A Flight Instructors Journal

2003-08-26T04:21:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a while.

We've worked out way through the summer of hazy days and thunderstorms. The weather has been TERRIBLE! No really, worse than usual. We've had long periods of low cloud and poor visibility. Some weeks we've flown hardly at all.

Other than that I've soloed some more students, haven't sent anybody for any more checkrides and I'm adding up the hours and teaching some people to fly.

2003-04-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

Well this is where it gets sporadic!

I soloed another student on Wednesday - he did one landing and then did 2 go-arounds which, as a spectator on the ground, does make you wonder if he'll ever be landing again. But the first onewas because the plane was on the runway and the second was because he was too high - so full marks for all that. After a break we spent 2 hours on short and soft field takeoffs and landings - so you have to admire his focus!

We started our Private Pilot Ground School on Wednesday evening as well. When all was said and done we had 8 attendees, which is pretty good all things considered.

The weather fell apart Thursday afternoon. I had a new student and we did the pre-flight etc. but I looked up into the sky and didn't much like what I could see, the wind was picking up and, in general, I decided to pass. That was it, we had low IMC Friday and Saturday and now, a I write this on Sunday morning it looks likely it's going to be IMC or MVFR most of the day. So we'll see.

This was the week I was going to pass 500 hours dual given (and the resultant pay raise) but the weather killed that plan. Maybe next week. I need 20.1 hours, that shouldn't be that hard you'd think!

2003-04-19T03:53:00.000-07:00

Monday (this is the 14th for those keeping count). I flew a checkout with a customer at the flying club. I'd flown with him at the regular job and he'd joined the club and asked if I do his checkout in the Warrior. No problems there, he owned a Cherokee at one point so it wasn't exactly unfamiliar to him.

2003-04-14T06:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday - what a day. Light winds, clear skies, and I've got a 7:00AM flight. Reference Saturdays explanation of the lack of the older model C172 so the only available slot was 7:00AM so we flew it. This was pre-solo student working on takeoff and landing. I think he learned a lot working in smooth air where you know that anything the plane does must be because of you control movements. I think sometimes when it's bumpy students are mostly along for the ride and I'll admit it's hard to correlate your power adjustments when turbulence is bumping you up and down.
Use trim! On final I told him to let go of the yoke, well he held the yoke but relaxed the pressure and the plane dove for the ground. I though he was pushing forward it was so badly out of trim. How do you convince people that trim is their friend?

And then a 4.5 hour "break". Our other full time instructor came and went on 2 flights and asked me "if I was going flying at all today", I gave him the finger. He seemed amused.

And so to 1:30AM and my ocassional young student flying the C152. This is his thrid flight, took one in December and one in January. I'm not sure I understand what's going on. I think the older gentleman who comes with him (and pays) is sort of sponsoring this at their church or something. He always flies aroud 1:30 on Sundays and he's ALWAYS dressed nice. What do I know, what do I care I guess, he seems to enjoy it all! So we were going to add power on stalls to the curriculum today, but if you don't fly for a couple of months you need some time to get back into the swing of things so it was all review of the 4 fundamentals, slow flight and power off stalls. As always he seemed to enoy it. Apparently they scheduled for a month out this time, so maybe we'll be able to make some progress. Progress isn't really that important, he's a few years away from solo, as long as he's enjoying flying we can ride around looking at the ant people for all I care. Plenty of time to get him to solo on his 16th birthday!

The last flight is my regular instrument student. We're building hood time and cross-country time so he plans where he wants to go and what approaches to shoot and ride along and criticise, which I turn out to be good at! We set up to Rockingham County for a GPS approach and a touch and go (cross country time) and back to Person County for the GPS approach, up to Oxford-Henderson for what was intended as a localizer approach, but the localizer was out so it turned into an NDB approach and back to Raleigh for an ILS. A good ILS, inside the marked I though the needles were broken he had them so under control.

2003-04-14T06:17:00.000-07:00

Saturday - and indeed the weekend turns out GREAT. Saturday it's a little windy and moderate turbulence to the West. An 8:00AM flight and this student finally gets to solo and he did a great job. We've been waiting a while for the right conditions so this was well earned.

The schedule had looked full, but our early model C172 went down for it's 100 hour a week ago and they're going to do some major renovation so it's still down this weekend and promises to be down at least another week (or more, I hope not). So my next student who had a 4 hour block got crammed into a 1.5 hour block and the plane was late getting back for that. So we went out and did some flight by reference to instruments. This was his second go at that and it didn't come back easy to him although he did OK. We did some unusual attitude recovery which a) means I get to actually hold the controls and b) I get to do some yanking and banking! Actually, as is my habit, I let him setup his own unusual attitude the first time by looking down and closing his eyes but trying to stay straight and level. True to form he entered a graveyard spiral and he recovered when I told him to. Nobody ever enters a nose high attitude when you let them get in their own unusual attitude and they almost all graveyard spiral to the left. I don't know why we don't just teach recovery from that one position, it would keep most people safe :-).

Last flight is the students first dual cross-country and we head out west (note the earlier mention of turbulence) to Blue Ridge airport. There is a great restaurant on this airport, although we didn't have time to attend and even if we had it was shut. But since this will be the students first solo cross country maybe he can schedule it to stop for lunch. On the trip out I turned the GPS off and was constantly getting the student to update times and find the next checkpoint and he did a good job. For the trip back I mostly just sit there and let him find everything and keep notes and he did a good job there as well. Coming back towards Raleigh though I ask him "what's that big town up ahead" and he says "Efland" (which at best is a small village, the thing we were looking at had high rise buildings in it). He's the second student who coming back from Blue Ridge has identified Durham as some small village. Amazing how people will force landmarks to fit their pre-conceived notions.

I'l tell you this, 500 hours of dual given really improves your eyesight! I used to think my instructors had amazing powers because they could see airports hours before I could see them. But now I can do the same trick! :-)

2003-04-14T06:04:00.000-07:00

Friday - the weather was down the tubes all day as well. However - the weekdn looks promising!

2003-04-10T07:19:00.000-07:00

Thursday - raining, cloudy, and windy. Really windy, gusting 40K at times, +/-15K on final. I did spend an hour reviewing one students pre-solo test and paperwork.

2003-04-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

Wednesday - back to work but not to flying. The whole East coast is under the influence of a massive low pressure system and it's low clouds, rain, some heavy, and looking like staying that way through Friday.

2003-04-10T07:17:00.001-07:00

Monday and Tuesday - out of town. We actually went down to the beach, where it rained pretty much the whole time. But you kow what they say, a bad day at the beach beats a good day pretty much anywhere else!

2003-04-10T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sunday - finally we get to go flying. First flight was with a student who has been on the edge of solo for a while now. We went to our local airport and did about 5 perfectly good landings. So I asked him "how do you feel about taking it around on your own". He says he'd like to try a couple more landings. So we go round a couple more times and the second one he makes it a full stop, and we taxing towards the ramp. So on the taxiway I ask him again and his response is he's "sure he can land it", so that's all I need, I tell him to stop at the junction to the ramp, tell him to do 3 takeoff and landings, full stop with a taxi back for each one, unplug my headset and jump out.
Had a good chat with the local airport instructor on various topics while keeping an eye out the window on my student. He did a good job and taxied in to shutdown with the usual big smile. He confesses he thought we were going to taxi in, shutdown and he could think about solo - but we strike while the iron is hot, and his iron was pretty hot.
Second flight was with another student looking to solo but by now the winds had picked up and were gusting around so that somtimes it was a headwind, sometimes a tailwind. He did a good job, but based on my "how would the accident report read" we decided not to solo today. Soon though.
Third flight was a pickup with a student whose flight instructor was out of town, he was scheduled to fly solo but thought with the winds he could do with taking a CFI along for some crosswind practice. I passed out my words of wisdom, I hope some of it helped, but it's hard flying with somebody elses student to offer some advice and tips without re-teaching them everything YOUR way, which, after all, is the one true way, as opposed to letting them fly they way they learned.

2003-04-05T10:20:00.000-08:00

Saturday - and a strong cold front is coming this way. We replaced the first flight of the day with a session on cross country planning and everything else is canceling as I type. The weather pushed through around mid-day with heavy rain and winds but the front is still out West and it's going to be dreary the rest of the afternoon.

2003-04-05T10:18:00.000-08:00

Friday - you'll note the dates don't align with these days. That's because I'm not all that punctual on making updates.

So Friday just the one flight with some good solid airwork and a session working landings which went well. Stopped up at TDF for q bathroom break and drinks. Now there's a quiet airport! I might have to use it more for practice.

2003-04-04T04:00:00.000-08:00

Thursday - another BEAUTIFUL day. My first customer is scheduled from 9-1 so we set off to the practice area and run through all the air maneuvers and ground reference stuff and then off to a local airport for some landing practice. We take a break part way through and sit outside in the sun and play stump the shump on various oral areas we need to cover pre-solo. He has his paperwork for the pre-solo test so we could be getting close here. In fact we MAY have made the break through in landings today.

My experience, limited as it may be, is that people "suddenly" get landings and from then on their landings are mostly not in doubt. Everybod regresses a couple of times, but something clicks and from then on it's easier. The last couple of landings were good today, I wanted to try a couple more even given the length of time we'd been flying, but time was running out and the plane needed to be back. So there you go, if the rain can hold off next week we'll see if these were a fluke.

And so to hanging around the office.....

Instrument student at 4 who is mostly struggling to stay a couple of events ahead of the plane on approaches. Instead of flying we spend some time on hold entries, now there's a topic you can over-think, and working on some ideas for working on keeping ahead of the plane. He's one frustrated person, but he'll get there.

And so to my "regular" Thursday evening instrument student - we set off on a round-robin to three different airports, shooting approaches at each, making a touch and go at one (so the whole thing counts as cross-country, regulations, gotta love 'em) and finally an ILS back into RDU. A HUGE wind at altitude and pretty heavy turbulence in the last 600 feet or so make for an interesting ending.

Passed 1000 hours total today - how cool is that? Not very I guess, but still.....

2003-04-03T03:01:00.000-08:00

Wednesday dawns a beautiful day. So my 8:00AM flight goes well, working on landings so we're grinding around the pattern. Mostly the approaches go OK, but as usual the flare can produce some unusual attitudes. I take credit for another "save", low, slow, drifting off the runway I take the plane and go-around. They're rare, but each time I spend the next trip around wondering if I'm being too daring and if one day I'm going to let it go too far......

And then - the life of a flight instructor, I get to sit around all day until my 4:00PM flight. No walk-ins or last minute scheduling either. So I call a friend and we "do lunch".

So to 4:00PM and an instrument training flight, out to shoot a few approaches and home.

Two of the runways at Raleigh are closed so they've been working on one runway all day. Not so bad this morning, although it's a long taxi across the airport to get to the runway, a good chance to work through taxi diagrams with pilots. By the time of my last flight though they'd had an emergency inbound (looked like a J31 with an engine shutdown) so stuff was stacked up 20 minutes waiting to get in and we were in a 5 plane line to depart. No crisis proportions, but still inconvenient. Today, Thursday promises to be more of the same and then we'll get all our runways back (I hope).

Looks like rain this weekend - I'll need to rustle up some instrument pilots for some IMC!

2003-04-02T02:27:00.000-08:00

Tuesday I started at 7:00AM. There really shouldn't be such a time, but again we were looking for some smooth air, and we got it. I think this lesson helped a lot because it was really smooth so slow flight we really could hit and hold a target airspeed and during landing practice small throttle movements really could make small alterations in the flight path. When you're getting bounced around all over the place it's harder to learn the finesse needed to learn to fly. But still, 7:00AM!
Followed by a 9:00AM and the winds were picking up. Makes landing practice all that more exciting. How do you get people to TRIM THE AIRPLANE on final approach other than nagging?
Then as the winds picked up to 15 gusting 25 the rest of the day quietly cancelled. Good job too, I like my teeth where they are, inside my head.
Good job too - late last week I tried to upgrade our Cessna Pilot Center computer to 5.0. The first thing it did was load Internet Explorer 6.0 which promptly reset the video controller and monitor settings to something generic. Microsoft Plug and Play won't recognise the controller, the software wants 256 colors and he generic SVGA controller won't work. The eventual solution - take the case apart, figure out who made the mother board and which chip is the video chip and via various Web sites and 2 false tries download new video drivers. Not THAT was hard work!

2003-04-02T02:21:00.000-08:00

Monday, which is normally my day off, I flew with a student at 8:00AM. We're trying to do some flying early or late in the day to deal with some issues of feeling nauseous as it gets bumpy with the heat of the day. By 8:00 though the wind was picking up and it wasn't as smooth as we'd hoped, but igenerally worked out.
The rest of the day was my day off. I MUST get my logbook updated......

2003-03-30T05:29:00.000-08:00

And now today, Sunday, post a pretty major cold front. Not much in flying going to happen today. My IMC student from Saturday wants to fly today, but with temperatures on the ground starting at 46C and falling through the day, an Airmet for icing with a freezing level around 3000 feet and finally the winds aloft showing a -7C temperature at 6000 feet by 1:00PM I'm thinking we'll stay down here for today.
So today I'll sit in the office and cover the phones until I gnaw my arm of from boredom, then I'll go home.
The rest of the week however looks good!

2003-03-30T05:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had a fun and interesting first IMC flight. From RDU down to Kinston, IMC most of the way with a little time on top. Seymour Johnson descended us to 1800 feet 25 miles from the VOR which made for a fair amount of time bumping around at low altitude.
On and off rain most of the way there and back.
Chased down final by some jets so the 120K ILS in a C172 was a fun experience and the ATIS was wildly optimistic as we broke out on the ILS about 400 AGL. Good flight all round.
The rest of the day was 2000 feet ceilings, windy and showers so I packed up and went home.