Lesson 28 & 29: Fine Tuning

I've flown twice since the last post. There is not much to tell, except that I'm trying to fine tune the maneuvers to the level of being able to pass them during the checkride. I'm also slogging throught the test prep software.

Soft field landings, short field landings, power off stalls, power on stalls, slow flight, turns about a point, and s-turns.

20/20 hindsight note: If I had it to do all over again, I would have waited and saved up my resources (money, vacation time) and tried to do this all at once .. or at least in a couple of continuous hard charges. I would not recommend spreading out flight training as long as I have. The first 30 mins of flight are "de-rusting, so I end up "wasting" that time and it adds up.

It is conceivable that I could take the written test next week. However, I still need 3 to 5 more fine tuning flights before I'll be ready for the checkride. Additionally I'll need 1 or 2 ground schools with Chris to prep for the oral. They don't just hand out PPLs.

Lesson 27 : Unusual Attitude Recovery IFR

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Chris was out of town this weekend and I haven't flown for almost month. So, Friday after work I called and got any available instructor to go up with me for some more simulated IFR hood time. The CFI I got was Lana, a relatively new addition to the Advanced Aviation instructor corps.

Today would be more IFR practice plus unusual attitude recover under the hood. In other words: I close my eyes, the instructor gets me totally disoriented and puts the airplane into a steep banking dive or climb, I open my eyes and get the plane back straight and level using only the instruments (under the hood).

Instrument reference alone is a different game than VFR. I was able to recover from them all well enough. I can see how an instrument rated pilot is really in a different class than VFR in terms of skill and safety. In my opinion, an instrument rating should be a requirement for the private pilot license. I already know that I'm not going to be making any long distance flights without the instrument rating.

.9 more simulated IFR hours to go. Probably this means 1 or 2 more flights this week. Then the FAA test. So, I'm looking at 1st or 2nd week of September to have the Private Pilot License.