Today we are going to practice new techniques: soft field landing! But with a little twist! It won’t be on a soft plush freshly mowed grass of an exotic airport but on … asphalt at our home airport!

We will still take part of the session to one of my preferred airport: Crystal Lake Airport in Decatur, AR.

… well not exactly the infinity but Forth Smith or about 50 nautical miles! But this is so far away from the usual training ground. This should be fun. Technically, this is enough to call that a Cross Country flight!

Checked the weather

After yesterday’s weather, it was a little bit of a concern for today and it is not exactly right: low ceiling with some winds. Nothing too bad though and definitely good enough to fly. So decision is taken to start the flight.

Preparing the cockpit for the cross country flight

I have all my usual gear: headset, kneeboard, camera and camera holder. But for the cross country, I need to have some extras:

• Sectional charts: That’s the map with the milestones of the flight plan. to go to Forth Smith, I would need 2 of them:
• The Kansas sectional that covers the Bentonville Area.
• The Memphis sectional that covers Forth Smith.
• Airport/Facility Directory (aka. A/F D): contains the list of all the airports of the region with all relevant information (frequencies, airport diagram,)
• Flight Plan: The flight plan that we have crafted yesterday. I’ve put it on a plastic board to get some rigidity and to be able to write on it easily.
• EAB: … or flight computer. This would be used to calculate the progression during the flight in relation to the estimate on the flight plan.
• Extra information that I had printed for the flight including the relevant radial for the VOR that should help me evaluate my position as I have used.

These extras have to be accessible but, of course, you can not take off with everything on your lap. The center console is there and it has a tendency to get caught with the seat. Its position was very forward and it was bothering me a little to have it so much back but I can reach everything so I thought that it might not be a big deal and that I was just a whiner. I’ve organized all the elements for the flight in the center console. I think I’m ready to take off. Everything seems to be in place. I’ve been looking for the cross country for quite sometime and it is now happening.

From Bentonville to Fort Smith

If only I knew what was waiting for, I would not taken that flight. This is by far the worst flight I have done. The winds was shaking the airplane. Nothing to be sick about but it made the airplane very difficult to trim. I can usually do an Ok job at trimming the plane for a straight and level flight. But here, I had to readjust the trimming every 2 minutes. The plane was all over the altitude. Sometime 200 feet below the assigned altitude and sometime 200 above. A 400 feet amplitude is way too much and it should have been contained within 100 feet max. This is bad airmanship to not control the plane. I was so busy piloting the plane and trying to maintain the altitude that the navigation got a little neglected. First I had some issue getting the maps out of the center console. Too far back, I was having issue getting the maps in and out. Same thing with the board with the flight plan. I couldn’t use it properly. Too many things were frustrating me and as a ripple effect, Michael got really annoyed also. Of course, I had taken a few milestones on the ground that I have completely missed to check visually but since I had done the planning using VORs, I was able to bring the plane to the proper location but it has been way more painful than it should have been.

Is that English on the weather report!?

But the problems did not stop there as I was reaching the Fort Smith airspace, I was trying to prepare for talking to the tower and the first step is to get the weather. And here, I draw a blank! The guy who did the weather announcement was talking so fast and so unarticulated that it makes it impossible for me to understand anything beyond the identification of the weather and the wind. I’ve listened to the announcements at least 4 times. Michael was wondering what was going on and thought that I couldn’t write the information fast enough when in fact I could not understand what was said at all! This just compounded to the problems of the flight. Needless to say that none of us were really happy. I look like a stupid idiot that could not understand a few numbers and I do not like that at all.
Michael took over the communication and let the tower know our intentions. After reaching the VOR, we turned towards the airport and received the clearance for landing at KFSM!

Landing at Fort Smith

So we just got clearance for landing to the Fort Smith airport. As we were entering downwind, we got a call from tower: "Three Victor Romeo, can you extend downwind and report when turning base?". Answer: “Three Victor Romeo is extending downwind and will report on base”.

First guess is that another airplane probably faster or in better position wants to land. But then over the radio, we can hear the call for authorization to take off. Since we were downwind (ie: parallel to the runway), we could see perfectly the entire runway and here big surprise, we can see not 1 but 2 Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt also known under their not-so-friendly nickname: Tank killer!

This is a strange view to think that you are going to land right after a military plane that’s actually active! The last time I saw a real A-10, it was most likely at an air show in Florida a good 16 or 17 years ago!

I’m looking at them taking off and it didn’t took very long for them to disappear and for me to come back to the reality of having to put the plane down on the runway.

I did the approach without any problem but once again a bad landing. As usual for now, nothing really bad but not very smooth. I can definitely put the plane down, it was just not pretty.

We then cleared the runway and got into the next frequencies on the radio leaving tower and joining Forth Smith ground. There, we were instructed on the taxiway to use to get to the FBO. Once at the FBO, we took a little break of a few minute and restarted the procedure to get in the air and on our way to Bentonville.

Departure from a control airport

Departing from a control airport start like the departure from the non control airport: by checking the weather. And, of course, this is the same announcement than checking the weather from the air so needless to say that I could not catch a word! It was bad! than having explained to Michael my difficulty (“No it’s not my writing skills! ”), he mentioned that I should not be worried too much about it and actually ask for the weather to the ground or to the tower when in the air! I then called ground and got my complete weather report in an English that I can understand. We got the clearance for taxiing and asked to report on the threshold of the runway to the tower. We did just that. Once I reach the threshold, I’ve realized that I was followed by a regional jet. I was once again holding a regional jet from departing. The last time was when we did the touch and go at the Northwestern Arkansas Regional Airport. So as soon as we had starting to gain some altitude, we started to turn left before the top of the climb to free the path. This allowed the airliner to take off.

Flying back to Bentonville

I was expecting the flight back to Bentonville to be like the one to Fort Smith but in fact it went pretty smooth. We were facing winds but it was not as bad. The only thing is that we were not going as fast as needed to we were getting late. I’ve tried to make a point on the way back to identify a maximum element on the ground to show Michael that I can locate myself and navigate using dead reckoning. As we were coming closer from Bentonville, we had to switch from the Memphis approach to Razorback approach and we got informed that Razorback Approach was having some difficulties with some of the frequencies. They therefore would not be able to provide flight following for us.

To compensate as we were approaching the different airports on our way to Bentonville, Michael called each airport on the radio to let them know our intention.

Did a direct approach to 36

As we were coming from the south, we had a natural alignment with Bentonville and the winds were favoring the use of the runway 36. So we did a direct approach. It was the second one and I have to say that I really like it but it  estimating when to start the descent was not easy. When using the pattern, as you are turning final, you know you are starting the approach but here, you have to judge right to avoid coming too low. For airport with precision approach devices, it’s easy, you look at the lights but for airport like the one in Bentonville you are on your own!

Time to finish it with this bad trip

Well, it is a strange thing when you have prepared so much for something and you ended up not performing properly and suddenly something that you had difficulties before then happen without a glitch. This is exactly what happened with the landing. It was very smooth to the point that I did not even hear the wheels touching the ground. It was a very pleasant surprise that made me forget about all the bad time I just had. It is to date the best landing I’ve ever done!

Lessons learned

One of the lessons that I have learned the hard way is that cockpit management is critical. You need to have everything EASILY accessible. I can not stretch the word easily enough. One thing during the flight that was bothering me is that I couldn’t take and put the chart down easily and they were getting caught each time I was trying to put them back. With the plane being shaken I couldn’t spend anytime on this. Same thing with the board with my flight plan. I couldn’t take it out and back in easily. It was getting caught and my arm was not doing a very natural movement each time I wanted to get it out and put it back.

Today was not a good day to flight under visual conditions: weather has been bad and gave some very low ceiling clouds (500 feet above ground at some point). So in these conditions, there is no way we can fly under Visual Flight Rules only. This is a weather that calls for Instrument use.

We had planned for 2 hours of flight but ended doing only 1 of ground training. We had talked about several days about preparing for the flight to Fort Smith, the first cross country flight. This weather issue is going to give us a break and allow us to prepare the flight properly.

The session would be divided into 2 parts: how to prepare a flight and preparing the flight to Fort Smith.

How to prepare a flight

There is a series of steps that you have to go through which are fairly logic. Here are my original notes. I will have to clean them and type them for reference but they are enough for the moment to prepare the flight.

I’m also using a flight planner form for capturing all the information to be collected. It is a form from ASA. They provide pre-printed notepad with the form. It’s pretty handy and contains all the information required in flight for all types of navigation when flying VFR.

Planning the trip to Fort Smith

So the goal was to plan a trip to go to Forth Smith. After locating the airport on the map, I’ve started to look at the most straight path and realize that not far from the  straight path, were actually Victor Airways. This means that radio navigation systems or VORs are present. Looking properly at the maps, they are actually placed favorably and can be used in this case for the navigation to Fort Smith. I will retain this option to do the planning of the cross country.

Now that I have determined the path I would like to use, I can call the weather briefer to get the information about the weather. Actually, I could have done it with the computer by going to the DUAT web site. It contains all the information to register a flight plan and also to get a weather briefing. Michael wants me to use the traditional over the phone so I’m calling them. The number is easy to remember: 1-800-WX-BRIEF. Here are getting in touch with someone after a series of automated prompt. The briefer asked me what I wanted and I’m telling him that I want a complete briefing for tomorrow between KVBT and KFSM. After providing some information about my plane (registration number, color…), he finally gives me all the information that I wanted. What I was the most concerned was the wind, once we have established that the weather would be most likely ok for a VFR flight.

I did not realize immediately but actually, while I was asking for the weather, the briefer collected enough information to create a flight plan. This means that tomorrow, I should be able to call the FSS and open the flight plan… This concludes my discussion with the briefer and I can continue the planning.

We already have the POH for the plane so it is easy to go pick the information required in it.

The other information that I will need is the compass card from the plane. This gives the magnetic deviation between the magnetic north and the direction indicated by the main compass.

After reporting all the waypoints onto the form, I can start measuring the distance with the plotter and the true north. I’m also putting the altitude. I have the wind information so I can put fill the next two columns. Now that we have the true course and the wind, we can calculate the WCA or Wind Correction Angle. This is giving us where the plane should be pointing at to counteract the drifting effect of the wind. Now we have to correct from the fact that the Earth is not rotating around the North magnetic center, the information is on the map and provide an East or West correction angle (3 East or –3). Finally, I need to incorporate the magnetic deviation to include the limitation of the instrument. This gives our compass heading and therefore the direction we will have to follow. It is reported in the column post the identification of the checkpoints.

The Plan TAS (True Air Speed), this is the POH of the plane that will give it to me. We have established the weight and balance of the plane prior to establishing the plan so we know the weight of the plan full and we will leave with a full tank. This is giving us the speed for each phase of the flight. From take off, cruising and descent and landing. The POH also gives us the fuel consumption expected for taxiing… Nice!

So with the planned true, we need to correct it for wind effect, which give a ground speed. That ground speed and the distance allows us to calculate the time required to go from one checkpoint to the next. this gives us the ETE or Estimated Time En-route. Knowing how much time we are in the air and the amount of fuel consumed, we can determine our fuel burn.

So after doing all the calculation, I’m getting an estimate of 35 minutes to get to Forth Smith and a little over 5 gallons of fuel used.

On the sheet, I’m reporting also some extra information that are in other books but that I will need. That includes the VOR frequency, the Morse code for the identification, the radial that I need to follow and the TO/FROM! But I’m including also information about the airport like the runways, the important frequencies and also the different FSS. One information I’ve forgotten to put are the pattern altitude.

It's Bastille Day! So it means French equivalent day to the US Independence day. But what it really means for the moment is that I have the day off! I will be able to sleep properly and get my lessons well rested! I was thinking also that by taking an early lesson (10:00am instead of 2:00~3:00pm), I would not have too much of the usual turbulence and it might help my landings. If some of the turbulence are due to the ground heating up then temperatures are much cooler and bearable at 10:00am. Right?

Results were unexpected! I felt well rested of course but I was greeted with much stronger winds than usual. I usually can count on winds of 4 to 6 knots but today, winds were going from 9 to 14 knots. Also, where we usually have winds blowing with a 10 degrees difference with the runway, I ended up with more than 40 degrees of difference. So forget about the calmer air! It was blowing me all over … sideways!

First landing of the day

So the first landing was a catastrophy! Approach was tough because of the wind but it was going fairly well. Then came the time of the round off and it seemed to have gone fairly ok but then the plane just went right and we were so off the centerline that it was better to consider go around instead of trying to salvage it. We did just that. Another session that does not present itself well and promise some serious frustration. But then Michael made a comment that today would be tougher than usual because of the cross wind generated. It was not a strong cross wind but enough to not being able to apply the usual approach practices…

Practicing cross wind landing techniques

We then did a couple of exercises to address the proper techniques to perform a proper control of the plane during the approach and how to land with a cross wind.

The approach technique is fairly intuitive. You need to use the ailerons to maintain an angle and beat the wind effect (push the plane towards the wind) but to avoid turning the plane, you need to use the rudders in the opposite direction to maintain the plane on the centerline. Depending on the strength of the wind, you adjust the rolling and release more of less rudder to stay on the centerline.

Where this is becoming odd is when it is time to touch down on the runway. My mental representation of a landing is that a plane should land flat, nose up. Main wheels then front wheel. I know from working in the industry that airplanes are designed to sustain their own weight on a single landing gear (preferably not the front one of course!) but it seemed to me more of a pilot error to have to land on one gear then have the other ones touching down. But landing cross wind is exactly that! Putting one wheel down (the one in the wind) first then leveling the plane and have the second gear touching down then letting the front wheel touch the runway.

Of course, this is easily said than done!

So after a few bad landings and telling my instructor that I was getting tired of not making progress on the landings, I started to do one fairly good landing all by myself.

I guess I took my time this time. I've forced myself to really control the approach and maintain speed and centerline. The rest just came easy. The landing was not of course the smoothest you should expect from a pilot but it was all by myself and  that is a very good feeling because you know that you can bring a plane on the ground without killing everybody on board or making significant damage to the plane.

Today has a ground school session and a flight session planned.

Ground School

We spent a good hour to discuss different elements on the ground. Notably did a review of the entire set of airspace. We did talked about the performance chart also. Each plane comes with a POH or Pilot’s Operating Handbook. This is the must have booklet because it is containing all the information about the plane. All the data that are related to performance, weight and balance configuration and checklists. The purpose of the training on the ground was to make me familiar with the information and where to find the different information required in the booklet.

I’ve attached a URL of the POH for the Cessna that I'm flying most of the time (aka N733VR. It is a Cessna 172N Skyhawk. The POH attached is for a 172N from 1978 plane but the performance charts are identical. Of course, the weight and balance being different from plane to plane, the information in this booklet can not be used for any of the calculation and I have to revert to the real one stored in the plane.

You can find the POH here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/3801614/C172N-POH

Flights

Short session with N840MC. Since I had only 2 hours booked and we took a good hour in ground school, I had only about 1 hour of flight available. By the time I was ready to start the engine, only half an hour was left but that was enough to get a solid half an hour of flight. Of course, to maximize the time, we stayed in the pattern and did some take off and landings.

First Cycle

So I’m ready to take off, after checking the pattern and back taxiing, we are taking off. At that point of my training, I don’t really need to think about anything but the landing when we are in the pattern. Everything else is pretty much under control. This first landing was pretty good overall and watching the video it looks pretty fine but I do remember very clearly that I had the impression that the plane was sideways when I landed. This “scared” me. I mean that I was not very relaxed during that landing. I guess the idea that everything was not perfect and that I might damage the plane is always in my mind when doing landings. The plane I’m usually flying is a 1977 Skyhawk but this one is a 2007! This means that it is worth about $280K!

The video is a showing a full cycle from the taxiing, take off, pattern and landing to almost a full stop. On the video, you can clearly see the different steps involved in flying the pattern.

Second landing did not go as well!!!

The second landing did not go exactly as planned. After doing a proper take off, a nice pattern and an approach that was totally reasonable, the plane started to go to the right. I’ve managed to bring it back to the center line but as soon as I’m starting to to start flaring, I’m ending up on the right side again with the nose pointing towards the outside of the runway. Since I do not want to practice some soft field landing techniques, I do not have any other choice to cancel the landing and to initiate a go around. Moreover, landing next to the runway is not seen as good airmanship!

The video shows very clearly the movement of the plane! What happened is not completely sure and I think the plane was weathervaning a little. Yes… I know… I’m trying to dodge the responsibility here!

Last landing of the day

That going around was really annoying and I could not stay on a failure. I’m not sure what I did wrong but I’m more than decided to not repeat that mistakes. I’m therefore focusing on the speed and alignment for the last landing before going back home. Let’s see what happened by looking at the video.

Well, the result is not very glorious. Yes, I did land the plane in the proper distance but looking more carefully, you can see that I was not really aligned and that I had overshot the runway a little bit so my landing was approximately 3 feet off the centerline.

For today, it is it. My time in the plane is coming to an end. I’m left with a mixed feeling. On one hand I was able to land the plane but it was not very consistent. The wind was only responsible for so much. So more progress are still needed!

Oh by the way, I will have a passenger tomorrow! A teenager interested in aviation apparently! More about it on the tomorrow’s post!

Today (the 3rd of July), I was driving from Bentonville, AR to Memphis, TN to celebrate Independence Day with family and friends and I've realized something: in the plane, every pilot has develop a scan. A scan is a way of going from one instrument to the next (airspeed, altimeter, …) to check that the values are correct and that plane is still in the position where we want it!

So while I was driving, I got confused because suddenly after looking at the speedometer I was looking for another gauge to check. Of course, there were none to check but at the moment, I was looking for another instrument. Not sure which one but I couldn't find it!

I'm not sure what it means but probably that I need to get back on Earth for a little bit. Oh well, this is already planned like that as I am not planning to get in another plane in the next 4 days. A nice little break!

Living next to the Missouri state line, we crossed it and got a few fireworks that are illegal to purchase in the other States! Yes, the one that are requiring a launcher! We bought a few of them and had a very nice 4th of July that the kids of all ages (yeah that included me) really enjoyed! It was a blast to be able to launch these rockets and realize that one of the neighbor probably had the same idea because we ended up doing a nice friendly competition of Missouri fireworks for a good 30 minutes!

Today was a day to work on the landing so no special lessons and just landing after landing for two hours around the Bentonville Municipal airport (KVBT). The day started pretty quietly with a wind at 3 knots, which is almost nothing, and with only 20 degrees spread from the axis of the runway. It was favoring runway 36.

I have done now so many take off and landing on this runway that I'm becoming extremely familiar with the take off procedure, going through the traffic pattern and making the calls for the different phases and approaching the runway! It is incredible how in less than 16 hours of flight over only 10 days, you can develop some reflex.

But as I have yet to make a completely correct landing on my own. For whatever reasons, I keep messing it up on the round off and flare. My instructor keeps telling me: it's all about timing! Well, my timing is just off but I'm confident we are going to make it and allow me to finally master this art of landing.

Let's hope my progress are not asymptotic!

So here we go starting some landings. But before we get too go for a complete stop, we are going to repeat the same maneuvers several time consisting in doing a low approach. I told Michael that in a way I was needing a trigger for starting to "think" about the round off. I kept asking him if the threshold of the runway might be a good point to shift my attention from the descent to rounding off. His answer was no, of course, the threshold is not a good point because it is not about being vertical of a point but more a height issue. If you come high, you should starting rounding off later than the threshold and the other way around. If you are low on approach, you will slam the runway if you wait for the threshold. So it what is it about? It's height from the runway in fact. So getting the good feel for the height is not obvious. It's one thing when Michael is doing it and I'm watching or holding the yoke while he is performing the landing, it's a totally different experience when you have to do it. So to get a better feel, we did an interesting exercise. After a normal approach, we started the round off but instead of letting the plane bleed the speed, we put the gas back and actually flight above the runway at the round off altitude. It's not too challenging but when you think about it! You are flying the plane for the entire length of the runway at 60 knots 5 feet above the ground!!! The exercise paid off, I had a better feeling where I should round off. Now my problem was somewhere else : the flare!

Encounter of another kind

For most of the time, we have been alone in the pattern and did not have to pay extra  attention to traffic but we got a call that just got my attention. I had just made the following announcement: "Bentonville Traffic, Cessna 733 Victor Romeo, turning left downwind for runway 36 Bentonville". Standard! But 10 seconds later, I can hear the following call on the radio: "Bentonville, Cessna Citation 5 miles south of Bentonville for runway 36 Bentonville". At that moment, I understand that we are both going for the same runway but he is making a direct approach and I'm following the pattern. I understand also that this is not a small airplane: It's a Citation! For those of you who don't know what a Citation is, this is a small jet with room for 10 people. I've talked to Michael about that call and ask him if we have enough time to land. Answer: yes! But I was a little skeptic so we called the pilot of the Citation to better understand his position and intention. Then Michael ask me if I wanted to watch it land! Answer: Of course!

So Michael took the control of the plane, did a very short and tight base and final and landed our plane. I then grabbed the camcorder usually just running in the background and was able to capture on video the landing of the Citation. It reminded me how much monitoring the radio is important because that plane was completely invisible to us and we would have started to see it only after turning base or with luck at the end of the downwind leg!

This was a nice distraction but as soon as the Citation had finished its landing, we started our back taxiing for taking off and do more landings.

More better, yet incomplete, landings...

Today was going to be a very intensive days of landings. And we would end up doing a total of 22 landings.

During one of the landings attempt, Michael was talking about being able to see the runway above the nose of the plane and then realize something that would change everything. My seat was very low in fact for my height. The result is that I did not have a proper visibility of the runway !!!

We changed the setting on the seat and then suddenly everything became different. My take off became smoother and my round off was improving significantly.

It was now close to 2 hours and Michael did the last landing because I was getting tired and started to make some mistakes in the communications. So we decided to call it a day. Michael landed the plane one last time and brought it to a stop on the runway. I took the control to go park but before leaving the runway, Michael asked me if I wanted to do one last landing.

… when suddenly!

After a second of hesitation, I agreed. I've made some improvement during the previous 2 hours and I will not get into an airplane for the next 4 days, I can give it a last chance.

So here we go for round around the airport. Everything is going smooth. The wind had picked up in the last 30 minutes. It is now at 7 and a little gusted but nothing too bad. The air was getting rougher and we were a little shaken. Before entering base, I remember something, each time I was able to track the center line of the runway and didn't have to make correction at the end, I went pretty close to landing the plane by myself. So turning left base, I was determined to pay a lot of attention on keeping the plane on the centerline for as long as possible. Now turning final and the alignment is good. I'm doing a pretty good approach with a good tracking and there everything went smooth! The round off happen at the right time, the flare happen also at the right time and I had little to no correction. The wheels then touched the runway and I was started to slow down. I did have to think about it that I had actually landed the plane entirely by myself! Wow! It was so "easy"! I mean, on all the previous landings, I had to fight the airplane to try to get it where I wanted and I invariably ended with a mistake or another that was endangering the plane! But this time, it went very smooth. No fight, no struggling, no correction, just the right moves!

I had just completed my first complete and correct landing without Michael touching anything! What a feeling! I know now that I just have to repeat that landing and I'm on my way to solo.Michael was, of course, very prompt to congratulate me and to of course ready to throw me another challenge! Now we will learn to land with a cross wind!

But that will be for another time because by now, I'm ready to park the plane, close the flight and call it a day! The Hobbs meter (that reports the official flying time) reads 2.3 hours and it is getting late. I had started my day at 2:00am to attend a meeting with France and it was nearly 6:00pm local. It was a thought and long day but I'm happy and all the frustration from the butchered landings, from the work at the office not going as smoothly as it should is totally gone. I'm looking forward stepping back in the plane and do it again … and again!

I've just received an email asking me to call back to the flight school to talk about the curriculum that would be used for my training. Since I'm currently in France, I will have to be patient because we are GMT+1.

Time to get in touch with the instructor to talk about the curriculum. As I have already discovered, we will use and follow a curriculum called CPC Training kit. CPC standing for Cessna Pilot Center.

This is a standard set of the training used at all the Cessna training schools. The training is created by a now famous couple in the world of general aviation: John and Martha Kings. If you have heard about the Kings School, this is their flight school and the CPC is just a Cessna supported version of the Kings school training material.

Curriculum is based on 3 parts:

1. Learning the basic of flying.
2. Learning to navigate and more complex flying situations
3. Preparing for the check ride

When I had mentioned in a previous email that I wanted to try to get the full curriculum, in other words, get the PPL during the 6 weeks that I would be there. The instructors are puzzled and don't think it is possible. I will surely not pushed and we agree and what we see being a more reasonable objective: at least completing the first 2 parts of the curriculum: learning the basics and navigation. I'm not sure how the solo takes place but I would like also after the 6 weeks to have performed my solo flight.

Students usually needs between 60 and 100 hours of flight before completing being able to get their check ride. I will see how much time I will need and I know it is not a competition but I really would like to do in less time. 50 hours would be near perfect. But I might be over optimistic there!

  I was looking for some reference and for a previous post and realized that Google Map has actually captured a lot when taking the satellite picture of the Toulouse Blagnac Airport.

So here it is! It's just for the fun and there is nothing to win but can you find the following airplanes within the boundaries of the airport.

• 4 A380:
  The giant of the air. This is the famous double decker plane from Airbus. A monster in size with impressive capabilities.
• 1 set of wings ready for assembly for the A380
• Group of A340
• Group of A330
• 2 Concorde
• 4 Beluga:
  The Beluga is an amazing plane. Some find it ugly while some others love it. This plane is actually not for sale but use by Airbus to carry plane parts (read wings, fuselage…) from different manufacturing sites to the assembly site. Its odd shape is very recognizable among any plane.
• 1 Gupta: (ancestor of the Beluga):
  This is the ancestor of the Beluga, the previous model. Extremely difficult to see has it is not flying anymore.

To go to the Toulouse Blagnac Airport, click here

For the answers, click here

Don't forget to switch to Satellite view!

The decision to get a Pilot License was taken and I have been reading the manual and trained on the simulator. Now the next step to make it happen is to actually start the registration. Registering for flight instructions requires mainly two operations: getting a medical certificate from an approved doctor and register through TSA.

Getting the medical certificate

During the month of April and May, I had planned to be in Minneapolis, MN to continue my MBA. So I took the opportunity to go back to the local airport next to my house that I was talking about in a previous posting. There,I went to the FBO to ask for an accredited doctor. It appears that there is actually one doctor that has his office on the airport. So it was very simple to actually get an appointment. A few days later, I was in the office going through the checks required for flying. Everything went fine except for a little detail. It happens that I have asthma. And the doctor did not want to deliver the certificate unless I can prove that my asthma was under control with the use of an inhaler. Unfortunately, the only way for me to prove something like that would be to go see another doctor to get a paper stating exactly that. Based on my current employment and insurance coverage, it means that I had to wait to be back in France to get the certificate. The doctor put another condition: for him to be able to file and deliver the medical certificate, that need to be performed in the next 15 days. I promised him that he would get it within a week and I did! I had to dictate the French doctor the letter in English but I had the certificate on hand. A fax later I was medically approved to be a pilot! On to the more demanding part: dealing with the US government. I hoping for a better experience than the one dealing with TSA in the airports, where everything seems to be taking forever!

Registering with TSA

As a non US national, the registration with TSA is not the most straightforward, yet I have to admit that everything is done to keep it simple! But it includes at least getting fingerprinted. Oh well, this would be only the 3rd time in 2 years that my fingerprints are taken by a government agency! The first part of the registration is entirely made online and after scanning a few documents, waiting a few days, I finally got to the point where the last thing to do was just to get the fingerprints.

Fingerprinting

Since I was in France, I did not want to wait to come back to the US to get an appointment and then having to wait for the approval. Since I'm in the US for only short burst of time (5~7 weeks), I want to be able to maximize the time there flying.

Doing some research on the TSA site, I've realized that 3 centers in France were actually qualified by TSA to get the fingerprinting done! Looking at the addresses, I have found that one site was next to my home in Paris. The good news is that I was planning to get there soon for a business assignment. The bad news is that I had less than a week to organize everything and if it is going like most French administration, I doubt that I can get an appointment that fast!

But what a surprise, after a few phone call to the company: Flight Safety International, I finally got in touch by email with the person performing the fingerprinting. We decided on a meeting day and established the requirements in terms of paperwork that I need to bring to complete the process. It was very efficient and straightforward.

Today is the day!

I have been in Paris working for 2 days and secured my transportation to Flight Safety (that was: "Hi Dad! What are you doing tomorrow afternoon? Nothing ?... Good!". We are arriving at Le Bourget airport and we are trying to find Flight Safety. After a couple or running around, we finally found a parking spot and the entrance of the building. I'm getting in the building and after a few minutes, a woman comes asking for me and requesting that I follow her! She is the person that will do my fingerprinting. As we were walking through the building I didn't know just yet but I was for a big treat! As we open a door to get to a different part of the building, we ended in a warehouse type building that was filled by at least 10 full motion flight simulators! It was the first time that I was really confronted to this type of simulators and that did not escape to the fingerprinting agent! She asked me if I was interested and explained her a little my attraction for the aviation… The conclusion of the conversation was very surprising and unexpected. She asked me if I was interested in having a complete tour? I guess the grin on my face was probably enough of an answer but I manage to say yes. Once the fingerprinted process finished, she introduced me to someone else that gave me a tour of the entire building and was able to step in a couple of cockpit. At more than $1000 per hour, trying to seat in one was not a possibility but it was definitely a very interesting tour and I had the chance to see a few simulators actually running.

A few days later, I’ve received the notification from TSA that I was completely cleared for the flight instructions. I’m now officially a Student Pilot!