The High School Pilot Blog

I was very close to not having a lesson. There was a storm system moving through and we had to wait for it to pass. It started getting nice and it would be for the next 2 hours so we decided and go up and get a couple of landings in. I sign for the plane and we go out and preflight it. Once that was complete we hopped in the plane, called up KSYR clearance, got our clearance to do 4 touch and goes which means we land and takeoff with out stopping. We call up ground and wait for about 10 minutes at taxiway juliet waiting for some arrivals and 1 departure. Once we finally get our takeoff clearance we takeoff and do the 4 approaches and landings which 3 were not to bad and on 1 i ballooned up and sort of froze up so my instructor applied power and we landed just fine. Overall my landings are getting much better and once I knock out that tenseness out of me and we go over emergency procedures, I should be ready to solo. All in all, a very short flight and I am 0.6 closer to soloing.

My ninth lesson was very fun as always. We start off with the preflight, engine start and then we call up KSYR clearance. We were going to go to Oswego but I botched up the radio call and accidentally said “897LP requesting 3000 to practice area” when in reality I was supposed to say “897LP, requesting 3000 to Oswego.” My instructor said that that was fine and that we will come back and do some touch and goes at Syracuse. We head off and maintain a heading of 030 until we were over Oneida Lake and KSYR tower terminated our radar services. We practiced slow flight which I pretty much have down, then we did power on/off stalls which I have almost mastered. After that I was introduced to Steep Turns which are massively fun. We just turn into a 45 degree turn and do a 360 to our original position. There is a lot of g forces on you while doing this turn but once I got used to that, then I almost got them down. After that we head the 20 miles from the practice area back to KSYR. We get in one touch and go and get vectored for sequence for about 18 minutes being a Falcon business jet. The last landing went pretty well, i just need to learn how to use the rudder a little bit more to maintain on the runway centerline. We taxied in and met the pilots from that business jet that we flew on approach behind. After that we went into the back-room and discussed the flight like we normally do. I am 1.0 hours closer to soloing.

The viewers in these past few weeks have been dwindling. What are some ideas you guys have? Please tell everyone you know who is interested in aviation about this site. Once again please tell me any ideas you have to improve my blog entries and blog. Be as harsh as you want as long as it is constructive criticism.

Well my 7th lesson was amazingly fun. As most of you probably know, i have been gone a while so I just happen to be a little bit rusty. We start out going over spin awareness and how we get in and out of spins. Once we do that I start the engines, call up clearance and ground and get our clearances that are necessary while we are on the ground. Once that is complete I taxi to runway 28 via taxiway Juliet. We wait a little bit for the wake turbulence from the f-16s taking of to wear off. After waiting about 3 minutes we taxi out onto the centerline, advance power to full, and at 65 knots, we are up. I really didnt account for a gust that hit us right after takeoff so I banked about 15 degrees to the right. After that I quickly got acclimated back to flying.

We fly a heading of 330 to Oswego (KFZY), practice slow flight, power off stalls, power on stalls. On the power on stall I was uncoordinated going into the stall resulting in a 90 degree downward spin, not quite a stall. I almost tried to use the airleons to get out of it but quickly remembered that rudders get you out of spins. Once recovering we descend to Oswego and enter the 45 degree angle to downwind leg. My instructor talks me into the landing and we landed. It was a little bit rough. We take off again and get into pattern work. My instructor likes to teach trial and error so he lets me go until I do a really bad mistake and talks about it at the end. We work on the pattern a little more, correcting my oblong ovals instead of rectangles slowly but surely. Once we do about 4 landings at Oswego, we head back to KSYR and do another landing to a full stop there and taxi back to Executive Air. Overall a very fun lesson, I just have to work on my pattern and looking more out front instead of the runway while we are in a pattern.

After an uneventful flight from IAD-BGM on the Saab 340 operated by Colgan Air we arrived home after a 64 minute flight. I still go under the theory that most airline passengers can not be satisfied. If they fly with an improperly maintained aircraft, they will complain. On the flipside, if the airline cancels a flight because they have to fix a plane, they are still mad. On the general aviation side of things, my flight lesson got rescheduled for Thursday. Look forward to a blog post on Thursday!

Well today has been an interesting day. It started of with us getting a call in the morning saying our flight is cancelled due to maintanence issues. After that we decide to go to the airport to see if we can get another flight and we finally get on a 757-200 to ATL proceeded by a n embraer to IAD. After that we are informed that we will be staying overnight at a hilton for an 8 am flight tommorow. Proceeding that was my AME saying that he has to go too funeral tuesday when my medical is so that is cancelled. Following was my CFI calling to say that i had to rescedule my lesson due to neccesary maintenece on the 172. Wow…..

I am still in New Orleans and it is great! The one ironic things is that we are down here to help rebuild New Orleans due to the flooding and now there is a flood warning! Oh well, nothing is flooded just yet so it is fine. The place where I am staying is about 1 mile from the airport so I get to see a ton of planes including the 757, 777(Oddly) and a numerous amount of corporate jets.

My flight went well from Binghamton to IAD and we only got delayed about a half an hour in IAD. Not bad for such a large airport. Last Friday me and my instructor were on the ground due to the rain/cloud ceiling/visibility and we looked at all the prognosis charts and wind aloft forecasts and decided that it would be a very slow and turbulent flight. I had no problem with all of that turbulence because unlike some people, I actually like all the turbulence. This was the first commercial flight since all of my training and it puts everything in a new perspective on what the pilots are really doing and why. I cant credit all of that to just my flight training but also joining a forum called.

www.Jetcareers.com

Forums have an amazing learning base. Look for another blog entry in about 2 days.

Well, I will start of with a disclaimer that we did not go up.  That darn storm system moving up the east coast. But in a positive sense, we got to do an hour of ground reviewing the weather online and going over some instrument flying procedures even though I am not training for my instrument just yet. He said because I got my written out of the way, there was not much pertaining to the PPL(Private Pilots License) that we could do so we looked at some instrument approaches just in case the weather gets crappy while we are up in the air. It wont be hurtful and all and it will be useful to me if I just happen to have some approach charts with me. Example of an approach chart:

http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0803/00411HI10.PDF

Now dont worry, you wont need to know this for your private pilots checkride, it is just handy to have a little knowledge on it just in case. After that we went over a lot of decision making and Pat discussed how he was going to put his imput in less and less so I could learn to make proper decisions and get the inquisitveness of of him. I am going to New Orleans over this April Break so I will make a good effort to update the blog while I am gone (Smartphones for the win) but dont expect a lot. I will be back home on the 21’st.

I have found this cool site that has a computer monitoring the frequencies of airports so that you can hear what is happening on aviation radio in real time. The website is:

http://www.liveatc.net/

This is very neat and you can listed in to airports such as JFK, Syracuse, basically most airports that have a tower. I will be tagging the archive of the sound feeds after each lesson I post a writeup of so you can hear me talk on the radio.