Official Airport Bum!?

By the way, mostly just as a memory jogger someday for fun...

I heard my first (not directed at us) "Aircraft calling, remain outside the Delta" from the KAPA controllers the other day when we were already inbound to land from the southeast and talking to them. The frequency congestion finally hit a point where the controller hit pause. Wow.

Controller had us fly up Parker Road and said he'd call our base. We could tell there was an insane amount of traffic inside the Delta and we are heads-on-swivels looking for them.

He calls some traffic passing us on our left headed for 17L and asks us to pass behind him on base and cross over for 17R since we wanted a touch and go, and adds, "You're number four for the runway. Contact Tower 120.3."

They were doing the split frequency thing, which is common when they get busy, 17R/35L traffic goes to the other frequency. No surprises there. It was the lack of ability to SEE any of that traffic that had us both peering out the window and scanning hard.

We call up and we still haven't seen any other aircraft anywhere other than the passing traffic now off to our left on final for 17L. Eerie when someone says you're number four and you don't see ANY other aircraft.

Eventually we see the number three guy on final ahead but never saw one or two.

Meanwhile there was a gaggle of departures off of 10, at least four in a row, and multiple other full-stops headed for or passing us on 17L.

I've heard it really busy at KAPA before but I've never heard a "Remain outside the Delta" from them ever. They handled all that traffic with skill and I must say, I love our controllers. They were sure earning their paychecks on Saturday!

(There was also a Young Eagles event going on, and they usually have a controller stop by for an in-person briefing for those and sometimes have some special procedures for the participants.)
 
denverpilot said:
As my wife would say, "Right?!" LOL.

I also felt it would have made for a poor story to post constantly saying, "Supposed to fly tomorrow. Canceled. Supposed to fly tomorrow. Cancelled."

Ad nauseaum. LOL.



Little over 600. Still a whippersnapper in terms of aviation hours.

Very well aware of the huge sucking sound the regional hiring made over the last few years in the GA job market. Also aware of friends who've decided they have shiny jet / turboprop syndrome and signed up. Very cool.

Right now, it doesn't work for me, fiscally, time-wise, etc. I'll never rule anything out, especially after realizing that I'm getting a CFI in my 40s, didn't expect that to happen. But for now, I'll just take this one day at a time.

I bet some of the CFIs here would say 100 hours a month instructing is a hard-core butt-kicker of a month... but I couldn't really tell ya. @jordane93, what was your busiest month when you were a full-timer?
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Glad you're getting back in the air. Hopefully you can knock out this one soon! My busiest month was 160. I think it was one of the summer months. Either July or August.
 
jordane93 said:
Glad you're getting back in the air. Hopefully you can knock out this one soon! My busiest month was 160. I think it was one of the summer months. Either July or August.
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Wow. Averaged instructing over 5 hours a day.
 
Haha. I'm getting the "full experience" in this process.

Just had a voice mail from the FSDO wanting to do QA on my DPE's CFI rides. Sounded like the inspector was just working through a list of rides.

I really don't have anything bad to say about the experience but don't know what kinds of things they ask.

Currently playing phone tag and I pulled over to take it because I'm in the truck that doesn't have hands free, but have a drive to do, so I told them to call back in an hour in my message.

I've seen posts and such that they do QA calls but never really expected one. Guess it's inevitable with taking enough rides.

Can't imagine anything I would have to say would be negative about my DPE. He's professional, follows a written plan he has for himself, and has a "tough but fair" reputation and that's certainly how I felt about it. He carefully admonished me to make sure *I* knew what a serious business teaching flying is.

Will be interesting to have the discussion. Figured I'd poke a quick note into the thread from my phone to document it here.

I'm sure the inspector is just doing his job, but it was kinda a novel phone call for me. Haven't talked to the FSDO on anything before, really.

Be interesting to listen to the questions and see if there are any hot-button items they're looking for. Probably end up talking to this inspector again sometime in the next 20 years anyway. Always a pleasure to meet new folks.
 
After my check ride she told me I "might" get a call and to be prepared. I did not get that call but she said they call on a certain percentage of her rides.
 
denverpilot said:
By the way, mostly just as a memory jogger someday for fun...

I heard my first (not directed at us) "Aircraft calling, remain outside the Delta" from the KAPA controllers the other day when we were already inbound to land from the southeast and talking to them. The frequency congestion finally hit a point where the controller hit pause. Wow.

Controller had us fly up Parker Road and said he'd call our base. We could tell there was an insane amount of traffic inside the Delta and we are heads-on-swivels looking for them.

He calls some traffic passing us on our left headed for 17L and asks us to pass behind him on base and cross over for 17R since we wanted a touch and go, and adds, "You're number four for the runway. Contact Tower 120.3."

They were doing the split frequency thing, which is common when they get busy, 17R/35L traffic goes to the other frequency. No surprises there. It was the lack of ability to SEE any of that traffic that had us both peering out the window and scanning hard.

We call up and we still haven't seen any other aircraft anywhere other than the passing traffic now off to our left on final for 17L. Eerie when someone says you're number four and you don't see ANY other aircraft.

Eventually we see the number three guy on final ahead but never saw one or two.

Meanwhile there was a gaggle of departures off of 10, at least four in a row, and multiple other full-stops headed for or passing us on 17L.

I've heard it really busy at KAPA before but I've never heard a "Remain outside the Delta" from them ever. They handled all that traffic with skill and I must say, I love our controllers. They were sure earning their paychecks on Saturday!

(There was also a Young Eagles event going on, and they usually have a controller stop by for an in-person briefing for those and sometimes have some special procedures for the participants.)
Click to expand...
Yup....3rd sat is Wings museum/Jepp/eaa301 doing YE. Rout is usually takeoff on 10, out to KOA tower, head north then come back on either 17L or 28 depending on weather and traffic
 
Conversation with the FSDO was cordial. Inspector read from a standard question sheet and they were mostly two groups of questions. One group dealt with essentially, "Did the examiner let you get away with anything?" Stuff like did they have to take the controls ever, did they allow "re-do"s on maneuvers, checking for that sort of rulebreaking. The other half were generally about their demeanor. We're they professional, prompt, work from a written plan with briefings of each portion, etc.

A little post survey banter and discussion about welcome to instructing and we are here if you need anything we have a lot of resources, a couple jokes about folks who think FAA is out to get them, and in all, a quite "normal" phone call.

He joked that if he's on desk duty on the day I go do the AGI/IGI paperwork I'll get to meet him in person. Must be a rotation.

He also said they've been slammed and CFI DPE appointments were always running a little behind.
 
Update time! (GRIN)

Commercial SE Add-On ride scheduled for April 12th!

(That's all I got, but it's dang exciting considering how bloody long this has all taken!)

Talked to DPE, got the partial briefing, will talk again a couple of days before the flight. Mentioned to him that it's a non-club/private aircraft and has a STOL kit so chandelles are kinda "different"... (It'll just finish coming around the corner and just hang there on the prop, all sloppy with the stall horn blaring... you end up being more limited by CHT than anything... haha...) and he wanted the tail number...

Going to have current CFI (who's also an AI) take a gander at the aircraft logs with me, since I doubt anyone has ever used this airplane for a checkride since it rolled off the floor at Cessna in 1975... so a few eyeballs looking at logs might see something, but hopefully not... thankfully the 182 has VERY few ADs or recurring "stuff" to be concerned about... and we'll mark all the important stuff with flags, just to be organized about it...
 
Congrats on finally getting the ride scheduled.

Going to start on my commercial soon. I just need the long x-country and the night flight with TOs and landings at night at a controlled airport as far as requirements. Then I need to get instruction for the maneuvers. I'm picking up where I left off 11 years ago. lol.

Nate, I know it took you probably more hours due to how slow it's gone, but how many hours total would you say you put in for the maneuvers training? And was it all with an instructor or did you practice on your own too?
 
BrianNC said:
Nate, I know it took you probably more hours due to how slow it's gone, but how many hours total would you say you put in for the maneuvers training? And was it all with an instructor or did you practice on your own too?
Click to expand...

Hmmm. I'm not sure how best to answer that.

We have only "officially" done a couple of flights. We're planning a couple more pre-checkride but... and it's a big but...

I've got over 300 hours in the specific 182 I'm flying the ride in. And have done ground reference maneuvers in it before, but never particularly in prep for a ride.

An example might be chandelles. Hadn't *really* done any in prep for the Commerical before, ever. But I've done nearly the same thing in mountain flying training as the "escape maneuver" from a valley... max climb performance (even if you're losing altitude) and turn. Watch the bank angle as you slow. The Commercial version has specifics about how much to bank, when to start removing it, and a constant pitch, whereas the mountain maneuver is how to reverse course and not die, and leaves the option there to do whatever is needed in pitch and bank, so you're just flying it to an arbitrary spec...

But when we went out after watching a video on them and the CFI saying, "Ok do one..." I know that airplane well enough that I just did one. He says, "Okay that looked pretty good." and gave some pointers on it. Also demoed one so I could see it and know it could be done a little slower. (In the mountains it's, get turned around and GTFO of here. For the Commercial it's much "lazier" shall we say?)

(Might be the first time ever in the history of my logbook where someone described something they wanted me to make the airplane do that I've never done before, and I had the knowledge and feel of THAT airplane to just do it. I was kinda surprised myself, in a way. Ha.)

Same thing with steep spirals. Asked for a hint on entry airspeed and then he hinted that I needed to get closer to the center because the first lap around took too long, which equates to more altitude loss than we were going to have altitude for... ahhhh okay, I get it. It's a time problem vs bank angle. I get it. Keep it tight and you'll do enough laps in the altitude provided. I just needed a hint on starting altitude.

In that airplane, the flying isn't the challenge, it's just remembering what each maneuver entails. I can kinda fly that particular airplane without thinking about it very much.

And honestly clear back to my early Private training I always liked ground reference stuff. I always kinda "got" the difference between turns around a point and turns about a point, even back then. Eights on pylons are just a blast. I wish they weren't limited to 30 degrees really! Haha. Sticking the wingtip to a point on the ground with elevator always seemed easy to me. But I've also done it without knowing what it was, or how to describe it, circling stuff I wanted to look at. Or trying to show something to a passenger. (A turn about a point where you can say, "I'll stick the wingtip on it..." is easier to put the passenger's eyeballs on the spot with then doing it with wind correction in a big circle with different bank angles all the way around.)

A lot of it on these maneuvers is also coordination and my feet and butt are pretty tuned to this particular seat. Ha. That helps a lot, too.

Spot landings power off, similar... been doing those just for personal practice in this airplane for years... and to remind myself to keep the pattern tight. 40 flaps is a lot of drag.

I've told the story here before of my initial CFI tossing his jacket over the panel and telling me to just fly the dang plane in my Private stuff forever ago. What maybe isn't clear from that story is that I really learned to love flight by ground and outside the window reference that day and the days after. Just LOVE it. It's also why I keep avoiding renting the Citabria until AFTER these other ratings are done. THAT was a freaking fun day aloft. Way too tempting to go blow money on that thing. Haha.

So... as you can see... I don't know how to properly answer the question. Is it 300 hours or 3? Heh. The logbook says I have 308.7 hours in this specific aircraft, and 321.2 in Skylanes.

Might be the first ride prep ever where I haven't felt frustrated at all. Oh, make the airplane do X? Okay. I can do that!

Teaching it from the other seat for he NEXT ride might be a challenge. We shall see... I transitioned seats okay in the Seminole and didn't have much of a spatial or view difference issue switching seats there but I have a LOT of time in this airplane's left seat... it's either going to go really well or be a total tick-me-off thing. I *think* it'll go well but we'll see. There's also pretty high motivation not to be slamming my own 182 into the runway or buying it a set of tires... that helps.

I'll probably have a hell of a time transitioning back to a Skyhawk to teach in, though. LOL. "Why the **** won't this thing CLIMB?!?!" Haha.
 
Update: CFI is out of town this weekend but he told me to go practice maneuvers and landings. So I did.

Maneuvers look pretty good. Need a little coaching on the lazy eights. Shouldn't be difficult, just doing something mildly wrong with altitude.

Landings good. They better be in this airplane. Ha.

Everything seems reasonably dialed in. Will fly with CFI early in the week to polish it up.

Flew down to 1V5 Calhan, CO to see if the AstroTurf runway was still there. Yup.

Couple of short field touch and goes on the AstroTurf (the STOL will get you back off the ground just as the mains hit the dirt past the AstroTurf without "rushing" the touch and go too much) and saw the massive wind farm they put in on the ridgeline south of the airport.

You're looking up at them on departure to the south since they're on top of that ridge there. You can just make them out as smudges in the photo. (And see the AstroTurf! very green compared to all the brown.)

Also played with Garmin Pilot since I had a six month all-the-bells-and-whistles freebie for it. Neat software. The terrain warnings work... the thing went bonkers when I was pointed at those windmills. Ha. Feature wise, they appear to have caught up with ForeFlight. Still more expensive though. But not by a whole bunch if you buy all the bells and whistles in both.

Got really fatigued and started making mental errors back at home after a solid 2.0 and a tiny hint of nausea in the third steep spiral in light turbulence. (Knocked the yanking and banking off and did the landings at Calhan and then more landings back home.) Knew it was time to quit and put the airplane away.

64dc8d14edf925048157f9f4680e08e0.jpg
 
Love your writeups Nate. Glad to see you are progressing. Good luck on the checkride!
 
Prep for checkride tomorrow so not much to post. Found a dumb error in my lazy eights yesterday that is an easy fix.

You know it's hard to get back down to your entry altitude if you're still climbing at the 90 degree point? ;-) :) :)

Soooooo dumb. LOL. Funny the little things you have the lightbulb come on later on when you're trying to figure something out.

Also gave myself a funny scare yesterday. Was convinced it was May already early yesterday morning and thought our pitot/static had expired. Then coffee kicked in. But by then I'd already called the instructor, the mechanic, and the co-owner. Haha. Talk about eating some crow...

"Hi, um, yeah, we're fine and I apparently think it's May..."
 
Nate, I actually started a separate thread with this question, then thought about your thread. Is there any benefit to passing the commercial check ride before the June date when they update the standards? I'm not familiar with how the private and instrument has already changed because I've had those a long time. Are the new standards 'harder' or just different? You familiar with what is coming?
 
BrianNC said:
Nate, I actually started a separate thread with this question, then thought about your thread. Is there any benefit to passing the commercial check ride before the June date when they update the standards? I'm not familiar with how the private and instrument has already changed because I've had those a long time. Are the new standards 'harder' or just different? You familiar with what is coming?
Click to expand...

I haven't seen the updates, so not sure.
 
So... you ever have a day where your landings just go to complete CRAP? Yeah. I suggest not doing that on checkride day. LOL. Damn.

So... I got credit for everything except power off 180s and short field. (Did manage to get the soft field, and I'll be honest... barely. It was soft but not nearly as soft as I can and have done in my own frakking airplane before.)

Re-ride in a few days. Go up and fix the landings.

Two issues -- ride stress just made me go brain dumb on visualizing the glide path for the power off 180s (which were freaking fine before!) and once the glidepath for those is wrong, you're mostly hosed. Downwind wasn't a consistent distance from the runway and frankly I even said it out loud to the examiner.

You can salvage it if you're right on it but nope... not today.

But it gets better. Instead of fixing it hard core, I decided to fall back into my old nemesis clear back to my Private days -- staring right off the end of the nose during the flare.

And you can bet how well THAT worked out. When the examiner says, "I don't think that was very good," and all you've got is "You're right!" It's game over.

Of course 1/2 hour after the flight the light bulb comes on... oh you IDIOT... you know what you did. Haha.

Well anyway. We survived. The airplane survived. And I couldn't even be mad. I looked like a rookie out there just learning how to land. When it's that day, all you can do is laugh at yourself. Which is what I did. Shook the examiner's hand and said, "I'd have flunked me on that mess too!"

And of course a couple of days ago I'm making landings where my instructor is saying, "That was nice!" Even I was surprised by a couple of them.

So there ya go. Today was just my day to be utterly stupid, on landings. The maneuvers? Fine. Even the lazy eights which I was goofing up the other day. Love the steep spiral, love the eights on pylons, have always liked those. Emergency descent, all that stuff was actually fun. Flows, checklist, everything BUT those landings. Gah!

In my own airplane! Sheesh.

Going to go head home and relax and be back here tomorrow morning to work on fixing the silly things. Here's hoping it's not a plateau and retreat thing. I don't think so. Argh.
 
The good news is : When I teach, I'll have good stories for students who have a bad checkride day. Ha. Damn. Now I'm THAT guy.

"Soooo... there I was, in the downwind..."
 
Not sure where else to put this, but it came to mind during the W&B discussion of EFB use, but isn't W&B related. But interesting enough to stash here on the checkride thread.

My "deep dive" into my aircraft POH for this checkride was annoying because in 1975, Cessna did everything in the POH in MPH.

Robertson in their STC for the STOL kit for the P model? Knots.

My airspeed indicator? Both.

Most other 182s I've flown? Knots.

Robertson Takeoff and Landing data? Fahrenheit.

I've always had critical stuff memorized in knots for this airplane but the examiner is going to grab the POH and read the number and ask. Worth noting if you're flying something with mixed indications or manuals.

So... an explanation of why I personally stick with knots. Because memorizing 182 numbers for different airplanes mixing MPH and Knots when I was flying different models a few years back, I figured was a guaranteed way to flip one of them in my head. Not good. Not smart.

We also found that our owner group had passed around two different Robertson POH addendums and the addendum for the earlier models is MUCH more detailed than the P model serialized one that actually belongs in our airplane.

More data but also adds "Robertson Emergency Procedures" for super-STOL type performance with things like Flap 40 takeoffs. Robertson essentially "got away with it" by calling it "emergency only" so FAA didn't give them the hairy eyeball on the STC up through the M model 182, but by 1975, it's all gone.

FAA apparently decided that suggesting Flap 40 takeoffs were possible and how to do them, wasn't wise by 1975, and had Robertson remove them after the M model addendum.

Will the airplane do it? Yes.

Is it documented at all in the later STC? No.

And on a checkride, accuracy counts!

So I got all of that inaccurate paperwork and additional instructions and data the hell away from the airplane. I stuck squarely to the original POH plus serialized addendum.

Nothing significant changed on what was done to the airframe by Robertson but I suspect the number of accidents or nervousness of FAA about them led everyone to remove that data. The speed numbers are INCREDIBLY LOW even in the correct version.

And that was another portion of the conversation. If the examiner wanted me to fly the Robertson short field profile, I said I've done it, and the airplane can do it, but you're incredibly far into the back side of the power curve at liftoff and you have to level and WAIT, and WAIT, and WAIT to accelerate at 50' (or "obstacles cleared") to get to Vx. It's a solid 15 knot difference.

Gusts are mentioned in passing in the addendum, but you don't want to be hanging there at 40 knots indicated in gusty conditions waiting for the engine and prop to become more efficient and effective and lug your butt up to 65.

Stall horn will also be on from liftoff until a number of seconds after liftoff.

We agreed that a more normal 182 profile was a lot less risky for the Short Field takeoffs. Rotate at 55 and it'll just fly off. Pitch to Vx for obstacles and then Vy. Flaps 20.

Stuff like that was fun for checkride prep in the old girl. I also noted to the examiner that I use a pre-printed single card laminated commerically available checklist in the cockpit but I'm aware that the speeds printed on it are wrong, know my actual speeds, and ignore the speeds on the card. The card is certainly more convenient and helps with cockpit organization but I'm starting to think I want to re-do the thing myself with all speeds right for the STOL kit and laminate it myself. Technically not a real manufacturer's checklist, but it would be dead nuts on after merging the two checklists.

Quite a jumble of paperwork and it was fun digging into it deeper and really thinking harder about to rather than just grabbing it for a quick runway needed calculation.

We also interestingly ended up digging in pretty hard on reasons for emergency descents and that led to a discussion of safety gear on board and a fairly in depth chat about whether or not to blow a fire extinguisher in the cockpit and how and when, since we have one bolted to the floor between the seats. You really have to think about that one a bit. Want the vents open or closed? Would you or a passenger be surprised by someone else's bad timing popping the thing off? What kind of extinguisher? How bad is Halon in a cockpit? Stuff like that. Great conversation really. Good convo about electrical fires resulted from that one and manufacturer recommendations weighed against whether you could isolate what's burning and get that offline without knocking off all electrics. Vents? No vents? Etc.

Examiner made an interesting point. Most of us fly with a bottle of water. Would you reach for that first before the extinguisher? Why or why not? Aim that water bottle and squeeze hard?

Totally immersive discussion. Makes you think beyond the book. Really enjoy talking emergencies like that.

Comparing book procedure with what can happen in real life. Maybe even an "I was there" story from someone later after the oral. (So THATs how you know that works!)

Emergency descents had a similar discussion. We talked about the recommended procedure (medium steep bank to keep G on the airplane, deploy drag devices) vs say an engine fire where you REALLY want to change that fuel/air mixture and how bloody fast you'd have to go to do that...

Maybe you do want to come down at redline. You're never going to see that recommended in the book (if it even has guidance and many older POH's don't), or done... on most any checkride. Pushing things to redline limits isn't smart in the "this guy could mess this up" world of checkrides, but in the real world, you do have it available as a tool.

A while back my instructor and I had a similar in depth dive talk into emergency descents in the Seminole, too. A fire burning in an engine directly in front of a 55 gallon tank of fuel?

Put it out and put it out RIGHT now.

Gear speed? You want to save the gear doors and let the engine burn all the way back? Maybe not too smart.

It's pretty likely this airplane is totaled anyway if it's burning an engine, but besides that, you really need that fuel/air mixture to change if at all possible. Add air. And add a LOT of air. Stop anything that will pump or move fuel and get going downhill. Now.

Love when an oral takes a side turn into "we've covered the manufacturer's procedure but can you think of times when it might not be the best course of action"? Fun. Ends up giving you a few more items in your bag of tricks when the SHTF someday.
 
BrianNC said:
Nate, I actually started a separate thread with this question, then thought about your thread. Is there any benefit to passing the commercial check ride before the June date when they update the standards? I'm not familiar with how the private and instrument has already changed because I've had those a long time. Are the new standards 'harder' or just different? You familiar with what is coming?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if anybody has really seen a commercial ACS yet. According to the FAA's website, it will be released on the website may 1 before going into effect June 14.
Based on the changes to the Private Pilot and Instrument PTS to the ACS I don't see them necessarily making it 'harder' just re wording a few things.
 
Re: fires and such. My rule of thumb....the insurance company owns the airplane, I don't care what happens to it as long as the pax and I are alive and reasonably safe & healthy.
 
Oof. Sorry, man. I saw "good news" and "when I teach", so I thought it went your way.
 
rpadula said:
Oof. Sorry, man. I saw "good news" and "when I teach", so I thought it went your way.
Click to expand...

No worries. Those landings SUCKED bad. Like almost hilariously bad.

Anyway...

Flew yesterday with instructor and did some practice, figured out some errors. Talked to instructor a bit and he reminded me not to make it an engineering problem -- just look out the window and judge high or low, close or far out, and adjust. Don't get all "number of feet per minute" or trying to make up glidepath numbers to follow on it. Just fly it.

Went and made a bejillion landings in two flights today -- think I've knocked away the bad old habit of not flaring properly and will be ready for re-ride Sunday. Probably still come out to do a few more Saturday.

Learned that with the STOL kit as the airplane gets lighter (fuel burn) I need to slow up on final more than I thought, to get a good flare and touchdown. Otherwise it'll float forever and you'll want to make the mistake of plopping it on.

Temps during the day are also warming up and that messes with things. But that's fine. Fun to figure it out.

Also had a few landings that were mildly downwind until KAPA swapped runways and got to see how that behaves a little more. Very flat but workable. With the wind shift here today got practice both directions at APA so ... workin' it!

2.2 hours of beating myself up in two flights. Be back for another polish up round tomorrow. Maybe run over to FTG to change up the sight picture.

Want my landing mojo back in my own airplane! Overthinking. The mass landing practice helps break that -- just fly the 11th landing and relax... much better.

I know how to beat a landing slump away with a stick.
 
Having ridden with you it's tough to believe a landing bust. Need a snake bite kit?
 
funny that I did almost exactly the same thing on my (b)FR and club check a couple of weeks ago ... enough that the CFII wanted to continue with another flight before signing me off. Had the SAME exact issue after thinking about it (all night) ... I was either focusing on the nose cowling or staring unfocused out the front! Never had that issue before, but somehow I introduced it during my time off.
 
Clark1961 said:
Having ridden with you it's tough to believe a landing bust. Need a snake bite kit?
Click to expand...

Seriously. I think the first bad landing I was just so rattled thinking "WTF?!" that I never got my head back in the game. Even Karen was like, "You what?" I looked like freaking Captain Kangaroo out there bouncing along on 35L.

I can only imagine what the poor DPE thought... "Someone signed THIS idiot off for this ride?" My poor CFI was like, "Those landings were fine the other day..."

I still want more power off 180s. Mostly just so I know I'm not a total idiot. Haha. Wait, don't say anything...

I was having more fun today but still have that "what the heck?" feeling a little bit but working though it. The landings today all would have passed except maybe the one where I had a 9 knot tailwind and Tower hadn't flipped the airport around yet.

Also had an interesting thing today. During the first takeoff of the second flight they decided to flip the airport around and I had already been given "Line up and wait Runway 17L, traffic four mile final." Then they apparently sent that traffic around and spent the next few minutes flipping the airport around and I'm just sitting there on the runway. I had the feeling they hadn't forgotten me there but I never really got told nobody was about to land on me...

I asked twice if they still wanted me sitting there. Ha. They did. By the time they got everyone flipped around, and launched me, I was head on with landing traffic on the parallel. They'd already sequenced two aircraft into final for 35L by the time I'm climbing out with a slight tailwind from 17L. I think that's officially the longest I've yet sat on a runway in position, and I don't like that feeling. Ultimately it was all fine, but I just don't like sitting there watching aircraft landing the other direction.
 
Another update. Been beating the snot out of this landing slump and all signed off for the re-ride but I'm not 100% happy with everything yet. Went up with CFI again this morning and he found a technique item that should fix it. I'll let y'all know if it works.

He said I'm strangely starting my flare too low (of all goofy things, but he's right), which is then causing me other issues in the flare. And that makes sense. He mentioned it in the debrief and there it was. Replaying the landings in my head, I did it on all of them.

Probably go up again this afternoon after I stuff a burrito in my face, just to make sure I get it locked in.

Keeping an eye on the little convective puffies that are forming here near the airport.
 
Checkride passed! Single engine add on complete!

I was so in the "practicing landings" mode I made the last landing and added power to go again, then realized "Oh! That's why you asked for the option!" as the DPE said, "You don't need to go again, we're done!"

LOL! Made the turnoff and was so excited if you want a really funny listen on LiveATC go listen to me fumble through trying to tell the controller we're terminating. Haha. I'm sitting there at the runway exit completely tongue-tied. Which for me, is pretty funny. Our great controllers at APA figured out what I meant, "So you're full stop terminating and taxing to parking?"
 
denverpilot said:
Checkride passed! Single engine add on complete!

I was so in the "practicing landings" mode I made the last landing and added power to go again, then realized "Oh! That's why you asked for the option!" as the DPE said, "You don't need to go again, we're done!"

LOL! Made the turnoff and was so excited if you want a really funny listen on LiveATC go listen to me fumble through trying to tell the controller we're terminating. Haha. I'm sitting there at the runway exit completely tongue-tied. Which for me, is pretty funny. Our great controllers at APA figured out what I meant, "So you're full stop terminating and taxing to parking?"
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Congrats!!!
 
denverpilot said:
Checkride passed! Single engine add on complete!

I was so in the "practicing landings" mode I made the last landing and added power to go again, then realized "Oh! That's why you asked for the option!" as the DPE said, "You don't need to go again, we're done!"

LOL! Made the turnoff and was so excited if you want a really funny listen on LiveATC go listen to me fumble through trying to tell the controller we're terminating. Haha. I'm sitting there at the runway exit completely tongue-tied. Which for me, is pretty funny. Our great controllers at APA figured out what I meant, "So you're full stop terminating and taxing to parking?"
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Congrats!
I forget do you need to do an II stuff?
 
farmerbrake said:
Congrats!
I forget do you need to do an II stuff?
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I have the two Commercial rides done and the Multi CFI. Next is figuring out how to fly my airplane from the right seat and the Single add on for the CFI, then the II.
 
denverpilot said:
Examiner comes in, we do paperwork. Oral is like all of my orals have been. Excellent scenarios, and excellent conversation. Only thing I had to look up was I remembered all the limitations of a Commerical pilot but forgot that sightseeing flights now require an LOA. Found that quickly and read it. DPE seemed pleased.

I can kinda tell we are done with the oral because he said we would throughly brief the flight. And he's says we are on to that now. I grab a notepad and we discuss everything. Examiner is very concerned about safety and we discuss exactly how I've been trained to handle the engine outage and restart. We talk about these particular engines not liking to restart and that it's helpful to establish a 120 knot glide on this airplane. (He doesn't give a lot of rides in this specific aircraft. The local DPEs are slammed and he came in from out of town for this. Commutes in a Commanche, @EdFred !)

Go over all the ground rules for aircraft control and the flight. You're flying. I'm not a pilot. Discuss that if the restart is going poorly you run out of hands to fly and fiddle with the aircraft. He agrees that the other local DPEs are correct in assisting with aircraft control for safety if needed at this point, even though they aren't supposed to fly and if I'm stuck to ask him to play wing leveler and speed maintainer. Safety first. Otherwise we have to declare and land it. These engines don't like to restart at our altitude on high DA days and the DA was VERY high this afternoon. Accelerate/Stop was pushing the underside of 4000' so hard we might as well have called it that.

We talk about where we will generally be and that he wants the practice area frequency in during the maneuvers even though we are just outside of it. (East of Kelly Airpark) We talk about watching for gliders and heavy traffic in that area. Because the wind is forecast to come up, he says we will do the pattern work first. Normal takeoff and landing, short field takeoff and landing, then we'll depart the Delta and navigate via my flight plan (which was huge... APA to PUB to ABQ to TEX!) Oh yeah, we discussed that we didn't have enough fuel on board for that. (Grin!) Talked about whether we could add fuel in ABQ. Yes. Can we add a passenger or two? Maybe. Run calculations. "We can add one small passenger but it really hurts our performance for flying into TEX." Correct. Good.

"Let's take a ten minute break." I'm happy but still freaking mildly. Okay have to get it together for the flying. Breathe. You're not going to do that stupidity of the dive and drive on the ride. It's all good.

We go to the airplane. I do a thorough pre-flight explaining as I go. Usual questions. All good. We talk about since you're "not a pilot" here's how you board the aircraft and I'll help you with the door (unless you don't want to simulate that and we can have "taxi air conditioning", up to you, it's freaking hot out here...)

Climb in and take another deep breath. Everything with the checklist. Taxi out to the north run up area. Run up completed. Talk to ground, talk to tower, fuel pumps and door and my window to go on the checklist.

Do all the pattern work. All goes pretty good. Overshot the base to final turn on the first one by just a bit and thought "oh crap, there it is" but continued. Fixed it. He hasn't said stop so we keep going. Full stop taxi backs at this DA. It's hotter now. Short field stuff goes fine. Okay now to head out of here. Fly out to HOHUM per the plan. Then toward Kelly. We find ourselves under a massive string of virga and I'm getting downdrafts that have me at max power and 80 knots trying to hold altitude and then of course the other side. Thankfully they're going to be west of us for most of this.

Air work goes well. Somehow managed to avoid the virga and made the nicest steep turns ever. Stalls, slow flight (he wanted five knots faster than I trained that, fine by me!), Vmc demo (we barely got to the tiniest first buffet and he says to recover it, that's good - very concerned about aircraft performance today and safety, I was willing to go a little slower). Whew! So far so good. Engine out time, let's get higher. 11,500 to start. Engine fails, mixture full rich, props, throttles full (we're way above where we'll overboost DA wise), identify, verify, left engine is dead, feathering left prop, confirmed, feather it. Right engine is hammering away trying hard. Only making about 32"-33" wow it's hot out. Prop stops. Still on heading, and slowing. Okay restart it.

Okay setup a 120 knot descent to assist getting it to windmill. We are now trading altitude for our restart. Pretty common up here. Eye opening. Mixture full, pump on, crack the throttle and crank. And crank. And crank. 1000'. And crank. It wants to fire and then die. There's a sweet spot where it'll start at this DA and it's somewhere between 1/8" and 1/4" open. Jiggle it. Starts to catch. Slows again. Ahhhhhhh crap! One more. DPE says let me jiggle. Ok. I'll hold the starter. 1500' lost. Engine catches and runs. Pull the prop back a bit so it doesn't over speed and level. 2000'. Okay warm it back up. 15" and we can pull the right one back a bit and hold altitude a little slower than blue line here while it warms up. Phew. Man we need a lot of power to climb today.

Just about had to declare it and land. And it's happened before up here. Just land safely and restart it on the ground.

Engine warms. He says okay let's head for Front Range. Plan ILS 35. I know the engine out approach is coming. At this point my heart rate is insane and I fall back into a bad habit. I get "pitchy" and I'm overcontrolling. Crap. Settle down man. Get ahead of the airplane. Set up the Garmin. Get ATIS. Call DEN approach. 9500. We'll have to come down to start this.

Remember to punch all the buttons for source (right now because it's a borrowed HSI you have to source both the Garmin and the HSI but the Garmin still feeds GPS data to a second indicator on the HSI so you can switch a little early, you still have GPS primary to the approach on that indicator and can set the CDI up for the ILS. A very very nice feature other than the manual source flip needed on the Sandel).

Coming down. Engine fails somewhere before the final approach fix. Simulate caging it and ask for zero thrust. All good. Right leg is jiggling. Ha. ILS glideslope coming in. Anyway that all goes great and FTG makes us break it off a mile out. We head back to Centennial. He says to expect another engine out landing there. No approach this time but we magically lose an engine again in the pattern. Land. Exit the runway. He says, "Congratulations."

Holy crap! I thought I wouldn't make it! Stop, clean up the airplane, taxi in. Heart rate soaring. Larry meets us at the airplane. DPE says, "Looks like we have a new Commercial pilot!"

Logbook, hole in certificate, new Temporary Certificate. Wooooooo!

That was a couple hours ago and I'm still high as a kite. Fun!!!
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Just getting around to reading this whole thread. Dang Nate, I'm nervous reading that whole write up. Making me think twice about getting my commercial now. lol.
 
BrianNC said:
Just getting around to reading this whole thread. Dang Nate, I'm nervous reading that whole write up. Making me think twice about getting my commercial now. lol.
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Nah. Don't be. Your instructor has been though it. The DPE is well past it. Any other instructor will be willing to help, quiz, cajole, whatever you need for assistance. Everybody helps. That's what they're there for. In the end all anybody wants is you to succeed.

Even most DPEs while they're careful not to cross the line during an exam from evaluating to teaching will still teach you things. One of mine likes to say, "That meets the FAA standard and it passed, but if it's okay with you, can I show you a better way you might consider doing that?" I've picked up a few techniques that are just brilliant that way. (They also know they're burning your gas and the Hobbs is ticking. But I won't turn them down if given the opportunity to learn something.)

There's very few people you run into with higher ratings who have no interest in helping someone out who's just doing their best to figure it out.

Plus... you can always get bad internet advice right here on PoA! Haha. :) (Truthfully the signal to noise ratio here in the training threads isn't THAT bad...) :)
 
denverpilot said:
I have the two Commercial rides done and the Multi CFI. Next is figuring out how to fly my airplane from the right seat and the Single add on for the CFI, then the II.
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If you need a practice student in the left seat, let me know. I work cheap. Good practice trying to teach me to fly.
 
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