Diary of a Private Pilot

Messing with some $$$ figures this weekend, the possibility of completing my Commercial came up so I thought I would check on what I still need to do (other than the not insignificant task of being up to PTS standards!).

• 250 hours of flight time… done
• 10 hours of instrument training… done
• 10 hours of complex training… done
• day VFR dual flight… done
• night VFR dual flight… to do
• solo day VFR flight… done
• 5 hours solo night VFR… done (9.1 hrs)
• 10 night takeoffs and landings at a controlled field… done (19)
• written exam… done, but expired

If I can get my CFI to do the night flight in the next few weeks, I might schedule a weekend course with Sheble Aviation in the summer and try to do it that way. I know a few people who have done many ratings with them and I hear nothing but good things about them.

On a final note, you may have noticed a change in how the blog looks. I’ve added some personal images to the header and will be changing the sidebar over this week. I really hated that dreary grey I had before.

Took a 172 to French Valley this afternoon. The hope had been to do some daytime touch and goes, have something to eat, then some night time stop and goes, and back home. But I underestimated the arrival of darkness and was after sunset before I was halfway there. I was too high on final and, is my habit when I am out of practice, landed too flat, not real pretty. Taxied to transient and enjoyed a very tasty hamburger in the restaurant. To my delight the place was getting fairly busy by the time I left. My hunger sated, back into the plane and once around the pattern, this time still high on final but it worked out ok. Next time around I was high again and this time I went around rather than fight it. Made a much slower pattern and greased it in nicely. I patted myself on the back as I taxied back and decided it was time to go home. I tuned Ramona into the GPS and followed the needle, got a Class D transition, over the reservoir, Gillespie Field and home. All in all a nice little flight.

For the first time since I don’t know when I am current in all three areas - PIC, Night and IFR (ssh, don’t ask me about my complex and high-performance currency). Now to keep them all up without lapsing.

0.7 hours in the simulator, two approaches and I’m good until the end of Feb. I really really really mean it this time when I say I am going to keep all my currencies up.

Tonight I met Serge at the airport for his turn to suffer my simulated instrument flying. He seems to enjoy it though, go figure. I needed 4 approaches and, as said earlier, I planned to do two ILS approaches back at MYF. SoCal asked my intentions immeadiately on contact and I gave them my request. It took a while for them to get back to me so I wondered if I had confused them but it turned out he was working out what he could do, and that turned out to be the usual IFR to Brown and then practice VFR for the rest.

This is probably the last time I will do this circuit, it is just so fast and there is so little time to prepare for the next approach. It must be tough for the controllers too. Tonight I was given a 90 degree intercept onto the localiser at SEE, for the ILS at MYF it was a 45 degree one. In future I will fly IFR more often, but on short cross countries so I will get more time in between approaches.

When we got back to MYF the controller had forgotten my request and I was cleared to land so I didn’t get my 4th approach. Its possible to file MYF - MYF for a very short flight, I’ll try to do that next week.

Went to the airport this afternoon to watch, and listen to, the pattern. I find it very instructive to hear the different radio calls and responses, I hear things I like and try to use in the future, and sometimes I hear things that I make a note not to say in the future.

But one phrase started to bother me - looking for traffic. All too often it seemed to be an automatic response with no real conviction that the pilot really cared. Now that is no doubt a little harsh but on about 3 or 4 occasions a pilot on final was to be told traffic holding in position, departing before arrival. The response - looking for traffic. I don’t know how you can’t have that traffic in sight, its right where you’re looking right now.

My flying club requires an annual flight review for insurance purposes so I do a flight review every year, this year it coincides with the FAA-required BFR. It has been a while since I flew and was not real sure how well it would go. Last time I had taken a break the flying went well, and today it went better than it ever has. Go figure.

It was a clear sunny day, with mostly calm winds, just perfect for flying. We did a whole bunch of the usual maneuvers, ending up with landing practice at Ramona. My landings were mostly greasers but the approaches were far from perfect so we are going to go up again next week to work on getting those stabilised (I bet my landings will then go awry!). Since the review went so well, I got signed off today and we’ll take the 172RG next week to get my complex skills repolished.

All in all, a very good morning and I am enthused about flying again.

With the new job starting soon I wanted to get my instrument currency back and scheduled some simulator time with my favourite CFI. It didn’t go too well on the simulator last time as the controls were very sensitive but this time I got the light touch just right most of the time. We set the clouds to a solid overcast so that each approach would end up going missed.

We started by taking off from MYF, vectors to the VOR approach at SDM, missed approach. Once on the missed, we zapped over to SEE and did vectors to the LOC approach there followed by a missed again. From there we shifted to OKB and did some holds in the published turn, the VOR approach once again to the missed. After that, I was positioned for vectors to the ILS at CRQ, this time I did break out for a landing but did the missed anyway with vectors back to a landing at MYF.

For those of you counting thats only 5 approaches, we didn’t fit the 6th one in. However, when I updated my online logbook it said I was now current until the end of May; I had overlooked 3 approaches at the end of the last year so 5 was just perfect. Its good to be ifr current again.

I went out last Monday and bought the Gleim Commercial Pilot Written Exam CD; I do currently possess a written exam pass but it expires in February and there’s no way I will get up to scratch in time for a checkride that early. So I shall study some more and retake the test.

But then Tuesday, somewhat out of the blue, I got laid off. The circumstances of that event can be the subject of a rant on my main site but suffice to say that I won’t be doing much flying at all until I am re-employed. Still, it does give me plenty of time to re-read the books.

Currently blowing a gale outside, my local field doesn’t have weather reporting but the nearest one, about 15 miles south, is reporting steady 17 knot winds. Seems like a lot more here.

I didn’t do much flying this year, the sorry events back home had the hobby on the back burner, so next year I need to get back into it. Therefore I am setting myself the following goals (in no particular order though clearly some things are more important than others):

• fly more often well we’d all like to do that I’m sure!
• sort out my landing technique flying more might achieve this but I still have issues with flaring too high or landing too flat
• finish my Commercial I was about halfway through it this year and I would like to complete it, going to have to retake the written again as it expires in Feb
• take a long trip I think there is a lot of experience to be gained from planning and executing a week long trip, somewhere new and unfamiliar
• be current all the time no more losing any of the currencies

We’ll see how well I do.

In the wake of the overrun accident at Chicago’s Midway airport, I found the following interesting PowerPoint presentation about managing threat when landing. Whilst it’s focussed on commercial operations (I have a hard job stabilising the 172 at 180 kts on approach!) I still found it interesting reading.

In other news, I’m off to Laughlin today, weather looks good for the trip. Not sure if we’ll show up as the trip will be made VFR but maybe you can catch us on FlightAware.com this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Also, I’ve been playing with my GPS and GoogleEarth maps and should get my first map out of this trip.