instructor hasn't given me set rules-- but has rather been helping me figure them out. Over the lessons, we have been refining our approach profile-- in other words, what power, prop, and flap settings work best-- and when. I'm not sure if this is a deliberate teaching technique or if he just doesn't use those rules... But it's an interesting process to go through-- and I feel like I'm learning more than just how to fly the arrow.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Instrument Checkride- Flight
Part Two of my checkride... Be forewarned-- this is lengthy!
I filed for OKV as we had discussed, then met the Designated Examiner (DE) out at the plane. The plane had been fueled since I last preflighted, so I did a quick fuel sump and checked the amount in each tank. I also did a brief walk around since I’d been inside for over an hour. Then we strapped in to go flying. Luckily, he was more talkative than the Chief in the plane (it doesn’t take much), which helped with some of my nerves. I got our clearance and departed without issue, though Clearance did ask us to make an immediate right turn on course—and stay within 1 mile of the airport until on course. It was kind of fun to make a 30 degree turn as soon as I was about 400 feet off the ground.
Once on course, I contacted Approach and put on the foggles, though I suspected that we might actually brush a few clouds. Approach told us to expect vectors, but then sent us direct to Cladd. I followed their instructions and started to brief the ILS-32 approach. (I use the A-MICE-ATM acronym.) When I got to E for entry, though, I had a quandary. Did I need a procedure turn or not? I didn’t want to screw this up—and risk failing on the very first task! I studied the plate, hoping to find the answer. Ah-hah! NoPT (no procedure turn) required if on the XXX heading from JASEN. We were on that heading… so I surmised no procedure turn required. Later, an instructor at the flight school reminded me that anytime a controller tells you to go direct to a point on the approach, if it’s not the initial approach fix (IAF), then that counts as vectors, and no PT is required. Okay, right answer, wrong thought process. All that thinking was for naught, however, as ATC turned us away from CLADD before we arrived.
We were then vectored around a few times. I think we were in and out of the clouds at this point as I asked the DE about some traffic I saw on the TIS and he responded he couldn’t see them because of the clouds. ATC finally vectored us onto the approach—1 mile outside of the final approach fix, at 3300 feet (I should have been at around 2200 feet). Adding to the confusion—a traffic target showed up without altitude information, so though I thought we were going to cross paths, I didn’t know if they were anywhere close to our altitude). Hmmm. Let’s think about this. I’m 1100 feet higher than I should be, finally intercepting the localizer, but way above glide slope. Not a good thing. In fact, it felt so out of whack that I double checked the approach plate to make sure I was reading it correctly. Yup. I told ATC we’d cancel IFR with them and slowly pulled the power to idle, and trimmed the plane for 90 kts. I thought about dumping in a second notch of flaps and slowing to 85 kts, but I didn’t want to risk busting PTS, so I held 90. Of course, that close in, I never did intercept the glide slope. Oh- and because of the vectoring, I didn’t get the GPS to recognize where I was once I intercepted the localizer. So I used the moving map on the MFD to estimate where the MAP was, and went missed, still well above the glide slope. DE made a comment something like, “Well, ATC really screwed you up on that one.” Then he gave me vectors to follow, so I figured I hadn’t failed!
After going missed, we climbed pretty much straight out and DE gave me a few vectors to follow. Then he asked me to load the VOR-A approach back into OKV. After that, he had me dim my screen all the way down and asked me to hold my altitude and airspeed and do a compass turn. Goodness, I haven’t done one of those since the beginning of my IFR training- a year ago! Ack! But I figured that I could just give it a go. I got myself oriented and stable with my standby instruments, and then began my turn. I used a combination of my compass, the moving map on the MFD, and my standby instruments
(airspeed, attitude, and altimeter) to gauge how my turn was coming. During the oral, we had talked about compass errors, so I tried to use everything together to guide me. When I had gone most of the way around, he told me to roll out and hold a given heading. Then he asked me to enter the hold and fly the VOR-A approach. I wasn’t sure what to say—how can you fly a VOR approach without a VOR (I only have VOR on my PFD—there’s no backup for that). I asked how I could fly a VOR approach on partial panel? He just repeated that I could fly “this” approach. Finally, I looked down at the plate, and realized that it was the VOR-A/GPS-A approach! Suddenly it became more clear. So, I quickly briefed the approach and began to fly it. On going missed, he gave me back my screens, and after vectoring me around a bit asked me to fly another hold, this time with all my tools. I did, and then he told me to set up for the GPS-17 approach into JYO.
Determined to make the last approach go well, I began to get the weather and set up for the approach. I told him I was going to go ahead and enter the JYO transponder code so that I wouldn’t accidentally forget to do it at the last minute, and that I would still do a double-check as we got closer. He really liked that. At the same time, I wondered if we were going to do unusual attitudes and steep turns. On the one hand, I didn’t want to remind him, on the other, I didn’t want him to suddenly remember later on and make the approach more difficult. So I asked if we were going to do unusual attitudes. He looked at me, a little startled, and said, “Oh, yeah. We should do those! I have the controls and put your head down.” So we did two quick and relatively easy unusual attitudes. Then, it was back to the approach. I quickly programmed it in, briefed it, and then started flying it.
At this point, I realized that he was sitting up a little straighter, so I started trying to figure out why. I checked all my instruments—and everything seemed ok. Then he asked me to go ahead and descend down a few hundred feet, even though we weren’t supposed to descend again till after the next fix. I realized that we were likely skimming along just under the cloud layer. He gave me a few deviations right and left by 10 degrees or so. I could see on the moving map that we were still west of the ridge. I could now see little bits of white in the reaches of my peripheral vision (I wasn’t trying to cheat—but my head is small, so I can usually see a little more than I should be able to!) so I offered that we could descend more after the first ridge as the second one is a little lower. He liked that, and told me to descend down another 200 feet. I responded with the altitude I’d descend to and told him that I would then hold that altitude until we caught up with the altitudes on the approach plate. He seemed to like that.
After that last drop, things seemed to clear out and he relaxed a bit more (and so did I!). I then just focused on my descents, keeping track of our progress, and making position reports on CTAF. The winds had shifted such that it clearly made sense to land straight in on 17. Well out from the runway, he called field in sight, and I pushed my foggles up on top of my head and began final preparations for landing. I managed a pretty decent landing, and we taxied off. He then basically told me that unless I did something really stupid on the taxi-back, I had passed! Woo-hoo!
As we parked the airplane and got our stuff together, he told me that I had flown very well—not perfectly, but that no one flies perfectly. Whew. What a relief! He helped me push back, and then left me to finish caring for the plane. I then met him again in the office to complete the final paperwork. I could tell the instructors in the office were dying to know the outcome. Finally, one of them came over and whispered, “Can I put your picture on the wall?!” –we have a wall of pictures of new student pilots, new pilots, etc. The Chief had taken my picture the night before in preparation for this. So I said with a big smile, “Yup! You sure can!” Then I started getting congratulations from all around! I was an instrument pilot!
I filed for OKV as we had discussed, then met the Designated Examiner (DE) out at the plane. The plane had been fueled since I last preflighted, so I did a quick fuel sump and checked the amount in each tank. I also did a brief walk around since I’d been inside for over an hour. Then we strapped in to go flying. Luckily, he was more talkative than the Chief in the plane (it doesn’t take much), which helped with some of my nerves. I got our clearance and departed without issue, though Clearance did ask us to make an immediate right turn on course—and stay within 1 mile of the airport until on course. It was kind of fun to make a 30 degree turn as soon as I was about 400 feet off the ground.
Once on course, I contacted Approach and put on the foggles, though I suspected that we might actually brush a few clouds. Approach told us to expect vectors, but then sent us direct to Cladd. I followed their instructions and started to brief the ILS-32 approach. (I use the A-MICE-ATM acronym.) When I got to E for entry, though, I had a quandary. Did I need a procedure turn or not? I didn’t want to screw this up—and risk failing on the very first task! I studied the plate, hoping to find the answer. Ah-hah! NoPT (no procedure turn) required if on the XXX heading from JASEN. We were on that heading… so I surmised no procedure turn required. Later, an instructor at the flight school reminded me that anytime a controller tells you to go direct to a point on the approach, if it’s not the initial approach fix (IAF), then that counts as vectors, and no PT is required. Okay, right answer, wrong thought process. All that thinking was for naught, however, as ATC turned us away from CLADD before we arrived.
We were then vectored around a few times. I think we were in and out of the clouds at this point as I asked the DE about some traffic I saw on the TIS and he responded he couldn’t see them because of the clouds. ATC finally vectored us onto the approach—1 mile outside of the final approach fix, at 3300 feet (I should have been at around 2200 feet). Adding to the confusion—a traffic target showed up without altitude information, so though I thought we were going to cross paths, I didn’t know if they were anywhere close to our altitude). Hmmm. Let’s think about this. I’m 1100 feet higher than I should be, finally intercepting the localizer, but way above glide slope. Not a good thing. In fact, it felt so out of whack that I double checked the approach plate to make sure I was reading it correctly. Yup. I told ATC we’d cancel IFR with them and slowly pulled the power to idle, and trimmed the plane for 90 kts. I thought about dumping in a second notch of flaps and slowing to 85 kts, but I didn’t want to risk busting PTS, so I held 90. Of course, that close in, I never did intercept the glide slope. Oh- and because of the vectoring, I didn’t get the GPS to recognize where I was once I intercepted the localizer. So I used the moving map on the MFD to estimate where the MAP was, and went missed, still well above the glide slope. DE made a comment something like, “Well, ATC really screwed you up on that one.” Then he gave me vectors to follow, so I figured I hadn’t failed!
After going missed, we climbed pretty much straight out and DE gave me a few vectors to follow. Then he asked me to load the VOR-A approach back into OKV. After that, he had me dim my screen all the way down and asked me to hold my altitude and airspeed and do a compass turn. Goodness, I haven’t done one of those since the beginning of my IFR training- a year ago! Ack! But I figured that I could just give it a go. I got myself oriented and stable with my standby instruments, and then began my turn. I used a combination of my compass, the moving map on the MFD, and my standby instruments
(airspeed, attitude, and altimeter) to gauge how my turn was coming. During the oral, we had talked about compass errors, so I tried to use everything together to guide me. When I had gone most of the way around, he told me to roll out and hold a given heading. Then he asked me to enter the hold and fly the VOR-A approach. I wasn’t sure what to say—how can you fly a VOR approach without a VOR (I only have VOR on my PFD—there’s no backup for that). I asked how I could fly a VOR approach on partial panel? He just repeated that I could fly “this” approach. Finally, I looked down at the plate, and realized that it was the VOR-A/GPS-A approach! Suddenly it became more clear. So, I quickly briefed the approach and began to fly it. On going missed, he gave me back my screens, and after vectoring me around a bit asked me to fly another hold, this time with all my tools. I did, and then he told me to set up for the GPS-17 approach into JYO.
Determined to make the last approach go well, I began to get the weather and set up for the approach. I told him I was going to go ahead and enter the JYO transponder code so that I wouldn’t accidentally forget to do it at the last minute, and that I would still do a double-check as we got closer. He really liked that. At the same time, I wondered if we were going to do unusual attitudes and steep turns. On the one hand, I didn’t want to remind him, on the other, I didn’t want him to suddenly remember later on and make the approach more difficult. So I asked if we were going to do unusual attitudes. He looked at me, a little startled, and said, “Oh, yeah. We should do those! I have the controls and put your head down.” So we did two quick and relatively easy unusual attitudes. Then, it was back to the approach. I quickly programmed it in, briefed it, and then started flying it.
At this point, I realized that he was sitting up a little straighter, so I started trying to figure out why. I checked all my instruments—and everything seemed ok. Then he asked me to go ahead and descend down a few hundred feet, even though we weren’t supposed to descend again till after the next fix. I realized that we were likely skimming along just under the cloud layer. He gave me a few deviations right and left by 10 degrees or so. I could see on the moving map that we were still west of the ridge. I could now see little bits of white in the reaches of my peripheral vision (I wasn’t trying to cheat—but my head is small, so I can usually see a little more than I should be able to!) so I offered that we could descend more after the first ridge as the second one is a little lower. He liked that, and told me to descend down another 200 feet. I responded with the altitude I’d descend to and told him that I would then hold that altitude until we caught up with the altitudes on the approach plate. He seemed to like that.
After that last drop, things seemed to clear out and he relaxed a bit more (and so did I!). I then just focused on my descents, keeping track of our progress, and making position reports on CTAF. The winds had shifted such that it clearly made sense to land straight in on 17. Well out from the runway, he called field in sight, and I pushed my foggles up on top of my head and began final preparations for landing. I managed a pretty decent landing, and we taxied off. He then basically told me that unless I did something really stupid on the taxi-back, I had passed! Woo-hoo!
As we parked the airplane and got our stuff together, he told me that I had flown very well—not perfectly, but that no one flies perfectly. Whew. What a relief! He helped me push back, and then left me to finish caring for the plane. I then met him again in the office to complete the final paperwork. I could tell the instructors in the office were dying to know the outcome. Finally, one of them came over and whispered, “Can I put your picture on the wall?!” –we have a wall of pictures of new student pilots, new pilots, etc. The Chief had taken my picture the night before in preparation for this. So I said with a big smile, “Yup! You sure can!” Then I started getting congratulations from all around! I was an instrument pilot!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Instrument Checkride Oral
Given that I want to capture as much detail about the checkride as possible, I'll post it in two parts. First up-- the oral, of course!
After an anxious night spent dreaming about flying, I woke up to find that the predicted low ceilings had not materialized as predicted, and it looked like I might get to do my checkride after all! I arrived at the airport about 30 minutes before my checkride on Friday morning—later than I wanted, but still enough time to pre-flight and finish my last minute calculations. Right at 9am, I walked over to meet the examiner (DE)—I had heard him talking to one of our Asst. Chiefs, so I knew he was around. After the initial intros, we got down to paperwork. Thankfully, everything worked the way it was supposed to on IACRA (what a painful system!). Then we moved to the conference room and settled in for the oral.
He first went through my logbook. Momentary panic when he said he couldn’t find all the instrument hours… but I quickly realized he was only counting the totals at the bottom of the page, and had neglected to add I the 2 hours I had gotten the night before-- I had a total of 40.9 hours. Whew! The one thing he seemed surprised at was my lack of solo hours (only about 30 out of around 275). I explained that it was because my husband and I usually fly together—so I have a ton of PIC hours (around 165 or so), but I can’t count them as solo for that reason. I think he was okay with that, but I do need to get some more solo time.
Next he asked me to get out the flight planning he had asked me to do. The trip was from JYO to Cleveland—any airport. I chose BKL—mostly because we’ve talked about flying there for real. He asked how the weather was—I told him the highlights (pretty good VFR weather, except maybe in the local area). Then we looked at my route on the low en route chart. He asked questions about the MEA and MOCA, about various symbols on the chart and what they mean, and what we would do in the event of lost communications. Mostly pretty easy stuff. Then we switched over to an approach plate, and he asked me some questions about the approach. Things like: what it is I do at decision height, what I need to land, what fuel reserve I need—and when, what the standard minimums are for an alternate, etc.
The only answer I gave that he didn’t like was in response to a question about what I would do if on an approach, I saw the runway before reaching the MAP/DH, but tower was reporting only a ¼ mile visibility (1/2 mile required). I responded that if tower was reporting ¼ mile, but I could tell I had more (i.e. was more than 1 mile from end of the runway, but could see it), then I could land because tower’s visibility may not be accurate for what the actual was for that runway. But, I also said that if I could see the runway, but didn’t actually have the ½ mile visibility required, that I could not land. He said no—that if I could see the runway and was able to land normally, then visibility didn’t matter. I’ll have to check on this as I don’t understand 1) why there are visibility requirements, and 2) why required visibility is included as one of the three things you have to have to land if this is the case.
After this, he told me to go file and get ready to fly. Wow. Really? The oral is over?! I was shocked—it was only 10am… including all of the paperwork, we had only been talking for 60 minutes. We couldn’t have spent more than 45 minutes talking about real questions! After my 2.5 hour oral on my private, I was really surprised. So I went and filed according to what he told me—we’d launch IFR to OKV, then cancel on the first approach (the ILS), and fly the rest (the VOR-A for OKV and the LOC 17 for JYO) VFR.
After an anxious night spent dreaming about flying, I woke up to find that the predicted low ceilings had not materialized as predicted, and it looked like I might get to do my checkride after all! I arrived at the airport about 30 minutes before my checkride on Friday morning—later than I wanted, but still enough time to pre-flight and finish my last minute calculations. Right at 9am, I walked over to meet the examiner (DE)—I had heard him talking to one of our Asst. Chiefs, so I knew he was around. After the initial intros, we got down to paperwork. Thankfully, everything worked the way it was supposed to on IACRA (what a painful system!). Then we moved to the conference room and settled in for the oral.
He first went through my logbook. Momentary panic when he said he couldn’t find all the instrument hours… but I quickly realized he was only counting the totals at the bottom of the page, and had neglected to add I the 2 hours I had gotten the night before-- I had a total of 40.9 hours. Whew! The one thing he seemed surprised at was my lack of solo hours (only about 30 out of around 275). I explained that it was because my husband and I usually fly together—so I have a ton of PIC hours (around 165 or so), but I can’t count them as solo for that reason. I think he was okay with that, but I do need to get some more solo time.
Next he asked me to get out the flight planning he had asked me to do. The trip was from JYO to Cleveland—any airport. I chose BKL—mostly because we’ve talked about flying there for real. He asked how the weather was—I told him the highlights (pretty good VFR weather, except maybe in the local area). Then we looked at my route on the low en route chart. He asked questions about the MEA and MOCA, about various symbols on the chart and what they mean, and what we would do in the event of lost communications. Mostly pretty easy stuff. Then we switched over to an approach plate, and he asked me some questions about the approach. Things like: what it is I do at decision height, what I need to land, what fuel reserve I need—and when, what the standard minimums are for an alternate, etc.
The only answer I gave that he didn’t like was in response to a question about what I would do if on an approach, I saw the runway before reaching the MAP/DH, but tower was reporting only a ¼ mile visibility (1/2 mile required). I responded that if tower was reporting ¼ mile, but I could tell I had more (i.e. was more than 1 mile from end of the runway, but could see it), then I could land because tower’s visibility may not be accurate for what the actual was for that runway. But, I also said that if I could see the runway, but didn’t actually have the ½ mile visibility required, that I could not land. He said no—that if I could see the runway and was able to land normally, then visibility didn’t matter. I’ll have to check on this as I don’t understand 1) why there are visibility requirements, and 2) why required visibility is included as one of the three things you have to have to land if this is the case.
After this, he told me to go file and get ready to fly. Wow. Really? The oral is over?! I was shocked—it was only 10am… including all of the paperwork, we had only been talking for 60 minutes. We couldn’t have spent more than 45 minutes talking about real questions! After my 2.5 hour oral on my private, I was really surprised. So I went and filed according to what he told me—we’d launch IFR to OKV, then cancel on the first approach (the ILS), and fly the rest (the VOR-A for OKV and the LOC 17 for JYO) VFR.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Stage 3, Part 2
After getting “winded” out for the flying portion of my instrument stage 3 check, I was anxious to finish up the check. I met with the head of our flight school (“Chief”) on Thursday afternoon in hopes that I could still do my checkride on Friday. Since we had completed the oral, we headed straight out for the plane. I had already pre-flighted, so was already settled in the plane when Chief came out. He did a fairly careful walk around, checking to make sure there were no obvious problems, checked the oil, and then got settled in the plane. After the delay of a few days, my nerves had gotten a bit worse, but I jumped right into the checklists, hoping that action would calm me down.
We taxied out to the runup area and after going through the necessary checklist items, I called for our clearance. This was to be a JYO-JYO flight—staying with ATC the whole time. I managed to get the clearance copied without any trouble (I was worried about this as some controllers talk like auctioneers—and it’s tough to copy down the clearance correctly!). Our first stop was the VOR-A for OKV. After takeoff, I delayed donning the foggles for a moment to make sure we cleared the airspace without tangling with any of the several planes in the pattern. Then it was straight to the instruments. We were cleared direct to MRB, and I began to set us up for the approach (I had made the mistake of forgetting to set all this up on the ground, but I think I did okay getting it together in the air.). Just before we were to turn inbound on the approach, Chief reached over and punched the reversionary knob on the dash, making my multi-function display (MFD) and therefore my moving map be replaced with a second set of the PFD instruments. Hmmm. Okay. This is new. But- no worries. I can just fly the needles. My situational awareness is impacted slightly, but I’m still fine.
At the MAP, Chief tells me that we’re still in the clouds, so I begin to initiate a missed approach over top the runway. Around this time, Chief tells me he wants me to use the autopilot to fly the missed. This should be easy, but I struggled to get it set up correctly. For some reason, I couldn’t get the climb rate and altitude correctly set. I eventually told Chief that I would get back to that, but needed first to FLY THE PLANE. I killed the autopilot and focused on making sure I was on the missed approach and called ATC back and let them know, and ask for the ILS 32 into OKV. They say okay, but give us vectors that take us well to the west of OKV (I’m proud of myself here for maintaining enough situational awareness to know this! Remember—I’m used to ALWAYS having the moving map in front of me. It’s great practice for it to go away). I finally got us set up on the autopilot using the heading function. After 5-10 minutes ATC finally gave us vectors back to the ILS. At this point, Chief asked me to fly the ILS without autopilot and without GPS. I obviously knew how to kill the autopilot (and was relieved to do so! I prefer to hand fly!)… but my brain couldn’t work out what he meant by without GPS, other than that I should switch to the LOC needles on the CDI softkey (I needed to do this anyway). Of course, about halfway down, I realized that he probably meant that I should remove the approach from the flight plan and use the VOR fixes combined with the LOC information. By that point, I was well into the approach, and decided to just continue and not try to clear the approach and load the VORs at that point. He busted me on this during the debrief, but didn’t say anything about it then.
After going missed from the approach (early because of landing traffic on the opposite end of the runway), we again were vectored way to the west by ATC. This time, we were sent a good 30 miles to the west of OKV. I was allowed at this point to get my MFD back, and I also redeemed my earlier lapse by going ahead and getting JYO weather and setting up for and briefing the last approach. When ATC finally got back to us, I was able to secure approval for maneuvering over the MRB VOR—4500’ plus or minus 500’ in a 5 mile radius for 5 minutes. Chief took the controls and put me in a couple of pretty stiff unusual attitude, and then asked me to recover for each. No sweat, though the red arrows on the G1000 screen tend to distract me rather than help! Then I did steep turns in each direction. Once we were finished, I told ATC we were done with our maneuvers and asked for the GPS 17 back into JYO. They told us to start the MRB transition for it, and eventually cleared us for the approach. Of course—I had to do this one partial panel. I did okay on this—my altitude and position were fine, though my airspeed fluctuated a lot. Coming into JYO, there were a lot of planes in the pattern, so I was grateful that a couple of instructors who were on downwind offered to extend and let me land straight in. I think they knew I was flying with the Chief. I pulled off a pretty decent landing (not my best, but good enough that the Chief commented that it was good). Then I proceeded to taxi way too fast to our parking spot (Chief busted me on this as well—I didn’t even notice at the time, though I know I often taxi too fast.). We pushed the plane back, tied it down, and Chief took my picture for the wall in the office (they post pictures of new pilots, ratings, first solos, etc.)
All in all, it went pretty well. I knew I had made a few mistakes—worst was the failure to recognize what I need to do to fly the approach without GPS, and my inability to properly program the autopilot… both of which I attribute to nerves. A few things I thought were funny… Chief commented on my calmness (hah!) and my niceness to ATC. He said he bet that I never got yelled at by ATC because I was so nice in the way I asked everything. It made me pretty self conscious about my radio calls for the next few flights! I do try to say ‘good day’ when I transition away from each controller—and I try to say things clearly and concisely—but not too concisely. It should still be English that we’re speaking! In any case, it was great to have this flight over with! I had never flown before with Chief, so I think I was more nervous about this flight than the checkride!
We taxied out to the runup area and after going through the necessary checklist items, I called for our clearance. This was to be a JYO-JYO flight—staying with ATC the whole time. I managed to get the clearance copied without any trouble (I was worried about this as some controllers talk like auctioneers—and it’s tough to copy down the clearance correctly!). Our first stop was the VOR-A for OKV. After takeoff, I delayed donning the foggles for a moment to make sure we cleared the airspace without tangling with any of the several planes in the pattern. Then it was straight to the instruments. We were cleared direct to MRB, and I began to set us up for the approach (I had made the mistake of forgetting to set all this up on the ground, but I think I did okay getting it together in the air.). Just before we were to turn inbound on the approach, Chief reached over and punched the reversionary knob on the dash, making my multi-function display (MFD) and therefore my moving map be replaced with a second set of the PFD instruments. Hmmm. Okay. This is new. But- no worries. I can just fly the needles. My situational awareness is impacted slightly, but I’m still fine.
At the MAP, Chief tells me that we’re still in the clouds, so I begin to initiate a missed approach over top the runway. Around this time, Chief tells me he wants me to use the autopilot to fly the missed. This should be easy, but I struggled to get it set up correctly. For some reason, I couldn’t get the climb rate and altitude correctly set. I eventually told Chief that I would get back to that, but needed first to FLY THE PLANE. I killed the autopilot and focused on making sure I was on the missed approach and called ATC back and let them know, and ask for the ILS 32 into OKV. They say okay, but give us vectors that take us well to the west of OKV (I’m proud of myself here for maintaining enough situational awareness to know this! Remember—I’m used to ALWAYS having the moving map in front of me. It’s great practice for it to go away). I finally got us set up on the autopilot using the heading function. After 5-10 minutes ATC finally gave us vectors back to the ILS. At this point, Chief asked me to fly the ILS without autopilot and without GPS. I obviously knew how to kill the autopilot (and was relieved to do so! I prefer to hand fly!)… but my brain couldn’t work out what he meant by without GPS, other than that I should switch to the LOC needles on the CDI softkey (I needed to do this anyway). Of course, about halfway down, I realized that he probably meant that I should remove the approach from the flight plan and use the VOR fixes combined with the LOC information. By that point, I was well into the approach, and decided to just continue and not try to clear the approach and load the VORs at that point. He busted me on this during the debrief, but didn’t say anything about it then.
After going missed from the approach (early because of landing traffic on the opposite end of the runway), we again were vectored way to the west by ATC. This time, we were sent a good 30 miles to the west of OKV. I was allowed at this point to get my MFD back, and I also redeemed my earlier lapse by going ahead and getting JYO weather and setting up for and briefing the last approach. When ATC finally got back to us, I was able to secure approval for maneuvering over the MRB VOR—4500’ plus or minus 500’ in a 5 mile radius for 5 minutes. Chief took the controls and put me in a couple of pretty stiff unusual attitude, and then asked me to recover for each. No sweat, though the red arrows on the G1000 screen tend to distract me rather than help! Then I did steep turns in each direction. Once we were finished, I told ATC we were done with our maneuvers and asked for the GPS 17 back into JYO. They told us to start the MRB transition for it, and eventually cleared us for the approach. Of course—I had to do this one partial panel. I did okay on this—my altitude and position were fine, though my airspeed fluctuated a lot. Coming into JYO, there were a lot of planes in the pattern, so I was grateful that a couple of instructors who were on downwind offered to extend and let me land straight in. I think they knew I was flying with the Chief. I pulled off a pretty decent landing (not my best, but good enough that the Chief commented that it was good). Then I proceeded to taxi way too fast to our parking spot (Chief busted me on this as well—I didn’t even notice at the time, though I know I often taxi too fast.). We pushed the plane back, tied it down, and Chief took my picture for the wall in the office (they post pictures of new pilots, ratings, first solos, etc.)
All in all, it went pretty well. I knew I had made a few mistakes—worst was the failure to recognize what I need to do to fly the approach without GPS, and my inability to properly program the autopilot… both of which I attribute to nerves. A few things I thought were funny… Chief commented on my calmness (hah!) and my niceness to ATC. He said he bet that I never got yelled at by ATC because I was so nice in the way I asked everything. It made me pretty self conscious about my radio calls for the next few flights! I do try to say ‘good day’ when I transition away from each controller—and I try to say things clearly and concisely—but not too concisely. It should still be English that we’re speaking! In any case, it was great to have this flight over with! I had never flown before with Chief, so I think I was more nervous about this flight than the checkride!
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