Tuesday, December 2nd

Forgot to mention...

I spent Election Day moving out of the Grand Courtyard apartments and into an apartment at ATP. Since my roomies were all graduating at a record rate, and not much in the way of new blood coming in, the ATP brass closed the apartment and moved me into a studio on the first floor of the school, which I'm sharing with flight partner Dan. Not bad, really... the commute to school's great (one flight of stairs) and there's a flight simulator in the backyard. Free coffee, too.

Just finished day 6 of CFI (certified flight instructor) school. All the horror stories I've heard over the months from my friends and roomies are mostly true... it's an immense load of reading, comprehension, quizzing, correlation, and some flying. The CFI 'initial', the checkride done by the local Flight Standards District Office in Fort Worth, is first up and will involve a rather lengthy oral exam, covering everything I've learned, but this time at from the standpoint of an instructor... not just the 'whats', but also the 'whys' and 'hows'. If I'm gonna be teaching it, I'd better know it, right?

Got re-acquainted with an old friend today... the Cessna C172 Skyhawk. It's a requirement of CFI candidates to be signed off as being proficient in stall awareness and spin recovery, so today's the day that asst. chief pilot Javier and I went up to try our best to crash a plane by going vertical. You may recall that in my early stage of private pilot training, we accidentally put one into a spin during a stall maneuver, which looked something like this (not my video!)...



This time we did it on purpose. And what do you know... it was a hell of a lot of fun! We did three of them before heading over to Mid-Way Airport to meet flight partners Mike and Dan for their turn, and they were just as giddy. Dan even got into a few fully-developed spins, where the plane made several complete rotations before recovery. I can't wait to practice these again on my own someday.

Anyway, that was my day. Final day of ground school is tomorrow, to be followed by as much self-paced study as my little ol' noggin can handle. Still no word on my checkride dates, but that should be coming in the next few days. The end is nigh at hand...

Sunday, November 23rd

Hi and sorry again for the absence.

Time since the last post has been spent hitting the books... big time. Had to take the three remaining knowledge tests (Commercial - 90%, Flight Instructor Airplane - 86%, Fundamentals Of Instructing - 94%), grinding through an exhausting CFI pre-test and getting ready for the Commercial Multi-Engine checkride, which finally occurred last Thursday. Despite having a bit of a brain fart on the pilotage (visual navigation) part of the ride, the maneuvers, which included steep turns at a 50-degree bank, stalls, Vmc demo, and short-field landing, went pretty well overall and I passed.

Now then...

Tomorrow begins CFI School... the phase where I've seen several of my cohorts break down. Two weeks of intense ground school, peppered with a handful of flights to prep for the three CFI checkrides. When it's all done, I'll have my Commercial Single-Engine to get past, then I'm done.

I was pretty sure that I'd be done in plenty of time for Christmas. My friends here aren't so sure. Regardless, I hear the local Flight Service District Office, which handles part of the checkride process, is closed from Dec. 20th through the end of the year, so I'll have some time to spend at home with the fam and friends before coming back here to finish.

Off to dreamland. Should be reporting a little more often down the home stretch.

Cheers

Saturday, November 8th

T-minus 30 days...

Cross-countries are over. The final tally...

Monday - Millington, TN; home
Tuesday - study day
Wednesday - Meridian, MS; home
Thursday - Tulsa, OK; Houston, TX; home
Friday - Lamar, CO; home
Saturday - study day
Sunday - study day
Monday - San Angelo, TX; home
Tuesday - Newton, KS; home
Wednesday - Lamar, CO; Tulsa OK; home
Thursday - San Angelo TX; Houston, TX; home
Friday - Meridian, MS; Panama City, FL, overnight
Saturday - Jasper, AL; Monroe, LA; home
Sunday - study day
Monday - Tulsa, OK; home
Tuesday - Monroe, LA; home

Some photographic highlights...

The infamous fried Twinkie from Squealer's Barbeque of Meridian, Mississippi. And the fair was nowhere in sight. This much sugar hits you like a overdose of Thorazine. We may not have been medically legal to fly home.


The 1st trip home from Meridian. A beautiful scene, but Dan and I were heading for our first real weather-danger drill. Nearing the Dallas area, we had to carve a path between two large cells of thunderstorms that developed after we left. With the help of Fort Worth Center, an improvised route well off of our beaten path, and a little luck, we got home safely.


Lamar, Colorado. There's nothing to see here. Nice people, though.


Yours Truly enjoying a little chill time in Panama City on Halloween.


Leaving Panama City. The light spot in the middle is the airport. The blue parts are water. Or sky.


The crew car at the Jasper, Alabama airport. No interior door handles or working gauges, a duct-taped glove compartment, and the trunk smells like a rendered corpse, but hey... it's a limo!


I got to play chauffeur for a couple of fellow ATP guys from Jacksonville who flew in right behind us. They left no tip.


The gumbo at the Waterfront Grill in Monroe, LA. Grubbin', but I may not ever be really convinced that okra was ever meant for human consumption.


A little cloudbusting on the way home from Monroe... my last cross-country flight.


And that's how you cram 75 hours of flight time into two weeks. It was an amazing experience, and the difference in my skill and confidence between that first flight to Millington and the last to Monroe is measurable and astounding. The last few flights included near-perfect radio calls, navigation, curveball handling, and of course... flying. By the Monroe trip, I was feeling ready to take on the next challenge, but first... written exams! Fun's over... time to bury the beak in the books again.

I haven't flown now in about 5 days and I'm already missing it like crazy. This phase of the program is almost all book-learnin'. Have to finish 3 written tests and a monster written homework assignment (I've got about 16 hours invested in it already) by the 15th, then the Commercial Multi-Engine checkride on the 18th, followed immediately by Commercial Single (back to the Cessna!), then Flight Instructor school starts on the 24th. This month will be a bitch.

If you don't hear from me, tell my Mom I love her.