Long time, no post!

Hi everyone! We're still alive over here in Virginia's historic triangle, having survived nearly four months with the new baby!

It's been a topsy-turvy ride, but we may finally be leveling off! Husband has made a few posts documenting our son's first few flights since leaving the womb. I've been back-seating it for all of our flights, but hope to get time in the not-too-distant future to do some refresher flights with Husband and maybe an instructor, too. Trouble is, we've "only" got Cirruses (Cirri?) at our disposal now, and I don't really want to put these more expensive planes through my re-learning! Plus I'm not ready for a glass cockpit or having to manage a turbo...

Anyway, just a quick note to wish you all well! I hope you have a fantastic holiday!

And in parting, here's my adaptation of "Rock-a-bye baby" for our Little Big Man:
Fly away, Evan
in your airplane.
Ride on the wind
from sea to mountain.
Soar with the birds
and dance with the clouds,
then come home, land safely
back on the ground!

Rededication

[Update: changed the address of the family blog.]

I've rededicated my other blog to the new baby and family, so I'll stop posting about him here unless it's aviation-related!

New baby :)

[Updated: added a picture of Evan and his daddy.]

Baby Evan arrived at 5:32 pm on Thursday, August 23. We got home from the hospital a little bit ago.

He's super, a great big healthy heap of softness! 9 lbs, 12 oz, 22 inches.

TOMORROW!

6:30 am tomorrow we'll be at the hospital, having labor induced.... Wish us luck!

Not such a big day...

Today is our due date. No sign that he'll make his appearance today. Hopefully soon, though!

We went out to the airport today so Husband could show me the new turbo SR22 GTS we're almost part owners of... it's not so easy to get in and out of for a person of my condition ;) but it is a gorgeous machine!

Busting out...

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I'm in the skies vicariously now only through Husband and the blogging pilot community! The baby is due in 9 days, and he's certainly ready! This video will remove any doubt...

Dorks

So, how sad is it that this morning on our tour of the hospital and maternity unit that we both kinda perked up when they said there's wifi?

Tragedy and risk management

[Update: Husband had his morning trip with John and got more details. No cartwheel, the right main snapped on touchdown and they skidded through the backyard. He tried to radio a mayday in to PHF (the nearest airport) but was too low at that point, but a nearby twin-engine guardian angel heard and circled overhead, communicating with PHF. Within 2 minutes of landing, rescue vehicles showed up at the scene. John's wife had to have a pin put in her foot, but otherwise it was just bruises and scratches. An FAA inspector confirmed that there was water in the fuel filter and that led to the engine failure; the trike runs on premium auto gas, and in VA auto fuel contains (up to) 10% ethanol which allows water to be held in suspension, so the preflight sump tests can't necessarily clear water from the fuel. John was up in the Cirrus today, and he and his wife still intend to take their post-Osh Kosh trip in the plane. Kudos for not being scared off!]


I have a strange bit of perspective to share: Today we spent ~6 hours on I-85 returning home from visiting family down south. On this trip, we heard that our good friend and flying buddy and (former) co-owner of 388, John, had an emergency landing over the weekend in his ultralight with his wife on board; the engine died over a river and though the nearest land was a populated area, he performed the oft-practiced emergency procedures, got down to someone's backyard (the trike luckily doesn't need much room!), and landed. Unfortunately, the landing gear snapped, and the trike cartwheeled. They're banged up, but ok. John thinks there was water in the fuel filter that cause the engine to die (Husband will get more info tomorrow morning when they fly together in the Cirrus). The ultralight is the motorcycle of airplanes, as far as structure and personal protection go (and boy is it a thrill to hang out there in one!)...

~8:30 am, maybe, we passed an automobile wreck (luckily it was in the southbound lanes and we were heading north) where really all we could make out was the charred remains of what looked like a tractor trailer and a car. I don't know what happened, but it was obviously bad and at least one person died.

Then tonight after our childbirth class, we got home to find our street blocked off with a variety of emergency vehicles. A house a few doors down burned, most likely the result of a lightning strike from the thunderstorms we had all afternoon. I was working from home earlier and ~5 pm was IM'ing with husband when an exceptionally loud and close thunderclap nearly scared me out of my seat, and completely freaked the dog out. I am willing to put money down that that was actually that house being struck, that that was what started the fire, though the afternoon's rain must have kept it in a smoldering state until after we left for class ~6:45.

In driving, we rely on our instincts and reflexes to avoid trouble. It mostly comes down to how alert we are and what our immediate options are, but driving is so commonplace that most drivers out there (me included!) are pretty complacent on the road. Heaven help us if something goes wrong or some other person impacts our situation. That wreck could just as easily have happened to US.

In our homes, we expect to be safe. We don't expect to be struck by lightning and have the house burn around us. When that fire starts, though, it's pretty much out of our hands. That could just as easily have been OUR house that got scorched.

In flying, we're taught to be in control at all times, taught how to scan the air and the instruments to maintain alertness and stay ahead of the aircraft. We're taught how the systems work and how to troubleshoot them. If all else fails, the emergency procedures are second nature and from most emergencies, they say, the plane's occupants walk away. Accidents, collisions, failures and so forth still happen, but I like these odds a lot better.

Kind of a lot to take in in such a short period of time. We'll see what other lessons the prego brain extracts during tonight's sleep...

[Off-topic] Parental controls

Do your parents decide before you are born when you will die?

(from Quirkology): "In 1999, Nicholas Christenfeld and his colleagues from the University of California, San Diego, uncovered evidence suggesting that a person's initials might affect perhaps the most important aspect of their life - the moment of their death. Using a large, computerised database of death certificates, they identified people whose initials formed a positive-sounding word (such as A.C.E., H.U.G. and J.O.Y.), and those that had very negative connotations, like P.I.G., B.U.M. and D.I.E. Using factors such as race, year of death and socio-economic status as controls, the researchers discovered that men with positive initials lived approximately four and a half years longer than average, whereas those with negative initials died about three years early.

Women with positive initials lived an extra three years, although there was no detrimental effect for those with negative initials. Further analysis suggested that those with negative initials were especially likely to die from psychological causes, such as suicides and self-inflicted accidents."


First of all, "statistics" is such a fantastic tool that it's useless. I prefer to look at the world in terms of binary probabilities, especially for predictive scenarios (but then again, what else is the ultimate use of gathering statistics?): There's a 50% probability that I'll die earlier than people who would be in my peer group in that study (that is, I will or I won't). There's a 50% chance that I'll get a good night's rest tonight (I will or I won't). There's a 50% likelihood that that tree in the backyard will fall over this summer (it will or it won't). Life gets a little simpler, eh? :)

I'm not sure what to make of the death-by-initials correlation for me and for Husband -- my initials are nonsense, and his could go either way (but we'll focus on the positive possibility)!

How about you all?

Other perspectives on the wind damage...

More pictures here and here from visitors to JGG around that time.

Short newspaper article here.

The storm also took out the neighboring winery.

A few entertaining minutes...

Take a read here.

[Off topic - stretching future soccer guy]

Three minutes of recent dancing belly footage, but mostly slow dancing on this one evening...

Boo hoo :(

It's official: 388 is totaled. Husband just got off the phone with the adjustor.

You know, we had prepared ourselves for this, and in many ways it's kinda the best thing for the situation because of certain life changes going on for us (some of which you know, some that are still private); it eliminates the hassle of trying to sell off a quarter share of an old (but fantastically reliable) plane.

But I still have tears in my eyes as I write this. The first plane we could call our own. The plane I trained in. The ONLY plane I've ever flown. The plane that overlapped with our pregnancy with our first child. I will miss its loyalty, its beautiful outdatedness. Most of all, I will miss its smell. It smelled mechanic, old, grimy and musty. But that smell is tied to so many strong and mostly good memories, most of which are documented here and here. Maybe they'll let me keep a floormat or something, and in 60 years when I'm completely off my rocker, I'll pull it out of its space-baggie, take an enriching deep breath, absorb the smell, and recall through the haze of a failing brain in intricate detail to the (great-?) grandchildren about learning to fly, about traveling with Husband (who will also be there, equally nuts), about the opportunities and geographies that open up to a pilot.

Several of you have noted that this doesn't have to be the end of the line for 388, and you're right. We'll see how things unfold. It does have a feeling of finality to it, though.

Thanks

Thanks, everyone, for the support/commiseration/advice...

We stopped by the airport again yesterday ~5 pm and 388 was still shiny-side down. The insurance guy is supposed to come out tomorrow (Monday), I think, and has given approval to flip the plane right-side up whenever the airport personnel want to do so. We're blocking at least one hangar and one taxi aisle for parking (there are alternate routes, just not as convenient), so I was surprised to see it still in place yesterday.

On top of being 33 weeks pregnant and sad about our first plane, I have pink eye for the first time ever and awoke this morning to ants in the kitchen! Such diversity in life's little challenges... When it rains, it pours, eh?

At least I have the love of a good man... :)

There's got to be a morning after...

Updated: Added pictures.

We scoped things out this morning, and it is just so sad to see 388 helpless on its back.



The wings are a little rumpled, the empennage is not quite straight or solid, ...




Kevin, the mechanic, was out this morning and he figures the insurance adjustor will total it, saying the wings will have to be wholly replaced and that fixing the empennage is a labor-intensive (read: expensive) job. Who knows about water and other damage to the avionics or interior in general. And we just did the annual a week ago! It's a 1968 172 with a current estimated value of $30-34k, so it probably won't take a whole lot of estimated repairs to get to that amount.



John, an instructor who lives to fly and just a super guy, had his tail-dragger parked down a few spaces. His was upside-down also. Kevin explained to us that it didn't flip tail-over-head like ours did, but flipped wing-over-wing, over a neighboring plane, taking out one plane's tail and damaging another to come to its resting point. After snapping the tie-downs. Rumpled wings, shattered windscreen, twisted empennage, ...




(John's plane is the white and blue one on the far right. It had been parked on the other side of the orange 172. The orange plane and the gray-and-yellow one facing the hangars had their tails clipped by it. The plane on the left has some holes in its skin. The plane in the foreground is in much the same condition as ours; this guy restored the interior himself a few years ago, replacing seats, doing the leather upholstery and interior panel coverings himself. So sad.)

Charlie, one of the linemen, said that non-owners were being turned away from the airport today, and that at one point there were ~75 cars stacked up of people coming to gawk. Kevin said there was one resident plane out on the ramp not damaged (out of probably 20); it just so happens to be the one plane that has never, ever moved the entire time we've been associated with the airport. Perhaps it's fused to the pavement.

All of the flight school's single-engine planes were damaged; luckily their twin so far appears to be ok. The handful of planes in the transient parking on the other side of the terminal also seem to have survived.

No words

There's just nothing to be said.



We'd had some storms tonight, and we got a call a little before 10 pm saying our plane had taken some damage. Yeah, I'll say. We'll go back in the morning to see what's to be seen or done. What we could tell in the dark is that the we have a destroyed tail tip, bent propeller, bent wing strut, damaged leading edge of one wing, fuel leaking (around fuel cap, so probably just coming out the vent), various antennae damaged or broken off, left-side door hinge ripped off... Oh, and the interior is soaking wet with 1/2 inch of water pooling at the "top" of the windscreen. And also the tie-downs were still connected to the plane.

As we drove off, the rain began to fall harder, thicker, and with hail.

AWOS appears to have stopped reporting a few hours ago. I guess it took some damage, too. They say four planes are upside-down (we saw two others near us, all high-wings), and several came loose and collided with neighboring planes.

A sad day at JGG.

New solo pilot

If you have a sec today, stop on by flyaway's training blog to congratulate him on his first solo flight early this morning! He's back on track after having lost his instructor to the airlines, and he's training in the ADIZ, which to a country flier like me sounds like a nightmare! :)

Good job!

Gut feelings and random thoughts

My feelings on flying are changing as my gut changes, I'm sorry to say...

I'm ~3/4 of the way through the pregnancy, and certain activities are becoming uncomfortable. Like bending to pick something up from the floor. Like sleeping. Like sitting.

Like spending hours upon hours in airport seats or airline seats.

Our 9-day trip to the Canadian Rockies was really a good trip. We hit Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Edmonton, and points in-between. I'd have to say that Banff was my favorite; a gorgeous little mountain town in a valley on a river surrounded by lush green mountains capped with snow, a town that's big enough to have interesting eating options but small enough to not be overrun with tourist-y shops. (It does have its share...) I'd really like to go back there when I get my body back so's to take advantage of the vast scope of outdoor opportunities -- hiking, rafting, biking, horseback riding, etc.

But spending 8+ hours in planes plus another 3+ hours in airports (thank you, weather delays) -- one way -- had my back screaming for mercy, and resulted in this policy: no travel longer than ~2 hours after the second trimester!

Beyond that, however, are the physiology management concerns, and this applied also to our flight in the 172 down to Asheville a few weekends ago. Amniotic fluid is pretty important for the developing baby (understatement), and it's cumulative; the recommendation is to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day (in addition to whatever other fluids like coffee or juice might be part of the daily regimen), plus another glass for each 15 minutes of exercise, plus 4 additional glasses on hot days with outdoor activity. That's a lot of intake, and it creates a lot of output, and with a shrinking bladder capacity, frequent breaks are necessary.

I'm not typically a germophobe, but airliner bathrooms really gross me out, as they do most everyone I know. The 6-year-old boy in 15b surely doesn't have the best aim to begin with, so throw in a little turbulence and you've got a situation that's less than ideal for any subsequent passenger. Ick and shudder.

And in a 172, that's an expensive potty break.

So you see where I'm going here. Just bitching about the growing discomforts of flying whilst preggers. I'd guess that it's just as bad for driving nowadays, too, but haven't tested it. Discomforts of traveling.

On another note, United gets mixed reviews from this trip. Our layover was at Chicago O'Hare, and the landings there both on the trip out and coming back were really soft and smooth, so pats on the back for those pilots. On the ORD-YYC leg, they announced that ATC would be tuned in on channel 9 in the armrest audio. That was fun, listening to the busy stuff going on at ORD and the calls in transit. (Note to self: what is "metering?" Some kind of departure load-balancing service?) Sometime at cruise altitude, the captain came on and advised us that he'd be "giving a dissertation" if anyone wanted to listen in on channel 9. He was amusing and talked for probably 20 minutes or so about the FO's experience, his experience, the history of the Boeing 737 (such as we were on), fuel ferrying and consumption/performance trade-offs in a time of high prices, etc. He was pretty cool and sounded very friendly.

Other United issues, though, were unusual and unpolished to me. For instance, during the pre-taxi safety instructions, it appears to be United policy to turn the cabin speakers down way low and to select the crew member with the worst diction and recitation skills to do the announcement. The phrasing of the announcements was bad, too; they seem to have accepted the first draft. The one that seemed very odd to me was the prepare-for-landing announcement: stow carry-ons, tray tables and seat backs in their full upright and locked position, seat belts fastened, and "in the case of an emergency after landing, leave all carry-ons behind"... They had already emphasized that in the case of any emergency all carry-ons should be left behind, so why repeat it for landings? Do they have a history of landing problems? Are they just trying to give the aviophobes a little nudge in the last-minute freak-out direction?

Ok, enough blathering for now, back to work! I'll post a few pics from the trip soon, and promise to be more positive! End communication.

Word!

Indeed!

Sleek, but suspicious

I found one of these in the garage this morning. At least, I think it's one of these.

I was pulling out of the garage and saw it peeking its head out. I put the Jeep in park and bounded out to get a closer look -- snakes don't bother me in the least, and this guy looked pretty big and cool. But as I got closer, this new risk-minimizing reflex kicked in: Being preggers, how close is safe to a snake if I don't know whether its venomous? That was kind of a strange wall to hit.

Well, shoot, at least I had the camera in the car. I'll post one of my pictures later, but here's what the guy looks like. I'd estimate that it was between three and four feet long, but it's pretty hard to tell when you can't grab him and stretch him out! Husband thought from the pic I showed him on the camera that he was at least four feet. (Image from the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries.)

We have lots of lizards around the house, and occasionally they'll hang out in the garage. We've had the good fortune to find nests of baby snakes in the backyard when mulching, and just transplant them farther back in the woods off the back of the property. This is the first time I've seen a snake in the garage. And with a snake this big, I worry about the bunnies living under the porch, adjacent to the garage!

Ah ha ha ha

One of the non-aviation blogs I really enjoy is Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog. His daily posts are always entertaining, even the political ones or the ones that fundamentally are just stupid.

I'd guess that by using today's post as a metric, we're uncool and all awesomeness must be questioned.

It's crummy anyway...

We've been cursed/blessed with some stunningly gorgeous days here recently, and yet Husband and I haven't gotten up to fly. Now, we can't even get off the ground if we wanted to!


Her Royal Majesty and the President of the United States are gracing our lil' ol' town for the 400th anniversary celebration at Jamestown this weekend and next weekend. That gray circle around JGG -- our homebase -- is a TFR that lasts through tomorrow sometime and that covers pretty much all of Williamsburg (Colonial and contemporary), and the one just southwest of the airport is right over Jamestown Island. Overflying the island is standard procedure for entering right traffic for 13 down here, and frequently for left 31 traffic as well.

Luckily the weather is really crummy today (even if it does still qualify as VFR), so it's easy to not be mad about not being allowed to fly.

The Good, The Bad, and The (Plane) Weird

The Good
In my brief time as a pilot, student and otherwise, I've had one flight that really comes to mind as "ideal." It could also be that whole temporal relevance thing -- It was one week ago today! [Read about it in more detail and see pictures here.]

It was a really great flight. The air was mostly smooth, the visibility was good, I had a good landing at a new airport, and everything went right. An easy, fun, peaceful VFR day flight.

The reason for the flight was ideal, too. To celebrate Husband's birthday, we were taking a day trip to a new destination for our first real $100 hamburger run. Good food, good flight conditions, good company, .... Could it get any better?


The Bad
So what's the opposite of that good day? Oh, dear, hands down -- the solo. I don't even want to rehash it to summarize.


The (Plane) Weird
I don't have much first-hand experience with weird things yet, so here are a few flying-related oddball items out there in internetland:
Old airplane designs
Strange aircraft designs, I'm especially confused by the Blohm und Voss BV 141.
Brave helicopter pilot
Airplane coffin

Well, that explains it...

The Leesburg FSS had some problems last weekend.

When we went up the DelMarVa peninsula for Husband's birthday trip on Saturday, I had used the AOPA RTFP to file a VFR flight plan. At 10:14 am ET I called Leesburg Radio from ~2000' 2 nm north of JGG and opened the flight plan. When we got to GED, I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF to close it, and was on hold for 8 1/2 minutes.

It was the first time I had ever waited more than 2 rings for an answer. When that answer came, it was an automated (Lockheed) system instead of a person, also a first. Then the long hold time as I was assured that my call was important to them and that they were experiencing higher than usual call volume.

And I just figured the skies were crowded on such a gorgeous day!

Birthday Jaunt

We just got back from Husband's birthday day trip (his birthday is later in the week, but today was irresistible) up to KGED (Georgetown, DE). It was a really nice trip! He did 3 hours of sight-seeing, and I got 3 hours of flight time.

We left JGG by 31 around 10 am, turned west for the noise abatement. I called Leesburg Radio and opened our VFR flight plan, then headed northeast for Mobjack Bay and the narrowest passage across the lower Chesapeake Bay. We got to our target bay-crossing altitude of 7500' a few minutes before running out of land, and up there it was a little chilly even though on the ground it was already in the upper 60s. The air was nice and smooth, and the bay was already thoroughly dotted with boats.

It was a gorgeous, nearly cloudless day with good but not "severe clear" visibility. Once we crossed the bay, I took us down to our cruise altitude of 5500' and pointed us NNE. We'd be overflying Accomack County (MFV, I think), traffic for which is frequently heard all the way down at JGG. We flew along the eastern seashore, Chincoteague and Assateague. We flew just west of Wallops Island, a military field (maybe AF?), and could see the buildings of Ocean City, MD, off at the very edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a super trip, the kind of really good and easy trip that perfectly exemplifies why I learned to fly. Husband is putting up some video he took en route and also of my landing at GED (below). When we landed and were directed to transient parking, three ground crew members came out to help us push back and with chocks, and within moments the fuel truck was there to top us off; great service here.


Landing here for me was pretty neat. It's the first time since finishing training that I've gone to an unfamiliar airport, or gone on an unfamiliar cross-country flight (as PIC). I did the usual preflight prep, checking weather, using RTFP for course plotting and filing the flight plan, checking for TFRs, etc. I had picked out several airports along the way and printed out their kneeboard pages from the AOPA database, including GED's, of course. But actually going to that airport with so little research was neat. The only other time I've really gone to "new" airports was during training, and as a student I was anal (who, me?!?!?!!!) about knowing every available detail about the airport and surrounding area so there would be no surprises. I knew I had everything I needed for the destination, we'd have two GPSs and the sectional, so we were good to go without having to spend two hours planning and analyzing the trip! Approaching the airport, Husband helped me plan our descent from 5500' to pattern altitude of 1050', I executed that and got into the traffic flow with ease. Training apparently worked as it was supposed to have worked, because there were none of the comfortable visual cues of homebase, just the runway to use as a guide for the pattern and everything went just right.

Sussex County Airport (GED) has a nice little restaurant called the Flight Deck. They've got a good-looking menu, and we were both delightfully satisfied with our meals; a ($100) cheeseburger and onion rings for Husband, and broiled flounder with coleslaw and sweet potato casserole for me.

After a nice lunch, we paid for our fuel and headed out to the Delaware Aviation Museum, which is right there on the grounds. Out in the grass between the taxiway and the runway they have a collection of deteriorating Migs. I thought the noses had a neat design.

We then went through the museum, guided by a nice lady name Charlie. It's not a big place, but there are lots of neat artifacts. Apparently, all of the stuff there was collected by Larry, a B-24 (or 25?) pilot who lives in the area. Here are two of the exhibits in there. On the right, those are recon cameras; thank goodness for the tiny digital technologies we have nowadays!

Just before finishing up with the tour, the medevac helicopter pilot who was on waiting duty came in and said a Corsair was in the pattern. We went out to see it land, and it was followed by a P-40. Those things are huge! The wing design of the Corsair is really neat, too.

Departing the airport was easy. We had come in on 22 and departed 4. We turned out to the west, dodged some restricted airspace, stayed well east and south of the DC ADIZ, and picked our way back home. The air was a lot choppier as we came home, and I abandoned our 4500' first choice for cruise and went up to 6500' where it was generally much smoother. I had some of that weird unsettling feeling in the turbulence, which was nothing as far as turbulence goes, but stuck it out (I just annoyed husband with some of the whining...); luckily most of the return trip was smooth! Just some thermals as we move into warm weather...

We landed back at JGG, safe and sound, on 31 around 4 pm. We swapped places so Husband could get a trip around the pattern in before we shut down for the day.

What a nice day! :)


I'm up to 67.1 total hours now. And both takeoffs and both landings were one-handed.

Day trip

Tomorrow we're planning a trip up to KGED for two $100 hamburgers and a visit to the Delaware Aviation Museum, and maybe a nice walk into town. Looks like it should be a beautiful east-coast day for a flight up the DelMarVa peninsula!

In the completely unrelated category of fun with babies in utero, here's a baby-kick indicator on my burgeoning belly.... No fat jokes, please -- I can still see my toes.

Refresher flight

Goals:

• Brief, fun local flight.
• Takeoff and landing practice.

Flight:
Husband sauntered into my office this afternoon around quarter after five, sat down, looked out the window and said, "Man, looks like a nice day for flying." I've been married to him long enough to know what that means! Ten minutes later we were on our way home to pick up the flight bag and camera.

The plan for the evening would be for me to knock the dust off. It had been a little over three weeks since I flew, and the last flight wasn't good. We were coming back from down South for a family visit, and I had taken off and was going to fly for the first leg. We weren't 500' AGL when some turbulence started kicking us around, and while I've flown in enough chop for it to not be unsettling (hello, checkride?), I was borderline panic-stricken! I could not explain it, but almost immediately I had to pass control over to Husband. It was a terrible feeling then, and really shook my confidence that I would react so strongly, so quickly to conditions that really weren't that bad. I've thought about it so much, and honestly can't come up with anything better than "hormones" as an explanation. Had I been alone, I would have stayed in the pattern, landed and deplaned. (And no, I didn't blog about it; I haven't been able to make sense of it.)

I'll just tell you the ending for this evening's flight first -- it was a good, easy flight with no strange feelings and mostly decent work.

As we rode to the airport, I couldn't help but be apprehensive. The memory of the terrible and inexplicable feelings from a few weeks prior mixed with the knowledge that I haven't had any real practice in about a month left me feeling, well, just apprehensive. I didn't say anything to Husband because my intention was for it to be a good flight and I knew he'd be able to take over at any time should we have a repeat.

Blah, blah, blah... My feelings this, my feelings that. Rant on myself. Ok, stream of consciousness over.

Preflight was good. Husband snapped a few pics of the shiny new 4-hour-old tach. We decided to go to PHF (towered) for two stop-and-go landings. Husband showed me his new leaning technique (throttle to 1500, lean until it starts to drop, enrichen to stabilize it -- this left the mixture rod out about the length of my pointer finger up to the second knuckle). We taxied out to 13 and departed with a nice normal takeoff and a climb just to the west of the power station.

Once we were clear of the power station and at 2600' MSL (clear of Fort Eustis' airspace), we pointed toward PHF. I called them when we were over the dead fleet to let them know where we were and that we had info Quebec. He told me to report a 2-mile left base for 7. I had a bit of confusion making out the airport. I know PHF, but I've never used 7-25, had never approached from this angle, and it was hazy enough that I couldn't quite pick out the V-shaped runways from where we were, so I was a little off-kilter not being able to immediately visualize the approach plan.

Once we passed Fort Eustis and officially entered PHF's airspace, I began my descent, pulling power out for a fairly aggressive sink rate (5 nm from the airport (center) with 2600' to lose). As I turned onto base I called the tower, who cleared me for #2 behind a Cessna on final doing a touch-and-go, then instructed me to make right traffic for the second landing and report midfield downwind. I repeated the clearance, kept the descent, and grinned a teensy bit as a regional jet announced he was ready at 7 to depart. (Typically at PHF, 7-25 is the big plane and commercial traffic runway and 2-20 is the GA runway.) The tower told him to hold for me. The grin wasn't because we were making him wait, but rather that I felt like I was really part of the system, not just some student gumming up the works.

Anyway, feelings again, eh?

I turned final and Husband supplied the requested 20 degrees of flaps. My airspeed was good, holding just under 70 mph and it was a pretty decent landing, despite the wacko visual cues of such an enormous runway. So's to minimize the time on the ground, Husband pulled in the flaps while I brought us to a stop and put the carb heat cold; the rest of the post-landing checklist didn't apply since we were going right back up.

With gradual full throttle, we were on our way again. Shortly we reached 1000' and were at midfield before I knew it. Another call to the tower and we were again cleared #2 for 7 (this time for the option) behind the same Cessna who was doing another touch-and-go. I repeated and stated "cleared for a stop-and-go." This time around I got to do a more standard approach, starting my descent with flaps abeam the numbers and so forth. It should have been a good landing, but alas... I got slow really high and the stall warning came on. I mean, probably 50' up still. Runway 7 is enormous, so missing the numbers by half a mile would still leave plenty of room for lil' 388 to land just fine. I put in a little power and relaxed some back pressure. The horn stuttered off-and-on for the rest of the descent, and we landed quite firmly. It wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't a bouncer. I suppose I'd sum it up as a clumsy landing. Husband instinctively grabbed the yoke, and I told him I had it... actually, my memory could totally be wrong but I think he grabbed it after we touched down. I'll have to ask him about that.

We cleaned up expeditiously and again departed. Straight-out, after listening to an incoming aircraft's call from somewhere out ahead of us, I told PHF I'd like to depart straight-out then return to JGG. He, bored, okayed that. We turned off to go up the peninsula, keeping an eye out for the incoming traffic. After a few minutes, PHF alerted us that the plane should be no factor at 2000' off our right wing. We were at 2600 by then, and Husband picked out the other plane with ease.

He wanted to try a simulated engine loss on takeoff to see what the sight-picture would be for attaining the recommended 80-mph glide for that emergency in that configuration. As we neared a field, I set the trim for takeoff, pitched us up and went full throttle. As we slowed to Vy, we stabilized and then pulled the throttle (and carb heat) out. The nose quickly pitched itself over -- no leaning forward on the yoke from either of us -- and before long we were nearing 100 mph. The training mag articles all emphasize how (1) imperative the response and (2) extreme the nose-down are for an engine failure on takeoff. Perhaps it depends on when during takeoff the failure occurs, because our Vy is 83 mph, and best glide is 80, and it did not require an extreme input from us at all. Had we been climbing at Vx (65), well, I still am not sure since the plane pointed itself down so rapidly.

With that exercise behind us, we returned to 2500' and continued the scan for traffic into the setting sun through the haze (super for perceived visibility) as we approached JGG. Winds were reported to be calm, and an airport advisory indicated to land 31. We overflew Busch Gardens and Husband called out the rides he saw and what they were doing; some folks were down there having a nice (albeit chilly) evening!

At home base we crossed midfield to enter left downwind for 31. I felt way wide, so I brought my downwind in a little tighter, but then my base ended up way short and I overshot final. It wasn't awful, and I'm comfortable maneuvering back to centerline, so I chose not to scrap the landing. I was lined up and doing ~80, whereas 70ish would have been more appropriate for that stage. I pulled the power, and just then the swamp monster gave us a little jab. I put a touch of power back in to get us through it with a little more force and accepted that we'd land long; it was all still well within limits. I was not keeping centerline very well, and part of my effort was diverted to recovering that. As we got down into the runway environment, we were still way fast so I went to idle and tried to fly just over the pavement while bleeding off airspeed. I didn't want to pull back much for fear of ballooning, so I tried to ride it out. Unfortunately, my height judgment is, aside from being rusty and aside from being quintessentially feminine, not spectacular and we flew onto the runway. Not the good kind of "greased it" "flew onto the runway," but rather planted it with resolve onto the runway. The angle was shallow enough that no bounce or ouchy resulted... well, actually, we did have a flicker of a nosewheel shimmy, but nothing like the jaw-rattling shimmies we experienced before the dampener and wheel were replaced.

We rolled out, cleaned up, called for fuel, shut down and went home. As we left the airport, we stopped to snap a few pics of the beautiful sunset.



Despite having two firmer-than-satisfactory landings, all-in-all it was a really good flight. I got more airtime. Husband got to be my passenger and we got to go together. Well, the whole family got to go! And perhaps most importantly, I demonstrated that whatever that panic situation was three weeks ago, it was an isolated event and not some new gonna-be-a-mommy-so-must-eliminate-all-risk subconscious freak-out policy.

Discussion:

1. Co-pilots: Having a co-pilot, or a pilot-not-flying, is great. It's really good and reassuring to know he's there and can help. Husband is quite talkative in-flight (honey, that's not a complaint!) and it generally helps me to continue learning. He knows the things that irk me, and can tailor his pointers around those!


2. Power and landings: Landing #2 at PHF saw too little power; we had bookoos of room and a whining stall horn. More power would have stretched out the descent and eased that landing. The landing at JGG had too much power; I had deliberately put it in to get past El Chupacabre but left it in quite longer than I should have, making it an unnecessarily long landing.

Hours logged this flight: 0.9
Hours logged total: ?
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: ?
PIC (solo) hours total:: ?

Baby is a boy!

We're growing a son! He's got the right number of arms and legs, a good strong heartbeat, a wicked-cool looking spine (really neat on ultrasounds!), and nicely defined muscles, too, don't you think? :)

News on the ground

The baby-pilot-in-making is now kicking, rolling and punching such that Daddy can feel it, too. Exciting!

Finally!

I never thought I'd get back to it and get it done! The writeup of the second part of my practical flight test.

The Killing Zone, killer #1

I've finally made it through the first real chapter in the book. The first few pages cover statistics and give background/justification as to why 50-350 hours of flight time is the range dubbed "the killing zone."

I have to agree with whoever said it a few months back (IFR Pilot? Diary of a Private Pilot?) -- the lack of editing on this book is distracting! Seriously, people, a high school kid with a pen could have done wonders to improve the grammar and flow!

That aside, however, there's good information in there. The first "real" chapter, as I've called it, covers the first major reason why/how pilots die: VFR flight into IMC.

I have to be entirely truthful here. My meager three hours of under-the-hood training showed me that, while I can certainly fly by visual reference to horizon, I trust my instruments more than my own perception and am very comfortable with them. Given that, the idea of flying in clouds has not been intimidating. Before you go yelling and screaming that I'm exactly the kind of pilot who becomes an IMC statistic, my training dictates that clouds ahead warrant a 180 and that's what I'd do. (Hopefully; some of the cited NTSB reports and "survivor" stories describe get-there-itis and other judgment flaws that lead to problems and I assume they were all good and diligent pilots beforehand, too.) In the book, Paul Craig points his finger at me and says my attitude is the reason young (read: inexperienced) pilots die. I'm a young pilot. I don't want to die.

I gleaned several useful points from the chapter that tempered my fearlessness (again, fearless does not equate to disregard of common sense) with regards to flying solely by instrument reference. First, and worst, is the idea of instrument failures and how subtle they can be. The fact that gyros wind down slowly and feed you increasingly incorrect information but at a such an insidiously slow pace that you're willing to continue "correcting" your trajectory to level off or fly straight is terrifying to me. On our plane, the suction gauge is at the very far right of the instrument panel, and while it's part of the standard scan, I could see missing the cue that something was amiss based on its read-out in a time of extra stress. Our plane also has this hideously bright red protrusion from the middle of the instrument panel that lights up when suction is lost; I've seen that at engine startup when the attitude indicator was sad and dead, but with some added RPMs the vacuum system kicks right up. Would it come on promptly at the start of trouble?

I don't know airplane systems well enough to know how to recognize or troubleshoot every problem (or most problems, even). Carb ice, check. Loss of suction, kinda check. Blocked pitot tube or static port? Maybe, but it would take longer for me to catch on to that. This chapter spent several pages discussing how to recognize such failures and what to do about them.

The second item is the physical disorientation. My naivete' says it wouldn't be that bad since it's easy to read and rely on the instruments (barring failures). Husband described his IFR training and how very, very different it is to have foggles on and fake like there are no visual cues to overcome versus actually being in a white-out cloud situation where the body very loudly insists on assessments that just aren't right. To demonstrate, he encouraged me to try to keep reading the book while he stood a foot away yelling at me. The book goes into a little detail about how the ear participates in a sense of equilibrium and how motion affects your perceived sense of stability in three axes.

I'd love to do one of those test simulators, the ones where the statistics for VFR pilots are really bad, like the longest surviving pilot lasted 8 minutes but the average was 20 seconds. I'll take their word for it that it is that deadly; I'm not one to tempt fate. But that is just difficult to believe without firsthand experience. When we finally move up to a plane Husband feels comfortable with for IFR trips, he'll have to take me into the soup to demonstrate...

Technical difficulties over?

Husband suggested it was probably a database issue at Bloglines (the reader I use) that was making it show up funny, and in fact today it's back to normal, so, good, I guess... :)

Technical difficulties

Something is amiss in the blogger.com world....

If you're subscribed to this blog using the blogspot atom feed, you're probably now seeing posts from a blog called "Great blogs for you to use." Of course if you're seeing those posts, you won't see this one. I haven't determined what the problem is yet but am looking into it. Perhaps it will resolve itself in time.

I recommend updating your blog reader to subscribe to http://feeds.feedburner.com/pilot-in-training instead.

Checkride part 2 part 1

The first installment of my checkride flight finally went up. I hope to finish the rest of it with only another hour or two of work...

In case your feed reader missed it on account of the post being back-dated, it's here.

I'm so sorry for the delay! I'm ashamed that it's been 3 weeks! But yay -- I've been a full-fledged pilot for 3 weeks! :)

Neat :)

If you get Flight Training magazine, check out page 45 of the April issue. If you have an AOPA membership, you can also check it out here.

Should sound familiar if you've been reading along here since September...

Getting side-tracked...

I'm now behind by two flight posts -- the checkride (still!) and yesterday's flight with Husband.

But I'm gonna post on a semi-unrelated topic anyway...

Aviation. Aeronautics. NASA. The universe.

Maybe it's not so unrelated after all...

Husband sent me a link to this 6.5-minute video a while back, and it got buried in my inbox, but I finally dug it up tonight and watched. It's pretty neat, especially when you're fascinated by the topic but, as they note, in your day-to-day life you just don't think about it that much. (There's some series available in full online that's pretty good, if you want more -- Husband, what is it? Is it a Nova program?)

I did have to laugh out loud, though... Not on account of the dancing dork (it's only a few seconds, bear with it), but when they said "8 planets in our solar system." It really caught me off-guard! I guess the change to that fundamental piece of knowledge hasn't sunk in yet, because when they said that, I flashed forward 10 years to when our baby is in elementary-school science class learning about the solar system, and how weird it will be to say "Back when I was in school, there were 9 planets." I wonder if they'll learn about Pluto's demotion, or if the textbooks will even mention that it was ever a planet.

The easiest hours

I know, I know, I still owe you details about the checkride and I'm working on it! Here's a teaser... the METAR when I showed up at the airport Saturday morning; needless to say, it was a tense hour of go/don't-go fretting leading up to the scheduled departure time:
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1

This morning Husband and I went up for the easiest 1.4 hours I could possibly get -- as his safety pilot! :) And so it begins! He did a good job. We did the VOR 9 and VOR 27 approaches with holds and all that down at Franklin (FKN), then a VOR check just west of AKQ at the WAIKS intersection, then the HCM VOR approach to JGG for a very well-executed circle-to-land on 13. Husband is good. :)

As a completely off-topic side note, a warning: I'm trying to resolve some identity theft issues right now and one thing the bastard(s) did was to open a Macy's credit card. Ok, fine. I saw it on my credit report as "MACYDSNB", called them up and they closed it. Today I was giving ye olde credit reports another perusal, and a new account with the same institution information appeared as "VISDSNB." I figured another credit card had been opened, but it turns out that Macy's is just a shady creditor. When they open a store account, they also automatically open a VISA account with a $10,000 credit limit and tie it to the same card so their store card can be used at any retailer that takes VISA. No consumer approval or application required (not that I applied for the Macy's card to begin with!). Shady. So I called them again and verified that the Macy's account was closed and asked that this account also be closed. They complied, but that just seems so wrong. Be advised...

Checkride Part 2b: Landings and Debrief

Oh, goodness! What mixed emotions! I knew I had been doing well overall and was feeling really good about that as I got AKQ in the GPS and took us back there, but I knew that the real test was to come: if the winds were as random and variable and gusty as they were when we left, the landings portion of the checkride was going to be a challenge! Plus, the possibility of the never-before-attempted forward-slip to a landing loomed...

As we got within ~10 miles of the airport, I dialed in the ASOS. Not good news. I don't remember the exact numbers now, but I do clearly remember the sinking feeling I got when I heard them. We'd be landing runway 2 in sketchy, variable, gusty conditions.

We were on the wrong side of the airport for downwind for 2, so I decided to cross mid-field and check out the wind triangle. At that particular moment, it was perpendicular to the runway, indicating a direct left crosswind. Ok, fine, but is that what it would be in another minute or two?

As I crossed the field, someone announced they were on downwind. Eek! We were a few hundred feet above pattern altitude, and had been listening to CTAF the whole time, but I certainly had my eyes on the ground while looking for and assessing the wind situation! My instant decision was to stay straight (direct perpendicular crossing would minimize the time we might be near each other), ascend a bit more, announce my position again, and look like crazy for the bogie. I asked Linda if she had the other plane, and after a few seconds she said she had them, they had just then turned from crosswind onto downwind, and by now we were past the downwind path he'd be taking. (It turns out it was a local pilot that she knows well -- was this a test?!?!)

After a moment to chill the heartbeat -- the scare of a mid-air collision on a checkride! -- I enacted the next step in the plan. Since I was high and heading away from the airport, I announced my position again and intention to do a right-360 (well, 270 really) while descending to pattern altitude to join up on downwind near midfield. That would also give the other plane time to get out ahead of us. By the time I got to downwind, we could see him well ahead on base.

Then Linda asked me to start with a soft-field landing. I know how to do one, but thinking that this would be one of those times to demonstrate conscientious use of a checklist, I pulled out the maneuver flipbook and turned to the right page. While I was calling out the list, it got choppy over the trees and I set the book down to do the aviate thing. She commented that we were a little too close to the ground anyway to be reading instead of flying. I felt a little embarassed. Oh well, shake it off and land...

Since the winds were all sketchy, I wanted to have a long enough final to assess and make decisions, so I extended my downwind a bit. It was bouncy all the way down, and I was right on target for the numbers, nose up, right past the road and next to the hangars. The mains touched down pretty gently, and then SLAP! The nose came down firmly. I immediately said that that definitely didn't qualify as a soft-field landing, though I had set it up pretty well, but I didn't know why the nose rotated down so dramatically unless the winds just gave out at that moment. She said that on a day like this, that wouldn't be surprising, but to go do it again.

Blech. Not off to a good start. I turned around at the mid-field turn and back-taxiied for 2. With a normal takeoff, I was back in the left pattern for another soft-field landing. This time around was much the same as the first, bumpy and a long final. This time, though, she told me to aim for just past the treeline as my touchdown point, which was maybe 1/5 of the way down the runway, so that the wind might be broken up some when I touch down and to carry a few extra mphs. I did so, and was pleased to have landed at her target, but it was still not as soft as I'm capable of doing. She asked me to turn around and back-taxi again, then do a short-field takeoff and landing. I guess that soft-field was good enough!

This time, before leaving the mid-field turnaround, I pulled out the checklist and scanned both the takeoff and the landing procedures. Again, I know them, but use of the checklist at an appropriate time... you know...

The short-field takeoff was typical. The short-field landing was crap! I bounced! OMG!!!! Bouncing on my checkride! My first touchdown was right on the numbers, as requested, but the second one was a little farther. Despite the bounce, I still stopped in a pretty damn short distance. But I was dying inside! I was so flunked! My mind flashed to having to tell Husband and Chuck that I did 5 hours of great work followed by the capstone terrifically horrible landing to cancel it all out! How miserable!

I powered up and got down to the turnaround, wanting to crawl under the seat and have a good cry, when Linda asked what went wrong. I flared late, maybe the shifty winds were hosing me again, .... She said she was pretty sure that the winds were the culprit (I think she sensed my withered insides and was being nice) and asked me to go up again for a forward-slip landing this time. As we back-taxiied, she talked about one of the benefits of more experience is the use of a touch of power to cushion a badly executed flare and also to give the subsequent landing after a bounce a chance of being soft.

I was listening with my ears, but my heart was still sinking. On the one hand, if that was bad enough to fail me, would she have told me to go again? On the other hand, with just one, maybe two landings left, was she just letting me get those out of the way so that when I had to come back for the retest I'd just have to do a short-field for her? And saving the one manuever that I've never, ever done for last! The torture of it all! Ok, so I'd be coming back to retest on two things... My inner child was sad.

But as I turned around for my takeoff, I snapped to and got back on the ball. Normal takeoff, and since she knew I had never slipped as part of a landing she coached me on downwind, emphasizing that staying aligned with the runway would be the biggest challenge today and to just feel it out and correct as necessary. As we got around toward base, she suggested aiming for the treeline and carrying a tad bit of extra airspeed. I set up my aim, set up the slip, descended, stayed aligned, got past the trees, and as I started to let out the slip I realized I was not going to make the 400' touchdown zone (starting from the beginning of the trees, anyway) but it would be close. Since I was going a little fast, we floated, and floated, and floated, and then had a firm (but bounceless!) touchdown. Except for the fact that it was so long, I was pretty happy with my first slipped-in landing. I could do it again and would do it better.

Even being long, we were able to turn out midfield. She told me to taxi back and park. NO! That must have clinched it! I had failed! I bounced the short-field landing and missed the landing zone for the forward slip. I had used up all of my second chances! :( :( :( :( :(

I don't think she could tell, but I was mortified and shaking as we went back to the terminal. I turned the plane around and parked facing the runway. As I did the shutdown checklist, she pointed out that a Diamond, flown by one of the high-hour local pilots, was coming in and said we'd watch and see how he handled the variable winds. He looked about like I had felt -- wings constantly bobbing around. He landed pretty long, too.

Linda: "Even the experienced pilots are having trouble today."
Me (dejected): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "With more time, you're landings will get better, even in conditions like these."
Me (morose): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "But you'll have plenty of time to practice now that you have your license to learn."
Me (dumbfounded): "I passed?!??!?!!"
Linda: "Well, yes, didn't you think so?"
Me (shocked): "Up until the landings I was sure of it, but they were so bad I wasn't so sure."
Linda: "They weren't graceful and you know what you need to work on, but you're a competent and safe pilot."
Me (clapping): "Yay!"

Seriously, I clapped. :)

She instructed me to finish my shutdown procedure while she went in and got started typing up my temporary license, then we'd debrief. I floated through the process and bounced -- the good kind of bouncing -- into the terminal.

Inside we went over points on the oral that I hadn't done so well on -- like confusing myself about whether there's Class G airspace directly over a Class E airport (there is). We went over the flight portion, too, and she really had only three things to say there: stall recovery always, always gets full power immediately, my landings need polish, and I need to work on flying with one hand more, especially in the pattern.

I had actually been working on keeping one hand on the throttle during the climb, and I generally did that naturally on final as well. My problem, however, is that when it's as choppy as it was that day, my instinct is to death-grip the yoke with both hands. It's either subconsciously for my own comfort or to add some balance/stability to an unstable situation. In any case, she called me on that and I'll work on it.

I FREAKIN' PASSED! I'm a private pilot! :)

Checkride Part 2a: The flight exam

So you know from reading the the beginning of the oral exam post that it was uncertain due to winds whether the checkride would actually transpire today. The little voice in my head was thinking about the wind conditions for my first solo, and I gotta admit that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But I've come a long way, baby, and am much better equipped to handle some bumps now.... Still, these could be major bumps, and the questions of (1) aircraft crosswind limitations and (2) personal limits had to be asked.

When I departed for AKQ, the winds had settled somewhat and were within both plane and personal limits. On the high end of the limits, but within. Pre-checkride forward-slip landing practice was canceled on account of the winds, but closer to the zero hour it was acceptable.

This is what the conditions were between the time when I arrived at AKQ just before 11 am and just after I left a little after 4 pm:
KAKQ 241954Z AUTO 03011G16KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP222 T00941117 TSNO
KAKQ 241854Z AUTO 03005KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP226 T00891122 TSNO
KAKQ 241754Z AUTO 01007KT 10SM CLR 08/M12 A3021 RMK AO2 SLP233 T00781122 10078 21061 58018 TSNO
KAKQ 241654Z AUTO VRB06KT 10SM CLR 06/M14 A3024 RMK AO2 SLP243 T00561139 TSNO
KAKQ 241554Z AUTO 36010G16KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP250 T00441144 TSNO
KAKQ 241454Z AUTO 33008KT 290V010 10SM CLR 03/M16 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP251 T00281156 50009 TSNO

Big fun, eh?

So after the oral exam, we headed out to 388 and Linda asked me to do a thorough preflight, except that fuel samples wouldn't be necessary. I was to talk her through the process and point out where samples would be taken. I was actually caught a little off-guard by that. I figured that since the plane had been out of my sight for over 2 hours at an unfamiliar airport that sampling I would need to do. It may have been a challenge from her to see if I, as PIC, would do the conservative thing or not. I did not check the fuel, and she didn't say anything about that.

I walked around with my checklist, and about the time I got past the right wing up to the nose she got chatty. Ah, perhaps this is a distraction test. She asked me a question, and I heard her but blocked her out long enough to mark my place on the checklist. I then talked to her and came back to my checklist, letting her know I was going back two items in the list to ensure that I hadn't missed something. Score! A minute later the same thing happened again, and I responded the same way. Then another pilot based at AKQ came out and talked to her so I was largely unsupervised for the rest of the preflight.

We hopped in and got organized. I noticed that she didn't fasten her seatbelt, and assumed that was another test -- she has to have billions of hours, so not buckling up wouldn't be a mistake on her part. I didn't say anything yet, knowing that it was one of the first few items on the in-cockpit checklist. Preflight inspection, complete. Passenger briefing -- here we go. I explained how the seatbelts work and asked her to fasten in and tighten down, then explained the door operation, then asked her to not touch anything unless we had an understanding about it, and asked her to continue the briefing so we would know what to expect on the flight. She said we'd start with the x-c and at some point would break off to do instrument work, maneuvers, and so forth then do some landings and debrief at AKQ. Super! I was so excited!

The rest of the preflight was fine and normal and before long we were rolling to the threshold. At AKQ you enter the runway pavement on the numbers for 2, so if you want 20 you have to back-taxi the entire length. I paused before the threshold line to assess the current winds. Variable, still, but favoring 2. Well at least that part would be easy! I announced that I was departing 2 and would leave the pattern to the northeast.

And that I did, though the mechanical turbulence over the treetops, and began my climb to the x-c cruise altitude of 4500'. It was bumpy all the way up, as expected! The surprise was that at about 4400' the chop switched off, just like that. The whole x-c portion at 4500' was actually nice and smooth! I got an opportunity during the climb, though, to demonstrate traffic-scanning effectiveness; maybe ~2500' I saw a twin-engine out in front of us going the opposite direction, perhaps half a mile or so to our left and a couple thousand feet above. I pointed him out as "no factor" and continued the climb.

Here's an overview pic of the checkride flight (click to enlarge):


What I've learned from x-c planning is to not start the timer between checkpoints from takeoff, but rather from the first checkpoint, selected to coincide with reaching cruise altitude. I had shown Linda the calculations that did take that climb leg into account for total trip time and fuel consumption, and she ok'd that plan. I hit checkpoint #1 just below 4500', but started my timer anyway and jotted down the time and the ETA for checkpoint #2. I then checked the sectional to be positive of our position. Linda was pointing out features here and there and amidst scans for traffic and scans of the instruments I would indicate whether they were or were not on the sectional. (In the debrief she praised my pilotage skills! :) ) Of course, those could have been distraction attempts, too, because she had quite a few things to point out.

The second checkpoint would be a turn in the power lines we were following. We got there just barely behind schedule, which surprised the hell out of me since the winds now were supposed to be dramatically lighter than the ones predicted when I had done the calculations earlier in the morning. Something was wrong, but I didn't put my finger on it yet... I knew the plan was to fly straight (as though the power lines hadn't turned) until we hit I-95, then turn SSW. We got to I-95 ahead of schedule, according to my navlog calculations. Hmmmm...

I turned off SSW and followed the interstate with it out my window, since that was the plan. I consulted the sectional to make sure that the interchange on I-95 that was the checkpoint was indeed the one I expected. It was. So what was wrong? Why were the times off, and off inconsistently?

Duh! I wanted to throw myself out the window in shame! For the whole trip, I had picked 17 checkpoints, and that required two navlog forms. I had the second page of checkpoints on top and hadn't noticed! Bonehead! I made this realization and was analyzing my options (transfer times to the right log boxes? ignore those first two and just get back on track by starting the timer at the next checkpoint?) when Linda asked me to calculate our groundspeed based on the past checkpoints and then estimate remaining time en route. I immediately admitted my mistake and said that I planned to start the timer at the next checkpoint to get on track, and that after the following checkpoint I could do that calculation.

Still suffering my self-humiliation, after hitting the checkpoint and starting the clock I realized that I didn't need to do that to give her the time en route. The last minute of shame fell away completely as I refocused and pointed out that the GPS gave me groundspeed and suggested that I could calculate from that. She approved, I did the math, and came up with roughly an hour to get to LHZ. She was satisfied with that, and I felt a little better.

After one more checkpoint, Linda had me go under the foggles under the guise that we had just unexpectedly flown into clouds. I said I'd be doing a left 180 to go back to VFR weather, but first I wanted to tip my left wing so she could check for traffic for us (brownie points!). I did a nice standard-rate 180, maintaining altitude pretty closely.

Then she asked me to descend to 3000' while maintaining heading. I felt I did that right-on, but the GPS shows some slight right deviation. My first thought is precession of the heading indicator, but it wouldn't precess that quickly, I wouldn't think, and I don't remember which way it precesses anyway.

Anyhow, at altitude she had me turn to headings by IR. These were, in effect, clearing turns. Foggles off, time for stalls!

I swear we did a full-flaps approach-to-landing stall first, but the GPS track indicates a power-on stall first. In any case, I was glad that Chuck had run stall drills in one of our recent pre-checkride flights! The power-on stall was good, and the full-flaps stall, done while turning, seemed good to me. In training we rarely did full-flap stalls, if ever (I'll have to review my flight (b)logs!). The only thing I could remember was what I knew I had been taught about a go-around from a full-flaps configuration: half power, flaps to 20, full power, Vy, milk the flaps the rest of the way. Not using full power initially is to avoid a sudden nose-up; made sense to me that you'd use the same procedure to avoid a secondary stall. So that's what I did, and didn't lose much altitude at all. She didn't say anything then, but when we got back for the debriefing, she laid down the law: always go full-power when recovering from a stall, period. Period.

Staying in slow flight, I let the stall warning squeal while doing requested clearing turns. The foggles then came back on for unusual attitudes. The most inexplicable part of the GPS track is, naturally, during this portion! See that abrupt left (you can't tell from this view, but the side-view shows a roller coaster for altitude, too!) followed by some straight flying (the recovery portion, regaining desired heading and altitude), then a tight-tight climbing turn? Yeah....



After the unusual attitudes, which went just fine, Linda asked for a steep turn. I said that I'd do clearing turns and then start a left-hand steep turn. Near the end of the first half of the clearing turn, she suggested that I go right into the steep turn, and I agreed after vocalizing that I thought it would be ok to use that as the completion of the clearing turn. My left steep turn wasn't very pretty -- a little tight and not ended in quite the right place -- but the altitude was good and that's the #1 thing I was being anal about! As I got perhaps 3/4 of the way through it, she instructed me to go straight into a right-hand steep turn, which I did. Again, not beautiful, but better than the first and the altitude was right on.

I stabilized coming out of the steep turns and had my hand on the throttle, finishing the throttle/altitude/airspeed balancing act, when suddenly she put her hand on top of mine! If I hadn't been surprised I would have been suspicious -- odd time to put the moves on! :) Ha ha ha... I hesitated for a second, glanced over at her, and when she didn't move her hand I decided to withdraw mine. You probably guessed it: simulated engine failure. She pulled out the throttle and sat back to watch.

Instinct is a good thing, and practice gives you that! I talked through what I was doing: trim for best glide speed of 80 mph, pick a landing site and fly towards it.... As you can see from the pictures, southside Virginia is thoroughly bespeckled with fields, so finding a landing site should have been easy, considering we were at something like 3000' when I "lost my engine." But I had a dickens of a time picking a field! First, thinking out loud all the while, I was attempting to assess the winds to see if a particular field orientation would be better and to determine my landing direction. The surface winds had been generally NNW (but variable) when we left the airport, and we were within 15 miles of Wakefield, by my estimation. But I wasn't positive that that was correct now, especially given the variability. Franklin was basically directly in front of us, and the smoke stacks there seemed to indicate a wind from the southeast.

Ok, I'd go by that. I wanted to land on an southeasterly heading, so I started eliminating fields: this one's too short in that direction, that one's good-sized and aligned right but those power lines, ... I swear, it seemed like we had all the time in the world, so I let the standards be too high and just kept looking, confident that I'd spot the right one for the exercise, and frequently checking out the right side as well.

My training says to cross mid-field at 1100' AGL, hit the key point between 800' & 900', and do what you gotta do to get down from there. About the time we were at 1500', I checked the smokestacks again -- the smoke was blowing *to the southeast* now! Yay, variable winds! It was also about that time that I realized the field I was going for had goats in it. Drat, scramble time! Luckily, I looked out Linda's window and there was a gorgeous big green perfect field to shoot for, so I immediately turned right to fly over it, and was over at just under 1100', then did a good normal pattern with 20 degrees of flaps, and as soon as we cleared the trees she told me to abort.

Whew! You can certainly see the lesson in that, in what I did wrong, and we talked about it at the debrief.

As I was cleaning up and climbing, she pointed out my window at a trio of old abandoned-looking barns in the middle of a patch of fields. She asked me to do a turn around a point around those. I said I'd go up to 1000' and do it from there. Another check of the smokestacks indicated winds from the southwest; I explained that I'd use a northeast heading as my downwind entry into the maneuver and did that big loop-de-loo to get positioned right. It became obvious that the winds were not what I thought, or at least they weren't being consistent. I really don't think she had noticed how non-circular my turn was -- she was dialing in Franklin's ATIS and CTAF (presumably so we could shoot landings there). About 2/3 of the way through, though, I was irritated by my turn performance (altitude was just fine) and told her that I was dissatisfied, that I felt that just at that moment the winds were at our back. She said "Okay, then do another one."

Me and my big mouth, huh? But I did it, and as you can see from the GPS track this one was pretty darn good! :)

You know what, that's quite enough for this post! I'll publish the finale, including the reasons why I thought I wouldn't pass, in a bit!

Checkride Part I: The oral exam

[Update: Man, for the most momumental post(s) of my training, I would have thought this would have more detail about the actual content of the oral exam! But the parts of the day that really stood out to me are described fairly well...]

This past Wednesday I had lunch with John, one of our partners in 388 and a friend who did his checkride a few weeks back with the same examiner I was going to, Linda. Over the course of two ham biscuits each from his wife's restaurant (website coming soon courtesy of Husband), a slice of homemade chocolate pie for me and cherry pie for John, and three hours, he divulged all the details of his oral, his flight test, her methods and the items to which she seemed particularly sensitive.

Everything seemed ok, with two exceptions: (1) In the oral, she asked him a lot of engine and system mechanics questions, and I'm not too good with that stuff -- tell me symptoms and I can tell you what's likely the problem and how to troubleshoot, but it's not because I know how everything works. (2) She asked for a no-flap, forward-slip landing, which I've never actually done -- I'd done forward slips as part of forced landing practice out over the fields of Virgina, but of course we do go-arounds there, and I'd never used that technique to land.

Needless to say, that night I boned up on the mechanics. Husband quizzed me, and I learned a lot.

The forward-slips were worrisome, though. Everything else I was comfortable doing (or else I wouldn't have scheduled my checkride!), and really it's my fault for not seeing that red flag when going through the PTS. Husband and I had been planning to go up on Friday afternoon, so I'd plan to try it out then under his supervision.

Unfortunately, as the week went on, the light winds became more extreme, with base winds in the mid-20s and gusts into the 40-kt range. Friday's practice was cancelled, and so I asked Chuck to go up with me at 9 am on Saturday to stay in the pattern a few times to do forward slips to landings, knowing that I'd like to leave at 10 to do the 15-minute flight to AKQ and have time to stow 388, settle in and get organized for the 11 am appointment.

Surprisingly, Friday night I felt quite tranquil. I had largely stuck to my plan of finishing all studying and x-c prep (sans wind-based calculations) before Friday evening so I could have that time to get on the elliptical, have a nice dinner, take a bath and read a (non-flying) book, and just unwind. It was nice.

Saturday morning was a different story. I got up at 6, expecting to do the usual morning routine, get the winds aloft, finish the x-c plan, and get to JGG at 8 with Husband to check out the Columbia 350 that he and John would be test flying while I was out on the checkride. It seemed, though, that for every minute I spent doing something, three minutes went by on the clock, and before I knew it, Husband was ready to go to the airport! Stressed out at being behind schedule and angry about it, I told him he'd have to go drool on the Columbia without me. I still intended to meet Chuck at 9 for no-flap landing practice.

On top of that, the winds were unfavorable. Winds aloft were 40-kts at my cruise altitude of 4500'. Surface winds were gusty. The forecast had been for 8-kt winds in the morning, 6 by lunchtime, and calm by afternoon. What was with this 16G22 mess? Drat. To go or not to go?

Well, I'd at least go to the airport. The 9 am practice was probably not going to happen, but maybe the checkride still would. I got out there around 8:30 and fought the wind across the ramp to the Columbia to spend a minute soaking in the luxury. What a pretty plane! :) (No, it's nowhere near our price range, but the opportunity to try one on was there...)

Just before 9 I met up with Chuck and we agreed that, while crosswind conditions were perfect for practicing no-flap landings, winds this strong and gusty weren't good for learning that. So best case scenario turned into me going to my checkride without having done that particular maneuver (worst case being no checkride today).

We went up to the terminal and hung out for an hour. We went over my x-c plan, chatted about a few oral questions that might come up that would pose a challenge, and then just wandered through topics like kids and planes and whatnot, all the while staring out the window at the erratic wind sock and shivering bushes. Every few minutes I called AWOS to get the bad news. Here's what the METARs said for that period:

KJGG 241521Z AUTO 31012G18KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241502Z AUTO 30011G15KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241441Z AUTO 32012G19KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241421Z AUTO 32009G20KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241341Z AUTO 34011G22KT 10SM CLR 01/M16 A3026 RMK AO1

At 10:30, the AWOS report came out that said steady at 8 kts. Bitchin. That's what I wanted to hear. The wind sock was less squirrelly, so that felt better, too. Even so, I was cautiously reserved, still expecting to hear it turn gusty again, but at least I'd go preflight and keep an ear on the reports.

And then, finally, as I did the in-cockpit preflight checklist and tuned in the AWOS much to my delight. The nearest METAR said:
KJGG 241541Z AUTO 30007KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1

Ok, a quick call to the AKQ ASOS gave their winds as 6kts (no gusts), so I decided it was a go! With a wave goodbye to Chuck, I taxiied out to 31 and left, on my way to AKQ FOR MY CHECKRIDE!!!!

It was a bumpy ride. All the way down. I was having second thoughts. If I did the flight exam, it might be stressful with all the chop, and the possibility of busting altitude would not be entirely up to my skill. Oh, sheesh, what to do?!?! I tuned AKQ ASOS and it didn't help -- variable 10G16. Ugh.

Well, I decided to check it out in the pattern for AKQ and if I didn't feel good about it I'd abort the landing and head back to JGG, hopefully to conditions that would let me land and try again another day. It was actually a tad better down low, and on final for runway 2 I felt I could handle the winds I had at the time, so I landed. Not a beautiful landing, a little too firm, but safe with no bounce.

A small victory to change the course of the day! :)

I taxiied back up 2 to the terminal, parked and shut down. I walked into the AKQ terminal right at 11, which kinda sucked because I wanted to be early to have that organization time, but I'd take what I had. Linda met me at the door, and she was super nice, with a nice smile and she started in on the wind conditions we had right then. She'd done another checkride earlier in the morning (the poor bastard!) and I don't know whether he passed or not but apparently it was a very rough ride. We agreed to do the oral and decide afterwards whether the conditions had improved and whether we'd go.

She chatted with me just about general stuff for a few minutes, giving me a chance to unpack my bag and get situated, of course after the obligatory la pregnanto bio-break. You probably didn't need to know that. :)

So, finally, on to the oral exam!

We spent about 2 hours talking about stuff. We started with my logbook, application and medical.

Linda: "Technically, you shouldn't have flown down here today."

Me (to myself, breathless): "Oh, crap. Not only is she going to cancel the checkride, but she's not going to let me get myself back home!" (Driving to AKQ is about an hour's effort, thanks to the river.)

Linda: "Your student license isn't endorsed for solo cross-country."

Me: "Oh? It has a current 90-day solo endorsement, and my logbook is endorsed for solo flights to AKQ."

Linda: "But the license isn't endorsed."

Me (to myself, no pulse, trying to maintain the calm exterior of a well-trained pilot): "AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Linda: "We'll overlook that for now, but let your instructor know that he needs to do this for his students."

Me (relieved!): "Will do."

She double-checked my logbook entries against her checklist for the prerequisite training and solo hours. That all checked out. Next we were on to the aircraft logbooks, and that all checked out as well. I had put sticky notes in the logbook and binder of ADs/W&B updates/other documentation so I could quickly flip to items like the last annual and the latest ELT battery change.

The rest of the oral exam is mostly a blur. Almost everything she asked was routine or common sense or a matter of knowing where to look, pretty much what you'd expect if you had used a study guide or listened to anyone who had been through it before! A few things do stand out to me:

• When asked about the vacuum system, I was happy to be able to divulge all the new information and understanding that I had about it. I had a little internal giggle (or was that the baby? :) ) at feeling almost like I had cheated since John tipped me off that this particular area of weakness for me might be one that I should brush up on.
  
  However, I was an honorary blonde for a few moments during this segment of the exam... She asked which instruments were vacuum-driven. Reflexively I said the heading indicator, the turn coordinator, and the.... the.... oh no! I totally drew a blank. I felt like such a doof! I asked for a moment to go through the instrument panel in my head and I STILL couldn't come up with it!
  
  So she said we'd move on and if I thought of it to say so. Her next question was what the consequences of losing suction are. Again, reflexively, I said 'You lose your attitude indicator.... THAT'S IT! The attitude indicator!" Duh! Bonehead. She smiled and scratched out the little "come back to this" note on her question list. Phew!


• She asked if 388 has a strobe or beacon. I was confused for a second because we have a beacon on top of the tail and strobe lights on the wingtips, so I said we had both. She then asked whether, if during preflight I found the strobe to be not working, I would take the flight. I thought out loud for a moment about the requirements, saying I believed the beacon to be required equipment but the strobe lights to be optional, but that I'd want to consult the FAR/AIM to confirm. She said go ahead, and I flipped to the part 91 index, found the appropriate paragraph (205, 213, something like that) and read through the required equipment list for VFR day. Beacon, required; strobes, not required. That was apparently satisfactory; I figure the exercise was really geared towards determining whether I could find stuff in the FAR.


• We had talked also about what to do if weather conditions change in-flight. If things deteriorate ahead, you do a 180 and stay VFR. This I know, this I said, this we talked about. Later on, we were talking about flying westward over the Appalachian Mountains and suddenly realizing that we were developing some structural ice. Since I had already demonstrated that a 180 is a good thing to do when presented with an unexpected meteorological situation, I chose to answer with next steps for what I as an inexperienced PIC would do: If the plane was still behaving well, I'd try to find the nearest airport, land and assess both the existing ice and the conditions to see whether the trip could be continued. If the plane wasn't behaving, then I'd execute an emergency off-airport landing. That seemed like a good, conservative approach to me since all I've heard is bad stuff about ice and I know it alters the lift and flying capabilities of the wings, not to mention possibly freezing up the flight controls. In our post-flight debrief, she told me I first needed to turn back. Well, yeah! I thought that was understood!!! The lesson there is to give complete answers.

Anyway, eventually we wrapped up and she asked me to take her for a flight. Yay! The oral part went well enough that she wasn't stopping the exam right there! Other than the forward-slip landing, I was confident about passing the flight portion, so this was looking good! Except for those doggone winds...

I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF to get an update on the winds aloft, hoping they had calmed down for our x-c portion. They had -- down to an estimated ~12 kts at 4500'. And the ASOS at AKQ was giving better news, too -- still variable in direction but only 6kts with no reported gusts (right then, anyway).

After another bathroom break and a pause for some baby-factory refueling, it was time to go! Details about the flight in the next post...