Dan’s Pilot Times

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!

So my last lesson (this past Saturday) probably should have been the day I go solo for the first time, but it was very windy and directly across the runway at Westosha (thanks a lot, Chicago weather). So, we worked on crosswind landings yet again. I’m happy to report I had some of my best landings to date this day, even when conditions were extremely challenging. Also, the crosswinds afforded us the opportunity to practice various landing types I’ve done only sparsely in the past: no flaps, little flaps, and shortened runway.

All-in-all, the lesson wasn’t very eventful and I’m very much looking forward to a non-windy day at Westosha so I can finally solo. Hopefully it’ll be tomorrow!

This lesson I logged 1.5 hours of flight time and 10 landings.

As part of my pre-solo check flight last time flying, that CFI recommended I only need to work on crosswind landings before going solo.  So, that’s what I worked on this past lesson…for over two hours!  Luckily there was a fairly decent crosswind of about 10 knots or so, directly across the runway.  As such, we had the option most of the time to takeoff and land from either direction, which made for an efficient use of time!  All-in-all, the lesson wasn’t terribly interesting as we literally just stayed in the pattern and worked on landings and takeoffs over and over.  Some were better than others, some were pretty ugly, but ultimately by the end I had a much improved grasp on this complicated maneuver.  I still wouldn’t want to tackle heavy crosswinds all by myself, but that’s what practice is for.  I also now finally get (and can verbalize properly) how to put the ailerons while on the ground with wind…that got me last time out.

Hopefully next lesson will be the big one…my CFI told me “not to wear my Armani t-shirts”…I figure that’s a good sign.  This lesson I logged 2.3 hours of flight time and 16 landings.

P.S. - While en route to Mexico for my vacation last week I listened to ATC while on my United flight.  It was funny and interesting to hear air traffic control in Spanish half the time once we crossed the border.  Our pilot/navigator was definitely having a hard time understanding them sometimes and had to have commands repeated multiple times (in the heavily accented English).  I was expecting the controller to swear in Spanish, but they always kept their cool.

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).

This past lesson I had my “pre-solo check flight” - a requirement of my flying club.  It’s really a stage check for the club to make sure students won’t break the planes and for another CFI to make sure my usual CFI isn’t out of his mind.  I rode with the club president, which was a little intimidating at first, but things went pretty well.

This CFI first had me pre-flight the plane and gave me a small verbal quiz.  He was definitely asking very difficult and obscure questions, to probe how deep my knowledge was and probably to teach me a little.  Some of the stuff I had no idea, but again, he didn’t really expect me to know it either.  We then proceeded to taxi and takeoff.  It was exciting (and a little weird) to taxi and takeoff without ANY words/prompting from the CFI.  Once in the air, he made me show him general flight maneuvers like slow flight, steep turns, and turns around a point.  All went fine.

The CFI promised there would be some type of simulated emergency during our check ride, and sure enough on the way back to the airport he said “you see smoke in the cabin, what do you do?”  Me being me, I over-thought the exercise and starting reciting back some of the emergency procedures from the Cessna manual.  He then asked, “but what first”…of which I started blanking.  He then said “get the damn plane on the ground first…you don’t want to be in the air with a fire…screw the checklist at that point.”  That makes sense I guess!  So, we pulled the throttle, looked for a place to land (which we were over Westosha anyways) and I glided the plane down for a no engine (with simulated fire) emergency landing.  Surprisingly, this landing (without any engine power) went great…I was pretty happy.

We taxied back and took off again, this time with a fairly steady crosswind.  I was spacing a bit on how to hold the ailerons during crosswinds in general (still not coming natural to me) and verbally I called the wind direction wrong.  We remained in the pattern and I landed with the crosswind.  The final approach was a bit rough as I overshot the runway on the base leg (not compensating enough for the crosswind).  I put the plane down okay, though.

The CFI was generally fine with my abilities at this point and recommended just working on crosswind landings a bit more with my usual CFI (which I can’t argue against).  He said I should be solo’ing with just a few more crosswind landings under my belt…exciting stuff!  I’m off to Mexico now for vacation, so you won’t hear from me for a week or so.

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of flight time.

This past lesson was my first with simulated instrument flying (IFR), or “flying under the hood” (it’s really just a big visor). I heard and read all about relying 110% on your instruments when in the clouds/fog, but I never fully understood the truth behind that until now. At one point my CFI had me fly straight then close my eyes. Then, I had to perform small turns and “level the plane” by feeling. Upon opening my eyes, I found I was in a fairly steep descending right turn (and had I not had instruments to correct me, I would be a goner). Needless-to-say, it is indeed critical to solely trust your instruments when flying IFR …your body does get disoriented and your feelings become totally unreliable. Anyways, we flew around with me under the hood for 0.6 hours, then we worked our way back to Westosha using VOR navigation techniques. On final approach, my CFI had me flip off the IFR visor and I landed the plane visually (thankfully). Considering I had only about 2 minutes of full sight before landing, I was pretty satisfied with the quality of my touchdown.

Before flying, we actually also worked on my pre-solo written test. It wasn’t that hard as I’ve kept up on my textbook reading and it’s all stuff we’ve covered countless times during the lessons. Now all I need is another CFI to just do a quick “pre-solo check flight” with me (a rule of our flight club). Once that’s complete, my CFI said I’m totally ready to fly solo. Woohoo!

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of total flight time.

The wind was nuts on Saturday morning. When I woke up for my lesson, I was hearing the wind howling around my house and rattling the siding a ton. As such, I figured we may scrub the flight, but after txt’ing my CFI, his response was “My grandma flies in wind worse than this, and she flies a cub!” Once I saw that, I knew it would be a fun and exciting day.

Open arriving to Westosha, I checked the weather reports and saw we had winds 20 knots gusting to 30. If I was flying solo, I doubt I would have flown in such winds, but my CFI said it would be great practice. The takeoff was quite easy as the wind was mostly straight ahead. We flew over to Kenosha Regional Airport (KENW) which this was my first towered airport experience. It was a little intimidating with the fast-talking controller over the radios and I needed my CFI to “translate” and repeat almost everything he said slowly…but I managed. After approaching, we were “clear for the option on Runway 24.” I repeated back the orders and proceeded to make one of my best landings to date. We did a stop-and-go and went around a handful of times, practicing many different variations of landings: flaps, no-flaps, simulated engine failure, too high, too low. Overall, I was VERY satisfied with the quality of all my landings, and my CFI concurred. I was stoked.

Then, my CFI called the tower again and requested if we could go up and visit. We spend about 20 minutes up in the control tower, which was also a first for me. It was pretty slow that day (because of the wind) so there wasn’t much action up there, but it was neat to see how they work and the tools the controllers have at hand.

On the way back to Westosha, my CFI yanked out the throttle and said “we have engine failure, where you gonna’ land the plane?” I was surprised but calmly looked around and saw we had plenty of good farm fields to land on for this simulated off-field landing (another first for me). I picked a field and proceed to glide to base and to final. We were descending and I thought after I was lined up, he’d say “good job” and we’d be done. But we kept descending to (what seemed like) only 200 feet above ground before putting back the power and climbing away. I was seriously thinking we were actually going to land on this farm field! After that, we finished back to Westosha where I somehow managed to land in an absolutely crazy crosswind.

All in all, an incredibly fun and challenging lesson. I logged 1.7 hours of flight time.

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!

This Sunday I had yet another lesson of mostly takeoffs and landings. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and we’re finally starting to change into Spring around Chicago (it’s about time). I had my “alternate” CFI again, although I probably shouldn’t call him my alternate any longer since I’ve had 3 of my 8 lessons with him. Anyways, we decided to head over to Burlington (BUU) airport to practice. It was nice to go somewhere moderately far (although I think it’s only about 20 miles away). My CFI had me running the radios mostly, which was a bit intimidating, especially since Burlington is much busier than Westosha. Burlington has a much wider runway than Westosha (seems twice as wide) and I thought I’d nail some landings that day there, but I never got one quite perfect. My CFI said I’m progressing fine, but I still wasn’t thrilled. After about 7 landings, we headed back to Westosha.

My CFI taught me a lot of the visual cues to navigate back and forth from Westosha, along with an introduction to radio navigation. Back at Westosha, I attempted 4 more landings. We had a slight crosswind, and I got only one perfect (but I think it was just luck). I had one go-around as well (the wind and the plane were just not cooperating). We also worked on forward slips, a technique to get the plane down in altitude fast without raising the air speed (so you can still land the plane). Slips are pretty neat, it’s like skidding through the air down towards the runway (see the attached animated picture). Anyways, like my early lessons, this lesson threw a lot of new stuff at me in a short time period.

This lesson I logged 1.9 hours of flight time.