Ive been back in the area about a week now, and am settling back into the routine of being a flight instructor. One part of the routine I really am not enjoying is the fact that when weather moves in, I get screwed.
As I am typing this, the entire east coast is sitting under a stationary front, that is being fed from the south with tropical moisture laden air. Humidity is near 100%. Ranfall totals yesterday were 6 inches at Dulles. The beltway was shut down due to a mudslide that yielded nearly 5 feet of debri and shut down the nation's capital's biggest road all night long. A local airport that was built on the Patuxent flood plain is covered in water. Most of the aircraft based there have water up to the door.
I suppose the fact that I cant fly(and make money) is minor compared to what alot of other people are being subjected to. However, I really am beginning to get frustrated. Larry is ready for his presolo stage check. Jim is as well. Randy is just learning to land and needs all the positive reinforcement he can get. anyways, I guess I will wait it out and see what happens the rest of the week.
Last week I learned a couple valuable lessons. 1) always do a thourough preflight, and 2) always have a sick sack in reaching distance. I picked up 2 aircraft from maintenance last week. One had a spider nest in the pitot tube that took 45 mins to clean out. The other(the pa28 arrow) has take over the pitot vane. I didnt preflight as thorough as I should have and ended up with glue residue partially blocking the pitothole. My airspeed indications were erratic, and before I knew it the airplane was airborne. So, I flew the pattern sans airspeed indications. I fell back on my experience and knowledge to successfully and safely make a normal landing. It wasnt really an event of any sort, but sent me into survival mode nonetheless. Glad that I am armed with those skills when I needed them.
That morning I was flying with a student and he decided it was going to be a rough landing. As I was flaring he decided to show me what he had to eat.....all over his chest and out the window and down the side of the aircraft. It took about an hour to clean.
And the icing on the cake was when Randy and I had a bird strike on the downwind while working the pattern the other morning. The airplane was fine, but the poor bird took a real beating.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
just about done
I guess its been close to a week since my last post. Alot has happened. Flew home last Friday on an Airtran 717. Not a bad jet, and the arrival into Reagan-national was pretty interesting. One of my best friends got married over the weekend, so that was the occasion. We all had a blast and it was great to see everyone in one place.
Got back to Ft Pierce Sunday night pretty late. I had about 8 hours left to fly in 3 days. So I relaxed on Monday. Yesterday I hit the airways again. Tropical storm Alberto was kickin pretty hard. I had wanted some actual instrument weather so took advantage of his wrath to go fly. Antoine, the Frenchman, and I boarded the Duchess for what was supposed to be a round robin.....Jacksonville-cecil field, then on to Cross city, then back to Ft pierce. As we neared Jax-cecil we asked Jax approach control for the vor approach to runway 9. He said weather was VFR, then changed that comment with "cecil field is reporting 1 mile, heavy to extreme weather, right over the field". I tried to get holding but he opted to vector us out west and then back into the field. We saw the airport as it emerged from the torrential rain showers. We asked for a visual approach and he informed us that we needed to do an approach since it was still reported IFR. This was probably my one and only chance to request a contact approach. I was about to until he came back saying he talked to the tower and it was VFR....hmmmm...I couldve told him that. Anyways, a contact approach is when a pilot is in pseudo ifr and can remain clear of clouds and reasonably navigate to the airport. Something I learned alot about on my CFII checkride. Usually happens when a pilot is in low vis but is familiar enough with the airport and terrain to make it safely to the runway. Anyways, there was some pretty severe weather moving northeast so we opted to make a beeline back to FT pierce. We hit some pretty decent weather over Daytona and Malbourne. Vis in Vero and Ft pierce was down to about 4 miles in haze so we flew the VOR14 approach at FPR. not a bad flight. The evening flight was to Tamiami. A nice airport south of Miami. Smooth air, decent vis. We were on radar vectors the whole way. Not a bad way to navigate. Makes it easy. The leg home was mine and as we cruised at 6k west of Miami I enjoyed a pretty wild sunset....a bright pink sky...and a sliver of sun between two layers of clouds that lingered over the middle of the state towards Tampa. Its been a blast down here. Time has flown by, but I managed to log 95 hours of twin time, and sit at 715 total time and 105 multi. not too bad.
Its back to work on Saturday. Got some students lined up for the week. Have a couple new ones starting up. Get to use my new ratings too...CFII and MEI.
The summer should be a good one. The airlines are definitely within my grasp. Exciting Stuff.
Got back to Ft Pierce Sunday night pretty late. I had about 8 hours left to fly in 3 days. So I relaxed on Monday. Yesterday I hit the airways again. Tropical storm Alberto was kickin pretty hard. I had wanted some actual instrument weather so took advantage of his wrath to go fly. Antoine, the Frenchman, and I boarded the Duchess for what was supposed to be a round robin.....Jacksonville-cecil field, then on to Cross city, then back to Ft pierce. As we neared Jax-cecil we asked Jax approach control for the vor approach to runway 9. He said weather was VFR, then changed that comment with "cecil field is reporting 1 mile, heavy to extreme weather, right over the field". I tried to get holding but he opted to vector us out west and then back into the field. We saw the airport as it emerged from the torrential rain showers. We asked for a visual approach and he informed us that we needed to do an approach since it was still reported IFR. This was probably my one and only chance to request a contact approach. I was about to until he came back saying he talked to the tower and it was VFR....hmmmm...I couldve told him that. Anyways, a contact approach is when a pilot is in pseudo ifr and can remain clear of clouds and reasonably navigate to the airport. Something I learned alot about on my CFII checkride. Usually happens when a pilot is in low vis but is familiar enough with the airport and terrain to make it safely to the runway. Anyways, there was some pretty severe weather moving northeast so we opted to make a beeline back to FT pierce. We hit some pretty decent weather over Daytona and Malbourne. Vis in Vero and Ft pierce was down to about 4 miles in haze so we flew the VOR14 approach at FPR. not a bad flight. The evening flight was to Tamiami. A nice airport south of Miami. Smooth air, decent vis. We were on radar vectors the whole way. Not a bad way to navigate. Makes it easy. The leg home was mine and as we cruised at 6k west of Miami I enjoyed a pretty wild sunset....a bright pink sky...and a sliver of sun between two layers of clouds that lingered over the middle of the state towards Tampa. Its been a blast down here. Time has flown by, but I managed to log 95 hours of twin time, and sit at 715 total time and 105 multi. not too bad.
Its back to work on Saturday. Got some students lined up for the week. Have a couple new ones starting up. Get to use my new ratings too...CFII and MEI.
The summer should be a good one. The airlines are definitely within my grasp. Exciting Stuff.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Cleared direct Seminole....
...was our clearance after passing over Ocala VOR last night. We were on an IFR flight plan from Ft Pierce to Tallahassee. We took off from FPR around 7 and enjoyed a nice sunset from 6000 ft on a heading of about 322. I found it interesting that the VOR nearest to Tallahassee(home of FSU) was named Seminole.......Maybe they can get a VOR named Hokie down in the Blacksburg area. I think there is a Gps waypoint on the approach into Blacksburg named Hokie, but it sure would be nice to get something bigger.
Anyways, we landed at TLH after flying the NDB rwy 36 approach. I dont have alot of experience with ADF navigation, and flying NDB approaches so I am using the time I have left here to get more familiar with them. The planes back home dont have ADF's in them so I never had to do an approach for my checkride.
The NDB is a non-directional beacon that will allow you to track a needle inbound or outbound to the beacon. The ADF is the equipment in the airplane that consists of a compass card and a needle that will always point to the station. The level of precision is alot less than that of a VOR or a GPS so the approaches can be a challenge, especially when executing the approach in actual instrument conditions(clouds).
My time down here has been extremely well spent. I passed my CFII(instrument instructor) checkride yesterday. So now my resume reads CFI, CFII, MEI. I am taking the instrument ground instructor written on Monday so that when I get my ten checkrides with an 80% pass rate I can get my golden seal on my instructors certificate. Ive learned a tremendous amount down here from the people Ive flown with, the airspace, the weather, and the twin engine airplanes we have been flying.
Today we are climbing back into the Duchess for another 6 hours. Probably do Key West and maybe Peter Oknight in Tampa. Weather again is clear skies and its already up to 86 degrees.
Im hopping on an airtran flight to DCA tomorrow for a wedding this weekend. Then its back down here to take that written and finish the flying. My three weeks have flown by, but what Ive learned here and what Ive experienced will stay with my for the rest of my life.
The wonderful thing about aviation is that for the most part everyone has the same goal, and everyone wants to see you succeed. There is the occasional bad seed you run across, but as a whole the aviation community is one big family. Thats they way I like it.
Anyways, we landed at TLH after flying the NDB rwy 36 approach. I dont have alot of experience with ADF navigation, and flying NDB approaches so I am using the time I have left here to get more familiar with them. The planes back home dont have ADF's in them so I never had to do an approach for my checkride.
The NDB is a non-directional beacon that will allow you to track a needle inbound or outbound to the beacon. The ADF is the equipment in the airplane that consists of a compass card and a needle that will always point to the station. The level of precision is alot less than that of a VOR or a GPS so the approaches can be a challenge, especially when executing the approach in actual instrument conditions(clouds).
My time down here has been extremely well spent. I passed my CFII(instrument instructor) checkride yesterday. So now my resume reads CFI, CFII, MEI. I am taking the instrument ground instructor written on Monday so that when I get my ten checkrides with an 80% pass rate I can get my golden seal on my instructors certificate. Ive learned a tremendous amount down here from the people Ive flown with, the airspace, the weather, and the twin engine airplanes we have been flying.
Today we are climbing back into the Duchess for another 6 hours. Probably do Key West and maybe Peter Oknight in Tampa. Weather again is clear skies and its already up to 86 degrees.
Im hopping on an airtran flight to DCA tomorrow for a wedding this weekend. Then its back down here to take that written and finish the flying. My three weeks have flown by, but what Ive learned here and what Ive experienced will stay with my for the rest of my life.
The wonderful thing about aviation is that for the most part everyone has the same goal, and everyone wants to see you succeed. There is the occasional bad seed you run across, but as a whole the aviation community is one big family. Thats they way I like it.
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