FAA Checkride (Part 2)

Re-test today. Passed. Very anti-climactic, but I'm glad it's over.

Oh yeah, I'M A LISENCED PILOT!!! Man, it feels good.

FAA Checkride (Part 1)

I'm devastated! I did not pass my FAA checkride today. But I didn't fail it either. The examiner gave me a deferral.

The oral exam went fine. About and hour of questions without any surprises or gaffs. The examiner gave me a few clarifications and amplifications to my answers, but the CFI said that's typical.

During the actual checkride, the winds became more intense than is desirable and prevented us from completing the examination. Since I made the decision to launch into the weather, technically I failed. However, the examiner decided to “defer” the remainder of the test to another day. I've successfully completed about ¾ of the exam – we still need to do some soft-field and short-field takeoffs and landings and some time under the hood.

I will try to complete the test next week.

First Solo Cross Country

WOW! My first solo cross country flight! 2.4 hours of Pilot-in-Command (PIC) time -- that's right -- me, alone in the airplane, going places. Terrifying and thrilling all at the same time.

My plan was to fly from HPN to Pittsfield, Massachusetts (KPSF), land, then fly to Waterbury, Connecticut (KOXC), land, then return to White Plains -- all by pilotage. It was a cold, gray day without too much wind and a clear forecast. My CFI gave me clearance to go and asked that I call his cell phone from each stop.

I took off and climbed to 3,500ft MSL. My first few checkpoints were coming right on schedule which gave me confidence and helped me calm down. About 25 miles from PSF, I began to experience some mild turbulence. Amazing how much worse this feels when you're alone in the airplane. As I ponder the isolation of my situation, BAM, there is this huge jolt of turbulence and I hit my head on the canopy. I had recently read an aviation story about a single pilot who had just set his autopilot for level flight to his next waypoint and the next thing he remembers is waking up 60 miles past the waypoint! He'd hit his head so hard on the airplane's canopy he'd be knocked unconscious -- it was just dumb luck the jolt had come just after the engagement of the autopilot -- a few seconds earlier and the outcome would have most likely been lethal. With this story in mind, I cinch my seatbeat down hard across my lap and quietly ask myself what am doing here?!?

The turbulence continues but remains mild, no more huge jolts, and I make a one-small-bounce landing into PSF with a 8kt 40 degree crosswind. OK, time for a phone call to my CFI and few minutes to collect my thoughts and prepare for my next leg. The trip to OXC goes a little slower than my flight log predicted as the headwinds are getting stronger. I am able to adjust the flight plan as I go and OXC comes into view about the time it should based on the adjusted figures. The landing goes well, another phone call and a little more time to prepare for the leg home. The last leg is the easiest as I recognize most of the landscape between OXC and HPN. I am relieved when HPN comes into sight. A left downwind for runway 34, a turn to base, then final and a smooth landing. As I taxi back to Panorama, I am overwhelmed by an enormous sense of accomplishment. I have just flown an airplane -- by myself -- to 3 separate airports, without using Navaids (strictly by pilotage) and returned home safely!

I am elated and exhausted. WOW.

Night Operations

I flew at night for the first time yesterday. The air is smooth and you can see forever at night. It's quite beautiful, but does represent more risk. If the engine were to fail (which is no more likely at night than during the day as the engine doesn't know what time it is) it is harder to determine a safe landing spot as open fields are impossible to spot in the darkness.

We went to Bridgeport for touch & goes. Most people have more trouble landing at night because less light reduces depth perception. As it turns out, I seem to land better at night. These were some of my best landings! All my CFI and I can think of is that there are less distractions because of the reduced visibility and I focus more on the runway. Who knows?

There was one very strange part -- the take-off from BDR. We were using runway 6 which takes you right out into Long Island sound. This direction over the water offers NO LIGHTS and therefore no horizon. It's just black soup out the windscreen and reference to instruments is required for orientation. Once you turn upwind, the shore comes back into view on your right side, but until then, it can be disorienting.

A Lesson on Pilotage & the Wind

Pilotage is flying by reference to a aviation maps and ground references using a prepared flight plan. Basically, one uses aviation maps to determine course headings and distances between waypoints. A good waypoint is a clear visual reference that can be identified from the air. It's best to space them approximately 10 minutes apart so there is little chance of getting off course or lost completely. After determining course heading and distance between waypoints, the flight plan is then adjusted for wind. If there was no wind, airplane navigation would be mush simpler, but that is a rare condition. A Wind Correction Angle (WCA) must be calculated for each course heading. From the map, it can be determined the heading to fly on the compass, but unless the wind is either directly ahead or directly behind, the plane will move laterally off course some what. Think of it like trying to swim across a flowing river. If you wanted to arrive on the other side directly across from where you started, you would need to swim at an angle up river to offset the effects of water flowing downstream. That angle is determined by how fast you're swimming and how fast the river is flowing. In aviation, the river is the wind and the plane is the swimmer. If I want to fly a heading of 90 degrees over the ground, but the wind is blowing from North (O degrees), I would need to angle the nose of the plane into the wind to some degree. That's the WCA!

The wind also effects an airplanes speed over the ground. Most planes fly at a very predictable airspeed given a particular power setting. This is great for planning purposes. The Cessna Skyhawk I fly travels approximately 120kts per hour. So if I have a distance between two waypoints of 20 nautical miles (nm), it should take 10 minutes to fly that leg. Unfortunately, our friend the wind messes with this simple math too. The plane flies through the air at 120kts, but what is the air doing relative to the ground? If the plane is flying directly downwind (with the wind) which is blowing at 10kts, the plane's speed over the ground would be 130kts. And on the trip home, the plane would be traveling at 110kts over the ground. OK, not so hard, just add or subtract the speed of the wind to the airspeed of the plane. But that only works if the wind is directly in front or behind. What about if the wind is coming from a 45 degree angle to our route of flight? Well we know from above, we will need to calculate a WCA and fly a heading slightly different than the intended course over the ground, but what about speed over the ground? A wind blowing at an angle to the direction of flight can be mathematically broken into 2 parts: the headwind portion and the crosswind portion. A simple example would be a 10 kt wind blowing from 45 degrees to your intended course is made up of 5kts of headwind and 5kts of crosswind. The headwind portion is used to calculate speed of the ground and the crosswind portion is used to determine WCA.

So, creating a flight plan requires the pilot to understand these concepts, be good at math, plot accurate courses on the maps with clearly identifyable waypoints, measure the distances between those waypoints accurately, use the WCA & headwind calculations to determine the headings to fly and the time in route between waypoints. Got it? lol

The worst part of all of this is every bit of creating an accurate flight plan and navigating successfully by pilotage is dependent on knowing the winds direction and speed. How do we do this in advance of getting up there and feeling it? Well, the government weather service publishes predictions of the "winds aloft" for various altitudes. To their credit, they do a good job and the predictions are usually close to what the winds actually are, but when they're not, the flight plan quickly falls apart and it is very easy to get off course and lost! Welcome to aviation.

My First Solo

WOW! Today I actually left the bounds of the earth's gravity in my mighty flying machine (C172SP) ALONE! That's right, I took off, made 2 successful touch and go's and then returned with a final landing for a total of 3 circuits around the pattern, without my CFI in the airplane.

It is incredibly thrilling to fly an airplane by oneself with only 30 hours of practice. The fear is obviously there, but also a degree of confidence that you can do this. Still, I was alone! No time to panic and no time to screw up. You just let your training take over and land the plane.

What a FANTASTIC feeling!! I'm on my way.

Flying lessons 1 & 2

I spent last Thursday taking my first two flying lessons and I am ecstatic! The feeling of moving through the sky at 3,000 feet is incredible. I think I my be hooked for life! It is quite difficult to fly a plane as it moves in 3 axis, whereas cars only move on 1 axis.

The planes I am flying are brand new Cessna 172SP's with all glass panel's. This is state-of-the art avionics and help lower pilot workload. Having nothing to compare it too, the workload seems almost overwhelming. I can't imaging what the old "steam gauges" are like to fly.

I can't wait until my next lesson.