Monday, January 5th

Almost there...

Well, my grand social blogging experiment didn't quite work the way I wanted. Sorry for the update delays. I knew this past month was gonna be tough, and I thought I was prepared, but nope. I think I can summarize my December in one picture.

After CFI ground school wrapped up a week or so after Thanksgiving, we took to the books hard while we waited for our turn at the FAA Flight Standards District Office for our CFI Initial oral exam and checkride. Lucky me... mine was one of the first scheduled, for December 15th, to be followed by the checkride on the next day.

After a handful of sleepless nights leading up to that Monday, I arrived at the FSDO (located at the Fort Worth Alliance Airport) and met my examiner, who promptly quizzed me about everything I've learned since I've been here. Five hours later, I headed home with a promise that we would continue for another hour or two the next day to wrap up. Sure enough, another two hours on Tuesday and we were done.

I can't take anymore. I feel like I just gave birth... to an accountant!

To complicate things, that Tuesday was socked in with the first big winter weather of the season. Freezing rain, low ceilings... unflyable, so we rescheduled the flight for the 18th. And of course, the 18th rolled up with no change in the weather, so we rescheduled for after Christmas... the 29th.

ATP closed down for the holidays which, since I live here, gave me plenty of time in an empty building to stew over my remaining checkrides. It was a long week, but fairly productive.

By the 29th the weather had cleared up beautifully. About 40 degrees and dry, with barely any wind. The weather gods were smiling on me this day. Instructor Walt and I take a quick Seminole flight up to Alliance Airport to pick up the FAA examiner. A quick preflight, and we're off. I was nervous as hell, to be honest... and it showed. After teaching the examiner (as I would a first-time flyer) the finer points of taxiing, I accidentally skipped a checklist before heading out to the runway... something I had never done before. The tower cleared me to take off, and I realized my mistake. Instead, I nervously asked the tower for clearance to taxi back to the run-up area, which was approved. I headed back to the run-up area and completed my checklist. The examiner stayed silent.

It was only after takeoff, when I realized that I hadn't busted this checkride, that my nerves calmed down and I was able to concentrate and deliver a pretty nice flight. Flew northwest to Lake Bridgeport and did lots of maneuvers... slow flight, stalls, Vmc demo, drag demo, single-engine failure, turns around a point, then back to Alliance for short-field takeoffs and landings, and a single-engine landing. Checkride passed, and I can now call myself a Certified Flight Instructor.

I had the Instructor-Instrument checkride on the 2nd, which was nearly identical to the original Instrument checkride in October and went pretty well. Funny how much I needed to refresh on, though... a lot of this stuff tends to slip when not used for a while.

One more remains... the Single, scheduled for tomorrow but moved to Wednesday due to more of this crap. What the hell... I'm already a month overdue and the coffee's still free.

The cord gets cut this week, and then I get to decide what to do with the rest of my life. Suggestions graciously appreciated.

Saturday, October 4th

Two great flights to report. On Wednesday Troy and I flew to College Station to shoot some approaches. A bit shaky on the first, better on the second, and the third was this one back home into Arlington.



I was about 8 miles out, about to intercept the ILS for this runway when Troy cuts the power on my left engine to idle... simulated engine failure. We had done this several times, but this was the first time trying it while attempting to maintain the glideslope into the runway and under the Foggles. As you can see, I wound up a bit long, but I was pretty happy with my first attempt under those conditions.

--

Friday night was the biggie. The 300-mile marathon... and back. It's actually a requirement for the commercial certificate, which is coming up, but ATP kills two birds with one stone by having us shoot instrument approaches along the way, all under the Foggles. I preflight 4917A and file for...

- Arlington to Mineral Wells, GPS approach. Nailed it, then went missed (intentionally didn't land)
- Mineral Wells to Abilene, VOR approach. Nailed it, then went missed again.
- Abilene to Midland, ILS approach. Another good one, this time to a full stop.

We meet up with another Seminole team (instructor Aaron and student Adam) in Midland, grab the FBO's courtesy car and grab a bite to eat, then take off again...

Midland to Alliance for 10 VFR night take-offs and landings. I had been here before in the Cessna, but this was the first time since I had worked out the kinks in my landings, and the first time in the Seminole.

We had finished a few when Aaron and Adam came in behind us to do the same. Once again we pick a night with no other traffic using the airport, so the tower assigned the left pattern for 16L to A&A and the right pattern for 16R to Troy and I. It didn't take long before we were flying in tandem, like looking into a mirror, including the base leg for landing, in which we momentarily are flying head-on. This is a humbling enough experience during the day, but when it's night, with another plane's landing light shining in my face... oy. I don't mind telling you that I peed a little.

Ten laps in a traffic pattern is draining enough, but we're not done. Last stop is Cleburne, where we shoot a visual approach and land.

"Back home, boss?" I ask Troy, who looks at his watch and sighs.

"We've got another hour left."

We head for the practice area south of Arlington and well, just fly around. Rather pleasant, but it's now 0100 and we've been flying with only one break since 1700, and consciousness is getting scarce. Aaron shares an idea on the radio.

"I'm asking ATC if they'll vector us through DFW so we can take a tour."

The airspace around DFW is extremely busy and as such, air traffic control keeps very tight control of it. However, in the wee small hours on a Friday night even controllers get bored. Sure enough, ATC clears A&A to fly direct over DFW airport and east to downtown Dallas. Troy and I wait a bit for spacing, then get request and get cleared to do the same. This was a pretty sweet ending to the evening... got great views of the big airport from 3,500 feet and then did a lap around downtown Dallas at 2,500 feet... both areas normally verboten for civil aircraft.

A few more stop-and-goes at Arlington and we're done.

My head hit the pillow at 0300... hard.