Dan’s Pilot Times

I finally got around to taking the FAA Private Pilot written knowledge test today and passed it!  With a score of 90%, I think that may qualify as heartily passed it, dare I say, even aced it?!  In any case, I was stressing much more about the exam than necessary, it really wasn’t bad at all.  You get 150 minutes (2.5 hours) to answer 60 multiple choice questions (each with 3 possible choices).  That was way more than enough time as I finished in about 50 minutes (and I took my time).  It’s a computerized testing system, with the ability to ‘mark’ questions and come back if need be.  So, I breezed through the 50 or so questions that I could answer instantly or with little/simple calculations.  The other 10 I came back to and worked about 6 of those with multi-step calculations, the remaining 4 I took confident educated guesses because I simply didn’t feel like working on them much more knowing I had likely passed with plenty of buffer.

I never took an official ground school class, just learning from the Gleim Publications books - the Pilot Handbook to learn the theory and rules, and the Private Pilot FAA Knowledge Test Prep book to prepare for this test.  As I mentioned in my last blog post, learning from books only cost me about $40 (verus $200-$300 for full ground school course).  I would definitely recommend these books, and the Pilot Handbook will be a great reference to check back on when needed in the future.

All that’s left now is about 1 more hour of standard solo practice flight time, and then my practical test!

As I’m nearing the end of my initial training journey, I figured I’d take a look back at what this whole endeavor is costing me.  Plus, all my friends and family keep asking: “How much does it cost to learn to fly?”  Well, here’s my answer!  Granted, I haven’t taken the test yet, so I’ve estimated the last few hours of flight training time (I hope I haven’t jinxed myself)…but here’s a solid picture of how much it cost me to learn to fly!

1. 44 total hours of plane time.  My flight club rental rates are VERY inexpensive and this is probably the most variable part of the equation for anyone figuring out how much it would cost them to fly.  But, in my case (and I’ve flown various planes in the club), the average cost per hour of flight time is $52/hour.  That includes fuel.  Total cost = $2,288.
2. 35 hours of instructor time.  That’s the ground instruction and time in the air with him.  He charges the fairly standard rate of $40/hr around Chicago.  Total cost = $1,400.
3. Pilot reference book, FAR/AIM, sectionals, E6B calculator, plotter, and study guide for written test.  Total cost = $90.
4. Headset.  Another huge variable cost, I bought a Flightcom 4DLX, a solid starter set.  You can check out my review here.  Obviously you can save costs here if you buy something used - I bought new.  Total cost = $120.

Grand Total = $3,898.

So, there you have it!  I figure I’m probably on the low end of full training costs, but if anyone knows there individual costs, put them below.

This past Thursday (July 3rd) was my Dad’s birthday.  Rather than get him another shirt, tie, or tool he’ll never use, I decided to take him for a flight - the last time he was in a small aircraft was over 30 years ago!  I had to get more simulated instrument time in anyway, so it helped make for a nice smooth flight for my father.  Although I would be flying with my instructor in the right seat (obviously, I don’t have my license yet), my Dad said he had great views from the back seat.  Actually, this was my first time piloting a C-172 as well (which I wanted to get a few hours logged before I finished my training).  So, all-in-all, this was the perfect opportunity to take my Dad up.

The flight went very smoothly.  I was a bit more nervous than usual since I’ve never taken anyone flying besides me or my instructor…but the plane and the weather cooperated.  The sky was beautiful (see some pictures), and we even got to fly over my house.  I could feel that the 172 had more power, especially during takeoff.  The added weight and power helped smooth things out a bit as well during cruise.  However, during my final pattern work at the end of the lesson, I could feel that the heavier plane reacts a bit more sluggishly - nothing big, but definitely noticeable.  It took me 1 landing to get used to it, but by the 2nd (and last) landing of the day, I felt comfortable flying the 172’s the Westosha flying club owns.  I’ll still be mostly piloting the 152 (no need to pay extra for empty seats) for the rest of my training, though.  But, I can’t wait to take my Dad back up just me and him!

I was super proud to have flown well for my Dad, and really glad he had a great time.  Happy Birthday!  This lesson I logged 1.0 hours of total flight time, 0.7 hours of simluated instrument.

I apologize for the lack of posts this past week, but I was busy flying literally across the country for work. Of course, for this cross-country, unfortunately, it was United Airlines flying, not me. I had meetings in Baltimore, Maryland (BWI), then Kansas City, Missouri (MCI), then ended the week in Los Angeles, California (LAX). During that trip, I had the opportunity to listen to a LOT of “Channel 9″ on United. For those of you who aren’t familiar, that’s the live Air Traffic Control radio station you can listen to in your seat while flying on United. So, although I wasn’t actively piloting any aircraft last week, I did get to imagine plenty of busy airport radio calls!

I know this may be slightly off my usual topics, but while in L.A. I ate at Simon|LA and it was absolutely fantastic and I felt I had to write about my culinary journey. Actually, I scribed this late Friday night after getting back from the restaurant, slightly tipsy…but I figure how more honest can you get for a review than half-in-the-bag?! Here you go…

Started with the “Zen Martini” which was vodka, some sake, and “essence of cucumber”. Awesome drink, a little sweet, not lingering, fresh cucumber flavor and tiny sliver of actual cucumber. Great drink.

The special salad of the night was an arugula salad with blue cheese, apricot, and aged balsamic vinaigrette. The perfect blend of peppery arugula, the bite of the blue cheese and vinegar, with the balance of the sweet balsamic and apricot. The apricot was nice and firm, great bite to it. The arugula nice as well, just perfectly blended salad.

Entree was their Ahi Tuna, sounds normal, but was spectacular. Three huge mini steaks of ahi tuna, perfectly seared on the outside with salt and pepper, just only 1/8th of inch cooked, the rest of the 1.5 inch think steaks were raw, and even cool in the middle (which I love). There was a teriyaki and shitake mushroom glaze on them that didn’t overpower, just perfectly worked with it. Underneath it all was a wasabi mashed potatoes. The potatoes were very blended and very wasabi-ish, so it was like real sushi underneath. Perfect dish.

The finale was “Cookies and Milk”. 6 cookies, 3 different types. Chocolate chunk, peanut butter, and PB-oatmeal. All were fresh out of the oven, the PB-oatmeal just incredible. Served with a tall thick freezing cold glass of whole milk. Just awesome.

Seriously, I wasn’t expecting this! Wow. Good job Simon|L.A.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So there you have my first attempt at being a restaurant critic. I promise my next post will be about a cross country flight where I pilot.

Today (May 22nd, 2008) was the big day! I SOLOED! The weather held up nicely and the skies were beautifully clear … I had a good feeling on my drive to the airport. I got to Westosha for my lesson and my CFI told me to pre-flight, start the plane up, and taxi it to the clubhouse by myself. I did all that, picked him up, and we ran the pattern at Westosha a few times. Everything wet swimmingly - the winds were at a slight crosswind for Westosha, but my landings were right on the mark. My CFI then said to head over to Burlington (BUU) to try some landings over there. After a short 10-minute jaunt I was on final for Runway 11 at BUU, with a perfect slight headwind. The landing was incredibly easy (as BUU’s strip is almost double the width of Westosha) and my CFI told me to taxi over to a hangar were he proceeded to get out and asked me a final “you ready for this?” I of course said yes and he told me to run the pattern a few times … by myself!

I taxied to the end of Runway 11 and called out my first solo radio announcement: “Burlington Traffic, Cessna 920, Departing Runway 11, Remaining in the Pattern, Burlington” and was off. Full throttle and I was kickin’ down the runway, accelerating faster than ever before. The plane felt like it leaped off the ground without the added weight of my CFI. I was soon in the air realizing, holy crap, this is all me! I was 10000% responsible for getting me on the ground. It was incredibly exhilarating and scary at the same time.

There was another plane around the airport that was taxiing towards the runway as I was making my way around the pattern. I was turning final and had made all my proper radio calls, yet he still took the runway in front of me and proceeded to takeoff. In retrospect there was plenty of room to land after him, but I wanted to give myself tons of space so I executed a go-around on my first pass…no biggie, but I was a little disappointed and spooked. However, I worked the pattern a 2nd time and was again lined up for final. My glide was perfect and my first solo touchdown was very smooth…I was elated! I did it, I officially became a pilot at that moment!

Although I had plenty of room to touch-and-go, I went full stop and taxied back around and ran the pattern again. All in all, I did three takeoffs and landings solo, a full 30 minutes worth of flying. I picked up my CFI and he said the landings looked great and I handled the traffic just fine. We headed back to Westosha and I finished the day with a nice moderate crosswind landing.

I fueled up the plane and my CFI came out and cut the my shirt tail off my back (the tradition for first solos). You can see a picture of what’s left of my shirt here. I don’t think I’ve been more proud of a destroyed item of clothing before!

I can’t wait for my next solo flight! This lesson I logged 0.9 hours and 5 landings dual, 0.5 hours and 3 landings SOLO, baby!

I came across a very useful free tool on the internet today that I thought I must share. It’s called “Tim’s Air Navigation Simulator” and it simulates how various navigation instruments (VOR, HSI, ADF, RMI, DG) act in flight. I found this incredibly useful as I’m starting to learn/practice navigating in my training. The tool is quite accurate at replicating the instruments and is a very clear and easy to understand.

What I found particularly useful was the ability to add a wind vendor. In theory, you could even simulate general wind effects on flight maneuvers. I’m definitely going to use this tool as I’m preparing for my eventual cross-country flights.

Anyways, check this tool out and I hope you find it as useful as I have! Good work, Tim (the developer).

One of the first questions I’ve gotten when I’ve told people I’m taking flying lessons is some variation of them asking: “is it safe?” Or, the statement I’m sure most pilots get frequently: “I’m never getting into one of those planes, they are so unsafe“. My wife still vows to never fly with me (although she’s already buckling I can tell). Naturally, I’ve personally felt that general aviation planes are safe (otherwise the government wouldn’t allow us to fly), but I also love to prove people wrong and I knew there must be data to back me up. Thankfully the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) keeps incredibly detailed records about every aviation accident - big and small, fatal and non-fatal.

The AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) Air Safety Foundation prepares an annual summary report of this data from the NTSB - called the “Nall Report”. The most recent Nall Report shows that general aviation is the safest it has been in its history. In an estimated 24+ million flight hours in 2006, there was 1,319 total accidents, 273 of those being fatal accidents. I found this statistic to be very telling in that only 1 in 5 aviation accidents are fatal (much less than what my friends/family seem to think). To put that into perspective, that means for every 100,000 hours of general aviation flight time, there are approximately 6.32 accidents (and only 1.26 being fatal).

For the heck of it, I took this summary stat one step further and translated it to 1 accident per every 15,823 flight hours, or 1 fatal accident per 79,365 flight hours. In realistic terms (albeit hypothetical), if I flew 2 hours a day, every day for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t statistically have a fatal accident for 108 years! I think I’m comfortable flying! (Note - I KNOW this is NOT a statistically sound way of evaluating this data, but I like fun-with-numbers.)

The report has a ton of other great information and I highly recommend reading it. The ASF has other great articles and reports well worth reading as well.

My CFI had been nice enough to let me use one his extra headsets for my first couple of lessons (I hear stories of some CFI’s and FBO’s even charging rental fees for sets). However, I knew I’d eventually have to get one of my own. Me being me, I had to research the crap out of headsets and find the “best bang for the buck”…my usual mantra. Of course, I picked the brain of my CFI and got some general thoughts on what to look for in a headset: comfort, comfort, comfort, noise reduction, and reliability. I heard wonderful things about the Active Noise Reduction (ANR) headsets, but they start at around $400 (and go up to $1,000+) and I knew that was simply out of my price range. Furthermore, eventually this first headset would become my passenger set (hopefully years down the road), so I didn’t want to break the bank on something I have no experience with before.

Therefore, I quickly decided a passive set (PNR) was the way to go for me. I found a neat little headset comparison tool on MyPilotStore.com which I found useful to compare general features. I checked the manufacturer websites as well. My CFI mentioned that Flightcom made good quality sets that rivaled David Clarks (the apparent Lexus of headsets). The DC’s come very highly recommended all over the net, but they are a little too pricey for my first set. That being said, I knew one of the three Flightcom models would work. I settled on the middle of the road model, the Flightcom 4DLX. It had good padding, good all-around features, and didn’t break the bank. Actually, the LC Flight Shop had the lowest prices I could find on the net (barring used sets on Ebay).

The 4DLX does provide great ear protection and is pretty darn comfortable. Though, I do have to admit it starts to pinch my head a little after an hour or so (but maybe I need to re-adjust it a bit). The fact all passive headsets seal around your ear by a clamping action leads me to believe this isn’t anything out of the ordinary. What does slightly worry me is that the microphone seems to need a loud voice to register (although my CFI mentions the pilot side mic jack in the plane we use has always been finicky…so I don’t know if the problem is the jack or the headset…only testing in another plane will tell). I should probably do that before the 30-day money back guarantee is up!!

Anyways, I’m fairly happy with my purchase though and I must admit this makes me feel more like a “real” pilot!

I realized last night that I never realized wrote about my first flight in a general aviation aircraft, my “Discovery Flight.” As I mention on my About Dan page, after moving out to Volo, Illinois this past year, and working in Lake Forest, I drive down Route 120 every day from work. Along this drive, in Grayslake, there is “Campbell Airport” (C81). I would see the sign for this strip every day and eventually I had to Google it to learn more about it. They have a nice little website which advertises their $59 “Discovery Flight“. For $59, it was worth a shot…I booked it.

I get to Campbell airport early on a Saturday morning in February 2008 and was surprised at how “small” things seemed. (Comparing that to my cozy Westosha airport now, Campbell is pretty bustling.) Anyways, I meet my pilot for the day (a CFI) there and we preflight a Piper Warrior (here’s a pic of a Piper Warrior - not the one we flew though). He was very nice in showing me (almost a pre-lesson) how to generally pre-flight a plane. We jump in and he tells me about how the flight will go and that, if I was interested (which of course I was), I could handle most of the controls and definitely follow along at all times.

We take off (I did the pull up) and I was hooked…I KNEW I had to continue learning how to fly somehow. Anyways, we putzed around for about 30 minutes in the sky, even flew right over my new home. It was very cool. I would highly recommend anyone even remotely interested in aviation (regardless if you want to become a pilot) to take advantage of these “Discovery Flights” at most local airports…they are just a blast!

Well, I realize this story wasn’t as amazing as I thought it would be, but I think it’s important to share all my experiences about this great journey I’ve undertaken. Hopefully I’ll have a lesson tonight (if the weather cooperates)…and hopefully Saturday morning too! Will write then.

So my CFI calls me right before dinner to let me know his “airplane ferrying” gig fell through this week. Bad news for him, great news for me! So, we’re booked to fly tomorrow (Tuesday) after work, I’m psyched! I tell ya, after getting my Medical Certificate today, all I have been thinking about is flying.

I think I’m gonna’ hit the Gleim Reference book and start reading about navigating. I’ll probably also review the section on stalls since I know we’ll be working on that again. Goodnight!