week 1

Pretty good week. Week one of training is behind me. It consisted of Basic indoc, which is basically policies and procedures for the company. Pretty dry material, but we are required to take a written test at the end of it so I had to pay attention. Passed the written yesterday with a high grade, so now its on to CRM training. We have the weekend off, but Mon and tuesday will be spent examining how crew resource management has failed and succeeded by examining past accidents. Should be interesting.

There are 16 people in the class. Average age is around 26, and I think I am the only guy from the mid atlantic/east coast.

Systems starts on Wed. I will be up to my ears in fuel and electric systems. Have to pass my systems exam before I get to go on to the FTD and Sim. Gotta stay focused and keep working hard....one day at a time.

BRING IT!

Only a few days till I start training and Ive gotta say I have never been this excited about anything......ever. All the arrangements are in place and I am chomping at the bit to get rolling. I have my flows down for the most part, and am absolutely confident that I will be successful in training. The sequence for training is about 2 weeks in ground school to learn systems, company policy, and other "stuff" that they feel we need to know...then its into the FTD and eventually into the SIM, where its really gonna get fun. Ill keep you posted.

Rain.....

With about a week or so left as a flight instructor(at least an active one) I am trying to tie up loose ends, figure out where my guys are gonna go, and at the same time make some money. so much to be done. I was scheduled for what probably would amount to around 30 hours of flying in the next week. After perusing the local forecasts for the weekend it looks as though only about a 3rd of that will take place. Rain is forecast for the entire area for Sat and Sunday. I am slated to fly a student of mine down to KFCI(near Richmond) on Sat to pick his father up. They have tickets to the Indy Baltimore game so the flight has to take place. The agreement was that we will go IFR if we need to, and we will use it as a lesson in IFR flying if the clouds arent too low. We are also using the experience for him to knock out some x-c time towards the 50 hrs of PIC x-c needed for the instrument rating. He also needs 10 hours of dual in the arrow before he can rent it. So, three birds with one stone....not bad.
So, looks as though the weekend wont be as nuts as I had hoped for, but should be productive nonetheless.

And oh yeah, I passed 1300 total time yesterday in the pattern at Hagerstown Regional. Another milestone.

Lots to do before I head out of town on the 21st.

Cleared direct Mehan

Flew with my instrument student the other night. We hadnt flown in a couple weeks so we figured an easy IFR trip somewhere would be in order, with approaches at both ends. We departed Leesburg at night, under clear skies and pretty heavy winds aloft. Our clearance was direct Still, Martinsburg, v 166 to Westminster VOR, direct Martin State. Martin State is a Class Delta airfield about 15-20 miles north of Baltimore/BWI. We were treated to a nice tailwind on the way up there. Winds from 240 at around 40 knots at 3000 ft. My student and I were hoping for an ILS approach at Martin, however when we checked in with the Approach controller he advised that we could expect vectors to the visual approach at Martin. I requested the ILS, however the ILS was out of service. We opted for a localizer approach into the airport from the NW. "you can expect the Localizer 15 at Martin..." were our instructions. It was soon direct Mehan intersection, and to cross Mehan at 2600, cleared localizer 15 approach. Those that know me, know why this approach was so unique. Specifically the initial approach fix that we were cleared direct.

I suppose with the number of fixes out there the odds were in my favor that Id have one named after me........