Lesson 37 : DA-42! (and more checkride prep)

Thursday October 22, 2009

I flew with a new instructor, Steven, tonight as Chris had a conflict. We flew out of PDK which was busy as usual. I nailed the S-turns. Turns about a point were good, though I did bust the speeds a few times; I still need practice on the turns about a point. We did some short field landings at McCollum airport. I hit all but the first one.

Back at PDK, I got to see for the first time a Diamond 42 Twin Star. Advanced Aviation has a DA-40 (see Thanksgiving post), but I've never seen a 42 up close until tonight. If the DA-40 is the DA-20's big brother, the DA-42 is the hi speed, low drag uncle you never see except on special family reunions who shows you kung-fu moves in the yard while everybody else is inside eating potato salad and telling baby stories.

More pictures of uncle kung fu master:

FAA Written Passed

Thursday October 15th, 2009

Tonight, I passed the FAA written private pilot exam. This is a huge load off. I am now on the final stage of the private pilot license: the FAA oral test and check-ride. I need maybe 4 more flights before I am 100% ready. I should be a pilot by Thanksgiving.

Next flight is Saturday evening, unless it gets rained out.

Lessons 35/36 : PPL In Sight

Saturday Oct 3rd

Back to the short field at Lumpkin for more short field landings. I hit most of them and the ones I didn't, I was very close.

Friday Oct 9th

Ground references maneuvers. The good news with this lesson was that I was on top of the high altitude maneuvers. I hit slow flight, power on, and power off stalls within standards on my first attempt. It's been a while since I've done S-turns. I need a lot of practice on those.

FAA Test

I will be taking the FAA written portion 1 day next week after work. I'm consistently scoring in the 85% range, and that includes basically skipping/guessing a few questions that require a print out which I will have in the actual test but don't have in the practice software.

After I pass the written, Chris and I are going to take a break from the flights and do a ground school or two to prepare for the oral portion.

Lesson 34 : Lumpkin County

Saturday October 3, 2009

This evening we went to a new airport: Lumpkin County Airport, in the city of Dahlonega. This is a very small airport that sits in a slight ravine with tree covered hills on either side and is perfect practice for short-field practice. Here's a shot of valley just after clearing the trees on short take-off.

Tonight was really a big step forward. It's one thing to practice short field techniques at large field where it doesn't really matter if you miss, and another thing entirely to practice where you MUST hit the spot or go around. I think these conditions gave me the focus I needed to improve. Out of 4 landings, I went around on 1, got very close on 2, and nailed the last one.

Saturday we're going back to Lumpkin to really get them own every time. Clouds were broken around 4,000 ft, but as the night moved in the clouds lowered. So on the way back we had to do some dodging and weaving to stay out of them.