Another Student Pilot

Flying and the Next Generation

2008-03-05T07:16:00.003-06:00

No flying to report. My wife and I have been spending our time getting ready for a new member to join our family in late May. We are expecting our first child on Memorial Day. I look forward to sharing my love of flight with my children, some day.

No Flying, No Posting

2007-07-09T22:31:00.001-05:00

I haven’t posted. I haven’t flown. In April, my wife resigned her position at her employer—effective in June—to make a go of it as a project manager and consultant to Chicago area non-for-profits and community organizations. At that time we reviewed our budget and flying just didn’t fit into it. I was (and am) quite upset to be grounded, but I know it’s for the best in the long run. Some day, maybe in two years—maybe longer—I’ll get back to it.

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return. Leonardo da Vinci, unconfirmed

This week is the annual fishing trip again. This time to Deer Lake in Polk County, WI (nearest airport: AHH). In light of the above, I was not able to fly-in this year, either.

There may be some bright spots ahead. First, I’m thinking of taking a day off from work at the end of the month to visit Oshkosh. After than, I will be in Seattle on business in mid-August and have an extra morning to kill. I’m thinking of scheduling a flight with an instructor while I’m out there so that I can add Washington to the list of states in which I’ve flown. I’m have low to medium confidence on either event working out, but we’ll see.

Fatal Accident Near IGQ

2007-03-11T21:55:00.000-05:00

I just noticed this story. A twin engine airplane crashed a couple of miles east of Lansing Airport (IGQ).

Owner Steve Leaven said the plane had taken off from the Lansing airport and was returning when it crashed... “I heard the sputtering of the plane,” Kwasman said. “It sounded like it stopped, and I heard nothing. I was shocked.” ...Garcia said: ”[...] it was literally (a) straight nose dive into the ground.”

As a student pilot, I did 98 landings at Lansing, including my first and second solos, my first solo cross country, and my long solo cross country. It is always sad to read of a fatal aviation accident, but very sad to hear of an accident at the airport I consider my second home.

No Flying for a While

2007-03-05T16:19:00.000-06:00

I haven’t been flying since the trip to St. Louis. The Chicago weather most weekends has inhibited flying, but the primary consideration has been money. Due to other pressures on my family’s budget, I have postponed my IFR lessons and time building for about six months. I have a little bit of money left on my account at Midway Aviators, so if the bug bites once or twice between now and then, I can go up with an instructor.

I’ve thought about swinging by Midway Aviators’ office and seeing if I can right-seat or back-seat with anyone else going up, but it’s far enough out of my way that I don’t want to wander over “for nothing”. My work has been demanding more of my time lately, and while I adjust to the new responsibilities my work-life balance has been out of whack. Consequently, the time I have away from the office is focused on my family—otherwise I would pursue hanger flying more aggressively.

I continue to fly in X-Plane as time allows. I haven’t made any progress learning Morse Code because dual-booting into Windows just for Morse practice is too much hassle. I don’t like any of the Mac Morse trainers, but I’m working on a command line utility to generate Morse Code for me to listen to on my iPod continuing the Koch learning method.

Flight to CPS

2007-02-03T19:15:00.000-06:00

The flight to St. Louis was an opportunity to have lunch with Amy’s grandmother (whom I’ll just refer to as grandma). I booked the plane for the entire day on Saturday, January 20th from 9 AM to 8 PM. The rough thinking was to be wheels-up at 9:30 AM, to St. Louis around noon, heading to my grandmother-in-law’s by 12:30 PM, arrive at 1 PM, hang out and have lunch for 2-3 hours, and then reverse the procedure to be wheels-down at Midway (MDW) by 7:30 PM and home by 9 PM.

The Tuesday before the flight, I started on the first flight planning chore: selecting an airport near St. Louis as the destination. Cross-referencing Google Maps with Runway Finder made CPS the obvious choice. I then read the FBO reviews on the AOPA airport directory and AirNav, which were all very positive about Ideal Aviation. I called them and chatted with a nice gentleman for a couple of minutes. I gave him my ETA on Saturday, an outline of my plans for a lunch, and got the number for Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Based on the airport location, reviews of the FBO, and my conversation, I knew that CPS was an excellent choice. Step 1 completed. I’ll admit I was a bit disappointed that the airport was in Illinois—I would have liked to add Missouri to my list of states in which I’ve landed.

Next up: weather. Grandma would be very disappointed if she expected us to show up and we had to cancel, so we decided to wait until Friday night to see what the weather had in store. I watched a really nasty system hang out in Texas on Thursday and Friday, but when it started moving east, all of the forecasts were that it wouldn’t get St. Louis until late in the evening—3-4 hours after we planned to leave. I was a still on the fence, but decided we could call grandma and let her know we would “probably” be showing up to take her out for lunch. In the morning I checked all of the weather maps, TAFs, and the area forecast again. The original forecast was still for the weather to show up 3-4 hours after we’d leave. I told Amy that we would be going to St. Louis, but that I would be phoning for a weather briefing frequently while we were in St. Louis to keep an eye on the weather—we might need to make an early exit and there was a small chance that we could be caught in the weather and grounded in St. Louis. She was fine with those odds.

I used Aero Planner to map out a path along I-55 by using airports as way points. (MDW-LOT-DTG-PNT-BMI-AAA-SPI-3LF-TROY-CPS.) I printed out the TripTick, including frequencies, sectionals, TACs… and instrument approaches as CPS and my alternates just in case. I spent Friday night and Saturday morning studying the maps in the TripTick, from my VFR AirChart, and the latest sectional to review the route and to be familiar with page numbers and how the sectional would need to be folded.

Part of the return trip would be at night so I wanted to know the route, obstacles, and MEAs well. Also due to the night flight, I wanted to get flight following—especially on the way back. During my lesson Friday night, I spoke with Alex about getting flight following. With Chicago’s congested airspace and very busy controllers, when is the best time to make the request? Alex recommended I follow the usual protocol and ask Midway Tower when they terminate my radar services. Alex told me that Chicago Center and Chicago Approach “never” give VFR flight following and to expect MDW to recommend I try Peoria Approach when I get south of LOT. Fair enough. When I got home from that lesson, I informed Amy that I would asking for flight following, what it was (radar people would keep an eye on me for the whole flight like they do when I’m near Midway), why I wanted it (another pair of eyes, practice for IFR, someone knowing where I am if I need assistance, etc.), and what it would mean (I would have to keep an ear out for my call sign on the radio and occasionally talk to people more than I have on previous trips). She appreciated knowing about the flight following, as the radio communications still make her nervous and she likes every “heads-up” about it. As an aside, to ease her mic freight, I remind her of the Death Star incident.

We arrived at Midway and I used a private booth at Atlantic Aviation to call for a weather briefing. No changes. I pre-flighted and we took off. While heading south-southwest still within Midway’s radar coverage, a saw a paraglider at 10 o’clock low. I knew I should keep up my scan for other aircraft, but my mind was still clicking away to process what I was seeing. Where did he come from? Where was going? Was he a threat to me and should I deviate? Then I exclaimed OH! It wasn’t a paraglider. It was a big bouquet of birthday balloons! Sheesh. Still, it was something to keep an eye on—I had never shared the sky with something like this before and I didn’t know how it would move. After watching it another couple of seconds, I concluded that it was not ascending further and would pass near me, but beneath me. I resumed my normal VFR scan and kept half an eye on the balloons. The trip is already off to an interesting start.

Another minute or two and Midway terminated my radar services. I requested flight following and they told me to give Chicago Approach a jingle and gave me the frequency. Hmm. Well, nothing to lose. Like many student pilots, I spent a lot of time in my training reading aviation articles in magazines and online. I had always been drawn to the ones from controllers and I knew from reading those that busy controllers make their decision to provide VFR flight following based on their first impression of you—the aptitude with which you delivered your request. Naturally, a pilot who sounds confident and relaxed and who provides all of important information in (approximately) the correct order indicates a level of professionalism and gives the controller confidence that he/she won’t cause any surprises or create undo workload for the controller—thus, they are more inclined to accept your request.

Just to be super prepared, I dialed in the Joliet VOR (JOT) and let the Garmin GNS 530 tell me my precise radial and distance so that I could give a good fix to Chicago Approach. I dialed in the APP frequency I was given and listened for a couple minutes to get a sense of things. It was busy, but it wasn’t non-stop chatter, so I went for it. Having made that decision, I ran into another point for consideration. Controllers I’ve read and spoken to in person differ on their opinion of whether pilots should always start short (“Chicago Approach, N269DS”) and wait for a response or should give the whole request in one blurb (frequency congestion permitting). The Midway controllers prefer the latter and they are pretty busy people, so my inclination was to go with the whole blurb since the approach frequency wasn’t overly crowded.

(Me) Chicago Approach, Diamond Star November-Two-Six-Niner-Delta-Sierra VFR six east-northeast of Joliet VOR at Two-Thousand, Five Hundred. Request flight following.

(APP) N269DS, Chicago Approach. Squawk 1234. What is your destination?

(Me) N269DS wilco. Squawking 1234. Destination Downtown St. Louis: Charlie-Papa-Sierra.

Wow! Wow wow wow! What an ego boost! I sounded good enough on the mic for the super-busy, don’t-even-bother-asking Chicago Approach to give me flight following! I am Superman! A few minutes later APP contacted me to tell me that I was outside of their radar coverage and to switch to Chicago Center. Chicago Center! Whoo hoo! Time to get myself a job at Southwest Airlines! (I joke, of course. I was elated at the time, but I don’t seriously think I’m all that.)

After that, things were very routine. When I got out from under Bravo I climbed to 6,500 feet after advising the controller of my intentions. I didn’t get a lot of advisories during the trip. In fact, I got so few that I grew concerned I was missing calls to me due to the cockpit conversations. (I wasn’t.) I was asked to change altitudes once due to other VFR traffic, which was a nice heads-up. I also heard an amusing bit on the radio while getting advisories from Peoria Approach. A pilot had just been handed off from elsewhere to Peoria.

(APP) N1234, what is your destination?

(N1234) Palwaukee, north of Chicago.

(APP) They have you in the system as going to Pawnee City, Nebraska.

Anyway, we looked out the window and watched as the snow-covered white fields gradually turned to brown as we travelled south. After the first 90 minutes, Amy was getting bored (!) and thinking about her work, so demanded that I keep her distracted. I thought for a moment and started “On my way to grandma’s house, I saw an airport.” She looked at me incredulously, but we started playing and got to M before we passed over Litchfield (3LF) where I started my descent and we stopped the game. We got a beautiful view of the St. Louis arch as we approached CPS and I mentally kicked myself for not bringing my camera.

CPS was a wonderful airport with very nice controllers. I tested this because my taxi instructions were “taxi to the west ramp” and I ended up needing progressive taxi when I got to a three-way intersection I didn’t understand and couldn’t figure out on the airport diagram. (B, B1 and something that’s not named on the diagram that would would assume is C3.) I felt embarrassed while calling for the progressive taxi, but sitting in a three-way taxi intersection probably wasn’t the time for ego.

Moving on, I’m happy to report that Ideal Aviation was a fabulous FBO! The staff was very friendly and very helpful with maps and directions.

So far, the plan for the day was working out just right. It was only a little past noon when I shut down the engine. I checked the weather forecast at the FBO and it continued to predict the storm to arrive after 9 PM. We had a nice lunch with grandma, but as our dessert arrived (grandma loves vanilla ice cream), the sky turned dark. Not scary dark, but no longer friendly and inviting. Amy and I exchanged a glance.

We dropped off grandma and Amy went inside while I called for an abbreviated weather briefing. The opening line from the briefer wasn’t good: “With weather like this, I can’t do ‘abbreviated’”. Gulp! I listened intently as the briefer painted a picture of doom and gloom rolling in from the southwest. Highlights from the briefing: “Northeast Texas: IFR. Oklahoma: solid IFR. Western and central Missouri: IFR. All of that has a convective SIGMET, too. The leading edge has sleet and freezing rain below… well, any altitude you can reach.” Inversion layers, freezing layers. My head was spinning. All I could think was the line from South Park: It’s heading right for us! Then we got to the bad news: “Let me see where that leading edge is now on the radar. It appears to be 50 miles south of St. Louis right now… And there is more 50 miles southwest… And more to the west 50 miles.” Suddenly, I was feeling claustrophobic. Here’s the kicker, though: the forecasts continued to predict that the bad weather would hold off until 7-9 PM. Yeah. Right. If I trusted the WX forecasts I wouldn’t have kept checking them at every opportunity.

I got off the phone with the briefer, went inside and informed everyone that we had to say our goodbyes—now. On the way to the airport I told Amy about the weather briefing. We made good time back to the airport. While Amy was signing the car rental forms, I took a peak at the animated radar images on the FBO’s weather computer. St. Louis was in the center of the screen. The entire left and bottom portions of the screen were pink (rain/ice mix) and green—and they were, literally, heading right for us!

We wrapped up our business at the FBO and preflighted the airplane. I took the opportunity to tell Amy about the speed that storms move and how the plane will easily outrun the weather—once we’re off the ground. While I felt rushed by the weather, I deliberately slowed down for the preflight and double-checked everything. I don’t want to be one of those NTSB reports.

We took off without much ado, picked up flight following about 40 miles south of Springfield and flew back to Midway without incident. My landing at Midway was a little long—I treated it like a soft field and let the plane stay in ground effect, gently lowering itself onto the runway. I used about half of the 3859’ runway. Since I had the runway length to spare, I thought the soft-field approach was a nice way to avoid dropping the plane in from a couple feet too high due to possible night illusions.

When we got home, I pulled up the weather for St. Louis. Turns out, the forecasts were accurate. The weather didn’t move in until after 8 PM. But when it moved it, conditions deteriorated fast. In the span of 20 minutes the METAR was updated 3 times from VFR to LIFR.

MDW-CPS: 2.4
CPS-MDW: 2.2 (1.5 night)

Charts, Charts, Charts

2007-01-22T19:52:00.000-06:00

Oh, man. AirCharts has sent me a renewal reminder. I ordered their VFR East book at the beginning of the cycle last year, and overall I guess I’m happy with it. Some of the pages are printed too dark—they need a better color management process. But overall, I’ve liked it. I didn’t get as much use of it as I expected since I flew less than I expected. It would have been cheaper for me to simply purchase sectionals whenever I needed them.

Except that I don’t always know when I’ll need them. On a Thursday night I’ll look at the weekend’s weather and ask Amy if she wants to go flying on Saturday. Except… it’s been a while since I last flew, so my sectionals are all out of date and it can be a crap shoot whether Midway Aviators (or even other area FBOs) will have non-Chicago sectionals when I show up to go flying. Sometimes I rent the plane before business hours in the morning—no chance of picking up any sectionals then. So AirChart provides me an easy way to stay current, legal, and never needing a sectional. And it lets me scan around all over the eastern U.S. for destinations and routes. Of course, Sky Vector and Runway Finder let me do the same thing, but there is something about the tactile sensation of paper…

Still, I’ve almost always purchased sectionals in addition to having the AirChart. Maybe it’s because I’m a new pilot and new to AirChart—I don’t trust AirChart completely somehow. What if I missed one of the changes when I went over the last update, or there is some other breakdown in the system? Better to have a current sectional on hand in case I need it.

And then there is my AeroPlanner subscription. I plan every trip on AeroPlanner and print PDF TripTicks that I bring along during the flight. (I have a color laser printer, so printing 60 page TripTicks is fast and cheap—it wouldn’t be a tolerable solution for InkJet owners.) The TripTick contains all the charts (TACs, Sectionals, WACs, and Low-Altitude IFR) with a nice overlay of the planned route on each. It also includes extensive airport information about all airports included in the flight plan and six alternates. Radar, METARS and TAFs for area airports along the route, NOTAMs along the route. Really, if the AeroPlanner printouts made me VFR legal (and, eventually, IFR legal), I’d be a happy camper and pass on NACO’s charts and AirChart.

All of this comes up because I’m contemplating my IFR charting solution. Jepp: expensive, a total pain to keep updated in paper form, but the best charts out there. Whether they are so much better than NACO charts to warrant the cost and headache is open to debate. Airchart is an interesting twist on the NACO charts for updates. Hmph. Why oh why doesn’t someone have a really good EFB yet? (And “good” strongly includes not being based on Windows Tablet Edition. Ew.)

Instrument Lesson #3: Doesn't Really Count

2007-01-20T22:10:00.000-06:00

On Thursday night I opened LogTen Pro to review my night currency for Saturday’s flight to St. Louis. I needed two night take-offs and landings to be night current! I scheduled a lesson with Alex to take 9DS over to GYY to fuel it up, get my landings, and spend any available time under the hood. We did all of those things in an unremarkable and very short trip.

One item of note, GYY tower was very cool and demoed their light gun to us even though it was low on charge and getting a new part to make it all better on Monday. At first the tower controller declined because of the low charge, but I think my “thanks anyway” made him feel bad so when we taxied for take-off he demoed them. I was shocked how clearly they could be seen. No problems spotting those! Thanks, Gary!

Another 1.5 in the log book, of which all was night and 0.9 was simulated instrument.

2006 Stats

2007-01-20T21:45:00.000-06:00

I own and use LogTen Pro as my electronic flight log book. I was inspired to start using an electronic flight book when I had the nightmarish experience of not being able to find my logbook in late 2006. I did eventually find it, but in the team time I was freaking out that I’d lost very important records! Midway Aviators had a copy of all my pages up to my FAA check ride, so all would not have been lost, but I really woke up to the fact that I needed a backup of my log book.

I spent a lot of time with the offerings for the Mac and LogTen Pro is, by far, the best software available. It took me most of a day to transfer all of my information from my Jepp Pilot Logbook into LogTen Pro. Once it was in, though, I found out all kinds of useful information. For example, I hadn’t properly added columns together on some pages, or carried number forward to the next page properly on other pages. It took me most of another day to verify that I had entered the information into LogTen Pro correctly and that I had made numerous math errors and clerical errors in my paper log book.

Using the program makes easy work of keep track of my day and night currencies, and my medical. It also automatically calculates the distances between airports, so it’s easy for me to track my XC solo time toward IFR. All in all, I wholeheartedly recommend LogTen Pro.

Anyway, I made a quick smart group to sum up my 2006 flight statistics:

Total Time:    85.0
Distance (airport to airport direct): 3,303.76 nm
Day T/O:    164
Day LDG:    160
Night T/O:    11
Night LDG:    12
Night:    5.2
Sim Inst:    3.3
Simulator:    1.4
XC:    25.6
Dual:    62.0
Solo:    23.0
PIC:    28.1

Weather Grounds Me

2007-01-16T07:07:00.000-06:00

Weather grounded me all three days this long weekend. I had to cancel my two instrument training flights on Saturday and Sunday, and my $100 hamburger flight on Monday. I spent a lot of that time watching the King DVDs for the instrument written exam. I’ve made it through three of the DVDs so far. I’ve learned a lot from them about the instrument charts, but it’s all very mind numbing after a bit.

I haven’t flown much in my simulator—other projects have required my attention. Same with morse code. I’ll be refocusing on those items this week.

Instrument Lesson #2: Scan and ILS

2007-01-07T21:12:00.000-06:00

Earlier today I flew on my second instrument lesson. Alex was unavailable at the last minute, so Pete (different Pete than during my private training) joined me for the flight. After some initial turns, climbs, and descents under the hood, he thought I was doing well enough to start throwing more my way. He set me up for a hold at the Chicago Heights VOR (CGT), which I executed pretty well for my first time out—but I can see that I’ll need lots of practice with these to get to PTS. The stiff crosswind was a factor.

Then we shot the ILS 30 approach at Gary (GYY). I didn’t have an Indiana approach book on me, so Pete gave me the vectors, altitudes and nav frequencies. Gary’s tower can’t approve instrument approaches, but the controllers have told Midway Aviators to simply request a “long, straight-in VFR approach” and they’ll know what we’re doing. I narrowly avoided full deflection down on the indicator. I was high and a little to the right when I got to 1,300 ft and Pete had me look up at the field. I had to spend a few seconds looking around for the runway since it wasn’t directly ahead of me. I can tell that the transition from instruments to visual approach will be a skill on which I’ll need to spend some time.

We landed, topped off our tanks, and Pete had me perform a 0/0 take-off. Whee! That’s fun! I was straying a little to the right of the center line so Pete had to make one correction for me, but I can see that’s it’s not going to be too hard—just a matter of practice.

Instrument Lesson #1: Under the Hood

2007-01-06T21:11:00.000-06:00

I had my first instrument lesson on Friday night. 1ZM remains down for G1000 fixes and its annual, so I flew 9DS. Not a lot to report—straight and level, turns, climbs, descents, turning climbs, turning descents. I did well, even when Alex started making me handle dialing the radios. My next lesson will be more of the same, with the addition of map reading, VOR tuning, intercept planning, and the like to distract me and start developing my positional awareness.

I’ve been using X-Plane to practice my instrument skills in the evenings. I’ve been concentrating on random instrument failures so that my scan doesn’t grow too reliant on any particular instruments. It also makes me diagnose and handle instrument failures. Of course, I’m flying a Cessna with steam gauges in X-Plane, so the system failures are traditional rather than the kind I’m likely to experience with a G1000.

I have the G1000 simulator from Garmin, but I can’t run it under VMware or Parallels on my Mac mini, so I’m trying Boot Camp later tonight. In the mean time, I’m making steady progress through the G1000 book and software. The software is just an abridged narration of the book, but well done. (Those of you who are Web developers may be interested to learn that the software appears to be written in Adobe Flex.) If computer- or Web-based training is more your speed than reading, I recommend the software.

In other news, I’m learning Morse Code to make VOR identification easier—and because I’ve always wanted to learn it. I picked up a program (PC only, unfortunately) that uses the Koch training method. I’m training at 25 words per minute and only have 3 letters so far. Fun, fun.

On top of all of that, I’m reading the Jepp and Machado books. So far, I’m shocked to say that I find the Jepp book much better. Also, on your advice, I picked up the King DVDs and will work my way through those some time “soon”.

Instrument Ground School

2006-12-30T19:07:00.000-06:00

The weather kept us grounded, so I had ground school with Alex. Nothing exciting. Primary and secondary instruments for various maneuvers, traditional vacuum and electric systems (the DA40 is all electric, of course), and how to identify which instruments have failed when they disagree. Alex then walked me through the instrument training syllabus and pointed out each section of the Jepp book corresponding to each part of the instrument training.

The weather will probably ground me tomorrow, so I’ll curl up with the Rod Machado and Jepp instrument books and start reading in earnest. I’m interested in the King DVDs, as everyone recommends them (the readers of this blog included!), so they may be in my future.

And just to set expectations, I don’t plan to rush myself through the instrument training—my bank account can’t sustain it!

Brush-Up Lesson

2006-12-29T21:09:00.000-06:00

The holidays have been good to me. I received the G1000 book and the training CD I was expecting, so I have some good aviation reading material to curl up with this winter.

I finally got up in the air again. The glass panel is down for maintenance and its annual, so I went up in 9DS with Alex to shoot landings on runway 12 at Gary (GYY). I went up with an instructor because I had done so little flying recently that I wanted a safety pilot on hand. However, despite my almost complete lack of flight time since August, the procedures, communications, and landings hadn’t deteriorated significantly and the entire flight was excellent. I missed pushing the prop forward on one landing (dag nabit!), but otherwise everything went astonishingly well. I was able to execute soft field and short field take-offs and landings to PTS.

On my last landing at Gary, Alex surreptitiously pulled the circuit breaker for the flaps while I was on downwind glancing out the left side. Then, abeam the numbers, Alex pulled the throttle to idle and said—with that wry grin all flight instructors have at this moment—“simulated engine failure”. I started my turn toward the runway and saw that I was excellent shape. The tower had already cleared me to land, so I keyed the mic: “Niner delta sierra, simulated engine failure,” just to keep the tower informed. I got a bored “Roger” in response. I had the field made made made (I was high, actually), so I checked my airspeed and flipped my flaps. In the back of my mind, I registered that there wasn’t a light on the flap indicator and a sound was missing while the flaps should have been extending. I looked out to the left wing and saw that the flaps were, indeed, not extended. I laughed—Bill had taught me well—and started a forward slip. I got about 1000 feet down the 7000 foot runway in the slip and descended to 5 feet above the runway. I pulled out of the slip and floated … and floated … and floated … and floated. This was going to be the smoothest landing I’ve ever made—if there was still runway left when the wheels touched down. Finally they touched with about two-thirds of the runway to my rudder and plenty left in front of me. I taxied to parking and talked things over with Alex while the plane was refueled.

I’m going back tomorrow to start instrument training. Yup, you read that correctly. Heh.

Long Time, No Flight

2006-12-08T19:50:00.000-06:00

Chicago is very cold right now. But the weather has been great for flying… I’m guessing. The sky has usually been clear blue when I’ve had occasion to look up. But mostly I’ve been working and preparing for the holidays. I haven’t flown at all since the Sporty’s trip.

Another factor I hadn’t counted on is the difficulty of planning for flying somewhere. I don’t mean the maps and the lines and the W&B calculations. I mean trying to make plans to go somewhere with my wife to visit people or see a sight—maybe stay overnight—when the weather might ground me as often as it doesn’t. And getting there is only half the equation. My wife’s bigger concern is getting home. Flying to a “distant” destination like Duluth is out of the question if there is a small chance weather might ground us there or on the return trip. This still leaves $100 hamburgers to be had nearby—Valpo, Champaign, and other locations from which renting a car and driving home “in time for work on Monday” is easy.

But, mostly, I just haven’t made flying the priority it needs to be if I want to remain a pilot. A safe pilot.

So I’ve scheduled four lessons with Alex around New Year’s—ostensibly to get my G1000 transition training, but also to just get back into flying again. I’m expecting some G1000 training material for Christmas (specifically, the G1000 book and the training CD from the same company) to get a jump start on the G1000 before my lessons.

Speaking of Garmin, they have opened a store in Chicago on the Magnificent Mile. I’d like to make it over there sometime to see if they’ve included aviation equipment in their displays. Maybe this weekend…

Scariest Thing I've Seen in a While

2006-11-18T16:12:00.000-06:00

The NTSB has posted a recreation of a near-miss at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport (ORD) involving a 737 cleared for takeoff while a 747 is landing on an intersecting runway. The NTSB estimates that the planes cleared each other by only 35 feet.

Flight to Sporty's

2006-11-04T18:19:00.000-06:00

My flight to Sporty’s (I69) went without a hitch. I flew with a friend who is completing his private pilot training at Clow (1C5). He handled navigation while I handled aviation and communication.

The route I settled on was MDW-HALIE-V340-RID-I68-I69. This took me around the MOAs in northern Indiana, east to Fort Wayne, IN (FWA), then south to Cincinnati’s Bravo, which I followed clockwise around to Sporty’s. I flew to Sporty’s at 5,500 MSL, which took me over FWA’s Charlie. I called FWA approach at the appropriate time and picked up flight following all of the way to I69—I’m glad I had just covered that topic with Alex! My interactions with flight following definitely had some rough edges on which I need to improve, but was a solid start to using that service.

Sporty’s was a bit of a disappointment. I had imagined aisles upon aisles of aviation goodies and an experience like being a child in a candy store. Alas, Sporty’s retail area was very small with only two short aisles and a counter area. The aisles and counter area were glass displays, so no touching the merchandise. The people behind the counter were happy to go into the massive warehouse behind the retail area and get anything I desired to peruse, but it wasn’t the candy store experience for which I had hoped. I picked up the SureCheck avionics checklists for the Garmin GNS 430/530 and Garmin G1000. The checklists make it easy to review common procedures for those devices without firing up the VFLITE trainer (which I love, but requires access to a computer).

We then flew home using the reverse route of our arrival at 4,500 MSL. I asked for flight following and received it all of the way to HALIE. Our arrival back at MDW was uneventful.

MDW-I69: 2.3 hours
I69-MDW: 2.7 hours

Planning MDW to I69

2006-10-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

Unbelievably, the weather is supposed to be wonderful this weekend. That means it’s time to go flying! I have 9DS reserved for all of Sunday and I’m planning a trip to Sporty’s Pilot Shop at Clermont County Airport (I69) east of Cincinnati.

I’m planning to take V97 from CGT to CVG, but that puts me in the middle of Cincinnati’s bravo. On Saturday, I’m going to call the CVG tower to discuss my flight plan with them and learn if they will clear a VFR flight through the bravo or if they recommend a different path around the bravo.

I also need to pick up a new Chicago TAC—mine just expired. I’ll pick up a Cincinnati TAC, too, to see their VFR corridors. I wish I could find those pictured online, but neither Runway Finder nor Sky Vector has the back side of the TACs available (that I can find, anyway). If anyone knows how I can review the VFR corridors from the backs of TACs online, I’d love to hear from you.

Practicing for Safe Night VFR

2006-10-20T17:10:00.000-05:00

Tonight, I am scheduled with Alex to get some instruction to make me a safer night VFR pilot. It’s getting dark earlier and I expect many of my flights this winter to start or end during night conditions. I left it up to Alex what should be practiced, as he may have some ideas that haven’t occurred to me. To get the ball rolling, I’ve put forward the obvious: instrument procedures (VOR navigation, ILS approach, etc.) and communication with Center. It has a convenient side-effect of dove-tailing into real instrument training.

Alex called me this afternoon and told me that 9DS’s transponder is dead, so the plane is down for most of a week. Thus, my lesson tonight will be on the Elite simulator. More and more like true intro-to-instrument training…

Jumping back to the dead transponder, the approach control at CMI last month mentioned that they only got my signal intermittently, but the transponder was reporting everything as a-okay including regular radar interrogations. When I left CMI, they didn’t report any problems and MDW didn’t either on my return—I asked each of them—so I chalked it up to a fluke, or low flight while I was relatively far from CMI, or something else. I did mention it to the flight school in case other people reported similar incidents, which would indicate that it wasn’t a fluke and was a problem with the transponder.

With 9DS down, the friend who had to bail on me for our flight to Sporty’s tomorrow doesn’t have to feel bad anymore, as we wouldn’t have been able to go anyway. I’ve already rescheduled that trip for the 29th.

Transition to DA20, Part 1

2006-10-15T22:30:00.000-05:00

My DA20 flight on Friday was canceled due to very gusty winds and my Saturday flight was canceled due to Alex’s car mechanic not being able to fix his car as promised. So I flew today (Sunday). I’d forgotten how small the DA20s are. And I’d forgotten how much the DA40 spoiled me! The DA20 has vacuum-driven instruments (ugh), doesn’t slave the heading indicator so you have to constantly re-adjust it, and doesn’t have an HSI! I also felt constrained by having only one NAV/COM on which to queue up frequencies.

All of that said, the DA20 is very sporty and a lot of fun to fly. I started by flying over to Gary (GYY) to fuel up and make sure that I can still land (I’ve only completed two landings in the last 60 days!). Amazingly, at Gary I performed the smoothest landing in recent memory. Must be luck, right? I did land left of the centerline, which I need to work on.

We then flew around many thousands of feet MSL and I practiced slow flight (never been difficult for me—I don’t know why), steep turns (usually very hard for me, but I did them very well this time—again, I don’t know why), and power-off stalls. The power-off stalls were a difference experience than in the DA40. In the DA20, an aggravated stall requires significant rudder work to prevent a wing from dropping. I say “aggravated stall” because the DA20 doesn’t “mush” in its power-off stall as much as the DA40 so the first time through the maneuver I didn’t realize I was really stalled until I was fighting to keep the wings level. Maybe I need to explain myself better. In the DA40, approaching the power-off stalls generates some buffeting, then you feel a “break” when the plane actually enters the stall. In the DA20, the buffeting doesn’t “break”—it just gradually gets more intense until you realize that you’re stalled and dropping a wing. In fact, dropping a wing is a difference in behavior from the DA40.

I felt like an idiot for letting a stall progress that far. Of course, the point of this lesson is to learn the “feel” of the airplane to know things like the different stall characteristics of the DA20 compared to the DA40. Still, getting to the point where I’m fighting against entering a spin is just bad piloting. I did much better on my second power-off stall recovery, although I pushed the nose further than ideal through the horizon to break the stall. We then simulated an engine-out forced landing with attempted restart.

We then did a crosswind landing at Lansing (IGQ) which was remarkably smooth. Left of the centerline again, though. Grumble, grumble. Then we flew back to Midway. Funny thing happened at Midway. I did my first go-around at Midway. The DA20 is just so clean that I didn’t lose my speed fast enough and was well over 100 knots on final. I climbed out, waited for a break in the radio chatter, and called my go-around. I was cleared for left traffic to try it again. I got it right the second time and performed another very smooth landing—this time on the centerline.

Another lesson or two and I’ll be cleared to fly the DA20. I really need to practice the emergency flows before I’ll be comfortable on my own in the DA20. Fun, fun.

Almost No Flying, Interesting Stat from Diamond

2006-10-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

I haven’t been posting because I haven’t been flying.

I flew once, a month ago, from MDW to CMI (University of Illinois) for a $100 hamburger with my wife. Most of the flight down and all of the flight back was at night. During my flight planning, I picked a couple of VORs to track that would take me parallel to I-57 the entire trip. (You’ve heard the joke that night flying tests your “IFR” skills: I Follow Roads.) I had my preflight plan, I entered my flight into the Garmin GNS 530 GPS, and I dialed in the VORs on the radio. I made sure that the autopilot was operational as well. There was no way I was risking getting lost or disoriented. Being on the paranoid side as a VFR-only pilot, I won’t fly at night without a functioning autopilot and prior familiarity with the route. As it happens, I spent 3 years at UIUC in Champaign, so I’ve driven the route many times and can pick out each little town along the interstate. The flight went very smoothly and my wife enjoyed the restaurant we visited in Champaign. FlightStar, the FBO at CMI, was amazing—the best I’ve visited (and that includes Atlantic Aviation at MDW which caters to corporate clients). I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the area.

I’m scheduled to fly tonight (Friday) and tomorrow (Saturday) in the DA20 to get signed-off in that aircraft so that I’m not wholy dependent on 9DS being available. I’m holding off on the glass panel transition until I’ve read my IFR book and the G1000 book, which I expect to get for Christmas (hint, hint, mom and dad). Ideally, I’d like to make my G1000 transition as I get my instrument rating. I think that a glass panel cockpit is a compelling feature for IFR flights and I may restrict myself to IFR in glass panels the way I restrict myself to night flight with VORs and autopilots.

I keep mulling over the practicing of engine-out on take-off at 700AGL in a DA40. This nugget in Diamond’s latest email news letter affirms my belief that I did not put myself in undue danger practicing the maneuver: Diamond has designed its aircraft to maintain controllability in the stall and into and out of a spin. The fact that in over 2 million flight hours there has never been a stall – spin accident supports our approach. However, Colin’s passionate responses have been persuasive enough that I will be confining my future practicing of the maneuver to flight simulators.

More Thoughts About Practicing Engine Failure On Take-Off

2006-09-14T17:08:00.000-05:00

Thanks for your insights again, Colin. I think that will will have to agree to disagree on this one.

If I understand your position, you agree that practicing an engine-out return to the field from 700 AGL on take-off is not more inherently dangerous than practicing engine-out at other points in the pattern, but you assert that the probability of an engine-out situation elsewhere in the pattern is greater and thus justifies the risk of practicing for those situations. Additionally, you put forward that if there is an engine-out at 700 AGL, the pilot will generally be better off performing a straight-ahead landing than performing a return to the field. Finally, you believe that engine-out on take-off can be properly practiced at a safe altitude, especially with expert use of the G1000.

You comments don’t increase my perception of the risk posed by practicing an engine-out situation at 700 AGL on take-off. I continue to believe the the maneuver can be performed reliably and safely. I accept that while the maneuver poses a greater risk than, say, straight and level flight at 5,000 AGL, the experience and preparedness provided by the training offset the relatively small risk.

I disagree that a pilot will “normally” be better off with a straight-ahead landing than attempting to return to the field with engine-out at 700 AGL. I think the disagreement stems from our different expectations of what is “normal”. I fly out of Midway—an commercial airport in the middle of a dense residential area. A straight-ahead landing into anything in the forward 90 degree arc is certainly not safe! When measured against that, “risking” a return to the field from 700 AGL looks very wise. When I’ve asked other pilots, including CFIs and my DPE, about handling an engine-out on take-off out of Midway when a return to the field cannot be accomplished (i.e., a straight-ahead landing in the only option), the advise is always the same: “pick the softest, cheapest thing to crash into”. I won’t risk plowing into a 3 year-old’s bedroom when a return to the field is possible at 700 AGL. Further, even if the worst should occur on my attempted return to the field, proximity to the field will have the advantage of receiving quick response by MDW’s airport emergency personnel.

Also of note is that when I practiced this maneuver, it was night and the only thing in front of me was a large black spot surrounded by lighted stuff I knew I didn’t want to land on. It seems inadvisable to attempt a landing into an unlit area with unknown obstacles when a return to the field is can be made.

I should also note that the DA40 I fly doesn’t have a G1000, so leveraging that isn’t an option. Further, unless the G1000 has synthetic vision capabilities of which I’m not aware, marking the virtual runway end point and heading at 5000 AGL and trying to land on it is very different than actually landing on a runway. I don’t know where I first heard the adage, but I’ll repeat it: “Nothing changes a pilot’s behavior like proximity to the ground.”

Given the above, I maintain that practicing the engine-out at 700 AGL on take-off is not a poor aeronautical decision in a DA40.

IFR Weather Grounds Me - Twice

2006-08-27T13:25:00.000-05:00

I’ve been scheduled for $100 hamburger flights the last two weekends and had MVFR-IFR weather ground me both times. Welcome to autumn in Chicago.

On my last pass through Midway Aviators, I picked up an IFR chart and terminal area procedures for Chicago. I find that the aviation material makes more sense to me when I have familiar materials to reference. This weather has inspired me to start on the Jeppesen Instrument and Commercial book.

Thoughts About Practicing Engine Failure On Take-Off

2006-08-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Colin posted a comment to my last entry citing an NTSB report wherein a CFI and a pilot under instruction performed a simulated engine failure at 700 AGL on take-off in a Cirrus SR20, stalled, spun, and died. Such reports call into question the wisdom of practicing engine failures on take-off. Colin asserts that engine-out take-offs should be practiced at safe altitudes to reduce the risk.

I respect Colin’s opinion on matters of piloting, so I gave his comments long and serious consideration. After that consideration, I must respectfully disagree with Colin on this matter. Praticing engine-out situations after real take-offs isn’t inherently more dangerous than practicing any other engine-out situation in the pattern. Every student pilot practices engine-out scenarios in the pattern—at only 1000 AGL where a spin is as unrecoverable as at 700 AGL.

The presence of an NTSB report for a fatal accident involving a specific maneuver doesn’t inheritely make the maneuver unsafe. Numerous reports exist about pilots entering spins on the turn from base to final, but we still fly rectangular patterns. The presence of an NTSB report should give pilots pause and make them consider their actions carefully when performance something new or unordinary, but isn’t grounds in itself for avoiding the given maneuver.

Emulating engine-outs on take-off at safe altitudes is a very different experience than having the ground 700 feet below you and a real runway with which to line up. I, personally, don’t visualize well and doubt that the practice at altitude would translate into good performance during a real engine-out at 700 AGL. That said, practicing the engine-out tear-shaped 180-degree turns at altitude certainly wouldn’t hurt—but it’s only part of the equation and (in my humble opinion) isn’t a substitute for simulating engine-out at 700 AGL on take-off.

In the NTSB report cited, the aircraft was a Cirrus SR20—well known for its poor handling characteristics in slow flight, unpleasent stalls, and tendency to spin. By contrast, a DA40 has very pleasent slow flight characteristics, gentle stalls, and is relatively hard to spin. Should the SR20 pilot have been practicing engine-out scenarios after a take-off? Maybe, maybe not—I’d like to hear from other Cirrus flight instructors. Speaking for myself, I’m comfortable with performing the tear-shaped 180-degree turn with engine-out. Further, I think that the experience has made me a safer pilot. Just like the experience of handling an engine out everywhere else in the pattern makes me a safer pilot.

My mind is not set on this matter, so I’m open to persuation if anyone feels strongly, sees holes in my reasoning, and cares to leave a comment.

Landings, Night Landings, and Fun at 700 AGL

2006-08-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

I had a flight lesson scheduled Monday night, August 14th. I woke up that morning more than a little ill and stayed home from work for sleep and recovery. By late afternoon, I was feeling better and by early evening I made the determination that I was good enough to fly. I wasn’t 100%, but I was sure I could handle the airplane. Still, if I hadn’t been going up with another pilot I would have cancelled my time on the “better safe than sorry” principle.

I had originally scheduled the flight lesson to get some experience on grass and turf runways. Alex wasn’t available, so I flew with Pete. However, Pete pointed out that taking the wheel pants off changes the weight and balance, and thus can only be done by an airplane mechanic and requires that the plane’s books be updated appropriately. Pete offered that we could practice grass fields in the Archer, but I declined—I wanted some practice with normal landings and emergency procedures anyway.

During my last trip, while in the pattern at Watertown Airport, I had to extend my downwind to accommodate traffic on final. Since I couldn’t fly base and final “by the numbers”, I had to use my judgement on altitude, power, and flap settings. I didn’t judge very well, there wasn’t a VASI on the runway I was using, and I made the approach very low. I was uncomfortably close to the tree tops off the end of the field. I had lost my ability to judge approaches.

We flew 9DS to Joliet (JOT), said “hi” to the numerous deer who gathered to watch me, and I shot a lot of landings. I didn’t count, but credited myself with 8 for the entire trip as that number was on the low end of my guesses.

I bounced every landing. Every one. Because I wasn’t cheating. I was working on getting my technique better, so I was fully cutting the power at the appropriate time and working on my flair to arrest the descent so as not to bounce. I was never quite aggressive enough on the flair. Back in the “real world” when I’m flying, I leave a trickle of power in until touch down, so I’m gentler on my flair than—apparently—I should be.

My last couple of take-off and landings at JOT were well after sunset and it was dark. Good night practice. I’m happy to report that my night landings were identical to my day landings (yes, that does mean that I bounced them), so I’m consistent and not succumbing to night illusions.

Finally, we departed JOT. At 700 AGL on upwind, Pete pulled the power and I looked straight ahead at a large patch of black ground in front of me. I tried to remember what was there, but did a quick calculation that it didn’t matter—I should turn back to the runway. Just as I reached that conclusion, Pete said “let’s see if we can make the runway”. I pitched down for best glide and made a steep left turn. I lined up with the runway and, seeing that I was high (!), threw in full flaps. I think I would have landed on the final 1/3 of the runway and overrun the end. Pete said he would have liked to see me put in a slip, perform s-turns, or just waddle my wings to get down faster. Me too, but I’m comfortable with slips and—while I was high for making the runway—I was too low to feel comfortable putting in a slip. And slips don’t help much on the DA40 anyway. Feh. I need to practice this more, maybe in a simulator. So now I know: about 650 AGL is the magic number for me to get the DA40 back to the runway if my engine dies after T/O.

So, I put in power, retracted flaps to T/O, returned to the night sky, and turned home to MDW.

Camping and Turf Fields

2006-08-07T00:15:00.000-05:00

I missed my rental today. I completely forgot that I had the plane on Sunday night from 8pm to 10pm to complete some night landings to get night current for carrying passengers. I feel like such an idiot. I’ll call Midway Aviators tomorrow and find out if there are consequences and what they might be.

During the time I was supposed to be flying, I was at home looking online for a fly-in, camp-out destination. Unlike the very useful restaurant reviews at 100 Dollar Hamburger, their reviews on fly-in camping opportunities are less than helpful. I’m a big fan of the new Adventure Pilot site because it is well designed and has numerous useful features. Unfortunately, the site is relatively new so there aren’t many reviews of camp grounds in the upper Midwest. And I found at least one review that was inaccurate: according to all the Web sites I’ve found, Mackinaw Island does not have camping areas, so AP has it mislabeled. (If anyone knows otherwise, please leave a comment.) So I needed to do my own research.

I finally settled on Rock Island State Park in Door County, Wisconsin, about 3 hours away by plane. (Google Map of the island.) To non-pilots, it is only accessible by two ferry rides: one from the mainland to Washington Island (a destination in and of itself), then another from Washington Island to Rock Island. However, pilots can fly into Washington Island Airport (2P2), which has two turf strips, skipping one ferry ride.

Wait. Turf strips. The longest of which is only 2,200 feet. Uhm...

As it turns out, all camp sites are booked full on the weekends until late September. (I have to check that the park is still open to camping after mid-September.) Between now and then, I’ll need to practice landing on real turf fields to decide if I’m comfortable landing on turf and taking off on only 2,200 feet of turf. I scheduled a lesson with Pete next Monday (August 14th) to get that practice. I’ll let you know how it goes.