All these people praising you for this diary, when we know how much you hate talking about flying! ;) :p

But keep it up; this is good. Bet wannabes is getting more visitors because of it.

Have to agree; you're a pretty good writer. Keep it up!

Penguina - you're right, I hate talking about flying, almost as much as I hate flying :D

HWD - that's very intersting. I've heard of the half-way method being used for PPL training before (I think it's pretty common, in fact - it's just not the way I personally prefer), but never heard of not being allowed to look at the chart. I know what you mean about not thinking about where you are.... during today's nav (which you can read about below), I knew that I was right of track, but wasn't allowed to get back on track - I have to stay within 5 degrees of my planned heading, even if I know it's wrong, until one of the pre-determined points where I can update it. Not the way I'd fly in "real life", and my instructor agrees, but it's the way the CAA want us to do it for the skills test!

Anyway, the more observant amongst you may have noticed that I have two "Day 5"s so far... This isn't deliberate, it's just that I can't count! I won't bother changing the previous posts, but I'll put in the correct day numbers from now on - so that's why there's no "Day 7".

Day 8 - Sunday 16 November

My regular instructor was back today, feeling much better. We flew two flights - two quite different flights.

PFLs was the subject of the first flight. Well, PFLs and engine fires. The flight was very similar to the PFLs that I did during the pre-CPL with the other instructor. The drill was exactly the same: "Is there an engine fire", and then respond appropriately. We started off with my instrucor positioning me nicely for a good field, then moved on to having engine fires at random points in the sky. Each time I found a field, and made it safely. (Well, ok then - one time I put the flaps down a little too early and cut it very tight, but probably still made it.) I was pretty happy.

My instructor was happy too. He had two comments for me. The first was that I need to think about the paying passenger sat next to me - he's going to be aware that something's wrong, and quite likely will be pretty scared. As well as flying the aircraft and doing all the necessary checks, I also need to explain to my passenger what's going on - that the engine has caught fire, so I've shut it down and we're going to do a forced landing in that large field down there. I have to do this in a calm, professional voice, even if I'm not feeling calm and professional about the fact that every field for miles is unsuitable!

The second comment was about my field selection. Every time, I picked a field which was suitable... but my instructor felt that I wasn't often picking the most suitable field. He thinks this is because my lookout isn't up to scratch. I'm spending lots of time looking ahead, and not enough time looking sideways and downwards (neither for emergency landing sites nor for traffic). He proved the point by pulling the power when were within gliding distance of no less than 3 private airstrips, and I didn't spot any of them - although he did admit that he does that to all his students, and none of them notice the airstrips, so I didn't feel so bad about not seeing them myself.

Now that we'd covered PFLs, I was warned that my engine may fail at any point on any flight from now on - and even if my engine doesn't fail, my instructor can still ask me where we'd land if it did, and expect a near-instant reply.

We had a break for lunch, during which I planned the afternoon's navigation leg. It was a simple leg, to a private airfield called River Oak. Once again I wasn't allowed to use any wind correction. After that, I was told to expect a diversion - but, unlike the CPL test, the diversion would be VMC today, using navaids to fix the position along the route.

At the quarter-way point, I correctly identified that the wind had blown me to the right of track, and I corrected. At the half way point, I correctly took out half of the previous correction. The three-quarter way point was very close to Obeechokee airfield, and should be very easy... but I managed to miss the two large tarmac runways at Okeechobee just off to my right, and pointed out an empty field just in front of the nose instead! No problem - my instructor helped me out a little, but I was happy that I would have realised the error pretty quickly. Having established that I was off track, I added a correction for the final quarter of the leg, and arrived on time. At least, I thought I'd arrived - the fork in the canal was where it was supposed to be, as was the road, but I couldn't see an airfield. I explained to my instructor that I was confident that I was in the right place, and we'd circle a couple of times until we spotted the airfield. I found it eventually - it's one of those "airport communities" where people live alongside the runway and have hangars instead of garages. Wouldn't you love to live on one of those??? But if you're looking for a runway, and you don't know that it's an airport community, it's very difficult to find, because everything we know about runways tells us that they won't be in the middle of a bunch of houses!

The diversion was to another private strip, called Adams. I planned a heading and a time, and set course, then began the task of tuning and identing navaids, and plotting radials. Suddenly, I found myself very busy. The aircraft didn't have a DME fitted, so I had to take cross-cuts from two VORs. One of the two I selected turned out to be out of range, which made me even busier as I had to plan again. Eventually, I got two radials, and plotted a point which was on track, so I was happy - although I had flown just a couple of miles from Okeechobee airfield at 2000' without having called them on the radio.

We found Adams fairly easilly - it turned out to be one of the three fields which I hadn't noticed when doing PFLs this morning, but it was much easier to spot when I was looking for it.

So the nav went pretty well, then. Except it didn't. Laterally, it went reasonably well. But vertically, I was all over the place. I planned to fly at 4500', with cloud bases forecast just above that, but I found the clouds to be closer to 2500', so I settled on 2000' as my altitude. Which was fine - except that I wandered around between around 1850' and 2200' the whole time. It was particularly bad on the diversion, but wasn't good on the planned leg either. I was particularly unhappy with this flight, mainly because of the altitude deviations, but I seemed to generally be slightly behind the whole time, and my headings, although accurate enough to get us where we were going, weren't as accurate as I know they can be.

During the debrief, my instructor confirmed what I already knew - that I was spending too much time navigating, especially when I had VORs to contend with, and not enough time flying. For my next navigation trip, I will need to make a concious effort to break everything down into small tasks, and fly the aircraft in between. Centre the VOR needle, then fly. Centre the second VOR needle, then fly. Write down the time, then fly. Place the ruler for the first radial, then fly. Draw the radial, then fly. And so on. As well as this, I'm hoping that as I practice the new techniques I'm being taught, they will gradually start to become second nature, and as I spend less time thinking about them I will have more spare capacity to get everything done. One hint from my instructor was to plot the VOR radials to the half-way point of the diversion, then select those radials on the OBS and wait until the needles centre themselves. I'll have to try that one.

After the diversion, my instructor gave me the engine failure he'd half-promised. Although it was behind me, I knew that Adams was within gliding distance since we'd just flown over it, so I starting pointing the aircraft that way. I then asked if there was an engine fire - there wasn't, which was lucky because it had taken me long enough to get around to asking the question that the fire would have spread by then if there had been one! I turned downwind for Adams, and then my instructor pointed out that I'd turned the wrong way, and we'd be landing downwind. Damn!!! A total lack of thinking, having been too busy being pleased with myself for remembering that Adams was behind us.

Tomorrow, I have a day off (it's normal to fly 6 days a week at EFT), so my next flight will be on Tuesday - so that's all until then!

FFF
----------

An excellent read, and it sounds like you have had a busy week.

How many flying hours have you completed in that week ?

Will you also be doing your MEP rating as part of this course ?

Keep up the good work FFF!
Just one question. Please excuse my ignorance but what are foggles?

Plastic glasses which restrict your field of view so you can only see the instruments. Used to turn VMC into IMC :)

FFF - you're doing a fantastic job, keep up the good work. I just have a few questions (apologies if you've covered these before);

1) What are the actual course costs (when you include all study materials etc) - are the figures on the EFT website pretty realistic?

2) What kind of accommodation have you got and how much is it costing - what would be a reasonable daily budget for food/lodging, based on your experience?

3) How much training are you doing on this trip (apart from CPL) - ME, IR etc, or are you going back for these later?

Hope you don't mind me asking these. Best of luck for the rest of the CPL course.

JNP :)

Rather hoped to see Day 9 - How I entertained myself on a day off in Vero Beach

Now, that would take some writing - but many people ask.

Ok - a few questions to answer:

Norther Highflyer - a quick check of my logbook shows that, between Sunday 9th and Sunday 16th inclusive, I flew just under 18 hours. I'm flying for roughly 3 hours a day, generally in two blocks of around 1.5 hours, but obviously flew a little less for the first two days because of weather. And no, this a single-engine CPL. The training is in C172 and PA28R, and the test will be in a PA28R.

Fonawah - exactly as Evo describes it!

Jnp - no, the figures on the website are not realistic. As with just about all figures, they are an absolute minimum assuming you get through in minimum time. But if you come to EFT having not flown here before, then you will need to do a pre-CPL, which is what I did for the first few days. Even if you're a perfect pilot, you'll still need an hour or two to get up to speed with the local procedures, reporting points, airfield layout, nearby features and so on. Remember, at the end of the skills test you can expect your examiner to vector you around and then ask you to take him home - so you'd better know the area! And of course none of us are perfect pilots - I was reasonably current when I came here, but still took a few hours to get up to speed before I started the course, but the less current you are the longer your pre-CPL will take. And once you do start, there's still no guarantee that you'll get through in minimum time.

Accommodation - I'm staying in a hotel in Vero Beach. I decided not to stay at the accommodation the school provides, for several reasons. I heard a few bad things about their accommodation - although they have since moved their housing to a completely different location so everything I heard is, apparently, invalid now. Also, I didn't want to be tied to the school any more than necessary, and I like to be able to get away at the end of the day. If you're looking to save money, then stay at the school's accommodation, and ask them to find you someone to room-share with. I don't know the exact costs, but I think it would work out at around $20/night. Maybe $30 a night including food if you can live cheaply. Those are just guesses, though.

And your final question - I'm just doing the CPL. I only have 3 weeks off work, and to do the CPL in this time is pretty tight anyway.

Keygrip - the way I entertained myself on my day off was to get out of Vero Beach!!! Answer your phone some time, and try not to e-mail me at the account I told you I wouldn't be reading regularly while I'm here, and I might just tell you more about it ;)
<<edit: not a very thorough answer. Beer? Friday, maybe!!(keygrip)>>

On to today's entry:

Day 9 - Tuesday 18 November

Today, for the first time, I failed a portion of an exercise.

The morning's flight went pretty well. The aim of the flight was to cover nav-aid tracking - tracking to and from VORs and NDBs. This was all done under the foggles, and once again, it shouldn't be a problem for anyone with an IMC rating. I was quite happy finding my radial from a specified VOR, then tracking to and from the VOR (careful - if you've just found a radial, then you're asked to track to the VOR, you'll probably want to twist the OBS through 180 degrees!). Homing on an NDB is no problem, and although I had to think a little about tracking a QDM or QDR to/from the NDB, it didn't take too long to remember how to do it from my IMC training.

Once we'd done all that, I took the foggles off and began flying back to base. That's when my instructor pulled the throttle on me. I was very slow to react, but got slowed to 65kts whilst establishing that there was a fire that went out when I shut the engine down, and when I began looking for a field I noticed the private strip that was conveniently positioned on my left - coincidentally (if you believe in coincidence!) the same field that I've had an engine failure near to twice recently! I was at 2500', on a wide downwind - higher than I'd normally be on downwind, but being wide would compensate for that, so I decided to fly a wide circuit from my current position. This was a mistake. Flying a larger circuit makes it very difficult to judge where you're going to land, and I ended up slightly short of the field. This was probably because of the wind, which had a long time on my wide downwind to push me away from the field, and then a long time on final to keep pushing me away from the field. Lesson learnt - next time, in a similar situation, do S-turns to get to a normal PFL-downwind position at 1500'.

The syllabus includes another session of nav-aid tracking, but my instructor feels that this isn't necessary. This gives us an extra flight to work on whatever we feel needs working on instead, so I was pretty happy with that.

Over lunch, I planned the navigation exercise for the afternoon. Just like the CPL skills test, this was to be a single VFR leg, followed by a diversion into IMC, and this time I was allowed to plan a wind correction.

Things started going wrong at the 1/4 way point, which was right next to a small lake. The lake I'd picked turned out to be one of those that's invisible from the air, but I incorrectly singled out a different lake. Once I figured out that it was the wrong lake (the roads near it weren't going the right way) I became fixated with the chart, trying to figure out where I was. My lookout suffered, and my instructor told me that I was steering a very constant heading 3 degrees to the left of what I'd planned, although I wasn't aware of that. The half-way point wasn't near any good landmarks - I knew that before I'd started. So the half-way point came and went, and I still had not had a single good fix on my position. I was confident I was on track at this point, because I could clearly see the large lake near my 3/4 point in the distance, but I didn't know if I was on time or not. I continued flying 3 degrees to the left of my planned heading (it just happened that the wind, from the left, was stronger than forecast so the incorrect heading I was flying was working well), and found my destination easilly in the end, but it wasn't the most confident navigation leg ever.

Then I was diverted to a mast which my instructor "wanted to photograph", and quickly went into IMC. I was in the same aircraft that I'd used before for navigation - the one with no DME - so again I was doing VOR/VOR fixes. This time, I was trying to break everything down so as to not loose concentration on my flying - and the flying, although not perfect, wasn't too bad (except that I kept applying left aileron every time I looked down at the chart - must remember to take hands off the controls completely in future!) Unfortunately, the navigation wasn't working at all. The first fix turned out to be well off track. I looked for the problem, but couldn't see anything wrong, so I tried again for another fix. At around that time, I got a warning flag on one of the VORs. I selected another VOR, tuned and idented it, and then started over again getting a fix. By now, my chart was a mess of radials and tracks, and I was getting stressed. I didn't manage to get a single position fix. On one occassion, I read a radial of 205 off the OBS when it was actually reading 215 - carelessness which I can only put down to being busy and stressed. Eventually, my instructor took over the flying to let me concentrate on the navigation, and I got a good fix, on track but slightly past the destination. While I was busy getting worried about fixing our position, I had paid no attention to the clock, and hadn't noticed that I should have arrived two minutes earlier.

It's obvious that I can fly an aeroplane accurately, in VMC and IMC. It's also obvious that I can get a VOR/VOR fix, and plot it on the chart. What I can't do is do both at once. I couldn't complain when my instructor said that we'd need to spend some extra time on this. I think we've just found what to do instead of nav-aid tracking.

There were a couple of other points mentioned during the de-brief. One was the lack of a gross-error check. The location of Fort Pierce, right next to the coast, makes gross error checks very easy - the coast will be on your left if you're going south, on your right if you're going north, and behind you if you're going west! It's one of those things that you do subconciously when you set heading - you will immediately realise if the coast is the wrong side of you. But I have to remember to say that out loud - and also add extra features like the location of large roads, towns, etc. Likewise, on the diversion, I need a gross error check when I set my heading, and I need to tell the instructor/examiner about it.

We also talked about the VFR leg. The main point to come from this was that I must not seem to be unsure of what I'm doing. We all know that we don't need to be 100% sure of our exact location at every point along the flight. We all know that sometimes features don't appear when you expect them to, and that some areas don't have any good features to navigate by. But what you don't want to do is tell your (presumably non-pilot, fare-paying) passenger that "I'm not quite sure where we are, but I think we're around the 1/2-way point." Much better to just stay quiet and keep flying the correct heading. When you do get a fix, you can update your ETA and heading, but until that point, there's no need to say anything - and no need to worry about it and stare at the chart either.

My instructor thinks that my VFR navigation will be fine after doing the remainder of the planned navigation exercises, and I think he's probably right. Today I made the mistake of thinking that I have to get a fix at each of my way-points, but as I get to use this method of navigation more and more I'll make fewer and fewer of these mistakes until eventually I don't make any of them any more.

The IFR stuff, on the other hand, I'm not quite sure what to do about. The plan for tomorrow morning is to put the foggles on, and then my instructor will tell me to fly heading XXX for YY minutes, and I'll get nav-aid fixes along the way. Hopefully it will come with more practice. I'm also going to try using finer markers to plot the radials, so my chart doesn't become too difficult to read under all the lines. That, of course, is weather-permitting, because there are storms forecast for tomorrow.

FFF
------------------

Reading FFF's words has reminded me just how tricky (and sometimes bloody pointless) some of CPL actually was.

The IR in comparison is a doodle. No lookout to bother with (except a quick visual circuit at the end), no silly cross fixing of radials (just tracking from one beacon to the next), and best of all, if your passenger does ask you to divert for an inpromptu photo shoot, you can tell him to piss off, because that's not in your flight plan ;)

Day 10 - Wednesday 19 November

No flying today.

I had two flights scheduled - one at 10am, and one at 2pm. At 9.30am, pilots who had just landed were saying that it was flyable weather. The TAF was telling a different story, though - FM1500 (i.e. 10.00 local) TEMPO VRB15G35 +RA BKN005CB. Several people were taking off to get a bit of flying in before the weather arrived, but I decided to stay on the ground.

Well, the weather forecasters were wrong. 10.00 came and went, and then 11.00, then midday, and still no sign of the storms. I could have flown after all, but it's always better to be down here wishing you were up there, than up there wishing you were down here, so I wasn't sorry.

At 1.30, I was back at the airfield getting a weather forecast for the afternoon flight. Amended TAFs for several regions showed that the forecasters knew they'd got it wrong. I spoke to a weather briefer for the latest information. The leading edge of the precipitation would reach Fort Pierce within about two hours, they told me, and the front itself would arrive some time after that. So I was pretty confident of getting an hour or so of flying before the weather arrived - except that the wind was 50 degrees off the runway, and right on the limits. I got the low level winds - 40 knots at 3000' - and decided that although I could probably fly safely, it wasn't worth it - it was going to be very bumpy, and extremely difficult to get position fixes, and that wouldn't do me any good at all. Well, the weather forecasters were wrong again - just 20 minutes later, the skies opened up, and I was extremely pleased that I was on the ground!

I did manage to get two things done today. First of all, I took a good look at the Piper Arrow which I'll be taking my skills test in. It's got an extremely good nav fit, which will make it much easier to do the position fixing. The RMI means that I can read my radial from a VOR without having to twist the OBS and centre the needle. The DME can work off the frequency of either of the two VORs - there's no need to tune it separately. The ADF needle is also on the RMI, so that can be used just as easilly as a VOR. Hopefully these time-saving devices will give me that extra bit of spare capacity to make things a little easier. But of course my examiner can tell me that my RMI or my DME is unserviceable, so I still need to be able to work with the basic tools that I've got in the Cessnas.

I also spent a while talking to my instructor, finding ways of making the task of plotting these fixes easier. I have now removed my chart from the back of my clipboard, and bought a different shaped folder to clip it to separately. This way, I can fold it in half to make it a more manageable size on my lap, or to stow it in the pocket by my seat when I'm not using it, and I don't have to flip the clipboard over to see it. But the chart is still mounted on a solid surface so that I can write on it easily. The new shape has a lot more space east-west, which has allowed me to have a couple of extra navaids showing. One VOR in particular might have been useful on the last couple of exercises I've done, but I couldn't see it the way my chart was folded before.

I have also discovered the central rule on my ruler/protractor tool. There is a pin-hole near one end of the tool, and a hollow space running along most of the length of the tool, with nautical miles marked along it. I have attached a pin to the tool, and I can now push the pin through the pin-hole onto chart, positioned over a VOR, and then spin it around to the appropriate radial. I can either draw the radial, or mark off a particular DME distance.

Of course I don't know how much any of this is going to help when I use it in the air, but by tomorrow the weather should have cleared up and I'll be able to find out.

FFF
------------

PS - Keygrip, beer Friday sounds good! :ok:

Watch it FFF you don't want to get a reputation for hanging around in florida bars with a bloke twice your age with a dodgy shirt and hair do. :D

Going for beers with keygrip is a good laugh, get him to tell you his dodgy MEP stories IFR into EDI.

MJ

Must agree about the IR none of this crap about logging all your RT and course changes etc

Day 11 - Thursday 20 November

The first flight today was dedicated to working on position fixing in IMC. I put the foggles on, steered headings my instructor gave me, and gave him position fixes. Sometimes he'd ask for a VOR/VOR fix, sometimes I'd give him a VOR/DME fix. A couple of times he specified the beacons I was to use, other times I chose appropriate beacons myself. We did this for nearly an hour. I don't know how many position fixes I made in that hour, but gradually I was getting more and more comfortable with them. It still doesn't feel natural to be plotting and measuring in between instrument scans, but it's getting better. The biggest problem now is that my scan is suffering while I'm plotting - not enough to send us spiralling into the ground, but enough that there's a chance I may loose my heading. One technique which my instructor wants me to use to fix this is to steer with my feet while I'm busy plotting, leaving my hands free, and this helps. It all needs a little more practice, but at least I believe it's possible now!

After we'd had enough of that, we did some unusual attitude recoveries on instruments, just to keep me sharp, and then I took the foggles off. As soon as the foggles came off, my instructor gave me an engine failure. I was totally disoriented, not knowing where I was and having just recovered from a spiral dive which my instructor put me in. But I was fairly quick to establish Vg and check that there was no engine fire, and then began looking for a field. I found one, positioned myself for it, and began running through the checklists. So far, so good, but then my instructor asked me about the wind, and I realised that I was going to be landing downwind. Or was I? No - I had actually planned it correctly, but the instructor's question put that bit of doubt into my mind. Even with the doubt there, I decided it was too late to fix it, and continued to position for the (downwind? upwind?) landing - but all this confusion had taken my mind off the flying, and I overshot the field. Lesson 1 - think about the wind. But there was a second lesson, too, regarding choice of field. The overshoot for my field was some trees, leaving me with very few options, but my instructor pointed out some perfect fields nearby, where if I'd picked one near the middle I'd have had alternatives in both the overshoot and the undershoot if necessary. So, as well as not forgetting the wind, I have to remember to look not just at the field I'm planning on landing in, but also those around it, and incorporate that into my field selection. An improvement on previous unscheduled PFLs - at least I responded quickly this time - but still lots of room for improvement.

And then it was on to a navigation exercise for the afternoon - to a private airstrip called Gamebird Groves. It would also be my first time going any distance to the north of the airfield, so I would be in territory I didn't know at all. I planned it all, and then checked the weather, and found the crosswind component was outside our limits. This is getting very frustrating now!

Still, the wind had been veering around all day, and I hoped that if we left it a while it would continue to veer until it was within limits for runway 09. We had some lunch, and checked the weather again later in the afternoon. The wind hadn't continued to veer.... instead, it had decided to back around so that it was now within limits for runway 32, so we were good to go!

The VFR leg of this trip was better and more confident than the previous nav trip that I did, except that I missed my destination by several miles. At the quarter-way point, I was on track and on time. At the half-way point, I fixed my position about two degrees to the left of the planned track, so I corrected for that. The three-quarter-way point was in the middle of nowhere, I had no way of fixing my position. But when the appropriate time came around on my stopwatch, I took out a portion of the correction that I'd applied earlier, and told the instructor what I was doing. But that's where it went wrong, because I hadn't taken out enough of the correction, so I continued to drift to the right. This isn't a major problem in itself, as long as you notice what is happening and fix it. But when I found three very distinctive lakes, and a radar head, just off to my right, I didn't realise their significance. I continued flying my heading, and when it was time to look at the chart, I eventually established that I was right of track, and found my way to the destination. But it was too late - the record will show that I was 7 miles away from my destination, which is significantly more than the 3 miles which is allowed. So how do I fix this? Well, the biggest problem was not correcting the problem as soon as I saw the lakes, and that comes down to the fact that my plog only highlighted features which I expected to see in front of me, or right next to my track - it didn't identify features several miles off my track. But when you are several miles off track, for whatever reason, the easiest way of picking up on that error is to be aware of what features you might encounter off-track. So, for my next navigation exercise I will make sure my plog contains details of as many features as I can find, both on and off track.

And then it was onto the IMC diversion. Did the morning's exercise help? Yes it did - there's no doubt. I set my heading, put the foggles on, and ran through all the necessary checks. Then I got my first fix, and found myself a mile or two off track. I corrected for that, got another fix, found myself back on track again. A couple more fixes along the way went very well, too. At around the half-way point I realised I was ahead of schedule, so I revised my ETA. And when both my stopwatch and my latest position fix said that we would shortly be arriving at the mast that I'd been diverted to, I took the foggles off and the mast was just off to my left, but only by a mile or so.

The IMC diversion was not perfect, and there's still a lot more work to do before it is up to CPL standards. The main area that needs working on is keeping the scan going while I'm getting my fixes. My instructor thinks that I'm taking my eyes away from the instruments for as much as 20 seconds at a time - I haven't timed myself, but I'm sure he's right. I also need to remember to do FREDAI checks between fixes. But, compared to earlier in the week, there is a big improvement.

So I'm pretty pleased with today. Neither the VFR nor the IFR navigation are up to scratch yet, but the improvement in both is encouraging. The VFR navigation is simply a case of making all the mistakes that I can make so that I can learn from them - today's mistake was a new one to learn from which I won't make again. The IMC work is more a case of needing practice rather than learning from mistakes - but we still have about five more navigation exercises planned for me to practice on, which I hope will be enough. And if it's not enough, we'll just have to do more until I've got it right.

I have three flights planned for tomorrow, because we need to start making up for time which we've lost due to the weather. The first of these will be stalling, but I suspect there may be some navigation later in the day...

FFF
---------------

This is fantastic. I'm taking notes on all the tips and techniques, so I can practice as much as possible in advance of my course. Please can you give us an indication of how many hours you have done on the course so far ?
Thanks for the info. Best of Luck with the wx and rest of the course.

Thanks FfF - this is an excellent read - most informative. Good luck with the remainder of the course.

Re: the wind thing, you may already do this, but on my chart I chinagraph a wind vector - a quick glance at the chart reminds of the direction and speed, making those PFLs much easier and eliminating that downwind landing doubt!

Good point easyFlyer. That is especially so if you always make sure the map is always oriented so that chart north faces north and not the often seen mistake of aligning the map so that chart north is aligned with your heading. As my instructor said: "If you don't, one day it will catch you out!"

Blimey, it sounds like hard work!

Fantastic diary, though - looking forward to the next installment already! :)

Excellent FFF. Truly a fantastic insight into CPL training.

Do you have any pictures? Always interested to see the aircraft, facilities and your local training area.

Cheers

Paul

QNH - I've done about 18 or 19 hours of the course so far. That doesn't include the pre-CPL, though.

Paul - no, no pictures yet, although I will make sure I get some before I leave! Don't expect them to go on-line until I get back home, though, because I didn't bring the lead that connects the computer to the camera with me!

Day 12 - Friday 21 November

The only thing on the syllabus which we haven't covered yet is stalls, so that's what we did this morning. There's really not very much to say about the flight, though - it was almost a repeat of the stalling I did in the pre-CPL. I remembered the third L in the HASELLL checks, but almost forgot about the Lookout (I said it, looked out, but didn't do a clearing turn until my instructor prompted me - oops!) Apart from that, though, the three different types of stall all went fairly smoothly. I sometimes got a secondary stall when recovering from the clean stall - must remember not to raise the nose until the airspeed has built a little. And I must also get into the habit of applying power at the same time as lowering the nose - especially on the incipient stalls, where the lowering of the nose is less important than the power.

Stalls completed, and I suddenly found myself with an engine fire. Shut the engine down, the fire hadn't gone out, so I began an emergency descent. During the descent, I had been planning which field to land it, so that when the fire went out at around 3000' I was ready to set up for the landing. I headed for my high-key point - and then realised that I'd planned my high-key point at the wrong end of the field! At this point, I thought I screwed it up (and so did my instructor, he later admitted), but I stayed calm and re-planned. I figured out which side the low-key point was on (the oposite side to where I'd originally planned it, and facing in the other direction), and headed directly towards it. I was a little high when I arrived, but did some S-turns, being careful to keep the field in sight. I was shortly turning base at 1000', and when I rolled out on final I was just a touch high, which was easillly corrected with flaps and a small S-turn. I made the field - by far my best unexpected PFL yet, despite the original c0ck-up. A couple more of those, and hopefully they'll be CPL standard.

After lunch, we scheduled the "extra" navigation trip which I said that we would do. In order to not diverge from the syllabus too much, my instructor was keen to do some other stuff, too, so he asked me to plan a very short navigation, to give us time for some general handling afterwards.

The VFR leg should have been very easy. Most of the leg was roughly parallel to a railway line. The private airfield I was looking for was just after I crossed a road, railway line and some power lines. And it was only 20 miles. The only problem was that there was no easy way of identifying my half-way point (the leg was too short to have 1/4 and 3/4 way points).

I set myself on track, remembering to tell the instructor about the gross error checks. I paralleled the railway line, and the clock indicated that I was at the halfway point. So far so good - I was confident I was on track, but it was hard to tell if I was on time. I continued flying, and about a minute before the expected time, I saw a set of power lines crossing in front of me. Excellent - I'm there! No sign of the airfield, though, so I began circling. Then I saw the canal off to the right of my track. I had expected the canal to be to the right of my track, but it should have been a couple of miles before my destination. I'd screwed up.

I pointed myself back on the original heading, and, around a minute later, I saw another power line - this time with a road and a railway line running alongside it, as I expected. And, sure enough, the airfield I was looking for was tucked alongside it. The mistake I'd made was not believing my stopwatch. The secondary mistake was mis-identifying the power lines - no excuse for that, I should have realised it was the wrong power lines because of the lack of the road and the railway - but this wouldn't have mattered if only I'd believed in the stopwatch.

Then it was onto the IFR diversion. I set heading, put the foggles on, spent a while getting everything set up, and did a FREDA check. Then I got a position fix. About 6 or 7 miles left of track. No - I can't be that far off track, so close to the start of the leg. I got another fix, which showed that I was paralleling my intended track, about 7 miles to its left. I selected a different VOR/DME to confirm this - but the second VOR/DME said the same thing. I was definitely left of track. I applied a heading correction to the right, and got another fix. A bigger heading correction to the right, and another fix. I was converging with my intended track, but not fast enough. I applied one last huge heading correction to the right, and then my stopwatch told me we should be overhead the village we were looking for. I took the foggles off, and, although it took me a minute or two to identify it, I was exactly where I wanted to be!!!

I asked my instructor what I did wrong at the start of the diversion. He said that the problem was that it took me 5 minutes before I did my first FREDA check - I spent far too long getting everything set up first. The DI had wandered, so for the first 5 minutes I was flying the wrong heading. That's what got me off track. Not a big problem, since I identified that I was off track, verified it, and corrected it. But it's important to do FREDA checks immediately after any "turn, time, talk".

Before we headed back, we had time for me to put the foggles on again for some unusual attitudes, and VOR/NDB tracking. No problems there, and I didn't expect any problems. I took the foggles off, and immediately had an engine failure. There was no fire, so I pitched for Vg and picked a nice green field. Looking around me, though, I realised that we were close to Adams - our favourite private strip for doing PFLs near to. I looked around, but couldn't see Adams anywhere. Damn - I know it's here somewhere! Ok, I can't see it, so I'm going to carry on planning for the green field that I've already picked out. If I see Adams at any point, I'll make a decision on whether I'm suitably positioned to change my mind.

I'd passed the test. My instructor had deliberately pulled the power on me when we were directly overhead Adams, knowing that I wouldn't be able to see it. But I'd recognised my position (having just been under the foggles), and made a good choice to stick with the field I could see. There was no need to carry on with the PFL - I levelled off and we flew back to the airfield for a couple of quick circuits.

After checking the logbooks and student records, we figured out that the third flight wasn't actually required today. I won't have enough spare time to have another full day off if I want to leave myself enough time to be comfortable, but it's better to fly a little every day than to try to fly three times in one day. So it was just the two flights today. What's more, we're coming up to the 20 hour mark. The course requires a minimum of 5 hours on a complex aeroplane, but the instructors at EFT find that a little over 5 hours is usually better for most students. So that means that tody was my last flight in the Cessna - tomorrow morning, I will have a familiarisation flight in the Piper Arrow!

FFF
---------------

Day 13 - Sat 22 November

I woke up this morning with a very slightly sore head. I was pretty sure that I hadn't drunk enough last night to cause this... which left only one possible explaination. It must have been caused by the loud shirt which Keygrip was wearing when we met for a drink last night! But I checked the rugby result - nice one England! - and suddenly everything felt fine again, so I was good to go for my Arrow familiarisation flight. Although I don't have a day off planned, my instructor needed a day off, so I flew with a different instructor today. My regular instructor was, I suspect, happilly tucked up in bed after watching the rugby!

I had a slight advantage in that I logged around 20 hours in an Arrow a couple of years ago. But although I remembered much of it, there were still a few small details which I'd forgotten. For anyone who is completely new to the world of complex aircraft, though, here is an idea of what you can expect at this stage, based on my memory from two years ago, and talking to instructors at EFT. The world of complex aircraft involves two extra things, neither of which are very difficult. Retractable undercarriage - make sure it's up once you take off and don't have enough useful runway to be able to land back on it again. Also make sure it's up when you do a go-around. Make sure it's down when you do your pre-landing checks. Check that it's down on base leg. Really definitely check that it's down on final. And that's about it!

Then there's the constant-speed prop. Instead of learning RPM settings for, say, cruise, or descent, you have to learn an RPM/Manifold Pressure setting. There's also a setting for the climb, which you would typically set at around 500' (having used full power and maximum RPM for take-off). The settings which EFT teach happen to be exactly the same as the ones I learnt for my previous Arrow-flying. The POH will have tables full of valid settings, but really as long as you learn one setting for each phase of flight which you're happy with, that's sufficient, and that's exactly the way EFT teach it. Remember to move the levers in the correct order (mixture, prop, power to increase the power, or power, prop, mixture to decrease the power) so that you don't apply too much power for the engine speed (imagine flooring the accelerator in your car in 4th gear at 10mph for an analagy). And that's it. Pretty simple.

The only difficult part about the Arrow is nothing to do with its complexity - it's to do with its speed. The instructors tell me that most students have problems adapting to a 120kt aeroplane, and I remember from when I first checked out on the Arrow that this was what I had trouble with. That wasn't a problem today, though, because the Europa which I fly in England is also a 120kt aeroplane, so I've had plenty of time to adapt to the extra few knots.

We took off, pulled the gear up, reduced the power to the climb settings, and then increased speed to a cruise climb. I soon found the first thing that I'd forgotten, which is that as your altitude increases, the ambient air pressure decreases, which causes a decrease in the manifold pressure. You have to increase the throttle setting a touch every 500-1000' to ensure that the manifold pressure stays at the 25" climb setting. Even maintaining this power, though, the Arrow does not climb particularly fast, especially with two big blokes and full tanks of fuel. But before very long we reached a safe enough height to do some Vx climbs, Vy climbs, transitions between the two, and so on. Then we moved on to steep turns. The Arrow's controls are much heavier than the Cessna, and at first I didn't apply quite enough back-pressure and lost a bit of height. The solution was to remember to set the attitude and keep it - once I had my eyes firmly fixed on the horizon, and learnt to ignore the false horizon to the east where a cloud layer had formed over the sea, steep turns clicked into place quite easilly. We did some cruise descents and glide descents, but there wasn't very much more that needed doing before we headed back to land.

Check that gear is down as part of the downwind checks, of course, and then increase the RPM to 2500 when approaching the airfield. On base, check the gear again, and push the prop lever all the way forward (I stuck with the GUMP check that I'd been taught before - Gas (pump on, check which tank you're using and that there's sufficient remaining), Undercarriage (down - 3 greens), Mixture (full forward), Prop (full forward) and my instructor seemed happy with that). Turn final, check for 3 greens again, and round out for a not-perfect-but-quite-safe landing.

For the afternoon flight, we were torn between stalls and emergencies. But the cloud-base was sufficiently low that stalling would either have meant getting up close to the clouds, or climbing well above them, so emergencies won. A few extra things to remember in the Arrow. Immediate actions on engine failure - as well as pitching to Vg (80kts) and asking if there's a fire, you have to set the prop to fully coarse, so it provides minimal drag on the way down. Gear - most likely you will want to land gear up. If the field is at all short or boggy, or if you're forced to land on water, you will definitely want gear up. If you do decide to land with gear down, remember that it produces a lot of extra drag (this might be quite useful if you find yourself a little high). Also remember that the hydraulics are electrically operated. There is an emergency gear lowering lever, of course, but if there's any chance you might want to land with the gear down, leave the battery on. But the biggest thing to remember is that the Arrow glides much much worse than the Cessna, which reduces your options, and catches most people out the first time.

The instructor pulled the power on me, and I quickly set myself up for what I thought was a Vg attitude, coarsened the prop and established that there was no fire. I picked a nearby field, and made sure I stayed tight. The attitude wasn't quite working - I was a little fast - so I adjusted my mental picture of what I thought Vg looked like and corrected, before running through the normal re-start and shut-down drills, declaring Mayday, and briefing my passenger about what was happening. I did seem to be very high and very close, though - I had over-compensated for the poor glide performance of the Arrow! I did some S-turns, turned onto final, and was contemplating using the gear to increase the drag. But it turned out that the flaps are very effective at getting you down quickly even without the gear, so the gear wasn't necessary. Electrics off, tell my passenger to Brace, Brace, Brace, and the instructor told me to go around. Retract the drag flaps and check the gear is up - and I had another engine failure! No time to anything this time except pick a field and shut down - and then I was going around again.

We climbed back up to a nice safe height, and then had a go at an engine fire. This was something I don't remember ever practicing before on the Arrow. The drill is exactly the same as for the Cessna, except for the prop. Set up for Vg and coarsen the prop whilst establishing that there's a fire. Run through the shut-down checks, and then ask if the fire's out. It wasn't out, so I put down full flaps and began an emergency descent. What I hadn't done, though, was fine the prop. The fine prop adds drag, which will increase the rate of descent - which is exactly what you want to do for an emergency descent. Once the fire is out, roll wings level, retract the flaps... but don't forget to coarsen the prop again if you want to glide any kind of distance! It'd not difficult, once you know the procedure, so the second one we did I got right.

Then I got my first chance to play with the wonderful nav kit in the Arrow, when I was asked to get a position fix. Except that my instructor gave me multiple failures! The HSI and DME both failed. Then Nav 2 failed. And when I tried to tune Nav 1, I found that it was jammed, so I could only use the Vero Beach VOR!

It was time to see what I had available. I had a working RMI. I could use the Vero Beach VOR, and I also had an ADF, which I tuned to Fort Pierce. And suddenly the beauty of the RMI became obvious. All I needed to do was read the QDR for both the VOR and NDB off the RMI (ok, so I should have checked it against the compass first to ensure the slaving hadn't failed) and draw two lines on the chart, and I had a fix. It doesn't get much easier!

We set ourselves up for a flapless approach back at Fort Pierce. ATC left us a little close to the aircraft in front (for real - this one wasn't a practice), so I elected to go around, which my instructor congratulated me for. But I was getting an absolutely terrible rate of climb, and I wasn't sure why. I looked over everything, and eventually realised I'd left the gear down. Particularly disappointing, because my Europa has retractable undercarriage, and I do plenty of go-arounds in that (usually when I c0ck up a landing!), so getting the gear up isn't something that I have any excuse for forgetting. Still, better to do it today than on the day of my test - as long as I don't forget it again, it's not a problem.

I like the Arrow. It could do with more pockets for keeping charts and clipboards and checlists in, and it could do with a few more horsepower, but getting back into a PA28 of any kind always feels a little like coming home, since I did my PPL in a Warrior.

FFF
-------------

Loud shirt?? Loud shirt?? Cheeky bugga - that one was almost asleep.

Loud shirt indeed!! Humphh.

Excellent post FFF.

Please tell me though, why do you normally keep the gear up for an emergency landing?

No. 2

Oi - FFF - it's gone dark already - where's the update?

You said "No more days off" - people are waiting for this. C'mon.

Wow, people are actually waiting for my update now? :eek:

No. 2 - the subject of where to leave the gear for an emergency landing is open for debate. In fact, it has been debated several times in the Private Flying forum, and I was discussing it with Keygrip this morning. Basically, you have two options. If you land with the gear up, the landing roll will be very much shorter, which may be the difference between going into the trees at the end of the field or not - and that might mean the difference between walking away uninjured or not. If the field is boggy, the gear can dig in and tip the aircraft over, which again may mean the difference between being uninjured or not. That is the argument for leaving the gear up. (On water, it's been pretty much proven than the aircraft is far more likely to stay upright with the gear up, and I don't think there's any debate about this.)

The argument for putting the gear down is based on preserving the aircraft. With the gear up, you will almost certainly cause damage to the underside of the aircraft, the prop, and the engine. If the problem can be easilly fixed, you won't be able to fly the aircraft out of the field, or even taxy it to somewhere that it can be more easilly recovered from. So there's a good argument for getting the gear down to look after the aircraft.

Personally, I'd rather look after myself and my pax than the aircraft. But I can see the other side of the argument too. You won't fail any test, whichever method you use, as far as I'm aware.

Anyway, so much for "no more days off" - here's today's entry:

Day 14 - Sunday 23 November

No flying today. The tyres on the Arrow were worn to the limit, and by the time they were changed there wouldn't be enough daylight left. I had noticed yesterday that the tyres were very worn, but the tread was still discernable, and I was expecting it to last until after my skills test. But there had been a couple of flights between yesterday and today, and I was wrong - there were patches on the main wheels where I couldn't detect any more tread.

So where does this leave me? Well, our plan allowed time for weather delays, tech delays and so on, so we should still be ok. What's more, my instructor tells me that I've done nearly everything now, which I find quite scary, as I thought I had quite a few more flights still to do! I have two more things I haven't done in the Arrow yet - stalls and navigation. Normally this would be two flights, one covering stalls and one navigation exercise, but we might combine these into one longer flight. I have to do a practice test, ideally with a different instructor although it doesn't have to be, and then I may need to fly once more if any issues come up during the practice test. And that's it! If all goes according to plan, there's still no reason why I shouldn't be able to take the skills test, with enough time to spare for a re-test if I don't manage to pass first time. So I'm only getting a little bit stressed about lack of time!

I have just re-read what I wrote yesterday, and realised something that I didn't realise as I was writing it. I think I've just about got this "captaincy" thing now! Reading through yesterday's entry, I realised that the word I was using to describe the guy sitting next to me flicked between "instructor" and "passenger", and that's pretty much exactly how I thought of him during the flight. And that, I think, is what it's all about.

I had a similar experience today, after pre-flighting the Arrow - although I didn't handle it quite as well, it still shows the difference in the way I'm thinking. My instructor asked if I was ready, and I said that I'm "not completely happy about the tyres." I have to admit I was waiting for him to make the call, but when he asked if we were going or not, I knew that it was my choice. I thought about it for a second, and then said "No." And that was it. I was in charge, and it was my call. As I've said before, this is nothing new - every time I fly my own aircraft, I make the decisions about whether any problems are going to stop me flying or not. But most low-hours pilots will act differently when they fly with an instructor - or with an examiner. And the examiner wants to see how you will act around a non-pilot passenger. What I think the course teaches you to do is behave as if the person sitting next to you really is just a passenger - purely so that he can mark your ability to act properly in that situation.

Ok - that's enough for tonight about the philosophy of the course! Tomorrow morning, I expect to be doing the last few things on the course, in an Arrow with nice new tyres.

FFF
--------------

A forced landing (erm...... crash) with the gear down gives additional structure between you & terra firma to absorb & dissipate the energy. Something to consider.


FF, I agree with your thoughts about their navigation technique. I'll stick with using what's available, when it's available - especially in remote/featureless places. And what about all the other nav. techniques? Deliberate track error and funnel, line, boundary & lead-in features, track crawling (yes, it can be appropriate) etc etc? Mandating 1/4, 1/2 & 3/4 ONLY checks forces a navigational error to persist that could have been corrected sooner. It also relies on there being a feature at exactly those points. What if you want to regain track at a particular place? Or have an airspace avoidance issue that requires the deviation to corrected immediately?

Hmmm......How would you recognise that this was the case if you're only allowed to consult your chart 2 mins prior to the 1/4, 1/2 & 3/4 points? Oh, that's what the self drawn mud-map is about. How stupid. There's already a much better drawing available. It's called a 'chart'. :rolleyes:

Great stuff FFF,brings back a few memories,
Not that it's a lot of use with a HSI but use 4T's ie: turn, time, talk, twist(align DI).
Here's to a first time pass, have fun and enjoy the checkflight.

Flying F

I am pretty sure that keygrip was actually the inventor of the original hi viz jacket airside.

Nothing like sitting in a bar, outside in the middle of winter.

Keep it up FFF

MJ

:D @ MJ!!!

Day 15 - Monday 24 November

Arrived this morning to find the Arrow back on the line, with two new tyres. (And four new brake pads, too!)

Just one flight today, but it was a much longer flight than normal. The aim was to finish everything on the syllabus which we still needed to do, and I think we were pretty successful. But for me, the best bit was that I have finally completed a navigation exercise which I was happy with!

The navigation was to yet another private strip - this time it was Lykes Brighton, just to the west of Lake Okeechobee. I did my gross error check, set my heading, got a traffic advisory service from Miami Centre, ran through all the other checks I needed to run through, and waited for the 1/4-way point to arrive. Part of the route was parallel to a road, so I could see we were roughly on track. The 1/4-way point was adjacent to a corner in the canal system, and sure enough the corner was just off my left wingtip exactly on time. It seemed a little closer than I expeted, so I made some small heading corrections. We passed a large mound a little before the half-way point slightly early, and since there was no way of identifying the half-way point I used this mound to adjust my ETA slightly. I cancelled the radar service when we reached Miami's radio blackspot (the one I discovered a couple of weeks ago), and called up Okeechobee to let them know I'd be overflying their airfield. Okeechobee appeared exactly where it was supposed to, and then there weren't very many more features, except for some canals, until the destination. The vis was good enough to be able to see the canal all the way into the distance, and spot a junction which was roughly abeam my destination, so I had plenty of time to find the strip - but I still didn't see it. But I had positively identified two roads and a canal, so when the stopwatch said that we were there I knew we were in the right place. I circled twice, and then saw the grass strip - my first VFR navigation using this technique which has gone exactly according to plan!

The diversion was interesting. My passenger wanted to go to another private airfield to the east of Lake Okeechobee. The direct route would take us right over the lake - something I wasn't going to do without survival equipment. (The locals here don't like flying over the lake even when they have life-jackets and so on. The chances of becoming crocodile-dinner if the engine quits are a little too high!) So it would have to be a two-leg diversion, first of all to the northern corner of the lake, and then turning en-route.

I put the foggles on and did the necessary checks. My first position fix showed me being slightly right of track, which I corrected for, and my second position fix showed me being back on track, so I took half of the correction out. I had set the second OBS to the radial at which I would need to turn. I got another position fix, which showed me being a couple of miles from my turning point... but both the stopwatch and the OBS told me I was there already. Two against one - I figured that the position fix was wrong, since both the stopwatch and the OBS were contradicting it. I turned onto the second leg, got several more position fixes, and "popped out of the cloud" with the airifled about a mile in front of me, just off to the right of the nose!

I later asked my instructor why my position fix appeared wrong. He told me that it wasn't wrong - but that it took me a minute to plot it, and in that minutes we'd travelled two miles. In future, when I plot a position fix, I must say to my passenger (as well as myself) that "this is where we were a minute ago" (or two minutes ago, or whatever), rather than "this is where we are". And that really was the only thing wrong with the whole navigation. I am extremely happy about that - I just hope it goes this well on the test!

We still hadn't done any stalls in the Arrow, so that was the next thing on the agenda. The clean stall was very easy - the standard technique, with the standard recovery - the only difference being to remember to fine the prop below 100kts. The other two (incipient) stalls were a little bit tricky. Not the stalls themselves - entering the incipient stall and recovering from it are standard, and not difficult. But the procedure for entering the stall is a little more complex than on the Cessna, since you have to integrate the lowering of the gear and flaps, and the fining of the prop, into the lookout and the stall entry. There really isn't anything hard here, it's just a case of remembering which levers to pull, how far to pull them, and in what order. After two or three goes they were acceptable - not perfect, but with a bit of thought put into it away from the aeroplane they will be fine.

The rest of the lesson was a recap of things like steep turns, just to make sure I'm happy with all the general handling. And then I had an engine fire.

I quickly pitched for 80kts, nearly but not quite forgot to coarsen the prop, and shut the engine down. The fire hadn't gone out, so I entered an emergency descent. During the emergency descent, one large green field to the north stood out as an emergency landing sight, so after the fire went out and I'd set up Vg and re-coarsened the prop, I planned the approach to that field. I was too low to make the high-key point, but if I flew straight across the field I should reach the low-key point at around 1500'. That worked out pretty well, and I turned downwind and then base. I had turned base too early - I knew it, and my instructor knew it. I had the option of S-turns, flaps and gear to get the Arrow down... but the field I had picked was right in the middle of the green bit, so the easiest thing to do was to re-plan, and head for the next field instead. I overflew the edge of the field at exactly the right height to flare for a wheels-down forced landing (wheels down to help get me down quicker, and also because the field was long enough that I wasn't worried about going off the end), and then went around. During the de-brief, my instructor told me what I already - that my choice of field was what made the PFL easy, because I've finally learnt to fly towards the biggest greenest area I can see! This is the first time that I've chosen the field that he had in mind when he pulled the power on me.

We headed back for a couple of circuits, which were ok but not fantastic. On the last one, we were downwind for runway 9, when my instructor contacted ATC and asked for a short approach (i.e. glide approach) to runway 14. We were given permission to do that, cutting in front of the traffic on base for runway 9. I had one of those incidents where you hear what you expect to hear, rather than what is actually said, and when my instructor cut the power I began to position for the threshold of runway 9. Oops! Once my instructor realised what I was doing, and pointed out my mistake, I repositioned (and my instructor very kindly gave me a short burst of power, since I had been planning the descent for the wrong place!) and landed safely on 14. But there were two lessons. Number one - if the instructor or examiner asks ATC for something, listen to what he's saying! And number two - if you're downwind for runway 9, and you have a real engine failure, you're not commited to runway 9 - runway 14 may be the better option!

I felt pretty good about today's flight. I don't feel ready for the test, but I feel good. My instructor disagrees, though - he thinks I'm ready. Tomorrow morning, I'm doing the practice test. Keygrip will be my examiner for the real test (so I'll remember to bring my sunglasses!) and he's free to do that either on Wednesday, or, if I need to brush up on anything after the practice test, the real test will be on Thursday. That's weather-permitting, of course - there's a little bit of weather forecast for Wednesday - it looks like it won't be bad enough to cause me any trouble, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed!

FFF
--------------

...and he won't be a happy bunny if you call it "Runway 9".

Idle American-speak barsteward. JAA test = Runway 09. Three weeks in Florida and Cap413 is out of the window. Sigh.

PS - the MIA blackspot isn't there if you go over 3,000 feet amsl. - and then you don't need to talk to the mutants at Okeechobee (because you'll be way above their [by JAA definition] ATZ that would be....... what - with runways that length....2nm radius and 2,000 feet agl [because they have an R/T frequency]).

MJ - is there no end to this abuse?? :{ Will have to trawl the wardrobe for something extra colourful. Watch for Wednesday's post from FFF - hope he does it BEFORE the hitting the hotel bar. Thursday's post will likely be slurred.

S'funny - shiny shoes, black trousers, white shirt, black tie and four silly gold bars when I test for Oxford. Pile on the intimidation.

FFF, my 3 word plan to choosing forced landing fields:


BIG... the biggest one(s) in range

OPEN... Emptier the better

FLAT... If you can see a slope on it you're pretty much going to have to land uphill. If gullies then parallel to the gullies.

Ok - runway 09 it is then. Now, if you'll excuse me, I left my flashlight in the trunk of my car. And I may as well as well open the hood and check the oil, and put in some gas, while I'm there.... :D

Day 16 - Tuesday 25 November

My "passenger" for my practice test today was a photographer, working for The Sun (aka one of the school's managers). He'd heard that Fergie was sun-bathing topless on the runway at Tailwinds, which is a private airfield a few miles north of West Palm Beach, and he wanted me to take him there.

The flight to Tailwinds is fairly short, so I planned it with just a half-way point, no 1/4-way points. Today, I had to do more than just produce a plog. I had to produce a folder which contained all of the documentation for the flight - the plog, weather and Notam information, copies of my license and the aircraft's insurance documents, weight+balance and performance calculations, and so on. Most of this is just a photo-copy of a master copy which EFT keep for that purpose, but obviously the weather, perforance, route and so on will be specific to the flight.

After take-off, we set heading for Tailwinds. At the half-way point I made a small heading and ETA correction. Shortly after that, my passenger told me that he'd just received a phone-call - Fergie is not at Tailwinds any more, but she's been spotted at Okeechobee, so he'd like me to take him there instead.

This was a change from the previous diversions I've had. Until now, I've had to plan the diversion whilst completing the flight to the original destination. But today, we didn't need to carry on to Tailwinds - we just had to head directly for Okeechobee. I chose a nearby road junction as a set heading point, and began planning. Once the planning was done, I manoevred (not very elegantly, it has to be said!) to overhead the junction, and turned in roughly the right direction. Then I looked at the instrument panel to check the heading... but wait, something's not right. Why has the AI toppled??? I checked the vacuum guage, it was reading zero. I checked the annunciator lights, and the vacuum light was on.

I quickly scanned the entire aircraft to see what my instructor had done to disable the vacuum pump. But he hadn't done anything - we had experienced a genuine vacuum failure.

The attitude indicator was now useless, so we covered it up. The RMI and HSI are vacuum-driven, too, but they are electrically slaved off of the flux detectors in the wingtip. Given time, they will find the correct heading automatically - the gyro is only there to keep them reading correctly during a turn. So I was still able to use them, but only with extra caution, especially during turns.

I started heading for Okeechobee, and got some way before inadvertantly entering IMC. I was wondering if my instructor would do this to me, given the vacuum failure - but he did, and I had to work with it. I ran through all the standard checks, and continued the flight under the foggles, partial panel. I got several fixes, made appropriate heading corrections, and when I took the foggles off I could see Okeechobee a few miles ahead of me.

So far so good! We moved on to an engine fire (I forgot to check the heater/defroster was off, but it was ok apart from that), and then stalls, steep turns, unusual attitudes, VOR tracking and so on. Then I had another engine fire. This time, after running through the checks, my instructor started coughing, as if he was breathing in thick smoke! I got the hint then - once again I'd forgotten the heater/defroster. But he'd made his point, and I recovered from the emergency descent without having to do the PFL.

We headed home, and did a normal and a flapless landing, before taking the Arrow to maintenance to have the vacuum pump fixed.

During the de-brief, the instructor only had very minor points to make. His main comment was that he could see that I was in charge, which is exactly what he wanted to see. I only let my captaincy slip once, he said, and that was on the steep descending turns. He asked me to reduce the power to idle, set up a glide descent, and then turn at 30 degrees of bank. So I did exactly what he said. But he didn't say it needed to be done immediately - as captain, he wanted me to clear the area ahead and below me first by making a couple of small turns. Other than that, I did everything at my own speed, and did everything pretty much correctly.

I think I'm ready for the test tomorrow. It still seems only a very short while ago that I was really struggling. But today's flight, although not perfect, was very close. The vacuum pump should be fixed by tomorrow, and hopefully, as long as the weather holds out just a little longer (there's some crap to the north-west right now that I'm hoping doesn't come this way) tomorrow will also be the day that I peak.

FFF
------------

PS - In case anyone else was wondering what I did on my day off, I'll tell you that this afternoon, after the practice check-ride, I went to finish what I'd started. And, as of this afternoon, I now have an Airplane (sic) Single Engine Sea class rating on my FAA PPL :ok:

Fingers crossed for tomorrow FFF! Lets hope the bad wx stays away!
Good luck and many thanks for your CPL diary. This has been a fantastic read. Well done
Fonawah

Good luck for your test (today?) FFF. You better do your IR soon so that we've got something else to read

FFF,
I think this thread is absolutely brilliant! We all make mistakes sometimes - its all part of the learning curve, and you've been down to earth enough to tell us all that. I think sometimes I beat myself up too much when I do something wrong!

Good luck for tomorrow!

I guess youre test will be starting about now.... so best of luck.

This is definately one of the more interesting threads, so i'm awaiting the FFF does IR with baited breath.

One question though, if you knew what you now know, before you started, what would you do differently in your preparation for this course?

NB

:) :D :ok: I PASSED!!! :ok: :D :)

Thanks to everyone who has either posted here or sent me PMs to wish me luck, or to say that this diary has been helpful. Although I've tried to answer all the questions, I haven't been able to reply to every message - but I did appreciate every single one of them.

A full report of the flight test will appear here within the next couple of days. Right now, though, I'm going to get drunk! :ok:

FFF
---------------

Well done!!! :ok:


Now you can go back to using the most appropriate nav. technique for the circumstances... ;)

Flying for Fun, Perhaps a name change is in order now? May I make a suggestion "Flying For Cash"? And Personal title "Why do it if its not for a wheelbarrow load of dosh"

Congratulations !! Well done, and thank you for finding the time during your course to give us such interesting (and useful) feedback. I'm also interested in what you would do differently in your preparation with hindsight; I start my course in two months time.
I look forward to hearing about the test, post-celebration.