x-country time

ok, so i have been slacking lately. i feel pretty bad. my instructor was out of town for almost two weeks, and i only flew twice. i solo'd once and did my 8 night landings with another instructor while he was gone. i have till the 10th to finish up which is when my instructor is off to law school. i feel pretty confident that i can get it done. after all, my goal was to solo in 10 hours (did that) and finish in 2 months on budget. the 10th will be just under 3 months and as far as budget goes... HA! flying is expensive. at least i'll be right at the 40 hour mark and not the average 60. thats a savings of over 2K! i planned my first x-country yesterday and went over a few things for the written which i will take on monday. i've been studying alot, but im still pretty nervous about getting it done. i havent even really thought about the oral exam. (yikes!) so right now its crunch time for me. im doing my first x-country on saturday and then another on sunday. i also have a paper due for school on monday and a final on the 8th. lots of work for me to do. so on that note.... exams4pilots.org here i come.

fun in the clouds

didn't end up flying last night. got to the flight school and read TSRA on the metar report. i backed up this information with a nice moving picture of a thunderstorm moving westbound over the field. god bless aviationweather.gov. anyway, we did the lesson on aviation physiology and went over night flight only to revisit it when my instructor gets back into town. the poor guy had a death in the family and will be out of town for a week or two. this leaves me with the written test to complete while he is out of town. i will be memorizing the jeppesen faa written knowledge exam guide and doing a few solo flights to stay proficient in the airplane.

i went up solo this morning in cloudy weather. the good thing was that is wasn't too bumpy and the temperature was agreeable at around 80 degrees. i took off on 36 and headed west to the practice area. i practiced a few steep turns and some ground reference maneuvers, but mainly i was just enjoying myself flying around over quincy. i headed back to the airport early to get some touch and go's in. however, on the way in approach vectored me southbound way west of the field. 27/9 was shut down to landing traffic leaving 36 busy, and i guess a student in a 172 doing touch and go's was far down the controllers list of things deemed important. i tried to pick my way through the clouds and got to 1000ft with my head just under the ceiling. i mean... i'm sure i was at least 500 ft under the cloud ceiling. so here i am flying south in the haze under the clouds with about 5-6 miles of vis at best and i still cant see the field because they told me to turn south when i was still 10 miles west of the airport. finally the controller calls my base and after a minute or two i see a faint clearing that turns out to be the field. i make my approach, do a touch and go and start my left traffic pattern. as soon as i get on the downwind the controller comes back on and tells me to extend my downwind for a landing king air, then for a b1900. i end up being asked to do a 360 before having my base leg called and once again i am about 7-8 miles out from the field. at this point i can make out the airport amidst the haze, but only barely. as i get close i called it quits asking for a full stop. i was up an hour at this point and was tired of being run around by the controllers trying to deal with a shut down runway.

no more flying for a few days. i've got school and work the next two nights. on top of that, i gotta get the written done before jason comes back. maybe i'll go up on sunday.... but definitely by next week. until then, i'm out.

long time

havent updated in quite a while. i've been grounded for almost 2 weeks now. i had quite a bit of ground school to take care of and the typical florida weather as been... well... typical. i am now done with the ground work and just need to study up to take the written. i recently did the flight on radio navigation, and after a quick flight under the hood to meet mins, i will be doing a night flight and on to the x-country's. things are going by quite fast, but i cant wait to be done. im due to go up today at around 6:30 but there is a nasty weather system about 2 hours out right now so it doesnt look so good. thats all for now, more to come next week.

STOL

havent updated in a while. been flying alot lately plowing through the syllabus. got in another 1.4 hours today practicing soft field take offs and landings and STOL procedures. pretty fun day all in all. the weather was nice and hot as usual and clouds were at 2000 giving me enough room to play around unlike the last time i flew. i've been studying alot of ground school stuff in prep for the written. i hope to get that done real soon. exams4pilots.org has been helping and of course the jeppensen FAA airmen knowledge test guide is gold. next flight is naviagation and then on to night flight after that. X-country flying is just around the bend. pretty exciting stuff! looks like i will be able to get this done in 2 months time after all. this is key becuase my instructor is off to law school at the end of july.

thats it for now because i'm hungry. can anybody say, 5 dollar foot long!

yoman out

update

haven't updated in a while and since i am going flying today (weather permitting) i thought i would add a little something. got to fly last thursday and get some more solo time in. i am now at exactly 15 hours. 5 of which are solo. last thursday i got about 1.2 hours of crosswind practice as the wind never changed much as was constantly blowing out of the west. the controller asked if i wanted to change runways but since the wind was only around 8 kts i declined and responded with, "no thanks, i need the practice." my right leg got a little tired of holding down the rudder to keep the nose straight, but all in all it was good day.

anyway, was out of town this weekend and got stuck working yesterday, so i havent flown in a while. its killing me! looking forward to today just to get back in the air. i know we are heading out to the practice area and doing some routine manuevers.... stalls, slow flight, flying under the hood, steep turns, turns about a point... bla bla bla. it wont be very interesting, but it is important and will still be fun because i will be flying. after this i get to go up solo in the practice area and repeat todays flight, and then it is on to naviagation and cross country's! cant wait for that.

on a sadder note, united announced today it was going to lay off 950 pilots in the next month. as well as retire some old airplanes and cut white collar jobs. the airline buisness is looking grim. but thats ok i guess. realisticly i am about 2 years out to really be thinking about getting hired by the airlines and this just gives me more reason to persue corporate avaiation! thats it for now, i got to go flying.

fun with camera

well i finally got around to bringing my camera out to the airport. i was going up solo for an hour or so just to fly in the pattern so i decided it would be a good opportunity to snap some photos of my old bird. thats her below, 734NM (nasty mike). a 1977 c-172N.


here's a photo of 4NM on the ramp with 172RK (redneck killer). on the far right is a c-150 with a c-152 hidden behind RK and the 150.


this is my primitive cockpit. i snapped this photo just before i started my decent to land. i took this picture so i could look back on it and laugh at how simple it used to be. i hope to be flying in the right seat of an RJ or maybe something corporate in the next few years, and this old cockpit will definitely feel primitive to anything of that sort.


here is a nice pic of runway 9'er as i'm descending and about to turn base for 36. tallahasssee may not have much commercial air traffic, but it certainly has large runways. 9/27 is over 8000 ft. and 18/36 is about 6000 ft. i rarely get vectored around by ATC and can usually just fly a normal pattern. the only regular commercial traffic we get are some RJ's and gulfstream's b1900's. well hold on, i guess i can't count out the military. you can't see them in this picture, but there were 3 a-10's on the south ramp that day. we regularly get military aircraft in. while they're mostly helicopters and jet trainers we occasionally get some fighters. just the other day i got a call to extend my downwind because a coast guard c-130 decided to show up and do touch and go's for about an hour.

anyway, i was supposed to fly yesterday but the weather was upset with me i guess and started to get real wet and nasty as i rolled up to the airport. i tried to wait it out for about for 30-40 minutes but had no luck and went home to study. i'm studying the chapter on weather right now which seems a little ironic because it's weather that is keeping me from flying.

holding short runway 18, student pilot solo

got to go up again twice this week to get some more solo time under my belt. tuesday was fun as we flew late again and the weather was agreeable. the winds were not to bad and more importantly, when flying in florida, the temperature was in the low 80's and not the high 90's.

today i drove over to the airport after looking at the radar at home. it showed thunderstorms brewing to the south and the west. they were far enough away to not cause much of a problem, but as we all know the weather is always in motion. after doing a few touch and go's with my instructor he hoped out and actually headed home. this was fine because i prefer flying by myself. i have a good deal of fun flying and with no one in the plane with me i don't feel as stupid when i'm cruising around the pattern with a big grin on my face. after being ushered all over the field due to changing winds, i finally was holding short of 18 only to wait another 7-8 minutes for landing traffic on both runways. i wanted to call up the tower and say listen.... i'm paying to fly this airplane, why don't you let me out. those guys landing that are getting payed to fly can just wait! obviously i didn't do this and i understand that planes in the pattern waiting to land have priority over me and my cessna just wanting to go up and do some touch and go's.

well the day ended short due to those thunderstorms i was talking about, and i only got another half hour of solo time in before the rain was hitting the field. the wind started to throw me around pretty good and i had been watching the thunderstorm get closer and closer each time i turned downwind. so i decided to land on my third time around. kind of a bummer, but it was a good call. i ended up getting pretty wet while i was tying up the plane. i could have gotten away with another time around the pattern, but then i would have been taxing in the rain. i like being able to see when im parking my old girl next to the other 7 or 8 planes on the ramp.

going up solo tomorrow, so i'll have more to post about my first full ride alone. but for now i'm off to work. until next time....

tallahassee tower, 4NM is clear of the runway.