NY Approach

Student Pilots

We were ALL of us student pilots once upon a time—and some of us more recently than others (ie ME!).  I fondly remember learning to fly, and the fun and excitement and trepidation of my solo cross-country work.  There’s a whole lot of concentration going on in that airplane cockpit and it probably doesn’t take much to overwhelm.

 

On top of that, general aviation is in a bit of a crisis—particularly with the economy in such dire straits, fewer people are flying and even fewer people are deciding now is the time to start learning to fly.

 

So all of us—super-experienced pilots who never make a mistake, normal pilots, those of us always-still-learning pilots, tower controllers, air traffic controllers—need to make an extra effort to lend any and all assistance to student pilots as they try out their new wings.  When we get terse or overexcited with students trying to navigate their way to and around an unfamiliar airport, we make a really bad impression on the poor student and leave them with a really sour taste in their mouths.  For some, it may prove such an intimidating experience to be yelled at by a pilot in the pattern or a tower controller that they decide to give up flying altogether.

 

I’m not saying that sloppy flying should be tolerated—student pilots have a responsibility to prepare thoroughly for their cross-country flight and particularly if it’s on a beautiful weekend afternoon here in the Northeast and they’re going into a towered airport.  But it really wouldn’t kill us to make some extra effort to be cool and patient and bend over backwards to help out a solo student. 

 

After all, we are supposed to be the aviation COMMUNITY.

Cessna 182RG Checkout!

As you can tell, I'm catching up a bit...

As I felt myself getting back in the groove of flying regularly and the rust coming off, I decided that I would challenge myself to complete a checkout in the club’s Cessna 182RG (retractable gear) during December.  The club requires 5 hours in make and model, so I figured I would allocate a few days over the course of the month to get familiar with the airplane and build the time in it, with an eye to finishing the checkout during the holidays. 

 

The Cessna 182 is a more powerful version of the 172—bigger engine, controllable pitch propeller, faster speeds.  This one also has retractable gear, which makes it even faster (about 155 kts or 178 mph).  And the club’s plane also has a very nice Garmin 430 GPS/comm/nav unit, an Avidyne MFD (multi-function display screen), and a Century 2000 autopilot—all new gizmos to learn as well!

 

Andrew, who had done my checkouts in the club Pipers, is a big fan of the 182RG and was a great instructor to help me get up to speed.  We did a 2.5 hour session on Friday (I’ve got vacation days I have to use or lose) afternoon, spending about 45 minutes going through the manual, speeds, procedures, etc. and then pre-flighting the plane. 

 

Then we launched into a beautifully crisp afternoon and headed east towards Madison.  Climbing up (quickly!) to 4,500’, Andrew gave me some instruction on the autopilot system and we practiced headings, altitude holds, attitude hold, programming a course into the GPS and then putting the autopilot into Nav (navigation) mode.  The autopilot is going to be a great tool for longer trips, with the caveat that you ALWAYS monitor it to ensure it’s doing what it’s supposed to be—it’s a machine—it does only what you tell it to!

 

Then we started working on flight maneuvers—slow flight with 90 degree turns, both in clean (gear and flaps tucked in) and dirty (flaps and gear hanging out) configurations, as well as coordinated turns, climbs and descents.  It was all pretty basic stuff, just feeling out the new airplane.   We were intending to try to practice some landings but the lesson was running long and the tower at KBDR was getting flustered with traffic.  (We had to do two 360-degree turns while in the pattern before we could sneak in to land.)  In total, we did about 1.2 flight hours and it felt great.

 

On Sunday, I had another session scheduled with Andrew.  Since we’d done all the paperwork/book briefing already, it was just a matter of a thorough pre-flight and we were able to get up in the air.  We headed out over Madison again, this time at about 5,500’ and did some more slow flight, including full stalls, both power-off and power-on (I love stall practice), and steep turns (also fun!).  Then we came back to the airport to work on landings (including making sure I would remember to put the gear down each time!!!)

 

We did a total of 11 landings, which was great practice as the airport was fairly busy.  I was constantly having to make radio calls, watch for traffic (including some traffic that apparently wasn’t listening too closely to the tower), adjust my patterns for spacing (sometimes the tower would have us extend our downwind legs or make wide patterns), all the while flying the airplane and going through my landing checklists including ensuring at least 3 times the gear was down and the light was green.  It was great real world practice with all the appropriate, normal distractions.

 

As we debriefed, Andrew signed my logbook with a completed checkout in the 182RG.  Apparently there’s an exception to the 5-hour minimum clause at the instructor’s discretion.  He was really pleased with my flying and also gave me a few great tidbits to keep in mind as I continue to fly the plane.

 

I’m really looking forward to flying this airplane some more—it was a lot of fun and handles beautifully!

Flying The Parents

A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to take my mom and dad flying.  It was the first time my mother flew with me and, due to headwinds, it turned out to be the first time she’s driven with me as well!

 

I was a little late getting out of KBDR with the club’s Cherokee C since I couldn’t find the line folks that early to get the aircraft keys.  But it was a very short hop to Tweed-New Haven (KHVN) to pick up my folks.  After a quick safety briefing and getting the headsets and seat belts all arranged, we launched off into a beautiful morning, heading west to Cherry Ridge (N30).

 

We climbed up to 4,500’ under sunny skies.  It’s almost a direct line from HVN to N30 via the Carmel VOR (CMK) and the Huguenot VOR (HUO), so not a lot of turns involved.  However, we had a vicious headwind—what should have been about an hour flight was closer to 90 minutes.  Happily, the air was smooth, visibility was great and we had a good time watching the scenery slowly crawling below and chatting.

 

Ironically, for a Sunday morning on Thanksgiving weekend after a couple of miserable weather days, it was almost eerily quiet in the sky.  We didn’t hear a lot of traffic talking at airports we flew by and didn’t see any fellow aviators on the trip west.  Approaching N30 though, the common traffic frequency (CTAF) which a number of untowered airports use started to come alive. 

 

As we overflew N30 to join the downwind for runway 36, we could easily see at least 8-10 planes already on the ramp near the restaurant.    I set up a pretty good approach, despite being heavier than I usually fly, which happily resulted in a smooth landing, albeit a gentle little balloon action at the flare because I had tried to carry a little extra speed due to the extra person on board.

 

Breakfast was pretty good as usual.  Dad went with the apple crumb pancake special; mom did the Hawaiian pancake special.  For some reason, I wasn’t in my normal two-breakfast mood, so settled for eggs and homefries.

 

Heading back out to the plane, we stopped to admire a little high-wing sport plane job with glass panel.  It was cute, and I wouldn’t mind flying it, but I much prefer the bigger planes I fly.  Dad spotted what he thought was an RV-6 tying down at the end of the ramp.  Having helped a friend in GA build one, and knowing a number of other RV-6 builders, Dad ambled over and chatted up the pilot, only to find it was an RV-9(?).  The pilot had just flown in with his granddaughter (?) to meet some family for breakfast.

 

Back in the air, we climbed to 5,500 for the trip back and made some decent speed.  I let my dad take the controls for a while and he did a pretty good job holding us straight and level.  With 2 people on the right side of the airplane, it had a tendency to want to drift right, but he was staying on top of it. 

 

As we crossed the Hudson, I noticed it was noon already.  A combination of the headwinds going out and leisurely service at breakfast and suddenly I knew we wouldn’t make it back to HVN in time for me to get the plane back to BDR before 12:30.  Not knowing whether someone had booked the slot behind me, I decided we should go direct to BDR and nudged the throttle in a little.

 

Traffic wasn’t too busy at KBDR, so a quick downwind and final set up a smooth touchdown.  We taxied in and shut down at 12:25.  It turned out no one had the airplane booked for a few hours, but I felt better having it back on time.

 

So it turned out that I got to drive my folks back up to New Haven, resulting in my mom’s first flight and drive with me.  A little bird told me later that she had enjoyed the flight and even preferred my driving to that of my dad’s….