Rob's Flying Blog

Fall Flying 2009

2009-07-06T09:16:00.001-07:00

As you can see I haven't posted any flying related blogs for quite some time.

As it stands right know I plan on getting my currency again this September and then resume flying again after that.

Have a great summer everyone.

Rob

Flying 2009

2009-06-05T17:22:00.000-07:00

This year I haven't done any flying... many things contributed to this, but sufficed to say I do intend to get back at it in September.

I'll likely take a couple of trips with my old flight instructor to get everything current again and then I'll make some new posts.

This lack of flying does not mean that I haven't been busy though... I do have a new toy to spend my money on... my wife is starting to refer to my hobbies as a "bucket list".

I say "life is short, don't forget to live it !".

Flying in August

2008-09-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

I went for a flight recently with my friend Jamie. This is the same Jamie whose girlfriend had a mild panic attack last summer when we went flying.

This time it was just me and him and we had a great time. We flew east for a change and watched the Wood Islands ferry depart. It was fairly easy to spot from 20 miles away since it was basically a big white dot on a earth tone canvass, we were cruising at 3,000 ft.

I let Jamie take the controls and he did a fairly decent job of keeping us straight and level, next I had him do some gentle turns. I took back control and climbed to 4,000 ft, we then did some steep turns and stalls for practice. On the way back to the airport we dropped down to 1,000 ft to get a better look at the little communities we were flying over.

My landing was pretty good, it looked for a moment that it was going to be a "solid one", but I flared her out at just he right time and we gently touched the mains down with a light chirp.

I gotta do this more often.

Flying in July

2008-07-05T07:30:00.001-07:00

Just got back from another local sight seeing flight with my brother and sister in-laws.

This was the first time either on them had been in a small aircraft. The flight went well, both of them were great passengers.

I took them along the beaches found on our north shore, then we switched over to Summerside unicom (which surprisingly answered my call) and did a loop over Summerside. Next we visited the confederation bridge and ended out flight with tour of the Charlottetown harbor.

It was a smooth morning for flying, with just a little distant haze.

Ordered a headset today

2008-06-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

I finally broke down and bought a headset today.

It was tough trying to decide which one to purchase but after reading some reviews I ordered a pair of DRE-1000s.

Now, this is a very entry level headset but it has received some very good reviews and for the money seem to be quite a good deal. I figured that I go cheap and purchase a (passenger) set first, that way I can give them a demo and if I'm happy with them I'll get another set for myself, or if I'm not, I'll upgrade to a higher end pair for myself.

The rational behind this is that I want to have two headsets of my own when I go flying, this will hopefully keep me from rummaging through the other aircraft at the school to find headsets for everyone.

Keep in mind that I'm still just renting and most of my flights are usually an hour or so. The headsets that I currently use are provided by the school free of charge - which is pretty nice deal as I understand most places charge a fee. The downside is that some of the sets are better than others, one time I had to swap the set out that I ended up with in order to improve/enable communication with the tower.

Up, Up and Away !

2008-05-17T16:09:00.000-07:00

I booked a flight for Saturday morning with one of the new instructors at the flying school for a check out flight. It seems that since the school has added some additional staff my old instructor Dave no longer works weekends.

I've never been flying with Greg before but he always seemed to be a pretty easy going with a good sense of humor. I preflighted the aircraft and when Greg arrived we fired her up and finished up the preflight checks. During the magneto checks one of the spark plugs turned out to be fouled and it took a few extra minutes on the apron running Fern leaned out at a high power setting before she burned off the carbon deposits.

We took off and did a few circuits, it was a nice day and rather busy with two of the school's students in the pattern with us, us in the 172 and them in a 150 or 152. We ran our circuits a little larger than normal to account for the small differences in speed. We then departed to the training area located to the north east and did some upper air work review, my slow flight was text book bang on. Did some stalls and steep turns and finally we returned to the airport and did a crosswind landing on the inactive for practice. Greg was cool with me using my preferred crab method.

When then joined the active circuit and my final landing of the day was unusually "firm". Greg commented that, "at least we know we're down". I said something about how that sucked a big one.

As we were taxiing back to the apron Greg said that everything was great and he'd sign me off so that I now have my rental privileges back.

I'm looking forward to the summer... if it ever arrives on the East coast.

Back in the saddle again... soon.

2008-04-26T13:21:00.000-07:00

I dropped into the airport this afternoon and booked a "Shake the rust off" flight with one of the instructors for next Sat. I could just get checked out in the circuit but I want to also review some upper air work etc. I'll hit the books and probably read some of my older blogs to help me get refreshed.

I haven't been doing any flying of my own for the past four months, but I have been doing a lot of the commercial kind of flying though, but that really doesn't count does it?

I'll keep you all posted.

Air Canada makes it right

2008-02-10T07:11:00.000-08:00

I went out last night to the local airport to pick up my newly repaired bag. After a few minutes the local ticket agent comes back with what I thought was my bag but it's not actually. It seems that the handle on the old bag was far too damaged for repair so they have replaced it with a brand new bag, which is of slightly better quality than my original.

I am no longer ticked off, and they have been taken off my (won't give this company my business unless there is absolutely no alternative) boycott list.

Flying on the big iron

2008-01-22T13:48:00.000-08:00

Last week I had to do some flying of the commercial kind, my destination was New Orleans. Obviously since there are no direct connections from Charlottetown to the "Big Easy", I had to make a couple of stops on the way down, via Montreal and Dulles.

I arrived at the airport very late, (eight minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave - damn taxi). I checked my bag and since I was very late I obviously needed to be punished so all I received from the customer service agent was my boarding pass for the first leg of my trip. Once I landed in Montreal I would have to leave the "secure zone" and go out to the United Airway's desk, stand in line and get the rest of my boarding passes.

I took my punishment quietly and thanked the ticket counter guy... at least he let me on. Since I was the only passenger in the whole entire airport that wasn't already on the aircraft I went quickly through security, they were all shaking their heads at me in disbelief, but they "processed" me quickly, I finally boarded the aircraft (a 50 passenger regional jet) and the door was immediately shut behind me... Whew I made it!

The flight down was fine and before we knew it we were in New Orleans and running around in light T-shirts. My checked bag was MIA but United assured me that it would be on the next aircraft which was due in two hours and that they would deliver it to my hotel that night (They kept their word).

The week went fast and before I knew it it was time to head north again. Everything went well until we got to Halifax. The weather coming into Halifax was crappy and the rough ride was making some of the passengers firmly hold the seat-backs in front of them. To me it felt like we were actually flying for the first time in the whole trip. It's amazing how smooth commercial travel is, you only have to fly small Cessnas for a short while to appreciate it!

We landed without any further drama and since we had a couple hours to kill we grabbed supper, for airport food it wasn't all that bad actually. Our Air Canada flight was scheduled for 6:15 but it got delayed due to a mechanical reasons, now this is what flying in Canada is all about! We finally boarded a replacement aircraft some three hours late. (Air Canada did not even offer us a complimentary coffee for our three hour wait, - great customer service). We rather quickly departed the airport and about 20 minutes later we arrived back home in Charlottetown, but we soon found out that our checked baggage didn't make the flight. I can only guess that Air Canada was in such a hurry to at least keep this aircraft on schedule that they didn't have time to load all our bags, which we had checked some five hours earlier at the Air Canada desk in Halifax.

So I and about ten other passengers filled out lost luggage reports and were assured that our bags would be tracked down and delivered to us. The ticket man told me that I could actually go to the Air Canada website and "just follow the links" to check on its location from the comfort of my computer.

The next day after wasting ten minutes trying to find the magically hard to find lost baggage web page, all it told me when I entered my information was that it didn't know where the heck my bag was. (Good luck trying to find the "link" - I finally gave up and did a key word search).

Literally 15 minutes later the Air Canada rep called me to tell me that he had my bag at the local airport and that I'd have it in a few minutes. This was great news but it kinda left me perplexed regarding Air Canada's bag tracking application called WorldTracer, it would seem that it couldn't locate my bag even when it was only a few miles away, let alone in the whole wide world. A great waste of time disguised as customer service if you ask me.

When my suitcase finally arrived at my home the main handle was completely ripped off and hanging by one side. I can only guess that the Air Canada's guy must have assumed that this was the condition in which they had received it. A few minutes later when I opened it all my clothes were completely soaked, I'm not talking damp I'm talking soaking wringing wet all the way to the middle of the suitcase. It was raining the night before and they must have left my bag out in the rain for the whole five hours! Thank god I left my training material in a plastic bag or all of it would have been destroyed. Great customer service.

Back on the Air Canada's website I finally track down the information that I need in order to get my bag fixed. It seemed that I have to take my bag back out to the airport and have the local ticket guy inspect it in person. Talk about going in circles. Now I get to waste more time, gas and money on parking. I approach the desk and present my bag for "personal inspection". He looks at it and then goes into the back office and quickly returns with a form which he starts filling out. After a couple of minutes I asked him what he's doing, since up to this point I am completely in the dark. He tells me that they are going to ship my bag across the country to the Air Canada repair shop and have it repaired. He hands me a piece of paper and tells me that I should have it back in a couple of weeks.

I take one long last look at and I have to refrain from waving good bye... I don't beleive that I'll ever see it again.

To sum it all up my trip was great until I got back to Canada, or should I say Air Canada. Then I waited for three hours in Halifax, finally got a damaged bag containing completely soaked clothing, and a encore trip back out to the airport to send my bag on another trip to the AIr Canada repair facility. Let's not forget that there's a chance that I might have to go back out to the airport and eventually pick it up again.

Next time I might drive to the closest American carrier just to avoid Air Canada in the future.

Flying with my daughter

2007-11-18T17:51:00.000-08:00

Today I decided to take my 14 year old daughter up flying.

Breea joined air cadets this past fall and she seems to have an interest in becoming a pilot. I thought that I'd take her up and give her a chance at taking the controls for a few minutes to feel what it's like to control an airplane in flight. She has been up flying with me before but never in the front seat.

After a few minutes she got used to the yoke and how the aircraft handled, she was able to do some easy turns in no time.

It was a great flight and we took a few pics for the old family album.

A little bit of picture taking

2007-10-19T15:00:00.001-07:00

A fellow that I work with has been after me to take him out to his cottage to take some pics of it for his rental site. He built it last year and people book it during the summer months to spend a little vacation time on our beautiful island.

The day we chose for our little photo excursion was fairly nice, we all met at the airport at a predetermined time. I had booked the aircraft out for a couple of hours as his cottage was situated about 50 miles away. He brought his cousin along so the rental cost was split three ways, this was going to be one of my cheapest flights to date!

I preflighted the aircraft, she needed some fuel so I topped the tanks up to 3/4, which left us about 100 pounds under our max weight. Before startup Terry pointed out on my GFA exactly where his cottage was located. In order for him to get some decent pics we'd be flying low and slow, I put him in the back so he could take the shots via my open window. I then studied the chart looking for anything that could be a danger to us, I made mental note that there was a 65o ft cell tower about 4 miles north of his cottage.

I expected the flight to be slightly choppy due to the variable cloud cover, but it was surprisingly smooth. We had a nice tailwind so our flight time to his cottage was only about 20 minutes, it was easy to find. We first made a simple pass at 1,500 ft so I could check out the area throughly, the cell tower was easy to spot and I pointed it out to my passengers.

Since the area was surrounded by wheat fields an emergency landing area wasn't going to be a problem in the remote chance something went wrong with the engine. The wind was from the ten o'clock with the sun at twelve. (I didn't tell my pax that in addition to inspecting the area for safety I was also scouting for a good place to do a forced approach). Everything looked good so I trimmed the aircraft for 80 mph and left the flaps up since they would interfere with the view.

The next next 20 minutes were spent cranking and banking in order to get the perfect shots. I have to tell you that there was some work involved with keeping the aircraft steady in a medium turn, making sure that I stayed at 600 ft AGL, being careful not to bleed off any of my airspeed while scanning the sky for anything that might do us harm. It was also a lot of fun too!

With the photo mission successfully completed we visited a small fishing town nearby and then turned for home. The return trip took considerable more time due to the headwind but it was a beautiful day for sightseeing and I took advantage of it.

About 25 minutes later I called the airport to tell them that we were inbound for the zone from the east but that we'd be doing a loop over Charlottetown first and that we'd be entering the circuit from the south. Radio replied with the winds and the active runway.

My landing was perfect with a couple of chirps. (I floated a tad longer than I wanted too but I still got some nice comments from my pax). 1.6 hours for my log book at only 1/3 the cost... gotta love it!

Nervous Passenger

2007-09-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I took a good buddy of mine and his girlfriend flying for the first time. During part of the year he works in the Alberta oil patch, and as such he flies back and forth. He's also done some flying in small helicopters many years ago as well, so a quick trip up with me in a 172 is no biggie for him. He told me that his girlfriend was a nervous flier, but that she had flown commercially before. He said she should be fine.

I met them both at the airport and they watched as I preflighted the aircraft. My friend asked me some questions about the aircraft and flying which I was happy to answer. A few minutes later with our run-up done we were off. My buddy sat up front with me and his girlfriend was in the back seat by herself.

During the climb out I glanced back to check on her and noticed that she had her eyes firmly closed and she was lying down across the empty seat. Since there was a low level of turbulence I told her she she should sit up and look at the horizon or she'd likely get motion sickness.

She did sit up but then a few minutes later I noticed that she was quietly crying. Of course I immediately offered to return to the airport but my buddy reassured her and she seemed to regain her composer again. For the rest of the flight I could hear her let out a scream every time we hit some chop. I reassured her numerous times that everything was fine and that the light chop was normal. She also didn't like any kind of turn at all so I did all of my turns with very light bank and some rudder. (No banking over and pointing anything out to them). I let my buddy take the controls for a few seconds but he quickly gave them back to me since his girlfriend had starting screaming continuously. Thankfully her mic wasn't picking any of it up.

We finally returned to the airport and her last scream was when I made a normal turn from base to final. Sorry, my bad. I taxied us back to the apron and shut down. We all hopped out and then she thanked me with a smile... which caught me completely by surprise.

My buddy said that he had a great time and that we should do it again sometime!

Were we on the same aircraft?

No.... it wasn't me.

2007-08-28T09:07:00.000-07:00

It seems that last Monday a small Cessna from the local flight school landed long on the runway and missed its intended taxiway. It had to back track in order to exit the runway, as a result a Regional Jet CRJ-200 had to perform a "go-around". There was no close call, no miscommunication, drama or anything amiss, no one at any time was in danger. The local flight service specialist saw that the Cessna had landed long and simple told (suggested) that the commercial do an overshoot to give the Cessna a chance to clear the runway.

While this is not common, it happens all the time and it's not a big deal. I personally have been asked to extend my downwind or land short and take the first taxiway many times, and I have been happy to accommodate the commercial traffic. The commercial pilots have also thanked me over the radio on numerous occasions for letting them jump the queue.

This one time it didn't work out. It was probably a low time student or a infrequent renter that thought he could get down and out of the way in time for the Regional, but it didn't work out that way. No close call, not a safety issue, only a simple inconvinence.

The next day the local paper then ran this headline on the front page, "Commercial aircraft aborts P.E.I. landing". While technically it's true, it is very misleading to the general non aviation public. Everyone that read the paper and knew me then asked if it was me (it wasn't), like the Cessna had done something wrong. I take the time to explain that it was the Cessna pilot that had the right of way and that this wasn't considered an incident but simply an inconvience. No TSB investigation.

In the story the reporter asked the airport spokesperson if this incident could have been avoided if an air traffic controller was in the tower instead of a flight service specialist. I couldn't help but laugh when I read that part. I don't know how an air traffic controller could have helped the pilot land short unless they have type on magical powers that I don't know about.

Flying the warm skies of PEI

2007-08-09T07:19:00.000-07:00

Me and a couple of buddies got up for a flight last weeknd. This was the first time that either of them had flown in a small non-commercial aircraft.

It was about 30c on the apron and we nearly perished from the heat until I fired her up to complete my preflight checks. We taxied with my door open into position and then a few minutes later we were climbing out at a paltry 600 ft per minute. Fern did not like the heat one bit and her performance was way below normal. A few times during the flight I actually had to fly with my window open to increase the airflow in the cabin.

We hit some of the tourist attractions located on our north shore and I circle a few of them so Dean could get some shots. It was a hot hazy day and the pics reflected this fact. I let Dean take the controls for a bit but he wanted me to do all the flying in case he did something wrong, (he admitted that he wife told him not to touch anything).

When then pushed on to Summerside to give Dean a chance to take some shots of his house, then we swung down to the Confederation bridge and finally we returned to Charlottetown where I did a picture perfect landing. (Due to the pax load, nearly full tanks and hot conditions I found that I had to leave more then normal throttle on to reduce our descent rate on final).

Another great flight and both of my buddies want to go again next month when it's a tad cooler and less hazy for picture taking.

Flying the Friendly Skies

2007-07-25T06:38:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of recent posts... I've been very busy.

I recently did a lot of flying but of the commercial kind. I had to do some travelling for work and I have to say that the lack of bouncing around while flying on the "big iron" took some getting used too!

I had six flights during one week, two of them stuck out. At the end of one leg the landing reminded me of some of my earlier attempts at mastering the flare. The landing itself wasn't actually harsh, but we did get a nice bounce with some sustained flight before the Dash-8 settled down a second time onto the Halifax runway. I suspect that the first officer might have been at the controls, and as we taxied in he was getting some "advice" from his understanding and patient captain.

Another of my flights was on a rather large Canadian carrier, and it left me shaking my head. We were flying from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland on a new Embraer 190. It was miserable outside, low clouds, fog and a constant rain. We boarded the aircraft on time, and sat at the gate for about 15 minutes. The captain came on the intercom to tell us that they were having some problems with the flight controls and that they were working to resolve the issue. He also said that they were going to power down the aircraft for 8 minutes and then bring everything back up. (It sounded like they were trying to reboot a computer or something, but eight minutes seemed like a long time). Fourty five minutes later the captain told us they had sorted the problems out and that we were finally departing.

We were pushed away from the gate and then each engine was started and began to spool up. We sat for about ten minutes on the apron then the captain came back on the intercom and said that they were having the same problems again with the flight controls and that we were getting pushed back to the gate. It seems that the aircraft does an automatic flight control test to make sure that everything is working as expected, but the flight control self test system kept throwing out error codes.

The captain then went on to point out that a lack of flight control was a very serious matter, and that if you took a poll of pilots and asked each of them which they'd rather lose on take off, an engine or the flight controls, every pilot would choose to lose the engine, as the aircraft cannot be controlled without the flight controls working properly. (His words not mine). Even the non aviation folks on board could see the rather simple logic of his statement, I just shook my head. The passengers were starting to become worried, I could see it in their faces.

We were towed back to the gate, then we sat there for another hour or so as various maintenance people gathered in the cockpit, some of them left only to return a few minutes later. Another aircraft reboot, (eight more minutes without power or AC) then suddenly an announcement by the captain that he "thought" that the problems had been resolved and that we would be departing momentarily and that the cabin crew should prepare the cabin for departure. Again his words not mine!

This latest announcement cause some interesting conversations amongst my fellow passengers. I thought that one of the main jobs a pilot has was to instill confidence in the safety of the aircraft and crew, this latest announcement did the exact opposite. Basically he told us earlier that the loss of the flight control is extremely serious... and now he's telling us that he "thinks" it's fixed, so we're leaving. I remember one person commenting that this was their first test flight.

My travelling companion tried to lighten up the mood a bit and leaned forward (he was in the row behind me) to ask me if it was true that it's better to lose an engine then the flight controls? I replied that the aircraft that I fly only has one engine to begin with and I rather lose it then my flight controls... but that he shouldn't worry since we only need about half on them working anyways. We taxied into position and immediately took off without any further announcements from the cockpit.

The flight itself went well and after the first few minutes of silence the people around me started to relax again. I found out later from some of the people in the office that I was visiting that they had also been delayed in the past with this very same issue on same type of aircraft.

Obviously I made it home in one piece...ahh the joys of flying.

My second flight as a pilot

2007-06-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

Since I will be travelling again this weekend I booked the aircraft for 5:30 today for some local sightseeing. My eight year old son and his best buddy were my intended passengers. Bruce, the father of my son's best friend wanted to talk to me as he was dropping his son off at our house. To say that Bruce is a nervous flyer would be a huge understatement, he is extremely scared of flying. After a few minutes discussing it I convinced Bruce to come with us. (He figured that if his son was going and if god forbid something happened and he wasn't there, he wouldn't be able to live with himself). I agreed but told him that they were more likely to get hurt walking across the street.

I had my work cut out for me today, was I up to the task?

They followed us to the airport and Bruce watched as I preflighted the aircraft, asking a thousand questions which I happily answered. He was not impressed with the fact that Fern was thirty years old. I reassured him that although her paint and interior needs a little TLC, that she was safe where it counted.

Ten minutes later we were climbing up from runway 21 for what turned out to be a great flight. Bruce actually was surprised with how beautiful the view was from 1,500 ft. Thankfully the flying was smooth as glass for the whole flight. (I can't think of another time it was so smooth). Bruce actually seemed pretty relaxed when I asked him a few times during the flight how he was doing.

We visited a few local towns basically in a 30 mile circle east of the airport, returning along the beaches that line our north shore. Touchdown was perfect with a light chirp from both main tires. (I actually had to leave a touch of throttle on due to the hot day and loaded aircraft). The school must have fixed the front wheel dampener since it didn't shimmy at all as we coasted down from flying to taxiing speed.

The day was perfect and so was the flight, the boys as expected had a blast. Bruce commented that he had a great time and would love to come flying with me again. Our wifes were talking tonight and my wife told me that Bruce had some really nice comments about the flight and my abilities as a pilot. His wife still can't believe that he went with us, and that he'd actually go again!

My first flight as a pilot

2007-05-27T16:03:00.000-07:00

My schedule has been crazy the last couple of weeks, and it's not going to get much better anytime soon.

I booked Fern for a nice local site seeing flight with my three oldest kids as my first passenegers. We arived at the airport on time and Fern was ready to go (full fuel and oil).... nice! I got my two youngest kids situated in the back with their seatbelts and headsets, then my oldest daughter and I hopped in. A couple of minutes later with some fiddling with the radio we were off.

The winds were basically calm so I choose the nearest runway and we took off into the clear blue sky. We flew to the north shore then switched to 126.7 to touch base with some local traffic, then I swapped back over to Ch'town. We followed the island's north shore west for twenty miles or so then I decided to do a touch and go in Summerside.

The local unicom was deserted but I still broadcasted my intentions and position anyway. My touchdown was fine but the front wheel dampener certainly needs some attention. We took off again and this time followed the south shore back to Ch'town, the kids got a great view of the Confederation Bridge.

I had my oldest daughter Brittaney take the controls for a few seconds, she was not enthustiastic about it, I suspect she was a bit nervous although she'd never admit it. The two youngest kids were ready for some aerobatics but the newly licenced pilot (aka me) vetoed that request, I did give them a couple of minor rollercoasters, which they loved.

We turned towards the airport over Ch'town harbour and my straight in for runway 03 was nice, I was a tad high but we still touched down on the thousand foot markers. The front wheel made its presence known again as soon as I released the elevators. A short backtrack to taxiway Charlie and a few minutes later we were on the apron.

My first flight as a licenced pilot was in the books with 1.1 hours on the hobbs. What a great day for flying, my kids loved it.

Life is good!

Flight Test Complete

2007-05-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

After Saturday's weather related cancellation, Wedsnesday afternoon turned out to be absolutely beautiful. My Flight test was booked for 12:30.

I arrived at the airport about 10 AM and spent a few minutes going over a few things with Dave. It seemed that the new instructure that Dave was going to send with me called in sick so Dave would be flying over with me to Debert after all. I printed up all the weather info that I needed and then finished my cross country calculations for the mock cross country that I would fly during my test.

I then went out and filled the tanks on Fern and preflighted her. Dave showed up and we lifted off albeit 15 minutes late. The trip to Debert (a former military airbase) took about 45 minutes, we were cruising at 4,500 ft which made it easy to spot from about 25 miles out. Dave had his non aviation GPS with him and I looked it over while we were enroute. It gave all the basic info one would expect, ground speed, time and distance to destination and our location on the track. He said that I can pick one up (non aviation) fairly cheap and simply type in the airport locations using longitude and latitude. He also went over some of the additional features that other purpose built aviation GPS have and then reminded me that a portable GPS was something that was nice to have, but only in addition to a proper cross country plan and maps etc. (I actually had my map out and I was tracking our progress the old fashion way). Ten minutes later I made a crappy landing on runway 27, I chalked it up to being rusty. I followed Dave's directions and taxied us over to the local flight school.

Once inside Dave introduced me to the examiner and we all chatted for a few minutes. I gathered everything up that I needed then Stu and I went into the class room and closed the door while Dave chatted with some of the locals. I have to say that Stu's laid back attitude was certainly a huge relief, I could tell within the first minute or so that we'd get along well. We went over my paperwork, student licence, medical, registration and insurance etc. He then explained how the flight test was structured and asked me if I had any questions, I didn't.

We began the flight test with a question and answer session. I was asked a bunch of questions to which I knew most of the answers, but for some I had to refer to journey log and POH. Then he gave me a scenario and then asked if I could land at a particular airport in our 172. I had to refer to the CFS (Canadian Flight Suppliment) for the airport runway info and since I had somehow had forgotten my nice laminated crosswind chart, I had to use the one that was in the CFS. Next he looked over my map and cross country sheets then asked me some more questions.

Stu seemed happy with all my responses so we packed our stuff up and went out to pre-flight the aircraft, then we hopped in and I did the pax brief. Stu gave me directions to the run-up area where I finished the run-up portion of the preflight. On the runway I completed my pax brief with the, "In the event of" speech prior to takeoff. A couple of minutes later we were climbing to cruise altitude. We called leaving the circuit and then contacted Halifax terminal to let them know that we were entering their class "D" airspace.

I thought to myself that this was going pretty good so far... then asked myself what I had forgetten..... ahh yes, the cruise checklist. I told Stu what I was doing and he replied good. Then he asked me where my set heading point was and I pointed it out with my finger, it was still a few minutes away. Once over my SHP point I wrote down the time then changed course slightly, computed my numbers and did my cruise checklist. Stu asked me a few questions and seemed happy that I actually knew how to get from point A to point B, then he asked me to turn North which I did, then he handed me a set of foggles.

Next up was some instrument work, straight and level, some turns and finally some recoveries from unusual attitudes. I took the foggles off and then we did some slow flight, power off and on stalls, then a climbing stall in a turn, we followed this up with some steep turns to such and such heading. He then took control and made some steep turns to the left and right, then asked me to scan to the left for traffic, which I did. A few seconds later we were in a steep spiral dive to our right as he handed the controls back to me. My recovery was quick and correct, I didn't forget to use the rudder this time! After each manoeuver he made a mark on my score sheet.

Stu then announced that there was something wrong with the airport at Debert and that we needed to divert to another airport, which he specified. What do I do now? I showed him where we were on the map, and then pointed out some of the geographical features that I would follow to get me to the diversion airport. I quickly calculated the distance, flying time, ETA along with the fuel requirements and provided Stu with my results verbally, to which he replied with a simple "good" and then said, "lets go there". After a few minutes of looking outside and enjoying the scenary he unexpectly pulled the throttle back to idle and said, "engine failure".

I pulled the carb heat on and looked at my altitude and said out loud "5 minutes" (glide time from 2,700 ft). I trimmed for 80 mph while scanning for a safe place to land. I did my simulated pax briefing and mayday calls, then jumped into problem solving and simulated restart procedure while zigzaggin my way to my selected touchdown point (sod farm). I went to forty degrees of flaps once I was positive we'd make the field. Stu asked me to over shoot at three hundred feet. I was pretty happy with my performance, failing to make the field during the simulated engine failure is an automatic and immediate fail.

We then climbed back up and I turned south again per Stu's directions, a couple of minutes later he mentioned that clouds were coming down and a safe return to the airport is not possible, what do I do now? I replied that his scenario had 'precautionary landing" written all over it. I said that I was going to return to the sod farm which I selected for my forced approach. We arrived back a few minutes later and I did a high pass, talking my way through the "GLOWS" checklist out loud, then I did a low pass and climbed back up to circuit height to run the circuit and land. Stu then asked me what I do different during the precautionary if my engine was going bad on me, I responded with what I've been taught, to which he replied "good" and then asked me to head back to the airport.

We joined straight in on downwind for 27, Stu requested a soft field landing using the intersection of the crossing runways as my touchdown target. My landing wasn't great but it wasn't bad either, I touched down exactly where he wanted. Next he requested a short field takeoff, which is what I did. On downwind he asked me to do a normal landing and said that this would be a full stop. My normal landing went very well, practically a greaser. (Finally started getting the rust out).

We taxied back to the apron and I pulled out the checklist and shut Fern down. I thought that we were done so I started to open my door but Stu asked me to hold up a second as he still had some questions for me regarding emergency checklists. He asked a few what-ifs and I rattled off the memorized answers, which caused him to make some more marks on my score sheet.

He then asked me if I had completed my written test yet, I replied that I had. Then he held out his hand and said, "Well congratulations, you've passed your flight test... and now your a Pilot!". I shook his hand and thanked him with a huge smile.

We went inside, Dave was standing on the other side of the lobby about 15 feet away looking at me to see how I did, his expression reminded me that of a concerned parent. If I didn't know better, I'd say waiting for us to return had stressed him out a bit. For my part I kept my expression completely neutral and looked at the floor while I followed Stu over to the counter. Then I said in a voice loud enough for Dave to hear, "Well Stu... all I can say is that I blame my poor test results completely on my flight instructor", Stu replied, "I'd have to agree with you on that". Poor Dave couldn't take it anymore and finally asked me straight out how I did, I waited a few seconds then finally replied with a thumbs up and a big smile.

I paid my flight test fee and then the three of us went back to the same classroom as before and went over my test results. I got a copy of my score sheet and we chatted for a few more minutes then Dave and I thanked Stu again and we headed for home.

And that kiddos was Rob's flight test.

For those of you that are bound to ask the classic question of "How many hours did my PPL take?".

Dual 35.1
Solo 12.7
T & L 108

I'm now what I always wanted to be... a pilot.

Flight Test Complete

2007-05-11T16:09:00.000-07:00

Details to follow soon...

Flight test rescheduled

2007-05-05T17:08:00.000-07:00

The weather forced my flight test to be cancelled this morning. The earliest I can get another booking is for next Wednesday afternoon.

Briefing update, flight test booked!

2007-04-29T17:14:00.000-07:00

I met with Dave last Friday morning and went over the questions that he had giving me. Then we went over some of the stuff that I might be asked during my flight test.

This weeked sucked weather wise but Saturday looks like it might be nice enough to fly to the mainland airport where the TC examiner is located. (We need at least a 6,000 ft to get across the straight VFR). We'll fly to Debert, (45 minutes one way) then I'll meet with the examiner and take the flight test, and if everything goes well I'll fly back home a licenced pilot.

I've never been to Debert before so I'll be flying out of an airport and over terra firma during the test that I've never seen before, also we'll be skirting the Halifax terminal control area. It should be quite interesting to say the least, let hope my sense of direction doesn't fail me... I'd hate to get lost and not be able to find my way back to the airport!

As always I'm walking into this challenge with the standard "10 foot tall and bullet proof attitude". I'd hate to be humbled now..... I think that I hear "Mr. Reality" knocking at the front door!

I'll let you know how I make out...

Final Flight Test Review

2007-04-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

There were a few outstanding items that Dave wanted to touch on one more time before unleashing me on the poor TC examiner. We booked this flight for Thurday afternoon and it turned out to be the nicest day yet this spring.

In preparation for this flight I did another mock cross country, this time taking Dave's advice into consideration. My set heading point was 9 miles from the airport and this would give me plenty of time to climb to altitude and get everything trimmed up. My first checkpoint was exactly 10 miles further, and it was easily identified (I used a cove along the south shore). At this checkpoint I took out the whiz wheel and did the ground speed and revised the time calculations then did the aircraft checks. (reset heading indicator, carb heat, lean mixture and check the engine temps). Dave was happy.

We then jumped into some instrument upset recoveries. I have to tell you that if you've never had you head down and eyes closed while some madman is tossing the aircraft around in the sky you've got to give it a try. Not for those with weak stomachs! My recoveries were correct and quick. Dave was happy

Next was a spiral dive. I recovered quickly and correctly, making sure to avoid any torsional stresses. Old Cessnas don't mind being shaking and stirred, but they don't like being twisted.

Dave then asked me for the checklist, I didn't know why he wanted it but while I was searching in the side pocket for it he hauled the power back and announced with a smile that the engine had just failed. I did not have any problems with this during my mock flight test but Dave feels that you can never get enough practise. I trimmed and found a nice place to land, then did a simulated mayday call and pax brief. I decided at about 1,200 feet that while the original field that I had chosen was nice, there was a nicer one two fields over which I decided to land in. As long as I can make my original I'm allowed to change my landing spot without occuring a penality. (I went to the TC website and looked at the benchmark document that examiners use to test student pilots). I easily made my field and Dave was happy.

Dave then asked for me to take us back to the airport. I hauled out my map and proceeded to determine our exact location, then told him that I was going to go north a bit and follow route 2 home. (I thought he was testing my deversion skills). He looked at me and said OK or you can just take us back. It turned out he wasn't testing me he just wanted to head back.

During our flight back we talked, he said that I that everything went very well and that I'm ready for my flight test. The end is finally in sight!

We now need to get together and go over the test questions that he gave me a few weeks ago. I'm going to complete the few remaining ones this weekend and meet with him, hopefully I can get my flight test book for late next week.

Mock flight test complete

2007-04-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

Finally everything lined up and we were able to get up for my mock flight test.

While I finished the paperwork for my pretend cross country to Moncton Dave played musical aircraft in the hanger, moving three and a tug to free the one we wanted. Dave returned to the office and then I went out to preflighted the aircraft and pull her over to the fuel pumps to top her up, a few minutes later were off.

To make a long story short, there was much that went very well today and a few things that I need to brush up on. Dave did not provide me any feedback until after the flight.

We started off with my cross country. It turns out (after the fact) that my set heading point was too close to the airport and I should choose checkpoints that are easier to identify from the air, and my cross country log keeping needs more work too. Yes even flying has its paperwork. These issues are easily fixed.

We broke off the cross country and started with some slow flight, slow flight turns and then some power off and power on stalls, no problemo. Next up was steep turns, my first steep turn was perfect but during my second 360 I wandered from my starting altitude more than I wanted too, I corrected it but "all-seeing" Dave still caught it. I think what also screwed me up was the fact that I started my second turn with the altimeter at an odd number like 3, 430 instead of something more simple like 3,400.

Next he had my do some instrument work under the foggles, basically fly this heading at this altitude, now descend to this altitude etc., no problem. Now that I have my scan down pat and I keep it moving I find this kind of flying simple, no outside distractions.

Next we did some upset recovery work. I recovered each time quickly but during the first one the sun was directly in my eyes so I couldn't see anything with the glare coming from the foggles. I took my hand off the throttle to block out the sun during recovery, without adding throttle (hand blocking sun) I traded altitude for airspeed. Due to the issue with the sun Dave had me do another, during my second recovery I added only 1/2 throttle and without thinking traded height for airspeed again. (Both times he left me in a steep climb with airspeed quickly falling).

Dave then took over again and promptly put us into a spiral dive, I recovered fine without exceeding any important v-speeds, but Dave wants my recovery to be quicker and with more rudder.

About 30 minutes into the mock flight test we encountered a real problem with our radio, we could recieve fine but couldn't transmit. We checked all the obvious stuff, unplugged and replugged everything but nothing fixed it. Dave contacted the tower using his cell phone to update them on our radio situation and we continued on.

Dave then asked me what direction I would fly to get us back to the airport. I took out my map and pinpointed our current location, which was easy, then I used the airport's compass rose to compute a return heading home. Dave agreed that this was an easy way to do it but he wanted me to use geographical feature such as roads, high-tension power lines, railroad tracks or bodies of water to find my way back.

Dave then announced that we had a simulated engine problem, oil pressure was low and the temp was high. I throttle back a bit and did a precautionary landing in a grain field which went perfect, we overshot at a couple hundred feet. A few minutes later we had a complete mock engine failure, my forced approach was perfect as well. No feedback on either.

I followed the north coast back to an area north of the airport and then turned south to follow a road to the control zone. As we arrived back at the airport there was a large commecial jet getting ready to leave, we could hear the conversation. Getting clearance would take him a few more minutes so tower cleared us to land over our half functioning radio. Dave asked me to keep a tight circuit to speed things up and keep us from delaying the commercial.

Dave requested a short field landing on base so I dropped 40 degrees of flaps, throttle to idle and quickly trimmed for a 75 mph glide, we were coming in high on final due to the tight circuit. With full flaps and a full forward slip I brought us down rather quickly from our high approach on final, I came out of the slip at 20 feet to let everything stabalize again, then added just a hint of power to get us over the runway lights. We could have been easily stopped by 500 feet but I let her rollout to get us to our taxiway faster. Tower had called us on final to politely request that we clear the runway as soon as possible using taxiway charlie so the big commercial, with it clearance now approved, could get underway. Tower must have watched my textbook short field because they were on the radio telling us that we could take taxiway Bravo at our descretion, which is what I did. (I was very happy with this landing).

Back in the office a few minutes later Dave and I discussed how things went. As I outlined above there were a few things that he wants to be a little better so we've decided to do one more dual flight which will hopefully to wrap things up.

Looking back over this mock flight, knowing what still needs a little work I feel quite confident that my flight test is just around the corner.

Going solo.

2007-03-28T11:58:00.000-07:00

Since Dave wasn't able to keep our booking for my mock flight test on Saturday, I went out on Sunday solo for some review. My flight was uneventful and I was able to practise all the basics.

I find that I still have a habit of coming in high on final during my precautionaries and forced approaches, I'm able to get down but I have to use forty degrees of flaps and a healthy forward slip. It's safe and fun, but probably not what the examiner will be looking for. My slow flight went much better this time, I was able to keep my A/S pegged at 60 mph and maintain my starting altitude without getting on the backside of the power curve.

A couple of things that I realized during my solo flight.

1) Flying alone is boring.

2) I must soon purchase a decent headset. The ones supplied by the school are free which is nice, but sometimes I end up with a crappy set which sucks. The headset that I had on today left me wondering afterwards if I had suffered permanent hearing lose. (The hum eventually went away).

I have rebooked my mock flight test for this upcoming Saturday, Dave's is booked up all week and this is the earliest I could get in.

This last part of my PPL training seems to be taking forever.

Mock flight test was scrubbed.

2007-03-24T13:04:00.000-07:00

Dave called while I was out this morning, my mock flight test was booked for the afternoon.

I called him on his cell, it turned out that he was in Nova Scotia with another student who was doing a commercial flight test. They were going to be late in returning so my mock flight test was scrubbed. I was going to go up anyways for some solo practise but the broken cloud layer was only 2,200 feet, so there really wasn't much I could practise. I guess I could have done some circuits and turns but what I want/need to practise is slow flight and stalls, as well as some forced and precautionary approaches.

Dave said that he'd call me back once he returned and had a chance to check his schedule for Sunday, but he didn't think that it looked good. I didn't hear back from him so I went out to the airport and booked Fern out for tomorrow at 2:30. I'm going to do some solo practise.

I'll keep you posted.