Official Airport Bum!?

denverpilot said:
[snip]
So... Why get a BFR next January when I can just get another six or seven ratings?

Wait, I don't think that's how that phrase is supposed to work... :) LOL!
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What's wrong with it? Sounds good to me.

And in the tradition of POA: Nate, you suck!

John
 
Are you gonna keep the training updated in this thread or start a new one? If you start a new one if you'd please put the link in here it would be appreciated.Looking forward to reading about the training. :)
 
Hey...20 hours billable a week will make a nice dent in the training expenses and at the same time, reduce the hit on the capital stash. On the side, it keeps your work skills warm, should you decide that you are not really enjoying the flying as much as you though you would.
 
BrianNC said:
Are you gonna keep the training updated in this thread or start a new one? If you start a new one if you'd please put the link in here it would be appreciated.Looking forward to reading about the training. :)
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I'll keep it all in one place, other than perhaps "dumb" questions that come up.

Craig said:
Hey...20 hours billable a week will make a nice dent in the training expenses and at the same time, reduce the hit on the capital stash. On the side, it keeps your work skills warm, should you decide that you are not really enjoying the flying as much as you though you would.
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Yeah, I feel pretty lucky to have gotten that offer. Had the final chat with the head boss today and he pointed out that my chosen date falls slightly into the next pay period, so I'll be hourly part-time, bennies stop (accrual of paid vacation and medical, dental, etc - all expected), a week or so sooner than expected. The bosses will be having me do stuff they need done in projects/chunks as long as those last. They of course reserve the right to say, "nothing we need you to do right now" (or even evermore) if they don't need me.

New sysadmin started today and he's going to focus on certain projects and I'll have others. Many of mine look like they'll be after-hours or weekend things we've put off to avoid affecting systems during business hours. Power cabling clean-up, UPS refurbishment, patching/updating, rebuild of stuff that needs it, etc etc.

I offered him my desk and it's in a better place than the one they parked him at, and he said he'll think about it. I told him I've been moved around so much at so many companies and what not over the years, as long as I have my two big monitors and my keyboard, I don't care where they put me at all, I could work from the cafeteria if needed for all I care. We had a company happy hour today to announce some Good Things(TM) and some promotions and they announced mine as "either a cause to rejoice or be sad" for everyone. Haha. Everyone seems very supportive but my direct boss keeps joking he's going to give me "40 hours a week that you can do whatever time I want to." Hahaha.

Right before everyone departed a little early for the happy hour thing, the power went out again -- so the new guy got to see what works and what doesn't right now at the office when the commercial power drops, and got to see why I'm going to get tasked with fixing all of that after hours. LOL!

Right at the moment, training wise, I'm just reading reading reading, and prepping to hammer out multiple written tests. Thinking about augmenting the reading with Sheppard Air's stuff. Probably schedule the Commercial written real soon. I need to make some calendar entries to hit and formally schedule these things.

Quote of the day from Larry the other day when I was asking him about things, the FOI came up in the conversation...

"The people who I see as the strangest personalities usually do the best on that test, and I don't see you as being that odd."

ROFLMAO! I doubled over laughing in his office at that one! I'm pretty sure that was the nicest way he could say he's not a fan, but it's required, so suck it up and study and pass the thing and move on. Hahaha.
 
Since you will have a bunch of time off before you start your accelerated training come up to Idaho and spend a few days with Rich Stowell. He will give you a good solid base for the rest of your flying career. You will learn skills that will not only help you get through your ratings but make you a much more knowledgeable instructor. Don
richstowell.com
 
yakdriver said:
Since you will have a bunch of time off before you start your accelerated training come up to Idaho and spend a few days with Rich Stowell. He will give you a good solid base for the rest of your flying career. You will learn skills that will not only help you get through your ratings but make you a much more knowledgeable instructor. Don
richstowell.com
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Umm... I'm not sure what I typed that gave the impression that I would have "lots of time" before starting? Somewhere around April 26th is the break point in the salary vs hourly pay period, and the plan was to start with the local CFI around May 1.

(I'm also still checking that 26th number, it seemed incorrect to me when the VP mentioned it today, so I need to look at the actual dates of each pay period... they're different than the pay date, of course... and most of us long-time salaried folks don't pay much attention to which weeks are paying which check, we just mark the check arrival date on the calendar... I think he miscalculated, but it's simpler to just go talk to accounting tomorrow... haha... whatever date the break-point is, that's what it is... May 1 was just a general target.)

I also suspect the local instructor will have an opening pretty much as soon as I say I can break free from work and show up the next morning. (GRIN...) He's finishing up a couple of students now and has an ATP candidate arriving next week. And the Commercial written isn't optional to start, and if the other writtens "get behind" we'd have to stop and resume the flying... so I'm in "mass study" mode for writtens and pretty much plan to plow through those prior to April 26, or most of them, by then.

Good idea to keep in mind for "what to do next" type of stuff, however. Thanks. I do know who Rich is, at least by reputation, and would love to fly with him, but it's not happening in the time between now and ratings "push" start date. Plus Idaho will be warming up this time of year, and I haven't been back up there in MANY years... lovely place.
 
Update: I'm ready to go take the Commerical written. Just need to schedule it.

Did run across a minor speed bump. I've been using electronic E6B apps on the phone and iPad for so long, the mechanics of the whiz wheel have faded from view in the rear view mirror at least a decade ago. Always liked the wheel but frankly, real world fun flying meant using better tools.

Since I can't take the phone into the test, I have to decide if I want to sit here and beat on my mechanical E6B skills or just get a standalone electronic one that'll end up being a $60 dead battery holder in real life.

And frankly I'm thinking I'll probably need to do both, because using the whiz wheel in a test would be utterly annoying, but if I'm headed for CFI I'm going to have to know the stupid whiz wheel to teach it. Nicer on new students to show them a $10 paper whiz will do everything they need unless they want to spend $.

Half tempted to write off the wind questions and just take a regular calculator to the test. No chance in hell that I would miss enough questions not to pass. Haha. Could even brush the dust off the trig and be "close enough" to get most of the questions right. Only thing the trig misses is the effect of groundspeed on the triangle.

Bah. I'd have scheduled the test for today if I had a stupid standalone electronic E6B. Had even found out which test centers were open on Sundays.

Obviously have more writtens to do, so I might as well go order the stupid thing.

The "metal landing calculator" jokes can start now. ;-)
 
denverpilot said:
Half tempted to write off the wind questions and just take a regular calculator to the test. No chance in hell that I would miss enough questions not to pass. Haha. Could even brush the dust off
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No need to write them off. There are only so many wind questions in the database. If you are using a prep book like Gleim, you can memorize the right answers by associating key words in the question with the answer.

We used to do that on the merchant marine navigation test for the RDF problems. There were only 3 or 4 questions in the database and you were going to get one of them. It would take 30 minutes to work those problems out by hand. Much easier to memorize.
 
Oh I realize that. There's enough of them that they could pull the score that I'd be annoyed. Plus need the practice anyway.

Could easily have passed above 80 today if the goal was just passing. LOL

There were a few interesting questions in "semi-known" pool. One was just a horrible ADM example written as a gotcha to see if you knew the law. Encouraged scud running into an airport under 700 AGL Class E by descending to 700 AGL so you could have one mile vis limit.

Another I'd interestingly totally forgotten was the requirement for a transponder above 10,000 MSL (barring the AGL exemption underneath). Living and flying underneath a Bravo just made that one "disappear" from the brain cells over the years. When the transponder was dead we had to get a ferry permit anyway, just to cross town to the avionics shop. The 10,000 rule never comes to mind when you live inside of a Bravo's Mode C/S ring. :)

There's a couple other oddballs. I'll post those up later.

I love how many isosceles triangle questions there are in the pool. Those crack me up. If I'm ever trying to figure out how far I am from a VOR in the modern era by flying isosceles triangles, a whole lot of crap has failed and I'm having a Really Bad Day(TM).

Also totally annoying are all the ADF questions. It's simple math and I always LIKED flying NDB approaches, but the stupid way they're presented on the writtens is just annoying. Mostly just "gotcha" questions reversing whether they want TO or FROM, and not how you flew them at all. Just overlay the needle over your DG mentally and fly the damned thing. Heh.

The "which one of these six instruments shows an airplane that will cross the blah blah radial if the airplane makes a 180" are just retarded, too. Especially since they assume an instantaneous 180, with no two minute turn.

I know they have to come up with something but some of the questions are just more annoying than useful.

Oh the "if it takes you X number of minutes to go from radial X to radial Y, how far are you from the station?" ones are stupid too. Just tune a cross radial from another VOR and get it over with. Sheesh. Haha.

All fine knowledge to have in your head. Not that useful in the real world. Sit there with a stopwatch timing radial crossings - YGBFKM.

Especially the ones that work out that you're over 100 miles from the VOR. Cute FAA. I'm not supposed to file off-airway more then 80, right? Nice example there, chief. Haha.
 
There's not too many E6-B type questions that on any of the written tests that can't be solved with a $2 calculator. For the wind questions, you might be able to eyeball that. Or just memorize them.
 
Anymouse said:
There's not too many E6-B type questions that on any of the written tests that can't be solved with a $2 calculator. For the wind questions, you might be able to eyeball that. Or just memorize them.
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Hmm. I had to go look. Curiosity killed the cat.

So I counted up all of the math type questions in the pool I'm using. Granted no pool is perfect but it'll be close.

- 4 Density Altitude calculations, can do that with calculator.
- 5 wind triangle required calcs. Guess that one was lower than I thought.
- 12 to 15 what I would call "head math" or "scratchpad math" calcs. Simple stuff you can easily do in your head under pressure. Or compass math. (Subtracting numbers past 000/360.)
- 55 that had math that you'd probably better pay attention to a little closer or multi-segment math problems running two or usually three calculations together, and this segment had about five different question types, so rote memorization wouldn't exactly be easy. About half of these a whiz wheel or electronic E6B would be a few less button presses than a regular calculator and a little less room for math error.

So yeah, I should have just scheduled and gone today with a regular old calculator. Oh well.

Oh and I realized after looking at them that the wind triangle questions have other numbers in their answers that give the correct answer away. You could do the math and ignore the wind triangle altogether and only one is a toss up between answers. Haha. D'oh!

Like I said, I'm not trying to study to the test. I'll work these problems just to have worked them, but counting them was interesting, mostly as a study in what the question pool harps on the most. It's been a while since I've sat around working time speed distance problems and fuel burns and what not. Probably since about 1992. LOL.

Counting them gives insights into the mind of the FAA! Haha.

Or maybe I didn't really want to know? ;-)

Plus I have more writtens coming up. This is just the first. Might as well get comfortable with the calculator again. Whatever sort it is. Or both.

Excel has made me math on a calculator and paper lazy.
 
Get the CFI and AGI writtens knocked out as well. They are very similar to the Commercial. You'll need to take the FOI as well to get the GI. No specific order though. You can take the AGI before FOI or visa versa.
 
Well the snowed in weekend didn't go for naught. In between wondering when it would stop snowing, how much we would really get, and plowing out...

Second practice Commercial written, 97%. Ok that's better.

Time to get that done. Was going to go this weekend, but the storm warnings that started flying (see what I did there? Snicker...) middle of last week, made it clear that I was going to get to enjoy some "me" time at home this weekend.

Can't really schedule these too easily until the day job really ends, but I might sneak this one in. I could take a vacation day, technically, but I get to keep those (but not accrue more hours) when I go part-time, so I'm kinda hanging on to them for busy weeks where a few more bucks on the paycheck might come in handy...

Oh speaking of the job stuff, due to when the pay period flips, I'm officially switching to part time on April 26th now.

Now to figure out which to do next...

Yeah @jordane93 I knew the next ones, just haven't decided which type of brain damage I felt like causing myself next. Haha.

Love those performance charts that look like they came off of a mimeograph machine in 1979. Those are truly craptastic.

At least they look like the same craptacular stuff in the airplane POH's for all the old stuff I've flown. Ha.

FAA must be simulating what a 35 year old POH looks like. Haha. Well done!
 
Dang! How did I miss this thread?

When I grow up, I wanna be like Nate!

Finished a major milestone in a datacenter migration project that took exactly 1024% longer than it should have. I am really going to have to adjust my attitude about my ability to respond in minutes in the smaller, leaner, pre-buyout us, and just sigh and resign myself to the new corporate conglomerate mother ship borg that I now live in that responsiveness is now measured in days.

However, that milestone completion meant that I had real honest-to-goodness FREE TIME yesterday, as opposed to triple-booked schedule where I have to decide what gets cancelled or rescheduled. Anyway, that free time just happened to coincide with starting the annual on our Bonanaza. So, 4 hours at the hangar, cleaning and rotating plugs, compression checks, pulling panels and floor boards might be the incentive I need to get my butt back in the air after being on the ground for way too long!

Congrats, Nate!
 
gkainz said:
Dang! How did I miss this thread?
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I set the new stealth mode on it. Didn't you get the memo? :)

gkainz said:
When I grow up, I wanna be like Nate!
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First you'll have to decide not to grow up... hahaha...

gkainz said:
Finished a major milestone in a datacenter migration project that took exactly 1024% longer than it should have. I am really going to have to adjust my attitude about my ability to respond in minutes in the smaller, leaner, pre-buyout us, and just sigh and resign myself to the new corporate conglomerate mother ship borg that I now live in that responsiveness is now measured in days.

However, that milestone completion meant that I had real honest-to-goodness FREE TIME yesterday, as opposed to triple-booked schedule where I have to decide what gets cancelled or rescheduled. Anyway, that free time just happened to coincide with starting the annual on our Bonanaza. So, 4 hours at the hangar, cleaning and rotating plugs, compression checks, pulling panels and floor boards might be the incentive I need to get my butt back in the air after being on the ground for way too long!
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WOOOOT! One of the things spending my "free time" before the job drops in hours, studying for tests, has done... is make it much harder to get out and fly the 182.

gkainz said:
Congrats, Nate!
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Thanks... I'll let ya know if it was worth it in a year or two... hahahaha...
 
Definitely go with Larry. He has some very interesting students for BFRs and re-quals. You'll spend some time at FTG, just because it's low traffic. I'll bet the DPE is Drew.

As for glider, it's why I keep my CAP membership paid up. Free instructor and cheap tows. I don't mind the 45min drive to Boulder.
 
A couple of thoughts: Don't obsess on the FOI....I studied for an hour at McDonalds after passing the CFI and went back and did the FOI and got a high 90s.

Definitely do the CFI and AGI after the Comm....they're almost the same test.

The Whiz Wheel rocks! Embrace it! Share the love with your students!

Good luck!
 
Could you say roughly how much you've had to spend to get to the CFI? When you started you already had your PP right? Curious as I may have a similar situation where I'd be able to devote all my time to flying; and of course I know prices run differently in different areas but was just curious. Thanks
 
marquezjc said:
Could you say roughly how much you've had to spend to get to the CFI? When you started you already had your PP right? Curious as I may have a similar situation where I'd be able to devote all my time to flying; and of course I know prices run differently in different areas but was just curious. Thanks
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So far? $40 for some self study stuff. Haha.

I'll probably be able to answer that better when it's all over. ;)
 
LDJones said:
A couple of thoughts: Don't obsess on the FOI....I studied for an hour at McDonalds after passing the CFI and went back and did the FOI and got a high 90s.

Definitely do the CFI and AGI after the Comm....they're almost the same test.

The Whiz Wheel rocks! Embrace it! Share the love with your students!

Good luck!
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(*evil laugh*) (*happily bouncing around*)

I don't have to take the FOI - I get a pass 'cuz I'm university faculty (part-time, but that don't matter!)
 
murphey said:
(*evil laugh*) (*happily bouncing around*)

I don't have to take the FOI - I get a pass 'cuz I'm university faculty (part-time, but that don't matter!)
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All that does is get you out of a $150 test. As far as I know, that doesn't absolve you from knowing the material or being asked about it on an initial CFI checkride.
 
That'll work. One down...

c5eb669eee7f7d0cd36e751c2b8942ef.jpg
 
mondtster said:
All that does is get you out of a $150 test. As far as I know, that doesn't absolve you from knowing the material or being asked about it on an initial CFI checkride.
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Very true, but you assume that I'm planning on being a CFI any time in the near future. All I need the BGI for is teaching ground school. I'm working with a couple schools (5-12 grades) who want to start an afterschool aviation program, and we want to make sure when the kids complete the ground part of the program, I can sign them off for the written. This is part of an overall program that includes building an experimental.
 
Just a boring update:

Last day of full time work was Friday and it's very weird to think I'm not going in on Monday morning.

Flying has been delayed about two weeks due to scheduling. Not a major problem, just related to the instructor wanting to run the whole thing together at once without breaks and other student's schedules.

I'm working on prep for the other writtens and making a list of honey-do stuff that my wife needs/wants done at home. Also planning to go fly the 182 a bit. Also have a couple of short non-flying trips in May for a convention and Memorial Day, so it feels like I just got "busier" instead of less busy. Ha. Of course.

Looking forward to getting started. Co-worker took three days off to go knock the dust off his glider skills for Spring and wants me to get my butt up in the glider with him, so maybe we'll get a flight in shortly. I'll post photos if we get a chance to do that.
 
Sht I gotta get caught up on this action. R u flying Air Force One yet?
 
eman1200 said:
Maybe more like a Full Bird Colonel Sanders HIYOOOOOOOOooooooooo
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I don't really know what that means but after a full day of drink'n heavily it was funny to me. fk, now I want some KFC.
 
Nothing exciting to report. Studying FOI (well weather and snow removal killed that for a week and other odd jobs around the house in "week two" of part time work -- changed the fuel filter on the Dodge today in prep for a camping outing next week, exciting I know...).

Flew 1.7 in the Skylane today, did slow flight, steep turns, power on/off stalls, circled the ADS-B tower, played with Stratux/ForeFlight a bit, circled some private airstrips to see how they looked (3 out of 5 useable), simulated an engine out on myself (haha okay not much of a surprise) which afforded a closer look at one of those ending in a go around, did some crash and dash with a decent crosswind (landing runway 17R KAPA, wind 080@10G18) and cleaned a billion bugs off of the airplane, topped off the airplane at self-serve ($4.99 damn, should have flown over to KFTG!).

Put airplane away, went to get Pho for dinner, stopping at WalMart to replenish hangar Lemon Pledge supply, forgot my headlamp at home so I'll grab another cheap one for the Subaru and use it, headed back to the airport for a night currency flight.

Doesn't suck. Need to get on with the writtens. Got distracted by the long list of stuff I've wanted to get done (some of them for many months) at home. Changed oil on the snowblower and Honda EU3000is and need to change oil on the tractor and the lawn tractor since THAT crap (mowing) is about to start, and check blades and whatnot.

The exciting life of a CFI student who hasn't really gotten started yet. Ha. Glad I didn't podcast this crap. LOL.
 
Oh, completely forgot. Got a 98 on the Commercial written a couple of weeks ago. I guess I put that on FB and forgot to put it here.
 
Moving along nicely, Nate. Please keep the updates coming. I'm headed to Traverse Air next week to hopefully add multi on to my commercial.
 
Sam D said:
Moving along nicely, Nate. Please keep the updates coming. I'm headed to Traverse Air next week to hopefully add multi on to my commercial.
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Actually I'm finding it all hideously slow, since we had to postpone the flying start a few weeks. Oh well.

Tonight I'm passively aggressively avoiding FOI study by posting on PoA. Haha.
 
Did the aforementioned night currency flight by wandering over to FTG.

Winds aloft even down low were ripping out of the south, so I snapped this to show the 163 knot groundspeed on the way up to FTG. Downwind for Runway 17 there was entertaining... 153 knots on one lap... Haha... Had to pay attention not to be blown into DIA airspace turning base. LOL.

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The slog back to APA at 85 knots was funny too.

Friday I flew up to GXY to visit mom for early Mother's Day and do family tech support on two computers.

Forecast was for isolated t-storms in the afternoon, and they didn't disappoint. I started timing the waves and figured I'd either go back south in between the waves or wait until night and all the lifting died down.

So a cell went right over the airport and washed the airplane. I was thinking it'd be just grrrrreat to have hail come out of the thing and pummel the 182...

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It got worse after that but I wasn't going to tempt fate and screenshot the blob of red right over the airplane. Watched minor street flooding and no hail in town, so I hoped the airplane was just getting a nice bath and not hailed on. Ha.

Last wave came through GXY around 8 PM and left me a little hole to get out of there eastbound, so I boogied.

b085700b1b3ac39c8d60284a6fabc2e3.jpg


Lightning and crap north and west... Photo is looking northwest. East was sunny sky... Which made for a nice photo of the airplane, anyway... As you can see, everything is wet, but it had stopped raining right at the airport so it was my chance to preflight without getting soaked. Ha.

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And then the long way around DIA's airspace...

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Was talking to DEN the whole way around and they decided to do a runway change, which sent the conga line that was lined up to land to the south, overhead in a new downwind pattern to rejoin the northbound conga line.

TRACON guy pointed out to me that they were vectoring a 737 directly over me 1500' higher, which was fun to watch both on the Stratux/Foreflight and also out the window, looking back over my shoulder. Controller even gave me a " caution wake turbulence". He was at 9000', I was at 7500'.

By the time I thought to shoot a photo with the phone (the second photo actually, since I forgot to turn the flash off), he was a little over a mile to my west still at 9000. But he's there in the center of this shot. Kinda came out pretty anyway with the sunset...

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A fun day... And the airplane is clean! Couldn't have asked for a better "car wash" at GXY but I was nervous there for a bit. Sure got all the dust and hangar grime off. Only better way to do that would have been to fly it in precip. And I wasn't about to go anywhere near any of that precip or insanity.

Spring is definitely here now. An inch of pea sized hail at the house this afternoon.

Okay, back to finishing off this stupid FOI study. Need that test done this week so I can move on to the others.

Good lord the material is awful.

I particularly love the FAA saying essay type questions are essentially crap (in their view) while every college professor at every aviation school that qualifies the kiddies to take many hours off of their ATP these days... posts on FB bitching about grading essays their aviation students wrote.

Hahaha. Ahhh, irony. It's so fun. Think they'd find me funny if the next time they *****, I quote the Flight Instructor's Manual page that says they're doing their jobs wrong? (Evil grin...)

I'm going to guess that they wouldn't like that. :)
 
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