Hello, this is your pilot-in-command speaking...

Yup, after about three months of fighting weather, planes, school, and gophers, I have finished my private pilot's license training and received my license this afternoon around noon.  And damn, it feels good.

I woke up at a ripe 6:30am to make sure I could either drive my car, or get it towed out, of my icy street and to the airport.  Upon arrival, I got asked if I was nervous, to which I replied that last night, the only darn thing I was nervous about what getting my car out of the garage and to the airport in one piece.  Flying a plane is easy =P  And boy, did I learn how to drive in bad conditions today!  Thumbs up for having stick shift

There's two parts to the checkride that I had this morning: oral and flight
The oral part consisted of the FAA-approved "reviewer", Mike, and I sitting and verbally going over flying.  We began by talking about how I got into this, what he's learned in his years, and what's to become of the aviation world.  He asked me some basic questions about what's needed in an airplane and on me when I fly and general rules of the sky.  Then, he mainly focused on stuff that I don't necessarily need to know all the time, but stuff he felt it might be good for me to know of.  We also went over more complex fundamentals of flying and planning.  His view was that I was a competent engineer and pilot and knew what was going on when an alternator failed...heck, that's my major pretty much.  So instead of wasting time, he wanted to teach me insights and tricks of the trade he had learned over the years, and make sure I knew deeper stuff that I will need to know later down the road in my training.  When I sat in on the other oral, he said he wasn't there to grill, he was to make sure the future pilot knew the basics, knew where to look up the complex stuff, and fill in any gaps.  Today, it never even crossed my mind as a "grill session", but instead, one of the best side learning experiences I've had.

Flight: At this point, we hop in the plane.  He had me plan a trip to Norfolk (to make sure I know how to plan a flight), but diverts after about 15min of flight and makes me land at the nearest airport (Louisa).  There, we practiced different types of take-offs and landings.  He gave me great pointers on emergency situations during landings, and great new views of landing.  He is the first person to get me to visualize a landing, and flying in general, from the kinetic physics approach.  Since I'm a physics kid, I picked up quite quickly instead of someone just saying "stay high", he said, "think about the potential energy you're losing if you lose altitude".  Gave me a whole new approach on flying.  Then we practiced stalls and basic maneuvers.  Then, came the fun part.  He made me put on the cone of shame and had me recover from an unusual attitude (closed my eyes, he made the plane turn and descend, I opened my eyes and corrected).  I think he thought I was bored, so after him making a near vertical turn (without a single G either), he told me to close my eyes and fly.  Turns out, I was pretty decent.  Then, told me to go home.
All in all, the flight wasn't perfect, but the point is, I stayed safe and knew how to recover if I was in trouble.  I had one slightly big "oops", but again, I trusted my instinct and recovered.  He used it to teach me another lesson of landing without instruments, at which I did just fine, and he used it all to remind me to always ask myself "is this right??" if something fishy is going on, take a second and think, then react.  Unless I'm 100 feet off the ground, I have a second or two to think.

So, we touch down in Charlottesville, I taxi over, stop the plane.  He says great job, it was a pleasure flying with you, congratulations.  Big sigh of relief and great big smile!

I finished in 3 months and right under 45 hours, which is apparently really, really good.  Now I join the big ole brotherhood of private pilots, and I drove the entire way home with a giant smile on my face.

Next up: taking willing-passengers =D  I need to accumulate some more hours and really get used to the plane to start my instrument.  I also may have to change the blog's title =D

Quote of the Day: "Tell her to keep the pointy end forward, and the dirty side down"

Duckie #2: 1 Mother Nature: 3/4

She gets 3/4 simply because she went to EXTREME efforts to keep me from flying today.  However, I prevailed!!  Despite the solid ice patch my street has become and my utter inability to be able to get my car anywhere due to the fact I live at the bottom of two very steep hills, my instructor came and picked me up from a clear road near my apartment.  WOO!  Got to fly, got to wrap up my flight instruction (weird to say), and got cleared for my checkride tomorrow!!

So, at 6am tomorrow morning, I will be up, planning not only my last student flight (hopefully), but my plan of attack to get the heck out of dodge.  I WILL make it out of here tomorrow!

Then home for the holidays =D  (and doing all the wrapping that's left for me, aka mostly everything)

Snow, snow, snow, snow, and more snow....and then some more snow

The semi-official number here is 27 inches.  That number is more than I've seen, in total,  my entire time here.  Everything's white and anything not white is mostly covered by white.  I didn't leave my apartment between Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon because all of Cville was shut down.  Today I finally got out to do some sledding, and we all decided that the only reason the awe is wearing off is because we have no idea where snow ends and grounds begins.
Anyways, the CHO runway is open because a few flights, mostly private jets, have landed/departed, and the Pegasus helicopter (transportation network for UVA Hospital) has been flying all day.
So, we shall see what happens over the next few days...

Checkride is scheduled

Sat in on a checkride's oral part this morning, and I'm totally pumped for mine.  Very straightforward, the guy is really nice and a great pilot obviously, and most of all, he isn't there to drill me, but instead make sure I'll stay safe, know the rules to stay safe, and if I don't, know where I can look them up.  My instructor, the head CFC guy, and even the checkride instructor, Mike, are excited and think I'll do great.  Woo!
After my oral portion, I go flying.  I do a basic cross-country, then do some maneuvers, then do some safety things, such as finding an alternate airport and power-off landings.  Then, Tuesday by about 1pm, I should have my license, and either be on my way home for the holidays or flying someone around if they're in town.
=D

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the 1-2 feet of snow due for Charlottesville.  All the planes got put in hangers tonight, because 2 feet of snow on an airplane's wings can be terrible for the plane.  The flight center held an early, early dinner, so after I flew today, I stuck around and had a great time.  I'm REALLY going to miss being at this place all the time.  Looks like I'll just have to get my instrument rating =D  They've become a second family to me and everyone there is super nice and the conversation over dinner couldn't avoid planes.  I even talked to one younger guy who got to go to the radar center in Leesburg and he's putting together a trip for everyone to go up there and see how it all works.  I keep thinking this journey can't get any better, and it does, and it keeps me going when stuff like weather and plane-oopsies get in the way.

Quote of the day: "They all work for you, not the other way around"  -Mike, referencing how instructors/air traffic controllers work for pilots, not the other way around
QOTD #2: "You should use the pick-up line: 'Hey, want to just go on a plane ole date?'"

Clap Clap Clap! Part 2

Got to high-five myself again today!!  At 2:00pm, after two hours of 60 pilot questions, I got a 88% on my written exam!!  A 70% is needed to pass, but being over 85% is great, so I did just great!  And with all the jet noise outside, it was some of the worst test conditions ever =P I got to hang around the flight center all day and got some flying in, so I'm quite the happy duckie right now.  A friend took me out to sushi for somewhat of a celebration part 1 too, so it's been one great day.
So, now I need to do about 3 hours in a plane with Tom and make sure I'm ready for my checkride.  Tomorrow morning I'm listening in on the oral part of an actual flight test, so I'll see first hand what's going to be expected of me.  I'm somewhat nervous for this, but everyone in the flight center is behind me and is helping me prepare.
Since we're about to get 10-15 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon into Saturday, I probably won't do my checkride until Tuesday, unless by magic I get to fly tomorrow.
So close!!!

Clap Clap Clap!

Well kids, I've finally crossed the 40-hour mark.  I've logged all the hours I need to take my tests to become, yes, a private pilot.  So, next up, written test.  Then I need another 3 to prep for my checkride.  Then, my checkride.

Way cool, stay tuned

Look Momma Duckie, no fighter jets!

Boring part of post:  took my last solo cross-country trip, as a student, out to Hanover (north of Richmond).  Nothing spectacular about the flight, just pure fun and pretty.  Everything was darn near perfect.  Tom took someone up for an aerial shoot as I was leaving, so I'm sure he had heart failure as he taxied behind me and watched my flip on that strobe light and take off.

Cool part of post: Tom and I ventured up to Class-S/Class-FJ zone!  Now there's Class A (high altitudes), Class B (Dulles)  Class C (Richmond)  Class D (Cville) and so on.  The letters stand for nothing.  Class-S, however, is a special class that only exists around DC, stands for Class-Stupid, because the protocols in the area, although important, are dumb.  Class-FJ encompasses the same space, but is heightened over areas such as the White House and Camp David, stands for Class-FighterJet because they use jets to make you not fly in those areas.
Since there's a 99% chance I'll fly up to the DC area one day, and I needed another hour in the plane with Tom there, I decided to persuade him to fly to Leesburg.  Normally Tom flies under Instrument Flight Rules, so this was his first of flying into the area under VFR.  Involved three flight plans, dodging Dulles and big planes, and wayy too many frequency changes.  We also got told to dodge the Class-B airspace of Dulles which made flying tedious.  Managed to get to Leesburg just fine after a lot of Tom going "this is stupid, they're making me angry" and me going "what on earth is going on".
Now, the return trip was somewhat humorous.  First, landing, I was supposed to get a certain squawk code to land in Leesburg.  Never did.  Taking off, Leesburg has a certain departure frequency listed, but that controller sent us to another who sent us to another and so forth.  Five changes later, we were nearly to Fredrick, MD when we were told to head to C'ville but stay clear of the Dulles airspace.
Long story short, as far as pilots like me goes, the FAA does not have their crap together with this airspace deal.  A course I took to be able to fly VFR into the airspace says one thing, controllers say to do another, then another controller says something else.  But, everything worked out, and I never saw a jet I wasn't supposed to see.  Did see a 747 fly over.
All in all, fun flight.  Kept me on my toes and other than all the frequency changes, it was pretty straightforward.  Although I am glad Tom was there to help out, I probably would have freaked with all of the changes and making sure I wasn't violating airspace rules.  Weirdest thing, by far, was being "home", but not actually being home.  I flew over landmarks I recognized and roads I could follow home, saw Tysons/Reston and all the way to DC, but being in the air, and in control, was definitely weird.

Returned to C'ville to watch a very loud Navy jet do touch-and-goes, too =D

Quote of the Day: "PLEASE DODGE THE JETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" - Momma Duckie in an email to me prior to flight =D

"I do not like the cone of shame"

Cone of Shame

I got put back under the cone of shame today, or as normal pilots call it, the hood.  It is basically a cone that sits over my face so I can only see the instruments, but no horizon or outside feathers.  It mimics flying basic maneuvers only by instrument, basically to simulate flying in dark.  Flying in poor visibility/weather conditions is flying purely by instrument, but that's a whole other rating.
The biggest problem I have with it is that my body is telling me one thing, the instruments are saying another, and then the little tiny bits of land I can see outside the cone in my peripheral vision, are saying a whole other thing.  It leads to frustration on my part simply because when I'm flying normally, I can visually see what the horizon/airplane is doing to correct something such as keeping the wings straight, while using the instruments to make sure I'm flying level.  Under the hood/cone of shame, you have to focus on all instruments at once.
The thing I most, most hate, hate about it is the fact that the last time I was under it, it was rough flying.  Today's weather, however, put that day to shame.  Thermals everywhere, cold air to my climbs/descends were quicker, not to mention extremely strong winds (about a 30knot wind at the max).  It was soo difficult to keep everything in line.  The bumpiness has also led to one of the very few times I've ever felt motion sickness (mind you I could ride a roller-coaster all day or sit in the car for a 12 hour trip to Florida and never think twice about it.).  Tom was kind to the both of us and made sure to keep it at about an hour of flight so I wouldn't lose my cookies.  I doubt I would've gotten sick, but being jousteled around with no visual references, and throw in some steep turns, wouldn't sit well with even the strongest of stomachs.
Tom pushed me even further by having me enter the traffic pattern under the hood, and at that altitude, the winds were ridiculous.   Then I got to land in them about 2 minutes after taking off the hood, so my visual awareness was slightly down.  Before we took off, I watched a regional jet (RJ) have troubles setting up and landing.  Then, Tom came out and we both watched a Dash-8 have a real hard time landing.  Tom simply turned to me and said "well, we're going to have fun today!  Our landings are going to be 10 times that messy!".  Gee, thanks Tom.  I ended up botching the landing and Tom took the controls over about 10 feet off the ground.  I had landed in strong crosswinds before, but never strong gusty wind, so it was a learning experience.

Good news too!  The end is in sight, fiinnaalllyyy.  I realized today that I'm going to dearly miss flying every week, and don't know what I'm going to do with myself.  I really only have two flights left..TWO!  I have a solo I need to get in a whopping .1 hour of solo-CC time (yes, I'm taking an hour trip to get 6 minutes in...GRR).  Then, I have a flight scheduled for Tuesday to fly up to Leesburg (if anyone in that area would like to come out and see me/plane, let me know) because I need more hood time, and I want to make sure I get a flight up there with an instructor, so that if I start to mess something up with the whole airspace rule, I don't get shot down.  THEN!  Written test, review any missed sections, then I do my checkride.  My checkride consists of an oral portion of the test where I'm asked questions and have to answer, then there's an actual flight test, where I demonstrate all of the necessary maneuvers.  Judging by my schedule and the weather, I may be *choke* a license pilot next week.  I'm basically going to have two Christmas' this year =D

Quote of the day: Shane, another instructor, was being given an aeronautical engineering lesson from some old guy.  His response: "Man, I just want to fly the darn plane, what the f*** is all of this for?!?!"

Solo CC #2: where to begin?

This flight...ranks #2 in top flights.  It all started Thursday when I awoke too darn early to only find out that the winds across C'ville's runway were too strong.  Ok, retry for Friday.  Nope, too many clouds doing their own thang in the sky.  Saturday we got a whopping 5 inches of snow =D  Obviously, I didn't even try that day.  Fast forward to today: beautiful weather, cold crisp air perfect for climbing and cruising and cooling the engine, and BEAUTIFUL scenery!  I've seen the airport in blistering heat, mild weather, fall foliage, and rain.  But, with snow all around, soo much different.

For those in my immediate duckie pond/family, I hope this statement entices you to keep reading: I was told it was a "picture perfect day".  No lie, I saw this all coming after that was said!

After I set up my flight plan, found out weather was going to be awesome, and got the A-OK from Tom, I set off into the big bad sky, thrilled beyond belief that the third time trying for this flight was the charm.  Yeah right.  Before Tom put another instructor in charge of me (any instructor can be on the ground at my home station during my flights) and ventured off, he informed me that the planes were snowed over despite being under cover, and they had kindly moved 5210A (C-172) into a heated hanger to be warmed up and melt the snow off.  Ok, so far still going decently well.  Fast forward an hour, I'm still waiting for the darn ice to melt.  Eventually we made the decision to move it outdoors to let the sun speed up the process, which is did after taking many arms and a few brooms to the wings.  Lesson #1 of the day: de-icing a plane.  Minor speed bump, but still I'm about to fly so I'm happy.

Did the preflight, get in...the darn plane won't start.  I freak out that my two week hiatus has put me back at stage #0 of training, and try a few more times.  I call to the center to have an instructor come out thinking that the engine is freezing, we both try, no results.  Not even a turn over, just nasty noises that I've been told my entire life should not be made by a mechanical device.  Why?  Plane batteries are like car batteries and die when it gets cold, and most importantly, when you need them to not fail.  I nearly cried as I got back out of the plane to try to fix this, simply out of frustration that I would never make this flight.
Did I mention that I hate weather AND planes AND electronics now?
This brought me to Lesson #2: jumpstarting, yes, jump-starting, a plane.  Took two guys, one gal, two tries, and two rather large generators (24V man!) to finally jumpstart the darn thing.  One Landmark Aviation guy deserves a big thanks, as he helped clear the snow/ice off the plane, and got my plane up and running, and somehow parked every other major bird coming in around me.  Finally, relief!  Hopped in the plane and off I went.

First destination: Petersburg.  Found out that not landing a plane in over two weeks, especially the big ones, makes landing difficult.  Made it in one piece despite a small overshoot of my final approach and got back into the rhythm of things.  My next destination was Farmville, and once I returned to the air, I immediately fell back in love with flying and had a moment of "this is so friggin cool!" while enjoying the beautiful white scenery.  This flight I wasn't concerned I'd get something wrong or get lost, but instead, I finally enjoyed every moment of such a long trip.  Thumbs up!!

I continued on to Louisa, then returned home, only to get yelled at by the traffic controller for entering the pattern a bit too soon, although after he found out I was alone, mentioned that they always say something if you're doing something dangerous, but to be careful next time.  First ever mess up with the tower, and it was semi-depressing, but I recovered and ended up on the ground in one, happy, lesson-filled kid.  Also had my closest run in to having not closed my flight plan before I was due back, due to all the delays, but luckily I remembered as soon as I got out of the plane and no search dogs were sent after me.

And, if the problems didn't decide to end after the second jumpstart attempt: I need 5 hours of solo cross country time.  Today's flight put me at a total of 4.9.  POINT ONE HOUR!  That's six mere minutes.  Although it does mean I get to go on a long flight by myself again =D

All in all, probably the weirdest but coolest flight.  As if I didn't already understand that weather has a huge say in when and where I fly, the plane had to remind me that it's boss too.

Just remember, if someone says that something is supposed to be "picture perfect", just go back to bed.  You either end up with iced wings and a dead plane or being hailed on in the middle of Montana =D

Till next time, a turn of the neck can save your neck

Charlottesville weather, you're killin me!

Charlottesville weather is going to make me go crazy!

By now you've probably gotten the gist that the one thing I really am on the fence about liking/disliking UVa is its weather.  It sucks, plain and simple.  Not in the sense that we have always crummy weather, because there are such bea-u-tiful days here that they would make a grown man cry.  However, it is the constant awesome, not awesome, perfect, terrible, roller coaster of weather that C'ville embarks on every year.  For example: two days ago it was 70 degrees...tomorrow: 3-6 inches of snow.  Yes, SNOW!
Being 21 and irresponsible about certain things, I see snow as a relapse to being 12 and being able to toss aside any duties, besides shoveling, and play.  And since I'm not home, shoveling responsibilities are left to Duckie #3 and I have zero responsibilities!  Snow usually meant missed school, since flurries would give Fairfax County a 2-hour delay and anything over an inch was usually no school.  College, however, UVa could ice over and they would set up tents for classes to be held in..they just don't cancel, so I usually miss the fun in the snow.  Tomorrow, different story!!  I will give up a day of soaring over C'ville to play in the snow, end of story.

Which brings me to the point of flying.  I haven't touched a plane in two whole darn weeks now, and it's depressing.  My next flight is a super long solo cross country, Cville>Richmond>Farmville>Louisa>Cville.  All in all, it has to be over 150nm and at least three full stops, which is why this one will be so long.
I scheduled time for Thursday just to get in a plane, and Tom calls me Wednesday night launching this grandiose plan on me.  Excellent.  I was totally nervous for it, as always, and I was really let down yesterday when it was scrapped for really strong winds across the runway.  Rescheduled for really early this morning: cancelled due to clouds/storm rolling in.  DUMB WEATHER.

In addition, I'm supposed to be testing my senior capstone project which involves solar cells to function.  Mother nature needs to take some Midol, ASAP, before she ruins all of my current life plans/things I need to do.   I did get a chuckle when a group member mentioned that she doesn't like the weather ruining her plans..welcome to my life of flying.

Flight is rescheduled for Sunday.  So until then, I'm going to for once enjoy the non-fly-able mess the weather-gods are dumping on C'ville.  SNOW SNOW SNOW!!  Cross your fingers for a post on the flight Sunday night!  This entire post was a ramble focused on my bitterness over the weather, so I need to get in a flight to bring back the excitement for sure.