Finally Learning to Fly: On the ground

Grounded for a bit

Sat, 17 May 2008 01:06:29 GMT

I didn't fly this week as planned. Budget and work issues are keeping me grounded for at least another week or so.

So, does anyone know much about the Cessna 350/400? They look a lot like the Cirrus SR22/SR22 Turbo. Anyone have a good comparison of the two? Not that I'm in the market; they're all well out of my price range, but I'm curious.

Sun-n-Fun

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 00:21:38 GMT

I'm flying again on Friday, early at 7:00 a.m. In an attempt to avoid these long delays between lessons, I went ahead and scheduled one for each of the next three weeks, including this one.

We drove out to Lakeland on Sunday to attend Sun-n-Fun which was fun, despite the weather being pretty lousy — rainy and cold, after a week of great sunny weather. I took some video, but it didn't come out all that well, and some photos, including these:

The USAF Thunderbirds, who (as always) put on a fantastic show, flying in formation:

My son's favorite airplane at the airshow, an A-10 "Warthog":

A couple of big ol' Air Force jets; a C-130 and a KC-135:

Here's my son standing in front of a Cessna (nee Columbia) 400, a very nice plane that reminds me a lot of the Cirrus SR22:

Here's the XFV1, an early (and failed) attempt by the Air Force to produce a Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) plane. Despite the fact that it didn't really work, it sure looks cool:

Here's the "business end" of an F-15:

And finally, my kids in front of a neat looking SeaMax seaplane:

Garmin SVS - like Flight Simulator without the simulator

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 19:34:57 GMT

I'm still fighting this stupid cold and I hope to be back in the air soon. It's really a shame because the weather is outstanding here!

In the meantime, I came across this video on the AOPA web site, which looks at the new Garmin SVS system.

SVS is a "synthetic vision system" which adds display of your surroundings to the Garmin 1000 glass cockpit's PFD (primary flight display). As you can see on the video, it's pretty amazing! It looks like Microsoft Flight Simulator, only it's in your cockpit. The really cool thing is that it's just a software upgrade; no new hardware required, so hopefully we'll all be seeing it in glass cockpits near us very soon.

Cold

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:52:03 GMT

I didn't end up flying on Thursday as planned. I came down with a cold after working nearly all night on Tuesday night so, as much as I hated to do it, I had to cancel my lesson. I'm hoping to be over the cold soon and reschedule for this week some time.

Somebody call George Jetson

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:43:24 GMT

How would you like to fly this?

Or just drive it, as you apparently can do both. The wings fold up for road use:

Somehow I'm skeptical that the AirCar, as it is not-so-inventively called, will ever fly (pun intended), but it is cool.

As for me, I'll be flying on Thursday with Jim, my ~~latest~~ new instructor.

Still here, just not in the air

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:01:40 GMT

I haven't forgotten this blog here, I just haven't flown in a couple of weeks! My instructor and I mis-communicated on my last lesson and I just haven't been able to set up another one yet. Soon, I hope!

In the meantime, have you see this video of the Lufthansa airliner trying to land in Germany in high winds? Scary! The full news story is here.

Flying cat

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:17:42 GMT

I saw this video on Gear Diary, one of my favorite tech sites, and figured that anyone interested in flying would enjoy it. My favorite part is the end when the cat "talks" to the pilot...

YouTube - Iris landing

Flight videos

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:12:38 GMT

A couple of very cool videos from other flight-related blogs...

First, from Behind The Yoke, we have a marketing pitch for the "QSST", the Quiet Super Sonic Transport, which promises to whisk business travelers at supersonic speeds. Wouldn't this be fun to fly!

From The Cranky Flier, we have a much more scary video. I understand this actually happened back in 1999, but I hadn't seen it before. A United plane at Providence made a wrong turn in thick fog and ended up on an active runway. The controller inexplicably insisted that there was no problem and cleared a US Airways flight to take off on that same runway. Fortunately, the US Airways pilot, hearing the conversation between the controller and the United pilots, decided not to go.

Back to the air / Flight Simulator

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 23:05:22 GMT

Well, as it turns out, my instructor Ken is going to be teaching at Lakeland Linder Airport (KLAL), out in Lakeland. I used to work out there, right next to the airport, in fact, and I know how long of a drive it is. A little too long, unfortunately. Part of my plan for my flight lessons is to be able to slip out of work for a couple of hours to take the lessons, and Lakeland is just a bit too far away for that. So, I guess I will be getting another new instructor after all. I called back Tampa North and have a lesson with a guy named Mark tomorrow at noon. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I've been flying a fair amount with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. I've got a pretty decent setup since Christmas with the Saitek Flight Pro Yoke and Throttle Quadrant and the Flight Pro Rudder Pedals. They work pretty well, although they're certainly not perfect.

For one thing, the motion of the yoke, especially for the elevators is not smooth at all. It takes quite a bit of force to move it at all and then it tends to move a lot, making controlling the airplane difficult. I'm wondering if spraying some WD-40 on the shaft of the yoke would help, but I'm a little bit hesitant in case that messes it up. I've also found a bug in FS2004 in which the mixture cannot be adjusted with the lever on the throttle quadrant, but that's not really a showstopper or anything.

Although not pictured here, there is a new little flat panel piece that sits up on top of the yoke. Right now, it's just blank white plastic, but next month they're releasing an LCD flight instrument display panel which I definitely want to add to the setup.

I'm also still trying to figure out a better place to mount both the yoke and the throttles as right now I have them attached to the keyboard tray on my desk which moves, and that makes pulling or pushing the yoke a problem as I have to hold the tray still with one hand while using the yoke with the other.

The pedals are very nice, and include not only the rudder motion but also toe brakes. You can adjust the tension on the pedals as well.

As with the yoke, there are bugs with the pedals. I discovered at first that when the brakes were used, they stayed on and could not be disengaged except by setting and releasing the emergency brake using the keyboard. What a pain! Fortunately, I found a solution on the forums on Saitek's site. The solution is to set the "null zone" (the area of "give" in the pedals in which they can be moved with no effect) to 0 and make sure that the overall sensitivity is greater than 40%.

Another ugly bug was that the toe brakes were reversed: pushing the left brake turned the plane right and vice versa. Fortunately, that one is an easy fix as Microsoft provides a "Reverse" setting for each joystick control axis within Flight Simulator.

Even with the controls, Flight Simulator is not a great replacement for practicing in a real plane. For one thing, the rudder is far too sensitive and using it causes the plan to immediately yaw in the direction of the pedal pressed. Also stalls are very difficult to practice and aren't very realistic. In the Cessna 172, the plane stalls almost instantly as the stall horn sounds and recovers almost instantly as the nose drops, too. There should be a bit more delay in both, and especially in the stall itself. I've seen the Skyhawk fly quite well enough with the stall horn going off and without actually stalling. It's also impossible to cause the Skyhawk to spin in Flight Simulator. Since we won't be practicing spins in the real plane, I had wanted to do it here, but as far as I can tell, it just can't be done since the plane recovers from the stall so quickly.

Oh well, it's still a lot of fun to play. And of course, I get to do the real thing again tomorrow!

Phone call

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:36:35 GMT

I got a call yesterday from my instructor, Ken. I can't say much publicly right now, but I may not have to get used to another new instructor after all. I'll know more in a couple of weeks or so...

Another Setback

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 20:00:36 GMT

I had another setback in my quest to get my pilot certificate yesterday.

Back in December I had a lesson canceled because N733UJ was in for maintenance of some sort "for a couple of days", they said. What was really frustrating at that time was that I couldn't find another block of two hours to reschedule my lesson between then and my next planned lesson, which was supposed to be yesterday.

Before my lesson time, I called the airport because the online flight scheduler now showed N733UJ as reserved for "maintenance" instead of reserved for me as it had been. The very nice girl who answered said that it would be in maintenance for another month, that it had failed some aspect of the annual check and she thought one of the problems was a bad starter. Well, I know that's not it because it just got a new starter back in November, but two months is a far cry from the two days I had originally been told. I mentioned that I had a lesson scheduled with Ken and I assumed it was then canceled and she let the other shoe drop.

Ken no longer works there. For those counting, that's two instructors now who have quit leaving me stuck. So now, the flight school at Vandenberg (KVDF) has only one instructor left and zero Skyhawks, at least for another month or so.

So what to do?

Well, I called another flight school, this one at Tampa North Aero Park (X39), which is also pretty close to the house. Way back when I had rejected them because their rental rates seemed much higher than anyone else's, but this time I got a very different story.

They have a 1982 172P which rents for $100/hr (including a $10 fuel surcharge), and a 2001 and 2004 172S's which rent for $125. The instructor rate is $40. This is pretty comparable to Vandenberg, which ran $107 for the 172N and $45 for the instructor.

I spoke with the woman who runs the place and she seemed very nice. They use all three Skyhawks I mentioned for private lessons and they have another 172RG (retractable gear), which they rent but do not use for lessons. If I'm willing to take my lessons on weekdays (I am), they can fairly easily fit me into the schedule, especially as she is hiring a new instructor to work Monday through Friday. Getting a plane for the lessons is also not a problem, she said. That would a huge improvement!

They use the Cessna ground school kit, but she said they don't require it, which is good since I already have the Gleim books and didn't want to spend another $330 on essentially the same information.

We're going to talk again tomorrow, but it looks like I'll be getting used to a new instructor, some new planes, and a new airport very soon.

Apology

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:18:16 GMT

My apologies to those of you who have left comments to which I didn't reply. This blog software (Windows Live Spaces) is supposed to email me whenever someone leaves a comment but I just realized that it isn't working.

Thank you all very much for reading here and taking the time to respond!

Grounded again

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 02:12:27 GMT

I was supposed to fly today and practice ground point reference maneuvers, however I got a voicemail that N733UJ is grounded temporarily and getting some maintenance. I don't know what the problem is, but I had to cancel my planned lesson and haven't been able to find any free time on the flight scheduler in the next two weeks (that plane is kept VERY busy), so I guess my next lesson won't be until January 3, which is when I was supposed to try some landings and pattern work. Oh well.

No-go

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:56:41 GMT

I didn't get to fly today as planned. I was supposed to go at 11:00, but it was foggy and overcast this morning. I was on the phone with Ken, my instructor, several times as we watched the weather but it never improved enough for us to go up. Visibility at KVDF at 9:00 or so was only a quarter mile, well short of the three miles necessary for VFR flight. By 11:00 it was up to four and a half miles, but the ceiling was at only 400 feet, well below what is required.

It turns out that Alex, my Project Pilot mentor, was also scheduled to fly this morning at 9:00 to Kissimmee (near Orlando), but ended up having to drive instead. I reschedule my lesson for next Wednesday afternoon, so I'll get two flights next week: Wednesday and Friday as well.

Although, I didn't get to fly, I did get a kick out of watching this guy fly with the Blue Angels. And he only passed out three times! (hat tip: Behind the Yoke).

Surprise

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:35:16 GMT

I was supposed to have a flying lesson on November 4, but when I got to the airport I found out that my instructor Tyler had quit. He moved back home to Pennsylvania or something. The folks at the FBO had thought he had called me, but he hadn't. And then they thought since I was still on the schedule that my lesson was a solo flight. A small part of me was tempted to take the keys to the plane and go, but the bigger part of me, that doesn't want to die in a fiery plane crash, corrected them. I've rescheduled with another instructor, Ken, the head guy at the school, for Wednesday afternoon.

Getting started

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 02:12:23 GMT

The first step was to find a flight school. My buddy Alex, who is my Project Pilot mentor had done his training at Peter O. Knight Airport, which is on Davis Island near downtown Tampa. That's not particularly close to home or work for me, so I was looking at other options. I had narrowed it down to Vandenberg Airport as my first choice as it's roughly halfway between home and work and Tampa North Aero Park, which is also not far from home.

The difference? In the end it came down to price. The rental rate (wet) for the planes at Tampa North was significantly higher than at Vandenberg, so I went with the latter.

I took a drive to the airport one Saturday afternoon to hopefully talk to some instructors and find out just how the process of starting the training would work. Unfortunately, no instructors were there so I chatted with the nice girl behind the desk. She recommended a new pilot instructor they had recently hired and I left my contact info with her to give to him. I wanted to chat with him first before I committed to flying with him to make sure our personalities and, more important, our schedules were compatible. I was also so excited about the whole thing that I purchased the student pilot kid, which has all of the books I would need, a flight computer and plotter, a log book, and a bag to hold it all. They use the Gleim books (the ones with the red cover), which seem pretty decent.

Unfortunately, I waited a couple of weeks with no call from the instructor at all. So I called back and left my contact info this time with Ken, the lead instructor there. He eventually called me back several days later and I ended up booking a Discovery flight with a different instructor named Tyler. I figured if I didn't like him, or our schedules didn't mesh I could then look for someone else.

A brief introduction

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:47:24 GMT

Welcome to my new blog! I guess I had better start by telling you a little about myself. My name is Perry and I live with my wife and kids in Tampa, Florida. For my 40th birthday this past August my wife gave me the gift of flying lessons so that I can get my private pilot certificate.

This is something I've always wanted to do. I've been around pilots all of my life; mostly my father who was an Air Force pilot and pilot instructor and now trains airline pilots, but I also flew with a cousin and an uncle in Skyhawks many years ago and various friends since then. I currently have a buddy at work who got his certificate not too long ago who is acting as my Project Pilot mentor. It's fantastic having people like my buddy Alex and my dad with whom I can discuss flying and ask questions. Of course, I can ask my instructor, but I don't see him as often, plus it's always nice to get other perspectives.

Speaking of my instructor and how often I see him, it's only about once every week or two. I'd love to fly more often, I'd really love it, but for budget reasons (flying is expensive!), I can't do it more often. I do fill in the time between lessons with a lot of reading of the ground school material, the AOPA Flight Training magazine, and aviation-related blogs (which are in my blog list on the right). I also play more Flight Simulator than is probably healthy.

I'm taking my lessons from Leading Edge Aviation at Vandenberg Airport, a small, uncontrolled air field near my home and work here in Tampa. I'm currently flying a 1977 Cessna Skyhawk 172N which has been upgraded with a 180HP engine.

I actually started flying a couple of months ago, so my first few posts will be recaps of those flights.