Expensive Battery
Worked on the flying club airplane this weekend. Specifically, the club Cessna 172. It’s been in a hangar getting new paint, new glass, and a new interior (all to the tune of about $14,000) so it will be like a new airplane really nice. As the maintenance officer, I carry a lot of daily responsibility […]
Complex Training – Part II
Had some delays getting the next flight in thanks to scheduling (mostly of Dennis) and weather. Finally got it together and flew the 177RG today. What a great plane. Big inside, great view, excellent avionics, and just plain easy to fly. Procedures are pretty much identical as for the 172RG, right down to speeds. The […]
Complex training – Part I
Took my first step towards my advanced training today by going to a local airport (Whiteman – WHP) to get checked out in a couple of retractables. We started with a pretty nice 172RG today. Started by going through the typical – v-speeds, limitations, etc. We then talked about constant speed props – a topic […]
Instrument Checkride Practical – Part II
After some scheduling difficulties due to weather, as well as my catching a nasty cold, we finally got back together to finish the practical. Same drill – I picked him up at his office. We talked about last weeks bust, what a good learning experience it was, etc. Then off to finish what we couldn’t […]
Instrument Checkride Practical – Part I
I felt really prepared for today. The examiner told me what we’d be doing after we finished the oral last time – the BUR ILS 8 to a missed, back around for the BUR VOR 8 to a missed, out to the practice area for steep turns, unusual attitudes, holds and then back for the […]
Instument Checkride – Oral
Well – today was the big day. Got up at 5:30am (for a 9:00am checkride) because I couldn’t sleep. Got a weather briefing, finished the flight planning to Monterey, loaded up, and went to breakfast. Studied for the oral while eating, and then the time had come. Showed up at Mark’s office about 10 minutes […]
Last chance to clean up
Well, tomorrow is the checkride, so Kent and I went up for some final tuning. Things didn’t go as we’d planned, but it was good anyway. The weather was ideal for IFR training – 4000 foot ceilings and light rain. We headed to Chino first to shoot the ILS there and have breakfast at Flo’s […]
The home stretch
Well, it’s been an interesting few days. For starters, I took and passed the written last Thursday. I wanted it out of the way, and felt ready to take it. I got a 90. Happy with that. Then I flew VFR to Vegas to give the Lady Luck some extra cash I had laying around. […]
One more for the road
Tonight we decided to head out to Santa Barbara (SBA) for one last cross country, and do it to checkride standards. Departed Van Nuys around 5:30pm, and climbed on top of a pretty nasty haze layer. Smooth and clear (from what I hear) the whole way from there. That is until we got to SBA […]
Polishing
Now we come to the most painful phase of the training – polishing the skills to get ready for the checkride. Not that flying of any kind is boring, mind you, but being under the hood tightening up things that you already know about doesn’t exactly rank as “excitingâ€. So we went up for some […]