Today's Message Index:
----------------------
1. 08:14 AM - Re: electronic item for peace (nightmare)
2. 04:25 PM - VERY OT my recent Instrument training. (Steven Dortch)
3. 06:01 PM - Re: Re: electronic item for peace (Steven Dortch)
4. 09:55 PM - Re: VERY OT my recent Instrument training. (taildrags)
Message 1
INDEX | Back to Main INDEX |
NEXT | Skip to NEXT Message |
LIST | Reply to LIST Regarding this Message |
SENDER | Reply to SENDER Regarding this Message |
|
Subject: | Re: electronic item for peace |
lol. I usually use a rock tied to a 8 ft rope. swung around over my head yields
a 16 ft phone and people free radius.
--------
Paul Donahue
Started 8-3-12
do not archive
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=460586#460586
Message 2
INDEX | Back to Main INDEX |
PREVIOUS | Skip to PREVIOUS Message |
NEXT | Skip to NEXT Message |
LIST | Reply to LIST Regarding this Message |
SENDER | Reply to SENDER Regarding this Message |
|
Subject: | VERY OT my recent Instrument training. |
Hit delete NOW. This is a long winded OT report on my Instrument training.
None of it is Pietenpol related. Don=99t Bitch about having read it i
f you
don't want to, just hit delete.
Yesterday, I completed my IFR checkride and did quite well. After 25 plus
years as an off and on VFR pilot who had dabbled at IFR training, I decided
to use my GI Bill for a post Army retirement flying career. I just want
someone else to pay for my flying hobby. Step one was to get a instrument
ticket.
After looking at quite a few schools, I selected of Tempus Training
Solutions in San Marcos, Texas. I wanted a school with a good reputation
and they had to be able to do Part 141 training and be able to get GI Bill
approval. Redbird Proflight Academy moved Flight training operations to
Tempus Training. (BTW there is a CFI shortage that has affected most
schools.) Tempus met these requirements and was $3500 cheaper than the
other part 141 programs due to extensive Sim use.
Tempus is the flight training laboratory for Redbird and uses Redbird full
motion flight simulators and has an agreement with the FAA that allows them
to do a majority of the training in the Sim with the student proving his
knowledge in the aircraft. The flight sim closely replicates the 2006
Cessna 172Ses used by the flight academy, including the G1000. The aircraft
are well maintained. The Chief pilot for Tempus (a retired F16 driver) has
been able to attract good CFIs by understanding that they were going to
move on and by helping them get ratings and resume enhancing jobs. (IE my
instructor took a break from teaching to fly a Pilatus PC12 from Nairobi,
Back to Virginia via Europe and then North sea.) He also treats them as
professionals and expects them to act accordingly. Several instructors who
became Airline or Corporate pilots come back on their days off to teach
(and earn a little change.)
The first thing I had to overcome was 25 years of lazy VFR habits such as
simply getting close to an altitude or letting the plane drift off heading.
I did however get complements on my ability to fly the plane, do cross wind
landings
At week two, I started having equilibrium problems (Dizzy) , more in the
sim than in the plane. I had to cancel several flights and end some sim
sessions early. I called a retired Army National Guard buddy who had been
the Flight Surgeon for the Texas Army National Guard and told him my
problem. He told me several things to try. There has been a huge mold
problem in South Texas and the mold count was so high that even those not
allergic were having problems. So he told me to take Allegra (NOT
Allegra-D) and use Flonase on my nose every day. Also to Shower often to
get the mold off of me. He told me to start wearing my reading glasses for
every IFR session and any time I read or used a computer. I had not used
them early in the day since I could focus, but as my eyes got tired and
would not focus, I would put them on. I had been swimming with my grandsons
and he told me not to get my head more than three feet below the surface.
He
ended by saying sleep and eat at the right times and drink water. I think
it was a combination of the mold and my aging eyesight. Though I am not
sure which one it was, it worked. In two days I was fine.
I felt really good about my learning curve at first, but after about 3
weeks I simply felt like I would never get it. If I looked away from the
Attitude Inidcator, I climbed, dove, turned or a combination of all three.
Taking time to write things down, read them, change frequencies, set up
the GPS flight plan, get my tablet set up on an approach procedure, change
a freq, check the engine gauges or anything else resulted in a deviation
from heading and/or altitude.
I called Vernon Foster, a 99 year old buddy. Vern was once a pilot for
United Airlines and became their manager of flight simulator engineering
and maintenance. He did my tailwheel signoff two years ago at the young age
of 97. I told Vern of my problems and how I would never get it. He listened
patiently and then laughed and said "you are at the right place in your
training. Every pilot thinks that they just aren't going to figure out
Instrument flight! It will start to come together and when it does it will
get easier." He questioned me about what I was doing and his pearl of
wisdom was. "Let Go of the yoke when you look away from the AI!. If the
plane is trimmed and flying level it will continue on course while you take
5 seconds to do something. So just let go!" That fixed my problem. I was
steering the way I was looking!
This school uses iPads to manage the Simulators and all of the instructors
have drank the Foreflight Koolaide. So I had to get an iPad, buy foreflight
and learn to use it. (I joined NAFI and got a good enough foreflight
discount that it almost paid for the NAFI membership.)
It took me a while to get down the G1000 buttonology. This High tech device
will do a lot of things including providing IFR certified GPS guidance for
the pilot (or an autopilot), show a moving map. display all the needed
instruments for IFR flight, Show required altitudes, and so on and so
forth. I spent many hours in the sim just figuring out ho
w to do simple
things like activating the next leg on an approach, or how to delete and
add an approach. I finally learned to use all the needed functions of a
G1000 but it has MANY functions that I have not figured out.
I had to learn the balance between trying to get ahead of the plane (IE
setting the next approach up) and just flying with what I needed to get to
heading and altitude. For example, I had to not try to extract more info
from the G1000 while on approaching an ILS approach, "just intercept and
fly the localizer and glide slope."
About two and a half weeks ago, I had to cancel my scheduled IFR checkride
due to a lot of Cumulus activity in our area. Also, I felt marginally
ready. Then there was a sudden shortage of DPEs. Many students in the
Houston area were scheduling with "our" DPEs. It took me until yesterday to
get my checkride and that was on a Sunday morning.
My checkride went very well. Even with trainee ATC controllers and the PTT
on the DPE side failing 10 minutes into the flight. I asked for a RNAV
approach to 31 with a circle to runway 13. But the controller told me we
had to use 13 and we could circle at ORALE (confusing a circle with a hold
pattern). My DPE explained I had to explain that I was on a checkride and
had to do an approach and circle to a different runway. This confused them
and the DPE PTT quit right then. So I requested an approach to 13, holding
at the IAF and a circle to 31 and proposed that I to do a low approach. I
was able to take all this in stride, the DPE was pleased with my ability to
communicate and execute. My Checkride was much easier than my "pre check
ride" with the Tempus chief pilot. The DPE said he wished all checkrides
went so well.
All in all, a good experience and glad I did it. I did not enjoy instrument
training though I did get comfortable doing it. It is not near as fun VFR
flight, but it sure adds to my ability. Next Step is my commercial ticket.
BTW I was driving back from lunch and saw the distinctive curve of a
Pietenpol wing in a hangar. Slammed on the brakes and who do I find but our
own "Axle" working on his AirCamper. Man it sure looks purty! He is a true
craftsman. (Pietenpol Content!)
Blue Skies,
Steve D
Message 3
INDEX | Back to Main INDEX |
PREVIOUS | Skip to PREVIOUS Message |
NEXT | Skip to NEXT Message |
LIST | Reply to LIST Regarding this Message |
SENDER | Reply to SENDER Regarding this Message |
|
Subject: | Re: electronic item for peace |
The Phone that bothers me the most is mine!
Message 4
INDEX | Back to Main INDEX |
PREVIOUS | Skip to PREVIOUS Message |
NEXT | Skip to NEXT Message |
LIST | Reply to LIST Regarding this Message |
SENDER | Reply to SENDER Regarding this Message |
|
Subject: | Re: VERY OT my recent Instrument training. |
I'm responding to this OT post with more OT material in the context of several
things: (1) Steve is one of the few individuals with the nerve to have gone up
with me in Scout, (2) Steve is one of the few individuals who came out to help
me disassemble and help load Scout into the big yellow Penske truck for the
2100 mile journey from Texas to Oregon, (3) all of my instrument time has been
at the same time extremely enjoyable and extremely challenging, and (4) my last
flight review was in a C172 with the Garmin G1000 full glass panel and I was
so impressed with it that my eyeballs nearly fell out.
Moving right along, I don't care to talk about items (1), (2) or (4) other than
to again tip my hat to Steve for always being ready to lend a hand and to tip
my already-tipped hat to anyone who can learn the dials and buttons on the G1000
so as to use even 1/10th of its capabilities. If not for the fact that the
G1000 panel costs about as much as four or five nice Air Campers, it would be
fun to keep writing about it but that's not my world anymore, I'm finally conceding.
So now to comment on item (3). Every moment that I've spent under the hood or
in 'actual' has been some of the most enjoyable and rewarding time that I've ever
spent in airplanes, but it was about as different a flying experience from
an open-cockpit Air Camper as you can imagine. I am an engineer with a completely
logical outlook and mindset and I completely 'get' instrument flying. I
can visualize everything about instrument flying in my head, and I can almost
always translate that to the instrument actions as I manipulate the controls,
but it's a completely different flying experience, period. I've flown jet and
prop sims and I've flown real single and twin hardware, and I always love the
challenge. I envy those who have the rating and wish I had gotten mine too,
but now my flying is all about stick and rudder and just the sensations of flight
and the airplane. Nothing much on the instrument panel is of interest to
me anymore if it does nothing to keep the airplane in the air or help me keep
it so. Every now and then I have a weak moment when I open the latest AOPA Pilot
magazine (I get the Turbine Edition!) and see the super cool panels and instruments,
but then it passes and I remember that I much prefer the smell of
too-rich Continental exhaust to looking at a glass panel.
Sometimes I regret not going for my instrument. As Marlon Brando said in the classic
movie "On The Waterfront": "You don't understand. I coulda had class. I
coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what
I am, let's face it."
--------
Oscar Zuniga
Medford, OR
Air Camper NX41CC "Scout"
A75 power, 72x36 Culver prop
Read this topic online here:
http://forums.matronics.com/viewtopic.php?p=460606#460606
Other Matronics Email List Services
These Email List Services are sponsored solely by Matronics and through the generous Contributions of its members.
-- Please support this service by making your Contribution today! --
|