Welcom To My Pity Party

I have been a lousy father lately. Working a job that requires weekly travel and going to school full time pretty much insures that.

Sunday morning I decide to step up and take all three kids to Makudu's Island, an indoor play place with tubes, slides, rope bridges and more. It used to be called Club Disney but Disney's cut was a little too high (go figure) and the name changed to Makudu's. The kids did have a great time and therefore, I did too. However, chasing them through mazes and climbing a 50 foot tall artificial tree twenty-plus times wore my fat *ss out.

I have to digress for a moment...

Bluetooth is a great technology. I use it daily with my cell phone. BUT...
Are people sooooo important and busy that they have to wear their BT headset at a kids play place on a Sunday? I had my cell phone. It was on vibrate. If I had a call, I could take it discreetly. I counted at least 15 people wearing BT headsets at Makudu's Island. They must have been really important. One guy actually scared my son. He was bald, muscular and the BT headest made him look like a cyborg.

Anyway...

The problem is that I have my end of course check ride scheduled for 6pm. Well, 6pm rolls around and I AM EXHAUSTED. Not sleepy, just drained.

Mistake 1: Go flying anyway. Get it out of the way. I can do approaches in my sleep. Hazardous attitude ignored.

Mistake 2: Rex gives me a mock clearance: Fly runway heading, expect vectors to intercept the 180 IWA radial. At 18 DME intersection, hold south on the 180 radial. EFC 02:00. Climb and maintain 4,000. I read back correctly. After takeoff, I get my notepad ready for further instructions and throw away the top page with my clearance. Crap. What did he tell me to do at the 18DME? Arc to the east? Yeah...that's what I'm supposed to do. DME arc. He finally lets me off the hook by saying "beautiful arc, where are we arcing to?". CRAP! I get the clearance again and follow it as instucted the first time.

Mistake 3: He gives the the GPS 23 approach to Casa Grande (KCGZ). We're only about 5 minutes away from the initial approach waypoint, but I inadvertently LOAD the approach into the 430 vs. activating it. What the heck? Why isn't the flight plan being displayed. Why no course? I finally figure it out about 2 minutes later and ACTIVATE the approach. Enter the hold teardrop. Nice. 2 miles from final approach waypoint...altitude looks good...needle centered...I forget to call out approach active. Damn. Now I'm flustered. Still on course, still looking good on altitude. Radio calls going well. It's getting dark. I'm so absorbed in my errors that I don't even realize that I'm still wearing my sunglasses! I can't read the approach plate and decide to go missed. The only problem is that I went missed 1/2 mile early. I forget to hit the suspend/OBS button when I go missed and get off course towards the hold. CRAP CRAP CRAP.

I finally compose myself, get in the hold and do a few turns to calm down. He then gives me a funky intercept for the VOR/DME approach to Coolidge (P08) but it doesn't faze me. I do the approach and it works out perfectly. A King Air using the opposite runway keeps me from being able to do a touch and go. Oh well. Approach was good.

We went to the practive area and did stalls, unusual attitude recovery, partial panel...the usual stuff.

He then gave me instuctions to do the ILS 30C approach at KIWA and then proceeds to fail my vacuum instruments. For whatever reason, I'm not fazed and the approach is picture perfect. I go visual at the DA and it was actually a smooth landing (we instrument students forget how to land, ya know).

When we sit down for the post-flight, he actually says "sorry" when he says he can't pass me. Sorry? I'd be mad at him if he did pass me. One mistake led to the rest. Although I wasn't incapable of VFR flight, I wasn't really up to single pilot instrument. My mind and body just weren't sharp enough.

I flew last night to review GPS approaches. The mistakes I made were the kind you learn from the first time and never repeat. (Approach active and missed approach point) We do three GPS approaches without a hitch.

Tomorrow morning is the do-over. Three of four GPS approaches and it will finally be time to schedule my FAA check ride.

A Tough Day

It's been a very long stretch since the last passenger-carrying domestic crash of a jetliner.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of all involved with ComAir 5191.

Nothing else is important enough to say today.

The Long Road That Seemingly Never Ends

Here is how I picture the finish line for instrument training:

Remember the movie Poltergeist? Of course you do. Well, the scene where JoBeth Williams is running down the hallway and it keeps getting longer and longer reminds me of my instrument training. I keep seeing the end get further and further away. I'm also afraid there might be a poltergeist waiting for me at the end too. Poltergeists freighten me.

Other things the movie Poltergeist did for me (Actually, my wife is the same way):

1. We don't like to leave the closet light on at night.
2. We don't like to eat cold chicken (maggot scene).
3. Program over=TV OFF.
4. No trees near the windows of our house.
5. Our house is a clown free zone.



Actually, Poltergeist is one of my favorite horror films. I think I'll watch it in 2019 when I finally have 2 hours to spare. But I digress...

Today, after and hours worth of pre-flight/clearances/briefings, we took off and were instructed to fly runway heading. After ATC vectored us for a few minutes, Rex instructed me to intercept the 18DME on the 180 radial from IWA Vortac. I tune and ident. No problem. Then I twist the OBS selector on NAV1, the CDI starts swinging full from left to right. Crap. Tune and ident NAV2. Turn the OBS and it centers just fine. I tried another VOR just in case. Same thing.

End of course requires a precision approach. I don't feel like flying twice to do end of course and decide to end the flight. CRAP! 90 minutes wasted. I get ATIS and call up KIWA. Check instructors get to log time, but never actually fly so I let Rex bring us in. Since it was a maintenance issue, I wasn't going to be charged for the flight anyway. I played FO for him. We had about a moderate right crosswind and he set it down smooth as glass on the 1000' aiming point. Nicely done Rex.

OK...I know that some people take a year or longer to get their instrument rating. Technically I've only been working on mine for about 12 weeks. However, if I had not been delayed so many times due to maintenance issues, I would have earned the rating by August 1st. I am starting my second week of commercial ground school Monday and would really like to be doing my single engine maneuvers and cross countries now. When everyone else is working on their multi, I'll be doing single still. Oh well.

The good news is that I finished the ground/oral portion with no real problems. I need to brush up on AIM recommended reporting points.

We're going to try and finish up Sunday evening from 6-9. Will there be an operational IFR equipped Cadet? I bet even money.

Touring A Dassault Falcon 900EX

I wanted to go flying today in something other than a Cadet. I called Angel Air and asked if any 172's were available. Good Karma was afoot and 5327G was available.

I wanted to take my wife with me, but it was already 4:15 and Angel Air was due to close at 5. No time to get a babysitter.

I called my friend Alex and asked him if he wanted to go flying and would be able to leave in 5 minutes. Surprisingly, he answered yes without hesitation.

After a brief, but thorough pre-flight, the plane flooded. I think I ran the fuel pump too long before starting. Oh well. We unbuckled and let it sit for a few minutes. After we got back in, it started right up with no problems.

We took off to the south and flew to Coolidge, then headed towards Gateway for a quick touch and go. Then we departed north towards the Salt River and Red Mountain before heading to Falcon Field (KFFZ) for a few touch and go's.

Then we went back to Gateway and decided to do a full stop for a drink and to stretch our legs. We came in behind an Embraer 145 that belongs to Intel Corp. Right after we landed, two USMC F/A-18's came in. We taxied to the transient ramp and parked across from a T-38!















Right in front of us was a Dassault 900X! Jackpot! We went in and got a drink. As we were heading back to the 172, we saw a guy walking to the Falcon. I had to ask. Can we take a peek inside...

Sure! He opened it up and let us take a look. What a beautiful aircraft. Custom woods, leather, wool carpeting. Yes, I got to check out the cockpit. The wasn't much time for questions, but Alex did shoot a quick photo for me. It's a little blurry, but still a nice photo as far as I'm concerned.



I put my tongue back in my mouth and we headed back to the 172 for a quick trip back to Stellar. It was sunset and Alex took a nice photo. We landed at dusk, just dark enough to turn on the runway lights. Nice.

Dear Captain

This funny picture was actually drawn by an 8 year old girl and handed to a flight attendant on an overseas Qantas flight.

More Weather - Does Mother Nature Hate Me?

I got up this morning at 5am, brimming with confidence. I was ready to prove to the check airman that I'm such a good instrument pilot that a check ride is a complete waste of his time.

Oh...wait...that was a dream. My alarm went off and I didn't hear it this morning. I woke up at 6 for a 7am flight. Not a great start. Must hurry. I look out the window and see a hint of gray to the east towards KIWA. Hmmm. I'll do a quick check of the radar. There are some slight echoes to the south and west, nothing really threatening. However, I forget that before bed last night the lifted/k was 38/-6. It's an excellent predictor of thunderstorm activity. The higher the top/and larger the negative on the bottom the better the chances for rain. 100% is like 40/-6.

Sure enough, before I can get to the airport, it begins to pour. The winds were relatively calm, but cloud to ground lightning strikes were intense. I was actually shocked to see people in small aircraft departing in that weather. PIC's that make those kinds of decisions remind me of one of my favorite posters from Despair Inc., a company that lampoons the Successories/motivational puke posters that permeate the corporate world like stink on ... well you know. Here it is:

I scrubbed the flight and we went to breakfast. Laziness and procrastination got the better of us and we decided to put off the remaining ground portion until Saturday afternoon following the flight. I'm glad, actually. I can really use the extra preparation time. The good news is that he's not making me re-do the flight plan.

Anyway, the storm was huge. I dumped from 2-3.5" of rain all over the east parts of the Phoenix metro area. I actually saw a brand new Volvo floating down a wash near Paradise Valley. Poor ADM (Automotive Decision Making) was a factor, I'm sure. The lightning was so intense that it started several structure fires and burned one home to the ground.

A Swift Kick In The ...

Well today was the dreaded oral portion of the End Of Course (EOC), required for all Part 141 and 142 flight training. EOC is supposed to be more difficult than the FAA Practical Test. If you can pass EOC, then theoretically, the FAA should be a breeze.

Let's just say I knew all the answers...except for the ones I didn't know. Duh huh.

After 2 1/2 hours, several interruptions and some exasperation, we decided to incomplete today and finish tomorrow. That's a relief. I thought he was going to fail me on this one.

I still get to fly tomorrow morning. Planned to Palm Springs, but doubt we'll get that far. We're going to finish the second half tomorrow.

It's amazing how much basic stuff you forget when you're in instrument. In the air, basic maneuvers become foreign and landings...let's just say that I'm glad that I fly VFR on my own outside of school. Mine haven't been the best lately, but better than some I've heard about.

Today, I forgot basic Pitot/Static stuff, how to explain gyroscopic procession and the basic components of an ILS. Right now, I know its Guidance, Range and Visual. Earlier it was...uh...duh...who's on first?

Time for a good nights sleep. Tomorrow's flight will be a long one. All inclusive. Can I remember how to do compass turns, partial panel unusual attitude recovery, stalls etc? I should. I do now. Tomorrow isn't right now, though. Will I bust DA/DH? Will I stay ahead of the approach curve? Pressure. I hate pressure.

A little self doubt is good for the ego. Too much can wreck everything. Tomorrow, I'll walk the balance beam...hopefully without racking myself.