More Simulated IFR

July 16th, 2010 • Comments Off

Finding myself out of currency for IFR, and suffering a prolonged period of heavy overcast here in San Diego, I called up my CFI to get my 6 approaches. It’s an expensive way to go for sure but I made myself feel better by saying to myself that I’d get some good Garmin 430 instruction which I might not get from a safety pilot.

The plan was to file tower en-route to Oceanside, do some holds before the VOR approach there. After that we would do the GPS into Palomar followed by the ILS, and then we’d head home to Montgomery Field for a GPS and two ILS approaches.

It pretty much went as planned other than the controller giving me the ILS in Palomar rather than the GPS. I was busy trying to work out what was going wrong with the vector onto the approach when my instructor caught it. So we did the ILS followed by the GPS. It was very useful here to have the ILS frequency already in the backup position on the nav.

I struggled with vertical descent control on all the approaches, mostly couldn’t get down fast enough. My CFI said I had too tight a grip on the yoke and when I was making course corrections I’d inadvertently adjust pitch too. It wasn’t bad enough that I would have missed any approaches but I was working way too hard, that’s for sure.

All in all a quite enjoyable time under the hood though I missed a spectacularly sunny day in San Diego, and I’m now IFR current through the end of January 2011.

Last night, for something to do, I went through the LiveATC.Net archive to try and find my communications and put together an audio clip. It was a lot harder work than I thought and after tracking me down on KMYF’s frequencies I abandoned the idea of going through Approach as well. So, here’s a little clip of me calling up for our clearance, taxi and take off, and back home on the last approach.

Going For It

June 30th, 2010 • Comments Off

Yes, I went for it, have ordered the ridder kit and will hopefully get started soon.

I will be doing a few updates on this blog but I’ve created a brand new one if you want to follow along, and maybe help me out when I am stuck. The new blog is here: http://www.stol750project.info/

Build My Own Plane?

June 22nd, 2010 • 1 comment

I’m sure Mike didn’t intend this harmless tweet to occupy my thoughts but for the last week or so, it has.

I’ve long thought it would be very cool to build my own plane, I’m generally useless with my hands so have dismissed it (especially after reading the logs of some Van’s RV builders) but the STOL 750 from Zenith looks real simple to build, and in the aviation scale of things, fairly inexpensive.

I figure it would take us 2 years or more to complete (unless I can get a job that has me living at home during the week) and I have no idea how I’d finance the panel or the engine at this point, though I am sure at that stage of the process nothing would stop me!

The 750 is a Light Sport Plane and therefore doesn’t require a valid FAA medical to fly it. Sport pilots aren’t allowed to fly at night or in IFR but as an IFR-rated Private pilot I would be allowed to fly it in those conditions if the manufacturer’s operating conditions allow it. I’ve no idea if they do right now, though they do have an IFR-certifiable kit plane in the 650 so maybe it’s not beyond the realm of possibility. I’m not sure if I’d want to fly IFR in this type of plane (too light, too slow), but night flight would definitely be desirable.

What about that inexpensive part? You can buy the complete kit (which for some reason isn’t complete, you need a finishing kit too) for $14.5k which won’t include the engine, the pointy thing at the front or the instrument panel. The good thing is that you can buy it in sub-kits enabling you to “pay as you go”. This adds to the cost but does at least soften the blow, though if I had somewhere to store it I’d be tempted to drive to Mexico, MO and get the whole thing at once.

The really cool thing is that you can “try before you buy” by purchasing the rudder kit for $400. They say that if you can successfully complete the rudder then you are very likely able to build the whole thing. So I’m tempted to get that and see what I think – could I really build my own plane? Looking at the regulations, it almost looks like building it is the easy part but I’m sure once you have an airframe built there’s little chance a little FAA paperwork is going to stop you.

For now I’ve ordered the introductory materials from Zenith and this DVD on metalworking 101 which demonstrates the rudder assembly so I can see exactly what I’d be getting into. Once I’ve looked at these things, we’ll have another think.

CA CFIs At Risk From New CA Law

May 12th, 2010 • Comments Off

Got this from one of our club CFIs this morning. I don’t have access to the NATA website to be able to see the report but here is what he said.

NATA Publishes Regulatory Report On California’s Regulation Of Flight Schools

NATA has published a regulatory report on proposed rules issued by the Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education in California . These rules, prompted by the passage last year of Assembly Bill 48, will regulate the operation of flight training facilities. All flight training operations, including independent certified flight instructors (CFIs), will be required to comply with the provisions of these rules, including such provisions as the requirement for producing and printing a “college catalogue” type of document. Flight training facilities have until August 1 to comply with these rules, including paying a $5,000 application fee and submitting audited financial statements from 2009, or they will no longer be permitted to operate in the state. Other provisions of the proposed rules include:

Only CFIs with three years of experience in flight will be allowed to instruct students, unless they can demonstrate an equivalence of other experience factors
All flight training facilities will be required to submit a $1,000 annual fee and 0.75% of their gross revenue to the state
Flight training facilities’ curriculums must receive approval from the state
These proposed rules are open to public comment until June 7, 2010. Additionally, the Bureau of Private Post Secondary Education will hold a public comment forum on these proposed rules in Sacramento , CA , on June 7, 2010.

NATA is very concerned about the negative impact these regulations would have on flight training and urges all impacted members to submit comments.

If this is correct, then I don’t see that many CFIs will/can stay in business.

More on Running on Empty

September 30th, 2009 • Comments Off

Back in April I wrote about a flight where we pretty much emptied one tank during our flight and could not understand why. During my (club mandated) annual flight review this week I asked my instructor if he had ever found out the cause.

He had not but he turned to someone in the lounge and asked them for their opinion. They offered up an explanation that if our flight had been uncoordinated, especially in all the holds, then the gravity feed would be feeding from one tank only for a long period of time. This prompted my memory that we had been using the autopilot with the Garmin 530 for a lot of that flight and we had noted that it was not coordinated in the turns. Indeed, the plane had just come out of the shop having “fixed” this problem.

So in retrospect I would say that the unbalanced fuel drain was caused by the pilot’s (me) lack of action to correct uncoordinated flight caused by a malfunctioning autopilot.

Chart Sales

July 13th, 2009 • Comments Off

AvWeb has an article today about how the FAA will soon only be selling charts to vendors who sell at least $5000 of charts annually, which is apparantly only 293 of the current 1790 vendors. There’s a link from there to a spreadsheet that shows annual net sales from last June to this June which I find fascinating…

• top supplier, no surprise, is Sporty’s with 2,100,610.82 worth of net sales
• second place is ‘My Plane Inc’ in Scottsdale whom I have never heard of, but did only a fifth of Sporty’s sales
• top local supplier is El Cajon Flying Service, Inc at KSEE with 59,903.79 in sales; that’s number 13 in rank
• I get my charts from Marv Golden and it’s good to see them at #17, with 47,701.36 in sales
• the FBO at KMYF, Gibbs, is at #86, with 12,757.30 in sales

So the good news is that it looks like my local suppliers will continue to sell charts after October. I used to have a Sporty’s chart subscription but I like to support the local aviation businesses. I do miss the extra entries in the Skyhawk Sweepstake though.

Messy Instrument Clearance Readback

June 26th, 2009 • 2 comments

I didn’t actually get to take the flight so there is no more to this video than what you see and hear here. Not my finest radio transmission but it wasn’t until I was driving to work that I realised why the controller was being so picky about the readback. Anyway, for no reason other than I have it to post, here’s a little video of me asking for, and getting, a tower en route clearance from San Diego’s Montgomery Field to Carlsbad’s Palomar airport.

Papa Got a Brand New Bag

May 27th, 2009 • 1 comment

When I started flying lessons I bought my very first flight bag from the local Marv Golden store and a very good bag it is. But after getting my licence I realised it was just too big for the flying I was doing and dropped it in favour of a couple of different sports bags, neither designed for flying. I finally got tired of the mess inside it last week and ordered a new bag from Sportys – the IFR Flight Gear Bag.

It is so much better!

One odd thing though, for an “IFR bag” I am surprised that I can’t fit approach plates in the exterior chart pocket. Sectionals and en-route charts fit in there, but no room for a plate (when inside a protective cover). No biggie, it’s nice to have everything so much better organised, and easy to carry.

Ready to Copy! Deep Breath And….

May 13th, 2009 • 2 comments

I was at the airport tonight watching the traffic go around, listening to the radio, and it struck me (not for the first time) that most pilots like to read back their instrument clearance in one breath.

Cessna 1234 cleared to Brown Field after take off left turn 270 radar vectors Mission Bay VOR direct 3000 feet expect 400 feet 10 minutes after 119.6 and squawk is 5244

You literally hear the poor guy collapse at the end, gasping for breath. I know I am often guilty of this and actively try to pause after the route or altitudes part. I wonder why it is that we do this, and how it is that we never hear Clearance give us the clearance in this fashion – do they get special training?

Fuel in the tank but running on empty [Updated]

April 29th, 2009 • 2 comments

Yesterday I went up with my instructor to shake off my winter cobwebs (and instead ended up in IMC having a lesson on the Garmin 530 and autopilot, but that’s for another post) and had a very near fuel emergency.

Both tanks were filled to the collar before we took off in the 172SP, plenty of gas for our some holds at OCN, an approach at KOKB and return on the ILS into KMYF. We weren’t the only ones with the same plan and ended up having to do two more holding patterns that planned while the other plane shot the approach. It was during one of the turns that we noticed that the fuel gauge showed the left tank getting low, and the right tank still near full. We resolved to switch from ‘both’ to the right tank after the approach but in all the activity in the missed approach we forgot.

Not long before KMYF the “L Low Fuel” light came on and the gauge was sure enough very near to the bottom. We switched to just the right tank and carried on. As we got closer and closer the fuel imbalance remained, the left tank gauge was getting lower and lower. Although we didn’t say it to each other I think we were both already planning our dead stick landing to a nearby golf course. On final we switched the tanks back to ‘both’, landed and taxied back to parking.

After we were done we inspected the tanks – the right tank was as full as it had been at the beginning. Neither of us could see any fuel in the left tank at all, I don’t know how many minutes of ‘usable’ fuel there was left but I think we were pretty lucky that we made it down without an emergency.

I haven’t heard yet what the problem was (the plane is already back out of the shop) but I don’t understand how, if fuel from the right tank wasn’t flowing at all, the engine kept running when we switched the fuel to the right tank only. Surely it should have quit?

At the time I didn’t think much of it, but the more I think about it (and tell the story) the more I think we dodged a nasty bullet.

[Update:] From the plane owner: I had Sorbi take the plane off the line and check the fuel flow from both tanks. I had a concern that perhaps the fuel valve was not working right. Pablo took the fuel lime off the engine and had fuel flow from left, both and right positions and found that fuel flowed from all three positions in comparable quantities. When he went to check, both tanks had equalized and had the same amount of fuel in them. The only thing we felt that could contribute is that if you were making a significant number of right turns where the fuel would travel to the right tank.

We did do a lot of right hand turns, probably held over OCN for 5 right-turn holds so maybe that was it?