PILOT2B.COM

What’s next for Pilot2B…

2010-07-14T03:07:00Z

A lot of people asked me the same question: “What will happen now that you have your pilot license? You are not a pilot to be anymore!”. True. But also true that I do not intend to stop there.

What’s next after the Private Pilot License?

But the most important thing I ‘m retaining from getting my pilot license is how little I know about flying or more precisely how much more there is to learn.

This is why I will continue my training starting by getting my Instrument Rating. Yesterday, I swing’ed by the airport and purchased the kit. Like for the Private Pilot, I’m opting for the CPC (Cessna Pilot Centers) kits.Another set of DVDs with Martha and John King! Summit Aviation is one of these certified flight school. I will retain also the same instructor: Michael.

And of course, I will continue to document my training with video, gps tracking… In a way I’m closing the [Private] Pilot2B.com and opening a new, and I hope improved, [Instrument] Pilot2B.com.

What’s next for Pilot2B.com?

In the short term, not much is going to change but there is actually a few improvement I would like to bring to this blog. First I realize that many people do not take the time to read some of my rather long posts. So, I will try to actually change the format of the blog and turn it into a video podcast. This means very little text to read and lots to watch…

I’m also planning a few surprises but I will need more time before I can unveil them…

‘Are we there yet?’– My checkride - Part 1

2010-07-02T21:28:00Z

Here we are! Today is the day that I have been waiting, dreading and hoping. The statistics are scary. 60% of people starting a pilot license never get to finish it. Some drop out of interest, other for financial reason but also some because they can’t make it! It is simply too difficult for them. But today is the day where I might put a definitive end to the question: ‘Do I have what it takes to be a pilot?’. As you have guess by now, today is my private pilot checkride.

Starting the day

The instructions from my instructors were pretty scarce! Not much to help feeling at ease in fact: “Just come to the flight school, grab a conference room and get all your stuff on the table.”. Ok. I’m not sure what stuff we are talking about so I asked for clarification and the result was as scarce: “Bring everything you got!”. That might not be a good idea but I understand the intent. I should bring any reference material that I can effectively used during the oral part of the exam.

The previous night, I made a point to not change too much my daily routine but try to squeeze some extra sleep. I have been working the entire week and the tension of the week was starting to get to me. But whatever I did, did not completely work. I guess by fear of not getting up on time, I ended up waking up several time at night.

As I’m driving down to the school, I had a few thought about the day I started to fly. It was about a year ago on the 22nd of June of 2009. At that point I knew I was determined to get the license and that never falter during the entire training. But I was wondering how fast I would be able to go through. The average flight time before a checkride is about 75 hours and I’m at 80. Above average but with circumstances. My true instruction flight time is more in the 60 hours as I did several “tourism” flight and a few gaps on time where I couldn’t fly because I was travelling. The way I see it, the more mistake I do with an instructor on board, the less mistake I would do by myself so more is better in this case! The other sobering number is the passing rate. The last I read it is about 75% passing. 1 person out of 4 is failing the checkride.

As I’m arriving to the school, the tension is going one notch up. Time to get everything out of the car and start to get ready. I’m not sure what to expect. Michael did prepare me but I don’t know how well just yet. That’s where the second guessing starts and I know myself enough that I need to keep that in check. At least I ‘m familiar with the room, I’ve been there before and I’m picking the favorable place for me, start laying my “stuff” on the table. Not sure how many piles I should make, what I should keep in the bags versus what should be laid out on the table. In the end, I had on the table the few documents that I know contains almost all the answers and also some of my flight guides… This means the sectionals, the AF/D, the FAR/AIM and the Pilot Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge and, of course, the must-have PTS as a reference to the checkride.

Mon DPE est connu comme le loup blanc!

We have an expression in France that says ‘Connu comme le loup blanc’. The direct translation is equivalent to ‘known like the white wolf’. We use this expression to mean that something/someone is very well known .

My Designated Pilot Examiner (or D.P.E.) is one of these known like the white wolf. He is known as Charlie. Charlie has been the DPE for the region for many years and most of the pilots in the area have been blessed by Charlie.
One of the interesting thing for me is that I believe in the Wings program. Not as a way to get out of trouble but as a way to not get into them! The Wings program is an FAA initiative. In a way, this is the accident prevention effort from the FAA. Part of the Wings program is to create relevant safety presentations (live or broadcast) for the pilot community. Charlie had done one on Icing that took place at my FBO. I had the chance to get to talk to him and help him with some computer’s issue before and during his presentation.

None less, I would be standing in front of him by myself trying to convince him that I’m worth the time he is spending here and that I have all the knowledge required to be a pilot. When Charlie steps in the room, the serious things are about to start but I don’t feel there are too much tension in the air…

Let the exam begin

From the very moment we started, I could feel that Charlie is a veteran at submitting people to the test. He started by a long speech on his expectation for the test, explaining what he was expecting from me and what he would consider as good or bad. I did share some of my experience from giving job interviews, highlighting the commonality and the benefit expected. It was overall a nice and easy introduction into the real tests. We cleared a few administrative elements and make sure that all information were correct in my application (called the IACRA). Unfortunately, despite having verified the information several time, Charlie found out that my height was not 81”! Second grade mistake: 5’11” is 71”! This triggered about half an hour of disruption trying to get the form reapproved. We ended having to redo the entire application! Instead of trying to recalculate everything or trying to find the proper words to describe, the easiest is to take all the info from your medical certificate. It’s almost all on here as far as your description is concerned.

The checkride is actually composed of two parts:

An Oral exam: This is a series of discussions or questions that reviews all aspect of being a pilot. From the basic aerodynamics, to weather to regulations. The duration is expected to be about 3 to 4 hours.
A Flight: This is the part where you show your skills! The flight duration varies based on the examiner and probably too many parameters to create a rule but my flight lasted 90 minutes and the instructors told me it was fairly long.

From the very beginning, Charlie put the accent on the fact that he is not looking for a 100% good answer to every single questions but wants to see if the applicant has a good understanding of the different topics. There are some questions that the answer should be right right away but for other ones, using some form of help (aka all the stuff I was suppose to bring…) would be ok as long as it does not turn into an archeological dig, trying to get to the information. I set the bar for myself to get the answer to any question in less than 15 seconds. Since I know my books pretty well, this was fairly easy. Moreover, knowing my limitations, I knew exactly where to get the information I have some weakness with.

We brushed pretty much all the topics that are covered during the knowledge tests. We talked about weather, regulation, flight plan, avionics, regulation, procedures… No subject was left untouched. While this seems overwhelming in fact, Charlie had the experience to make it flows like a conversation. The topic of that conversation would have been renting an airplane, planning and executing a long cross country. I have to admit that while it was an exam, I really appreciated this part of the checkride. I really appreciated the approach that Charlie was using. Approach that can simply summarize by two words: “Safety first!”.

During the course of the exam, many questions were asked. Some of these questions could be answered with a very simple explanation. I do have a tendency to want to explain more than it is usually required. This is a bad trait that I’m fighting everyday but I knew that in this particular case, this could lead me into bad water so I consciously made an effort to not volunteer any response unless asked for and to let Charlie talked as much as possible. Some basic cultural background shows that “Westerners” tends to perceive silence as a “bad” thing or something missing and the consequences is that we tend to try to fill silence with words. As such, not volunteering info creates more silence that I would expect be filled by Charlie. To some extent it worked but it could have been perceived also as ignorance so it is important to be mindful of the subtleties of the conversation and try to read the non verbal element of the communication to gauge when silence will get you out of trouble or bring you down even more!

But one aspect that Charlie was not going to let me go away with is the failed questions of the knowledge test. I’m not exactly proud of the result of my test. Scoring only a 83 out of 100 is not what I would call a good score. I did too many mistakes purely based on linguistics and one because I pushed the wrong button! But they were a few that I simply did not know the answer. As part of the checkride, it is the role of the DPE to actually review the results of the tests and make sure that the failed questions are covered again. So extra emphasis were placed on some of the weather aspects (probably my weakest point) and the other missed topics. It was the only time that I felt we were in an exam situation.

Going to Texarkana

When I scheduled the checkride, I was asked to plan a flight to Texarkana. This was going indirectly the main topic of a long part of the conversation(hum … sorry: exam!). The flight from Bentonville (KVBT) to Texarkana (KTXK) is an interesting one because it is including several features:

A class C airspace,
A TRSA airspace,
A class E airspace,
2 MOA (Military Zone),
Rapidly Rising Terrain,
3 VORs that are conveniently placed,
1 NDB

This makes potentially for a lot of topic to discuss but the most important part is to plan the flight. As you can imagine, there are many options and I have considered them but at the end of the day, it boils down to two options: Using the Direct route or trying to avoid the Military Zone. Michael is a strong proponent of the going direct when doing VFR flight. IFR (or instrument) are a little different…

Using the Direct route…

A direct route will provide excellent visual ground reference by almost flying along the highway down to the half point: Forth Smith. But it will stir you direct into the Military Area (MOA) and a quickly raising terrain. On the other hand, there are several airports along the way so they are easily recognizable from the air and can serve as nice milestone. Arriving to Fort Smith, we will be edging the TRSA and with spare altitude, we will encroach only on the outer ring of if we fly below 7,000ft. We can decide to fly but we would have to be at 8,500ft to be in accordance with the recommended altitude for VFR and heading. 8,500ft is feasible with the Cessna 172 but it takes forever to get there! So on paper, the TRSA is easy to deal with.

The second part of the trip past Fort Smith down to Texarkana involves crossing two MOA. While this is not necessarily something difficult, it is requiring more planning and checks on the day of the flight and provide some level of danger. It is imperative to be under flight following from the air traffic control to make sure that the MOA is not hot at the time you are flying into it… Personally, I like to stay away from them until I can get increase my flying skills. The terrain after Forth Smith has less features but should have enough to be able to be spotted from the plane. Preparing a flight plan should not be too difficult.

Avoiding the MOAs…

The other option is to try to avoid the MOAs just so there is no ambiguity and risk of having a hot zone on the day of the flight. The option is to find a path that skirts the MOA but does not extend our en route time too much. Looking at the shape of the MOA, there is a natural tip that is formed when looking at the path between Bentonville and Texarkana south of Fort Smith. Looking more carefully at the map around that point, you can see that there is also another MOA on the west side of the path. Since we have avoided one, it’s not to get into another one! And also very conveniently, you can spot that mid point between the two tips is a VOR named Rich Mountain (PGO). We can definitely use this radio navigation point to avoid both MOA and get our route.

Using the POH information on the performance of the plane, I can now compare the two routes and see what is the cost of avoiding these MOAs.

Flight Path	Distance	Duration
Direct KVBT to KTXK	174 nm	1h40
KVBT to PGO to KTXK	181 nm	1h53

13 minutes to reduce the workload. I don’t know about you but that detour is worth the time! Moreover, having the assistance of the VOR for navigation seems a good point.

Charlie and I dwelled on the different topics and challenges that were presented on the flight. We talked about the different airspace and their requirement, the different quadrant crossed and a few other questions related to the interpretation of the sectional and the use of the A/FD.

Conclusion of the oral part

The discussion came to an end as nicely as it has started! As we were talking about the different element, Charlie announced me that he was pleased with my overall knowledge and that we can move to the second part of the exam: the flight!

But that will have to wait after lunch because it is now noon and we decide to meet in 45 minutes. Overall, I have to admit that Charlie was an excellent examiner for the oral part and made it stress free. It was a pleasure to listen to him and to try to gain his approval.

Now I’m hoping that the second part of the checkride will go as smoothly and somehow, I ‘m not as confident. I have seen in the past many example where I was able, on exam day, to perfectly screw up maneuvers that I had mastered before. The most notorious was when I was trying to get my (french) boat license! But it is now time to relax and to prepare for the flight!

Reference

Wings Program: http://www.faasafety.gov/default.aspx
IACRA: https://iacra.faa.gov/iacra/
Silence in Western culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silence
Sectional review and flight planning: http://www.skyvector.com

Today is solo cross country

2010-05-02T17:19:12Z

The plan for today’s flight was to go to Branson (KBBG) and to come back. Branson is a controlled airport so with a tower and is located about 50.8 nautical miles from Bentonville. The flight should be straightforward and would involve getting some flight following and a transition to the tower. I’m a little anxious about the handling of the ground clearance once on the airport but it should be just fine. At least that was the plan...

Wake up time! Time to check the weather

I just woke up and, after the last few weeks experience, my first worry is to check the weather. I’m looking outside the window and it is grey-ish. What should have been a normal Sunday morning will end up going weirder by the hour... I’m going to my iPhone to do a quick check of the local weather. What I find was not expected: the wind is calm, temperature is 59F. I’m thinking ok, the ceiling is going to be low and I’m going to be grounded but no instead, the ceiling is at 25,000 feet! Odd. I’m getting to my computer to further qualify the forecast, check the forecast for the next 3 hours and there I get confirmation that everything is as planned: Quiet. No wind what so ever, a ceiling that would drop to 10,000 feet, which is more than enough for my minimums. When was the last time did that happen? Oh remember: NEVER! I’m finishing getting ready and head to the airport. I might be able to catch an instructor or two on the way and get their opinion on what is going on!

As I’m arriving at the airport, I can spot Michael’s car. Great! But I can not find any trace of him. Most likely already in flight. I’m heading to the flight school and meet the new Chief Flight Instructor talking to Taylor. I’m exposing my problem with the weather: what I see is not what I read and they confirm that the air is smooth, that I should have no problem. Just got the green light to go flight! Time to head for the plane and start preflying.

Preflight

Everything is starting as usual, the routine is reassuring and I’m already starting to think about my radio call to Razorback. I’m getting in the plane and start the engine check list. Mixture: full rich, Carburator heat: cold, Master switch: on… The checks are going through naturally and with a positive answer each and everytime. Time to start the engine… Prop clear, Ignition switch: start. The engine starts. I’m checking immediately the oil pressure, it’s good! I’m ready for the engine run up. While I’m finishing going down the checklist, I can hear that the engine is making a different noise, as if it is accelerating. Not that much but checking the RPM, I can see an increase of about 100 RPMs. That's something new! Never really happened to me before! I’m checking the oil pressure and oil temp and see nothing alarming. The outside temperature is low so I’m thinking that the engine might be getting a little warmer and might had some ice in the carburetor. It’s unlikely but you never know. I’m applying some carb heat to check what is happening and I see a light drop. This means most likely it was not icing. If it was icing I’m expecting to see an increase of the RPMs… The engine is running smoothly now so I’m not getting to stuck up on that event.

I'm clearing my mind from that incident and revert into going through my checklist. Time to move to the next element: Engine Run up!

Engine Run Up

Next on the checklist is engine run up. I’m moving the airplane in a more suitable location. I’m thinking taking off from 36 today since the wind is calm and that Branson is more north than south from Bentonville. The weather is called enough that I should not be worried about aligning the plane with the wind. And there is no wind today so it makes things easy.

I’m in position. Engine at 17,000 rpm: Done! Mag check: Left done! Wait no. That was not right. I’m putting the key back in the start position. The engine almost quit on me! This is not as usual. I’m thinking that I have done something wrong. I’m verifying all my instruments, all the settings. Everything looks right. Let’s try again! I’m turning the key back to the L position and I’m loosing RPMs fast. Yep! There is definitely a problem with the plane. I’m turning the key to the Right position and the engine is struggling when passing through the L position. At that point I’m not sure what is going on. I’m thinking one of the two magnetos might have some issues but I’m not sure. What I know for sure is that I’m not taking off before someone is telling me that everything is ok. I’m getting on the radio and call Jim at the FBO. I can see him through the doors. Then I see someone else getting on the radio. It’s the Chief Flight Instructor. He is now telling me that he is coming to check the plane. A couple of manipulation in the plane and the sanction is here: Left magneto is dead. Plane is grounded until repaired. This should be done by Monday. Bummer! Yet another flight that I have to cancel! One might argue that with one magneto, the plane is still flyable. True! But the consequences can be a disaster. If you have only one magneto and it fails then you are loosing the engine immediately. While two magnetos are here for improved performance, it does also serve an important safety aspect.

Conclusion

This day was really strange, between the weather that did not look as usual, the engine issues during the checklist and finally the dead magneto. Oh well, everything is fine and the checklist kept me safe. This is for sure something that I will never forget and it reinforced my belief in going thoroughly through the checklist.

Knowing one of the magneto is dead, I think helps explaining what happened with the engine gaining some RPMs. I believe that the magneto was probably not completely dead or did not start properly immediately. I think it did fire up while the engine was already running. This would have increase the efficiency of the engine by allowing a better combustion, which should increase the RPMs of the engine. And this is exactly what happened! While doing the other procedures to verify the engine, the mag probably died for good, resulting to the mag check failure.

I have no plan for the moment to go back flying and I will have to see when I can get another flight. I might have to do it one evening. Next week end I have some guest and the flight planned is just to go around the lakes. As I'm heading back home, I can only feel a little disappointed to not have made that flight but I'm glad I was able to catch an issue with the plane before anything wrong could happen to me or two anyone following me in that plane.

Flight with Aaron

2010-04-16T04:59:00Z

As much I could, I’m trying to make good on any promise I’m making. Today, I had an opportunity to do it. I had talked about my experience of learning to fly with one of my co-worker who shown also some interest in flying. He had flown several years ago but did not have a chance to fly ever since on a general aviation flight. I promised him that we will take the time to go fly but today is the last day of his assignment. So to make good on my promise, we did go fly.

On our way to the dam!

After heading down the airport, we went through the regular process of preparing the plane for the flight, going through the process of preflying the plane, down the pre-engine startup checklist until it is time to depart. So far everything went smooth. After we took off, conversation was going at a good pace. While we were joking, I tried to get my passenger, Aaron, to get involve into the flight by asking him to spot some elements on the ground.

As we were getting closer from the dam, I’ve started to talk about a peculiar airport: Lost Bridge Village also identified as 40AR. It is a private airport but open to the public. The particularity is that the runway is not almost shaped as a bowl towards the end. Compared to Bentonville, it is very narrow and a little shorter: 3,150’ vs. 4,082’ long and 40’ wide compared to the 65’ of Bentonville. The other characteristic is that it is located on top of a hill in the middle of a forest. So it is fairly hard to find if you are not in line with the runway.

As we were talking about the runway, Michael, my instructor, asked me if we have already landed there. I told him yes but I was not piloting, he was. His answer was fairly prompt to come. He grabbed the throttle and pulled it all the way back with only one comment: “We lost the engine…”

Emergency Landing

I know immediately what it meant: Emergency Landing! With no engine, an airport close by, the situation is not that critical but we are very close and high so we will have to maneuvers to lose the altitude and being able to reach the airport safely.

So we made the airport and landed with runway to spare but I have to admit that I was not very comfortable on the last phase of the landing. We were fairly high and I knew that I would not be able to touch down at the beginning of the runway. I’m usually approaching the runway at 75 knots but by the time I reached it, I was going over 90 knots! The extra 15 knots are not that great but still significant as I usually tend to be slow than fast on landing. Finishing the landing with the trees around was not too intimidating as I was looking down the runway but it is clear that the bump was hiding a good part of it and I wasn’t sure how much was left. When we finally touched down the runway, I felt a slight relief that we would not have to go around.

We then turned around and took off again to continue our trip as if nothing happened but I have to admit that I was not expecting such a maneuver as I usually try to limit the movement of the plane to the minimum to provide the most comfortable ride to my passenger. No need to scare them after the first flight!! But having flown previously, Aaron seemed to not mind the shaking but also enjoy it! I guess I will have to revise my flight profiles for passengers…

After flying over the dam, we turned around and started our return trip but I wanted to include a twist. Instead of doing a direct flight back to Bentonville, I wanted my passenger to experience the regional airport through a different angle. Most of my co-workers do not live in Bentonville and are actually flying airliners to come in and out every week. It was an opportunity to show them the airport from a different angle: the one were you are looking forward and can see the runway instead of looking through the side windows!

Touch & Go at XNA

I got in touch with the Air Traffic Controller and made a request for a touch and go. My request was granted and I was instructed to do it on runway 16. Since I was coming from the east, it means that I was on the “right” side of the runway to enter left downwind. As we were coming closer to the airport, I got transferred from Approach to the XNA Tower (Regional Tower as they like to be called. After contacting the tower, I received a “Clear to land”. The runway is now mine and no one can land until I’m done! In other words, I better get moving if I don’t want to have a jet waiting … As I’m approaching to enter downwind, Michael reminded me that I can enter directly base and that would be ok. I do not have to obey the traffic pattern used on non towered airport. I’m changing my plan and aim for base. The runway is now close enough that I need to start preparing the plane for landing. I’m reducing my speed, drop a first notch of flap and began my approach. The wind was ridiculously low so I know I can go full flap without any problem.

So what is the statistic I’m talking about? The number of landings when I took my solo flight: 125! Yes 125 landings before I got release to do my solo!

I have to say that I was pretty happy of this landing overall except that I did my round off a little too early and ended up coming down a little harder than I would have like. This detail apart, the landing was pretty good. When Michael said that I hurt his butt, I remembered that not so long ago, that would have been excellent landing! I took it as more progress required. Of course, he was joking but I understand the joke and the fact that I have to continue working on my landings!

Another thing about this approach is that you get such a nice view of the runway all lighted! See the picture below. They have been extracted from the video. Landing at XNA is like having a boulevard for yourself! Bentonville is 65’ wide. XNA is 150’ wide! It’s hard to miss it! And more importantly, the previous airport, Lost Bridge, was 40’ wide! It is almost 4 times smaller than XNA!
I always enjoy coming and landing at XNA! It’s always fun and I usually have a jet somewhere around to deal with.

Our touch and go finish, it is time to head back to the Bentonville.

Landing back home

Once airborne, we waited until we could reach a safe altitude, turn around and started our way back to our home airport: Bentonville. It was more than a quiet flight. It’s like coming back from a road trip, once you reach a certain area, you are not yet home but you know you are in well known area that you consider your trip done. We were coming from the west for a landing on 18 so it called for a flight over mid field, turning downwind and then base.

That was a much nicer landing! More inline with what I’m used to these days.

Conclusion

It was an interesting flight. We started pretty slowly but the flight got a little more entertaining. Between the good conversations and the maneuvers, I had a good time. But having to perform an emergency landing with a passenger was ‘kinda’ strange. I went straight into training mode and did not pay any attention to my passenger. When Michael asked him if he was doing ok, I’ve realized that the movement of the plane were far from the usual. It was an interesting experience and I think I will have to be careful with whom I’m doing a standard flight versus one with maneuvers. Not everybody might enjoyed being on a tight turn with no engine over the water trying to land on a “sidewalk” sized runway in the middle of a forest!

Too bad Aaron last day in Bentonville was today, I think we can have done a few more interesting flights!

Minimums not there!

2010-02-13T22:21:00Z

I’m about to head back for Toulouse one last time and as usual, I would like to get a flight or two before going away. I have been looking at the weather and with the recent snow storm, it was hard to plan anything. At the beginning of last week, I could see two opportunities for a flight: one on Friday evening and one on Saturday morning.

Friday evening flight

For the entire day, I have been keeping an eye on the weather. I know that as a student pilot, Summit Aviation has some minimums weather parameters before letting a student solo. These minimums are 2,500’ AGL ceiling for pattern work and 3,500’ AGL ceiling for the practice area. Anything below that and the insurance would not work. But today was not the case, over the entire week, we had fairly low ceiling. Today, the ceiling has started at 3,100 and was slowly decreasing. By the time I reached the airport, it was down to 2,700’. This is enough to stay in the pattern, which I was intending to do anyhow. I prepared the plane for a departure and finally got in touch with my instructor to ask for permissions. He checked the weather and call me back giving me a no go! Reason: I can solo, only during day VFR and with a cross wind less than 7 knots. And of course, I checked the weather and it was 7 knots but when he checked, the weather had picked up some speed and was now clocking at 8 knots! One extra knots over my minimum and that is a no go. It is reluctantly, but with understanding, that I put the airplane back in the T-hangar!
I thought about waiting a little more but I can do only day VFR conditions and the official sunset was 5:54pm and it was already 5:25pm. Trying to wait would have been useless. Also, since Michael was busy, I couldn’t ask him to get in the plane for a short session.

Oh well, the news is that it should clear up tomorrow morning. It’s just delayed a little.

Saturday Morning

After an agitated night, I was finally ready to go fly but of course, first thing, need to check the weather! And the result was … not exactly what I was expected!

Michael had told me to check the weather and if the weather was not good enough for flying solo, I can give him a call and we would do a regular session.

But what the weather station from Bentonville was announcing was simply not what I wanted to see. Wind was fairly calm so the 7 knots limitations would have been ok. But the ceiling was at 200 feet! And the visibility was under 1/2 statute mile! There is no way to fly even IFR at that point. We would have no way of landing with the minimums. So it was back to bed instead of gone flying! Bummer!

Of course, it did clear up and now that I’m ready to take the plane to go back to Toulouse, we have a 10,000 feet ceiling and some winds (9 knots gusting 16).

I guess my next flight is going to have to wait 2 weeks until I’m coming back from France!

It’s official! Weather is against me!

2010-02-06T21:53:00Z

It has been close to two weeks now and I still have not been able to go flying again! Main reasons? Bad weather. We have been running a string of bad weather and today is no better than before. Michael and I had planned a plan a cross country flight for today and it all came to a stop because of a low ceiling and some ice in the clouds.

I think I’m going to give up some flying for the moment and focus on the knowledge test. My original plan was to have it finished a long time ago but the move back to the US took a toll on my preparation so time to get some focus and try to get it done soon.

Practicing Crosswind Landing

2010-01-25T02:00:00Z

I had booked a flight for today and like the previous days, I was not sure to be able to fly as the weather was not really good. Yesterday we had a pretty bad weather with a low ceiling again and some fairly cold temperature. Today, well, same thing: low ceiling and quite some wind in perspective. But the weather seems to be clearing up slowly so by the time of the flight, it should be just fine and as I’m pulling on the parking lot of the airport, there are still an overcast condition above the runway but it seems high enough. The other element that I realize immediately is the windsock! It is not limb as usual but very active and it is showing a different direction than usual. 36 will be our take off runway instead of 18 this time.

Bringing someone on board

Ever since I have started flying, I have been interested in sharing my passion of lying with others. This is usually manifesting into getting people on board for a ride during my flights. Of course, since I’m a student pilot, I can not get someone in a plane unless I have my instructor with me and Michael has always indulged my request for bringing someone along. Some people think that I’m just showing off but in reality, it is just a pleasure to go up and there and give the possibility for someone to see the world from a different angle. Of course, most of the people I’m bringing with have the experience of flying in airliners and they think they know what it is about but they usually discover a different way of flying. One where of course, you do not have to deal with security, and delays and fees but more importantly one where the ground is not just disappearing under 10s of thousands of feet and move at a high pace but instead one where you stay fairly locally where you can identify and see the details of your everyday life.

As you can imagine, today is one of these days where I am bringing someone on board. This time, it is one of my French colleague that happened to be from the South of France. I’m hoping that we can do a tour of the lakes in the East Practice area. After quick tour of the premises on the ground, we are starting the preflight inspection. Here I’m trying to detail the different part of the plane but it is cold and I’m doing everything to maintain a good pace as to get on board as soon as possible. The plane should at least protect us from the wind… Inspection is checked and everything is alright!

Michael is not yet there because he is finishing his previous flight. One of the person on the airport is selling a share of his plane and Michael is giving a ride to a potential buyer. His flight is now finishing and it is time for our flight to start. We have already completed the preflight and I’m ready to start the engine. As soon as Michael came in, we started the pre take off checklist. After some brief presentation of my passenger, Michael told me that because of the winds today, we should do some cross wind landing training. In other words, this is not going to be what I was hoping but should but at least, my passenger would have a chance to experiment cross winds!

Calculating the crosswind

Pre-take off checklist is now complete. We just have to get the weather and do the runoff and we are good to go! I’m inputting the 134.975 weather frequency on the radio and I’m listening. On this one, I’ve cheated a little bit as I was explaining how things were working to Bruce my passenger, I had a glance at the weather data inside the flight school. The call was then just to confirm what I already knew. 330 at 8 knots! Of course, this favoring runway 36 for take off and landing. A quick crosswind calculation indicates that I should expect a “true” crosswind of 4 knots and a loss of ground speed of 7 knots. In other words, we will be pushed to the side slowly and we will be slower by 7 knots than the indicated speed. Armed with this information, we can start our run-up. Everything is going as plan so we are ready to start our first cycles.

First Cycle

We have just about ready to enter the runway. I’m calling on the radio but the weather is not very good so I’m not expecting too many planes around.

The back taxing went smoothly and once again I had to get Michael to remind me about the position of the ailerons. While I’m getting the hang on the fact that something needs to be done and that we dive away from the wind on downwind, I’m still get the reflex to try to bring the command towards me, which obviously is not going to give me a dive but a climb. Once that lessons passed, the take off took a normal turn. I got a little surprise by the wind and ended up a little bit of course. Ok I admit, a little too much. Michael did not say anything about it but I was not too pleased about it!

The remaining part of the pattern to final was simple. I had to apply some correction to avoid being blown towards the runway and ending too close to do a turn. I also tried to anticipate the fact that the wind would make the turn to final larger than usual. I will have to compensate by banking a little harder. Let’s look at the landing and we will review after.

The landing was not too bad actually and Michael was prompt to say it was Ok. His concern was more on the landing touch down sequence. The last time we tried to land, I did a terrible landing and landed on the three wheels at the same time. That’s bad airmanship and stress the landing gear. So this time, I did it properly. Well, actually almost. As you can hear and see on the radio, I did not land on the center line but way off center. While flying, I was not sure why but reviewing the video, it is obvious to me. As I was approaching the runway, I was not aligned so I did touch down on the centerline but the plane was not aligned so immediately, I went left… But no time to rest here and we put the carb(urator) heat to cold, remove the flap and we are accelerating to the 2nd cycle.
Oh and did you hear? I did a little mistake when calling for the back taxiing! I’ve realized it when I announced the departure. So did you figure out the mistake? I’ve said I was back taxiing for 1-8 instead of … 3-6!

Second Cycle

The second cycle started pretty quick and I was not going to let the drifting of the first take off happening again. I’ve tried to correct but yet again, I was blown of course. Not by much but enough to be annoying, not enough to be a problem. The pattern was uneventful and in no time I was ready to try the second landing. Like the take off, I’m trying to pay particular attention to my approach.

The landing was overall pretty good but the speed was a little too low at the end. I’ve maintained my speed by putting a little more power to soften the contact with the runway. I was actually ready to do it when Michael instructed me to do so.

Third Cycle

This time I’m committed to not let the plane go of course and I think Michael sensed it because he told me to put more right rudder to avoid turning to the left as I was banking a little more. I was focusing on my take off and let the plane going up until I’ve realized that we were a little too high. The pattern altitude for Bentonville is 2,300 feet and I was approaching 2,500. The reason I noticed is because I was starting to hit the ceiling or in another words, I was getting … in the clouds! As I was making the comment that we were hitting the clouds out loud, Michael gave me the obvious instructions: “Get out of it!”. That was easy, I dive the plane a little more than usual in the pattern and got to a safer altitude and more appropriate for the pattern we were executing. You can see actually on the GPS log that the speed went a little higher than the rest of the flight…

Went to 2.500 feet and hit the ceiling. In other words, ended up in the clouds!

the landing is not showing it very well but we had a little bit of a bounce on the landing. It was light and Michael told me that the reason was because my airspeed was too low as I was entering the flare. Actually, one thing I didn’t know was when should I stop using the descent speed of 65 or 70 knots and start bleeding that speed to a stall. The answer was clear: I should maintain the speed until I’m crossing the numbers! Good lesson again on this landing that was otherwise not too bad! Carb’ Heat Cold, Flaps Up, we are launching ourselves for another cycle.

Fourth Cycle

This cycle should be perfect. After 3 cycles, I should have corrected all my mistakes.

I’m starting the take off confident when I need to do and I do take off properly without a glitch! I like it!

The pattern is once again completely uneventful and we are approaching landing. Later I will realize that my voice recorder gave up on me and stopped recording! So the video is brought to you without sound!

So let’s review the landing! Well, everything was going well until I came above the number and the plane started to head for the right side. Instead of landing, I’ve put the gas back and saved it by bringing the plane back in the center and finishing the landing. Ok this one was not too good but not too bad either! At least, I’m happy of the recovery if anything!

Fifth Cycle

As we were starting another cycle, I’ve asked Michael if we can go a little off the pattern just to try to get something different to show Bruce. Unfortunately, we were coming to the end of the session so we did not go too far. I was hoping to reach Jane, Missouri but we had tom come the other way before we had a chance to reach it! Not a big deal by itself but it would have been knit to see a slightly different view.

As I’m turning to come back, I’m realizing that I went completely opposite of the traffic pattern and I would have to work on getting back. I’m debating on the proper approach. Should I maintain my position and go up straight and cut the airport at midfield or should I just go back and enter downwind. Asking Michael, apparently both are acceptable. so I’m choosing the direct approach. As I was hoping to be able to go “up” enough to be able to get the 45 degrees to properly enter but as we reached the airport, I was right at the proper place for a downwind turn. Since I had announce on the radio that we were coming for a downwind on 36, I did not took the time to change the approach. We were the only one in the air and I had a very good sight of the traffic pattern so it was safe to enter this way.

The pattern went smoothly and I’m preparing for landing when Michael decide that we need a last exercise! He pulled the throttle completely back, which means: “Emergency situation”. He made the call for an emergency and warned my passenger. It’s my turn to demonstrate my skills at landing a plane in case of an emergency. I’m not facing the runway properly and I have to make a 180 turn but I also have a lot of altitude. So somehow, I will have to loose the altitude, not gain speed, make the runway and land properly.

Let’s see what happen!

Yep! I made it! And this time, I’ve memorized the lessons from the previous emergency trainings. When we did the emergency training around the airport for the solo, I had to cut almost straight to the runway but this time I was much higher so I had to loose the altitude. So instead of cutting straight, I opened my path to get in a final that would be consistent with a regular approach. At least that was the attempt and by the result, I should have opened a little more. But I was able to make the runway and to land safely! So far that I was good. In a real emergency situation I would be out without a scratch but the landing was not perfect. I have lost a little too much airspeed a little too early and I was too high so the landing was hard. Michael asked me to put some RPMs but I was so in the exercise that I did not realize I could do it! So I did not and so the hard landing.

Oh well, I’m not happy about it but it is another lesson learned.

Interestingly enough, Bruce, my passenger as we stepped out of the plane, told me that he didn’t think the last landing was that great! Yes, I had to agree and I’ve explained to him what happened in fact. His headset was not working properly and he could hear only by intermittence so he might have missed a couple of sentence and explanation about what was going on. Not fun!

Conclusion

I have to admit that I was expecting something different for my passenger but an opportunity for cross wind is not to be missed! I had a lot of fun practicing the landings and I feel that I have learned a little more. Landing on one wheel is not the most natural thing to do but with practice, it starts to get in.

Reviewing the GPS logs

As I was reviewing the GPS logs, it was interesting to see the different approach. the approach were fairly consistent despite the fact that I was not using any ground reference but a general feel from the position of the aircraft compared to the runway. It also confirmed some of the impressions that I had in the plane of drifting on take off.

The review of the distance and speed did not reveal much. It was clearly showing the ups and downs but nothing too valuable.

Overall it was a short but fun flight for me and I hope not too boring for my passenger. He assured me not but you never know…

Last but not least…

When someone in riding with me, I usually asks them to do something: get the camera and film the ride from their point of view. It’s always interesting to see what are people are interested by. The other thing is that it gives a different view point that I can hardly get while flying. This trip was no exception and Bruce did some level of videos…

Following is the result of this run.

Reference

Google Earth full path flight

Frustration sets!

2010-01-18T02:00:00Z

Since I came back from vacation, I have been looking for opportunities to go fly! Unfortunately, the weather has not been very cooperative. Today, I had planned a two hour flight and ended up cancelling everything because of a ceiling at 300 feet! Minimum for VFR flight: 1000 feet! There was just no way to take off and fly comfortably.

On the up side, I have been able to make some good progress on a my knowledge test preparation and while I see the opportunity to get the license by end of January, I’m now pretty sure that I can complete the knowledge test with a fairly good grade.

Wish me luck!

First Flight Back – 2nd Edition – Part 2

2009-12-22T01:14:00Z

We have just landed at Huntsville and we debriefed the landing while back taxiing. As we are asserting our next move, I’m hoping that my earlier suggestions would be adopted. For a very long time, I had wanted to land at XNA at night.

Why XNA?

My prior experience of landing at XNA was during a session where we landed at four different airports as a training for landing. We dud a touch and go in XNA as part of the exercise. My last night landing was in Bentonville at the end of July and it was about learning the specific of night landing. XNA happens also to be a controlled airport and I have not landed at a controlled airport since we landed in Fort Smith. So it is time to bring everything together again in a single landing…

It is also the playground of the big boys (and gals…)! This is a regional airport with airline traffic and I wanted to get more experienced with the specifics that comes with having larger, faster jets around me.

Michael agreed that we should try to get one touch and go there! So as soon as we took off from the Huntsville again, I’ve prepared the plane and myself to go for a touch and go.

Approach to XNA

As soon as we got off Huntsville, I contacted Razorback Approach to let them know our intention and request flight following around the route to XNA.

As we were coming closer from XNA, I’ve followed the usual procedure:

check the weather automated system to know the winds at XNA and to make sure that I had the right information for the altimeter settings.
call Razorback Approach as soon as I have the airport in sight.
wait for the transfer from Razorback Approach to the Tower of XNA.

We are now under the control of the Tower and we are slowly approaching. We have been cleared to land on runway 16, which means that we are approaching correctly and that we will be able to enter the pattern in a traditional way.

The night is now completely established and we will perform a night landing. I’m thinking about the last one that we have performed and how fast the ground was coming…

Regional Jet on the departure

I had just turned into the downwind and was getting myself ready for the landing, I’m hearing on the radio the tower talking to a regional jet and clearing them for take off. I know the jet will have ample time to take off but there is a new parameter that I need to consider. Since I have planned a touch and go and not a landing to a full stop, that regional taking off is not a good news. The reason is actually fairly simple. Any airplane generates vortex at the end of wings. These swirling winds forms what we call the wake and the bigger the airplane, the bigger the wake. Also the wake is starting from the moment, you leave ground effect or more simply a few feet above ground. When in the air, the wakes are “falling” to the ground. Of course, wakes are bad news for any airplane but is a bad news for a small plane like my Skyhawk compared to the regional jet.

Does this means that the landing is touch and go is compromised? No. This is a situation that can be dealt with if only I do everything right! No pressure here! This means that :

I need to see where on the runway is the regional jet taking off.
I need to flight above the jet. This means that at the same position on the runway, I should be at an higher altitude than the jet was. In other words, I should take off earlier and maintain a climbing speed higher than the jet.

This should be possible if only I succeed in doing the touch and go. This means no floating over the runway or bouncing around. The touch and go would have to be pretty good. But I have another advantage to the jet, entering the runway, I would have more speed than him and I will have also a shorter take off distance so this should give me enough margin to get up in the air.

And a regional jet approaching for landing…

As I’m watching the airplane taking off, I’m also realizing that there is another plane approaching. I show the plane to Michael and we dimmed it far enough to not be an issue and since we are under the control of the tower, the separation is going to be maintained. From a safety point of view, we should be correct.

But as I’m turning final and be ready to do the touch and go, we can hear a request from the tower to the plane that we saw. For one thing, if there was any doubt about the type of airplane, it is now confirmed but the news are not very nice. Since we are on final approach and we have been granted clearance for a touch and go we have a priority.

Let’s have a quick video review of what happens to that point!

Now I can start feeling the pressure. I have one jet that just took off in front of us and we need to be not off the ground but above his flight path to avoid what would be deadly wakes… Now I have another one right in the back pushing for a landing. While the one in the back is not too much of an issue, after all I have the priority . I would still hate to delay a commercial flight too much! So let’s continue to see what happened!

I’m sure you heard it like me. The tower just asked the regional jet behind me to do S’es! This procedure is meant to make them loose some time and extend their final. They are making a direct approach and their higher speed means that they break the horizontal separation. In other words, I’m currently holding a commercial flight for the benefit of my training! While I do appreciate having the priority maintained, I surely would like to avoid doing mistake that would slow everything even more. This brings a little more pressure. Of course, at that point, I want to do everything back the book and I’m watching my speed carefully, trying to maintain it at 65 knots to make a short touch and go and to be able to get out of the runway as soon as possible. Michael asked me to maintain the speed to 70 instead of 65. As a result, the landing was not great. I’ve bounced a little on the runway because of the extra speed and probably a couple of other mistakes. We, then reapplied the proper procedures as we touched the ground to go again. The take off was good and we got up in the air in no time and way ahead of the previous jet that took off before us.

Looking at the GPS information, it is very obvious that we did not loose much time on the ground. We stayed approximately 8 seconds on the ground before climbing again. The speed dropped only to 42 knots.

Going to land in Bentonville

Shortly after getting airborne following our touch and go, we explained the tower of XNA that we were returning to Bentonville. He advised us to stay on the same frequency and that his radar has enough coverage to do the flight following for us without having to talk to Razorback Approach. We quietly headed towards Bentonville where after an uneventful landing, we taxied to the hangar to store the plane for the night.

The video shows the landing. The camera got knocked off its base so that’s why it’s seems that the plane is banking on the approach… Also I had the batteries of the voice recorder that died on me shortly after getting airborne in XNA… The cockpit was not that sterile!

Conclusion

It was a very nice flight back and we had some interesting situation. We covered about 100 nautical miles, practice some landings night landing at a controlled airport. Overall, I’m very happy of this flight! I got to experience not only a landing at a “big” airport but do it at night!

First Flight Back – 2nd Edition – Part 1

2009-12-22T01:13:00Z

Today was my first day back flying! There is a sense of déjà vu since about 10 weeks ago I was doing exactly that: stepping back in a plane after a long time away. The program was supposed to be the traditional slow flight, power-off stall, steep turns… but we had 2 passengers. It is Christmas vacation and Michael and I had to bring our kids to the flight. I was happy my daughter was here but we had to limit the maneuvers. Instead, we decided to work the navigation and some landings. More quiet flight in perspective.

The flight was planned for 4:00pm and the sun was starting to come down. I got all my gear and brought also a new toy in the plane: the GPS logger. I do not have the new camera for the moment so it will have to wait for new footage…

Departure from Bentonville

The preparation for the flight went pretty smoothly. I called Razorback Approach, our local traffic controller, to request a flight following. Since we are in a controlled airspace, it is more prudent to do so. We got approved for flight following and asked to contact them once airborne on a different frequency.

But unlike the usual calls, we had an altitude restriction that was imposed on us of 3500 feet. This is of course to accommodate some traffic. We climbed to that altitude and stayed for a few minutes until we got a chance to actually cross the plane that was preventing us to get to the higher altitude. We received the release from the altitude and got authorized to climb above.

The GPS is showing clearly our step climbing from 1,300 feet to 3,500 feet and after the release to 4,500 feet.

A different view can be obtained using Google Earth to visualize the path taken.

Revisiting navigation

Navigation has always been a strong suit of mine in the plane. I find it easy to understand and navigate using it. But a review while in flight is not a waste of time and we will see if I’m measuring up. Immediately after take off, we started to get into the navigation. Michael asked me to perform a couple of navigation related action, like getting on a radial for the Razorback VOR and maintaining the heading. He wanted to teach me a method called bracketing. Getting on a radial for a VOR is fairly easy, you set the moving card on the radial that you want to follow and you bring the plane on that radial once you are over it. But the difficulty is to be able to deal with the wind. It will push you of course and you have to compensate. The difficulty is to find the wind and therefore the wind correction angle to maintain the position on the radial.

The method to achieve this is called bracketing and is simply the implementation of a dichotomial approach. The principle is the following and assume that you start on the radial with the heading equal to the radial. The first increment should be 20

If the needle is pushed to the left (right), it means that you are pushed away by a wind coming from the left (right) side.
If you are pushed away on the left (right) side, remove(add) the increment to your current heading.
Aim the plane at the new heading obtained.
Is the needle of the VOR stays in place?
1. No, the needle is still moving and most likely the other way. Take the increment and divide it by 2 and repeat the operation from the first line.
2. Yes, you are done! You have found the Wind Correction Angle (WCA = Radial heading - Current airplane heading). Just bring back the plane to have the needle centered and you are done!

Let’s look at an example:

Your current heading is 340 and the radial is 340. But the needle keeps going to the left. This means that you have a wind coming from the left side and you have to compensate…

So first, we remove 20 to the current heading: 340 – 20 = 320. Then we head the plane to that new heading. At 320, the plane once stabilized on a straight and level flight is now pushing the needle to the right. This means that we went too far in the correction by applying 20 degrees of correction. so we divide the increment by 2 and add the result to the current heading.

20 / 2 = 10. then 320 + 10 = 330. With the new heading calculating, we are aiming the plane to 330. Here the plane is still pushing the needle to the left. This means that 340 was too much but 330 not enough.

So let’s apply the method again. increment /2 = 10 / 2 = 5

330 - 5 = 325. We put the plane on this heading and it seems to maintain the position. This means that to fly the 340 radial, we have to aim the plane at 325 or to have a wind correction angle of 340 – 325 = 15 degrees.

After the exercise in the air, we decided to go land at a near by airport: Huntsville.

Landing at Huntsville

The sun was starting to come down, it was still shining enough to have great visibility but not enough to be blinded. The good part of it is that as it was settling down, we were blessed by a few variation of warm color. It is one of the reward of aviation, you can actually chase the sun and enjoy the colors of the evening a little longer than pedestrian can and with a vista that car driver can not match!

I’m setting the GPS to H34, the ICAO code for Huntsville and decipher the information that the GPS is giving back about our destination. Michael is telling me that it is the highest airport in Arkansas. It is located at 1,700ft on top of a hill. A mere 500 feet above Bentonville.

We are about 6 nautical miles from the airport and I should be able to see it. But like many time before, I fail to do that. The airport is new to me and I’m not sure where to look. I know the direction and the distance but I fail to recognize it. I’m thinking about a way to cheat, finding something to highlight the airport in the middle of all the greens. It is a hard surface runway to a black strip should be visible by now. We are now at 3 nautical miles from the airport and I should be able to see it but I don’t. I’m getting frustrated at that point! Then a little idea pop in my head: I should trigger the lights of the runway on. This should help. But once again, I’m failing to locate it! Now I have some memories about Turkey Mountain! The same thing happened! I was almost over it before I finally saw it. This is now becoming embarrassing! But then out of nowhere, I spot the runway, well lighted, waiting for me to land. I’ve been monitoring the CTAF frequency and no one was around the airport.

Since this airport does not have any automated weather, we will have to fly over the runway to spot the wind and the preferred runway. Here it is waiting for us, telling us that we should use 12. But with all these searching maneuvers, I’ve neglected my speed and altitude. We are coming high and fast for a landing. Of course, I can extend my downwind and use the time to waste the altitude and get into a more normal configuration but instead, we are using the mistake as an exercise.

Let’s review the GPS data to visualize the path taken.

The path shows crossing over the field and turning downwind then base from mid-field to finally land. We could see that I’m overshooting slightly the runway during my turn to final and that I’m recovering pretty quickly but as I’m approaching the runway, I’m too fast and I need to bleed that speed. The maneuver is a forward slip and I’m entering in it a little too slowly, which ended up bringing the plane off center of the runway. The recovery would be done completely at then end…

Let’s review the video now to see what happens in the cockpit!

One good news out of that: I landed the plane properly and I had a new learning opportunity. Bad news is I wanted to do the landing properly since I have done it several time before.

After a quick debriefing on the runway, we are taking off for a new destination. One that I have always wanted to go back since I was able to land the plane properly. A place where the big boys are playing: XNA! The Northwestern Arkansas Regional Airport and I’m lucky because the sun is going down fast and we will be hitting XNA at night!

Reference

SkyVector information on Huntsville Municipal : http://skyvector.com/airport/H34/Huntsville-Municipal-Airport
Google Earth full path flight:

New toys in the plane

2009-12-20T18:50:00Z

This is the second posts about the technology that I’m using to record the flights. I’m adding two new toys in the collection: a geo tracking device and another camera.

Why? What was missing?

Well, as I was reviewing the different flights to create the posts, I’ve always wanted to be able to locate the plane not only on the map but also in altitude and I had no way to do that before. So I’ve started to look for a solution.

The other element that I was getting frustrated with is the fact that the camera being attached to the plane, I was getting only a single point of view for the recording with no other option. This means that the camera can not be aimed at other interesting point and frequently, these interesting points are not located in front but off the side of the plane. Unless I’m getting a camera for each angle, I will never be able to cover everything. This can be time consuming to review all the rushes and create interesting videos. So instead, I’ve started to look for a head mounted camera. At least, the camera would record what I’m seeing…

Geotracking Device

I’ve talked about wanting to do that in the past but was not able to find a suitable device until recently. Its name is QStarz Travel Recorder X BT-Q1000X. This is a GPS tracker/recorder also known as a geotracking device. In other words, this unit is allowing me to record exactly were I’m going with the plane. It is using not only the GPS signal but is WAAS compatible. To understand the why I choose this unit, you have to understand that the GPS system is very accurate in tracking objects on the ground and to detect changes but is notoriously unreliable when it comes to altitude. So a GPS only system would not work properly for my application because I do want to record the variation of altitude. The WAAS system is a land based system that provide this altitude accuracy that I’m looking for. This is a system largely used in aviation but that is getting leverage in many other applications.

So the unit that I have selected is one that is usually used for geotagging pictures (aka. associating a GPS position to a picture…). The unit can be setup differently and I’ve chosen to record the position every second. This should give me the best exploitable results. Out of the unit, I should be able to extract not only the GPS position and the altitude but also the speed of the plane and the heading. This is an interesting unit and the first tests on the ground seems to be satisfactory. It is very sensitive and very fast so I have high hopes for the unit. The only negative aspects is that the software tends to have issue to connect to the device once in a while but I always manage to get it working. My PC is getting overloaded with software so it might just mean that I need to do some extensive some cleanup and free up some had disk space…

Helmet Mounted Camera

Finding a camera was not easy because I had several requirements that I wanted to fulfill that the choice was becoming difficult. Basically, I wanted something light and that I can attach to my head. So it couldn’t be too wide. Searching the traditional camera was not working. Everything was too wide or too heavy and nothing could really be head mounted. I took another option and search a little more widely.

Remote control planes might have the solution!

Talking with friends, we looked at the cameras used for radio commanded plane but the resolution was not good enough.

Extreme Sport, that’s the solution!

The solution was a camera that was yet to be released at the time. Used for “extreme” sports, it was exactly what I was looking for. The brand is VHoldr and it is called the ContourHD 1080p. This camera is capable of shooting at many different resolutions with the highest being Full HD at 30 frames per second (fps), but can also downgrade the resolution to accept high speeds capture (60 fps). the lens can be oriented to compensate for the position on the helmet and has 2 lasers to allow the setup once mounted on the helmet.

They are also providing a lot of different mount types which should allow me to use it for many other activities… The other things that I was used too with the flip is the mini screen. It helps for the setup and I can substitute the mini screen for the laser but it hurts when you want to review something that was just recorded. The other things that is a little painful is the fact that the camera records all the movies in the QuickTime format. This is fine overall except I’m using Windows software and the QuickTime format is not well supported. An MP4 format would have been more appropriate like the Flip is providing. The solution is simple but annoying: one extra steps of encoding is required before I can start exploiting the recording.

So, what’s next?

Equipped with the new toys, I’m hoping to provide even more interesting point of view of the flights and a better experience. For the moment, I don’t foresee the need for new toy for quite some time! But I know myself and I might have to bring another one onboard!

Reference

BT-Q1000X QStarz Web site: http://www.qstarz.com/Products/GPS%20Products/BT-Q1000X-F.htm
ContourHD 1080p VHoldr Web site: http://vholdr.com/contourhd/helmetcam

What’s left before the checkride?

2009-12-18T23:45:00Z

Now that I’m back in Bentonville, I have asked Michael to have a quick review where we stand and devise a plan for the coming weeks.

What is expected?

The first thing to understand what is left to do is to understand what is expected. This is defined in the Part 61, paragraph 109. To save you the reading of the regulation text, here is the summary. To be able to have the checkride, you need to have a minimum of 40 hours of flight with a minimum of 20 hours in dual training (aka with an instructor) and 10 hours of solo flight. During these hours, we should achieve 6 hours of cross country (with 3 hours at night), 1 cross country flight over 100 nautical miles, 10 take offs and landings and 3 hours of flight training by using instrument only.

In terms of solo, 5 hours of cross country and 1 cross country flight over 150 nautical miles with 3 stops and one leg at least 50nautical miles.

I feel like most of the dual requirements are covered. Let’s review it in detail!

What am I missing

Ok so it’s time to get the log book out and put some numbers in the table.

Requirements	Achieved	Missing
40 hours of flight training	41.3h	0h
20 hours of dual instruction	40.9h	0h
3 hours of cross country	2.2h	0.8h
3 hours of cross country at night	0h	3h
1 cross country >100 nm	0	1
10 take offs and landings	142	0
3 hours of flight training solely by instruments	3h	0h
10 hours of Solo	0.4h	9.6
5 hours of Solo cross country	0	5h
1 solo cross country: >150 nm 3 full stops 1 segment >50nm	0	1

Overall it looks pretty good I think. What I’m missing is some solo time and it makes sense since I did my solo fairly late during my training. The other elements that is becoming obvious is that I’m missing a lot of cross country time.

So I will have to spend the 10 hours in cross country flight before I can get the checkride but I can probably combine some of the flights…

Defining a plan to tackle the requirements

The plan is simple. I need to get into the swing of piloting. This means that I would need approximately 3 flights to redo some of the advanced maneuvers. The next thing is then to plan for a cross country flight. We should be able to knock the remaining requirement in a single flight. After that I should be ready to go for the checkride!

So the plan looks like that:

12/21/09 to 12/23/09: working on getting back into the thick of flying.

12/28/09 to 01/01/10: trying to knock down the 5 hours of solo flight. The weather during that period is usually not really good so I’m not sure that I will be able to get enough time in the air.

Before the end of week, I would like also to have taken the Knowledge test… This leaves the month of January to plan the cross country and prepare for the Oral exam and the checkride.

References

FAA Regulation: § 61.109 – Aeronautical Experience

In an airport again

2009-12-17T17:41:52Z

My 7 weeks in France are over and it is time again to head for the airport to return to Arkansas. Yesterday, I’ve received a phone call from Michael in France. I hadn’t given any news and Michael was wondering if I was in Arkansas already. I confirmed that I was not and that I was taking the plane tomorrow. The plan is still to finish the license by the end of the month of January but there is a little twist.

I’ve mentioned in one of the previous post that I wanted to take the exam during the first week of being back, unfortunately, I’m not ready.

Delayed Knowledge Exam

There have been some development in my job and I’m working out the details of a permanent relocation from Toulouse, France to … Bentonville, AR! This means several things. First, the time to prepare for the relocation has been carved out of my preparation time for the knowledge exam and I felt behind on the preparation.

Second, I can stretch the training a little more and I do not need to rush it anymore since I won’t have the huge gaps that I had before while in France.

So what’s the plan?

The plan is simple. I still want to get done by the end of January. But since I have plan some vacations and I still need to work on my knowledge exam and to prepare the oral interview, I do not want to rush it too much. Some of the topics that I have covered during my self study needs to be reviewed with an instructor. That includes weather briefing & services, some of the weather theory and the never ending subject of regulations…

I told Michael that I would set a session before the end of the week to make sure that we are developing a plan of attack for the month of January.

In the airport

As I’m anticipating that it might be among my last trip, I have started to pack my suitcases for a come back in the US. This means that I showed up at the airport with very heavy suitcases and I have to admit that I’m happy that they have not weighted my carry on! I think they would have received a heart attack. But one thing for sure, since my carry on (and my checked in luggage) are packed so tight and there is so much electronics, that the security check has not been fun. They actually stopped both of my bags and proceeded to go check in every single pocket. That has been to date the most complete checks I had to go through.

But while I’m stuck in the Amsterdam for 5 hours, waiting for my connection flight to Memphis, TN, I’m taking the time to initiate this post and to try to reflect on my preparation so far. That might not be the best moment to do that since I slept only 90 minutes.

Thoughts about the preparation

I’ve come to realize that the CPC, while great to introduce to flying is not enough in my sense to be really ready for the Knowledge test. I have been using the ASA TestPrep book as mentioned in my previous post but even there, I’ve realized that there are still some element missing. Unfortunately, short of reading all the reference documents, almost everything is coming short of helping preparing.

One of my biggest grief is that they do not make any distinction in the knowledge exam between what you need to know when you are flying versus when you are on the ground. Example, why do I need to know all the symbols of the weather chart when there are no chance to get it while in the plane flying?! Memory should be better use in remembering elements that are crucial in flight. On the ground, I will surely get the symbols next to me as I’m deciphering the chart! It seems that a lot of exams these days are doing this type of “mistakes”, confusing what is important to know and that you should remember versus what you can lookup with the proper documentation.

Remaining of the flight

As usual, the remaining of the flight has been uneventful but as we were approaching Canada, we started to get some turbulence. Enough to get the stewards going to their seats and buckle up! Of course, we got an announcement from them that we were going through turbulences and that we need to stay seated. Did I say that not a single turbulence happen after the announcement? The next series of serious turbulence were as we started our descend towards Memphis. I guess it was “serious” enough that the next flight to Northwestern Arkansas (XNA) was done at a very low altitude. By low I mean that I could see the ground at all time and that flight could have been VFR! I wished I had kept my maps with me because then I would have been able to look at the ground and find my position…

Overall it was a very tiring flight that lasted closed to 23 hours from door to door and with only 90 minutes of sleep in the previous night! I’m glad I’m back and I’m looking forward being able to get in a plane (as pilot, of course!) again!

For the coming flights, I’m reserving a couple of surprises. I’ve acquired a few extra gadgets and if they revealed themselves working as planned, you we should have even more interesting postings… But I will not spoil the surprise! Hope to meet on a future post soon!

Studying for the Knowledge Test...

2009-11-30T12:13:00Z

Well over the past few weeks, I have started to work heavily on preparing the Knowledge Test. I’m hoping also to be ready for the oral exam part of the check ride.

I’m using 3 different types resources for that:

The CPC books: this is the book provided with the kit. It is the one used to complement the CDs when preparing each flight.
The ASA Test Prep Private Pilot 2009. The book covers the different topics that would be covered for the knowledge test. It is outdated now but ASA is making the updates accessible for free on their web site…
Practical Test Standards – Airplane – Single-Engine Land – FAA-S-8081-14A
ASA Private Oral Exam Guide – ASA-OEG-P8

Knowledge test

The knowledge test is the test that more or less validates the knowledge acquired during ground school. The test is a computer based test and consists in 60 questions. In order to pass, the threshold of correct answer is 70% or 42 questions. Another way to see it is the right to fail 18 questions! The test is lasting 2.5 hours maximum.

My goal is, of course, to pass the test on the first try but I also have the ambition to be above the median of the school. Not for any other reason but to have a higher goal.

Preparation

The preparation for the moment is going fairly smoothly but I’m struggling with my memory. I have some fairly bad memory. I know it and the way I usually go around it is by being able to “re-discover” the answer by reasoning or, more simply, by using notes. But for the test, no notes will be allowed so that cannot work and since some of the elements to learn are plain brutal numbers, I will not have much of a choice! Oh, well, I have about 3 weeks to get ready as I would like to get the knowledge tests taken before the week of Christmas.

Check Ride

This way I would be able to focus the remaining time on the Check Ride. The check ride is a two part exam and the final exam before obtaining the Private Pilot Certificate. There is an oral exam part and then a practical part. The oral is a sort of extension of the knowledge test as I understand it! I will post a little more about the preparation as I’m coming closer to it. For the moment, the focus is on the Knowledge Test…

Reference

http://www.faa.gov/pilots/testing/

On the highway to work…

2009-11-09T19:49:41Z

One of the thing about living with an aircraft manufacturer in town is that you might encounter parts of the planes ready for assembly on the road. This morning was no exception! This time, the pylons for attaching the engine (most likely for an A320 or A330) but at other time, it has been landing gears and believe me this is way more impressive!

Visit of an ARTCC – Part 2

2009-10-15T18:00:00Z

Entering the control room

Entering the main room was surreal in many ways. There was such a stark contrast between the facility, where everything and the amount of technology that was packed in such a small space. The very first point I’ve noticed was the lack of natural light. Everything was very dark and all the lights were fairly dim. Not sure why exactly but it is presenting an interesting look for sure and then the next thing that shocked me was the number of screens. Tons of screens, everywhere. A little bit like some of the Hollywood movies except that this time, you know it’s for real and the apps running don’t look like Flash animations! You can feel that it is serious applications running.

From pods to pods

As we are starting the tour of the control room, I can see that everything is organized in pods. Each pods has a team. The first one that we meet is the military pod. There, all the military activity is tracked and I’m assuming that they are getting all the info to understand the type of activity and translate it for the traffic control in the MOAs.

Then we went to the next pod. The next pod was different from the previous one. For one thing, it was including civil planes so we were definitely out of the military area. This is in this area that Anna is going to explain me the spacing and streaming. The group is in charge of maintaining the streams and making sure that the planes are spaced properly. Overhead, I can see a large screen showing an airport diagram with icons representing planes and some extra information (flight name…). It doesn’t take too long to identify the airport has being the Minneapolis Saint Paul airport. The display is actually of great use to the controllers because they are this way capable of predicting what the traffic is going to be just by looking at the display. But at that point, I’ve realized one thing. I haven’t seen anyone talking to a plane! I know I’m not at the end of the tour but I’m starting to wonder if the people talking to the planes are actually on this site! After several explanations on the traffic management, we are ready to move on. After talking to the group, I’ve come to realize how complex and extensive the air traffic control is. Obviously, each center can not act alone! They are relying on information coming from many different sources (other centers, airlines, airports …) and a very strong infrastructure spread all over the country.

We then went by the weather guys where they presented me with a little of the work they are performing: forecasting the weather but more importantly, predicting the winds strength and direction.. Then we went on the next pods but before reaching them, Anna pulled me into a an empty pods. There she picked a station and presented me the different element composing it.

The station, similar to picture on the right side,is actually a station used by the Air Traffic Controller, the one that do talk to pilots! Anna is driving me through the different screens and symbols and explain what I should look at. Their station compared to the picture have a few upgrades and have a couple more screens that do replace some of the paper strip. The main screen is not a traditional LCD or CRT projection. It looks like a rear projection system. This is bringing a large display while offering a luminosity that’s very easy on the eyes. The keyboard looks pretty old but in fact it is extremely rugged and there are no mouse, just a trackball. The two little screens under the big screen and in front of the keyboard are in fact touch screens and they are not used to display information but are just alternative inputs. I did not pay too much attention to them as most of the action was on the main screen. Several connectors are on the edge of the horizontal surface where the keyboard lies. This is where the headset is connected.

Anna is showing me the different planes in her sector, explaining how to read the cartouche associated with them and explain some of the challenges. It is was very interesting to see how all the work done in the background comes to the controller and how it is influencing the decision of the controller and see the repercussion to the pilots. Anna is concluding the presentation and it is time for her to start her tour. Instead of finishing the tour, she brought me to her station to follow her at work.

As we are approaching the pod she is working in, she explains how the duties are distributed. Each controller checks in when starting to work at a station. All the times are getting calculated and maintained visible to everybody. When a “fresh” controller arrives, they just have to look at the list of controller currently assigned and see who has been on the station the longest and they can go relieve him/her.

“Divide et impera”

Latin for “divide and rule”, the areas as we have seen are divided into 3 layers each layer is then broken down into several sectors. The sectors in each layers do not necessarily match. A controller is assigned to each sector and each pod has about 12 sectors covered.

Anna is going to take over someone at a station but takes the time to setup my position. I will be seating next to her, having a perfect view on everything she is doing and she is giving me a old style telephone handset to listen on her conversation. Of course, the microphone will not be active. I will be able to listen only!

I’m now seating looking at a screen and watching the ATC in position. A few minutes later, Anna is taking her place. I can see how the transition is made. It is a quick but efficient briefing about the activities in the sector. They are extending the discussion on a couple of planes in the upper right corner of the sector but I’m not catching all of what is going on. Apparently, a couple of planes had made request for flying at a different flight level too.

The transition being over, Anna took over the sector and assumed the control for the next hour being before replaced. During that time, I was suspended to my headset and looking everywhere. Here are a few things that I’ve come to notice:

Like microphone in the planes, you need to push a button to talk. ATCs have a large handle with a paddle like trigger that allows them to enable their microphones. While there is nothing surprising here, they are holding this handle all the time. This means that they have only 1 hand to do everything else. All the typing is done with one hand, so is the control of the cursor on the screen. Pretty impressive.
Every single instructions provided to the pilots are consigned in the system and relayed on the screen. All these commands are entered using keywords, which makes for a fast information entry but increase the level of training to remember all the keywords and their associated pattern.
Once in a while, I could see a lot more airplanes on the screen that were appearing then disappearing. Anna explained me later that she was actually using one feature of the system. Basically, the main view allows to view only the plane in the sector. This means all the plane within the geographical boundaries of the sector and the near surrounding but also between two altitudes. This means that several planes are actually filtered from the display. Planes that are deemed not relevant because not a the appropriate level. The option that Anna was using was just removing the altitude filtering to be able to see all the planes.

Needless to say that I did not see the time going! Before I got a chance to realize, I had been sitting next to Anna for almost an hour and it was time to close the tour. As she was finishing her duties, I sat with another controller taking over Anna’s place.

Anna wanted to show me something else too: Flight following for VFR flight but since we were under marginal VFR, no plane had enough of a good weather to take off… It was now time for me to be escorted back to guards booth and to say good bye and thank you for this tour. I have learned a great deal on Air Traffic Control during this visit for sure!

Conclusion

It was a fantastic experience that I’m recommending to anyone interested in aviation and especially pilots. The opportunity was too good to pass and I was finally able to meet the faces on the other side of the mic’. Understanding the challenges and the needs of the ATC would definitely help me for acquiring my IFR certification one day! And now, I can appreciate a little better what is going on if I get denied a flight following!

Extra reference

ARTCC
- Explanation and definition :Wikipedia
ZMP ARTCC
- Zones and frequencies can be found at: Freq of Nature
FAA documentation:
- AIM : http://www.faa.gov/atpubs
Approach Control/Departure Control - TRACON:
- Explanation and definition: Wikipedia
JFK Airport:
- General information : Wikipedia