One Zulu Delta: A Student Pilot Adventure

Just so you know, there are lots of places with traffic like that.

The next trial by fire is to take a lesson at KHHR or KMYF or KOAK (yes, they do have flight training there) when you're on vacation.

It's even more fun when it's unfamiliar.

The part you'll have trouble with with coastal training is navigating flat plains without a GPS.
 
MAKG1 said:
Just so you know, there are lots of places with traffic like that.

The part you'll have trouble with with coastal training is navigating flat plains without a GPS.
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Concur with the post re busy airspace but yes also flying on the coast spoils one re VFR naviagtion. Inland VFR the "old school way" is much harder.
 
rocketflyer84 said:
Concur with the post re busy airspace but yes also flying on the coast spoils one re VFR naviagtion. Inland VFR the "old school way" is much harder.
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Amen to both of you. I agree, navigating around Long Island is WAY too easy. There's the ocean, there's the sound, there's the city. I'm addressing this in a future post. I'm also asking my CFI that the rest of my cross-countries (yes, I'm still running behind in blogging) be across the sound to somewhere in CT, MA, or upstate NY so I can get experience navigating over a sea of trees and sameness.
 
It's the empty rural flat farmland that's hard(er) to navigate.

In CA, we have the Central Valley for that (and I did my solo cross countries to Gustine and Atwater/Fresno).

I doubt flying over the Sound as a solo cross country is a very good idea. Extended over-water ops have extra risks, especially disorientation when the horizon becomes indistinct (study the JFK Jr. crash).
 
MAKG1 said:
It's the empty rural flat farmland that's hard(er) to navigate.

In CA, we have the Central Valley for that (and I did my solo cross countries to Gustine and Atwater/Fresno).

I doubt flying over the Sound as a solo cross country is a very good idea. Extended over-water ops have extra risks, especially disorientation when the horizon becomes indistinct (study the JFK Jr. crash).
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One of my XC's was from Livermore to Castle....it was actually quite easy. Following I-5 south to Crows Landing, then turning further east, you can already see Castle AFB when over Crows Landing.

It was actually much more difficult going from Livermore to Santa Rosa (for me, anyway).
 
MAKG1 said:
It's the empty rural flat farmland that's hard(er) to navigate.

In CA, we have the Central Valley for that (and I did my solo cross countries to Gustine and Atwater/Fresno).

I doubt flying over the Sound as a solo cross country is a very good idea. Extended over-water ops have extra risks, especially disorientation when the horizon becomes indistinct (study the JFK Jr. crash).
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People cross the sound on student solos regularly, but usually only at points where you can stay within best glide distance during the crossing. Also you can always easily see land on both sides if it's decent VFR conditions.
 
vkhosid said:
One of my XC's was from Livermore to Castle....it was actually quite easy. Following I-5 south to Crows Landing, then turning further east, you can already see Castle AFB when over Crows Landing.

It was actually much more difficult going from Livermore to Santa Rosa (for me, anyway).
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I did it straight-shot using dead reckoning with crossing landmarks (mostly canals, plus I-5). It can be done, and it's very good practice. There is a whole lot of nothing between Tracy and Fresno.

Try it on a 5 SM day. Those are common, especially in winter.

LVK-STS is pretty easy -- I-680, I-780, east San Pablo bayshore, keep the North Bay mountains on your right.

Plus there is a VOR on the field if you need some backup. Approach on the 320 radial for a straight in.
 
MAKG1 said:
I did it straight-shot using dead reckoning with crossing landmarks (mostly canals, plus I-5). It can be done, and it's very good practice. There is a whole lot of nothing between Tracy and Fresno.

Try it on a 5 SM day. Those are common, especially in winter.

LVK-STS is pretty easy -- I-680, I-780, east San Pablo bayshore, keep the North Bay mountains on your right.

Plus there is a VOR on the field if you need some backup. Approach on the 320 radial for a straight in.
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The day was pretty clear on my flight to castle, but I did enjoy following the roads. I just find it more enjoyable than dead reckoning.

On the flight to STS, however, the VOR antenna on the plane I was using was unreliable at best. I didn't actually pick up a steady signal from it until I had the airport in sight. Also, it was that trip that I was using dead reckoning, and not pilotage...ended up having to ask ATC for a vector.
 
onezuludelta said:
Amen to both of you. I agree, navigating around Long Island is WAY too easy. There's the ocean, there's the sound, there's the city. I'm addressing this in a future post. I'm also asking my CFI that the rest of my cross-countries (yes, I'm still running behind in blogging) be across the sound to somewhere in CT, MA, or upstate NY so I can get experience navigating over a sea of trees and sameness.
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At my flight school, we like to send students up to POU or SWF. Lots of trees and similar looking rivers/lakes so it forces them to nail their timing, heading, etc.
 
onezuludelta said:
I shared some thoughts here on my second solo, on flight training in the NYC area, and the results of training in the most expensive, most difficult, most pain-in-the-ass area in the US (Spoiler Alert: I love it!).

http://onezuludelta.com/why-i-love-flight-training-in-nyc
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Did you discuss that intersection takeoff with your CFI? Mine told me to not accept an intersection takeoff and just request the full length in that case. Never hurts to have more runway.
 
jimbilly said:
Did you discuss that intersection takeoff with your CFI? Mine told me to not accept an intersection takeoff and just request the full length in that case. Never hurts to have more runway.
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For a student pilot, that may be true, but it isn't always.

I did a recent exercise along with a dozen other CAP aircraft. Most of us did intersection takeoffs because this was at Fresno/Yosemite with 9500 foot runways, and some of the other aircraft on the field (CalFire) were responding to an emergency and we needed to be off and out of the way as fast as possible safely.

We can take off in 3000-4000 feet in 182s, no problem. And the air tankers can use the whole 9500 feet. Real-world emergency traffic is always more important than exercise traffic.

I did short field landings with quick turnoffs for the same reason. Normally, that's really unnecessary with almost two miles of runway in front of you.
 
nice post, my cfi loves to yell 'stop driving the car!!' I say yell, he's probably not really yelling, just in my head, ha.

so, to recap, you had a crosswind from the right, forgot to keep your ailerons deflected into the wind and also relaxed the rudder which started your weather-vane zigzag?

thanks for sharing
 
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jimbilly said:
nice post, my cfi loves to yell 'stop driving the car!!' I say yell, he's probably not really yelling, just in my head, ha.

so, to recap, you had a crosswind from the right, forgot to keep your ailerons deflected into the wind and also relaxed the rudder which started your weather-vane zigzag?

thanks for sharing
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Thanks for enjoying! I think I just didn't realize HOW much rudder I would need, so either I didn't put enough in initially, or I relaxed it too soon, like you said. But definitely no ailerons. D'oh! The other great thing about my CFI is his corrections are always very calm and collected, with no blame or shame. Lots of "It's OK, just fix it".
 
Who has two thumbs and was supposed to be studying for the Private Pilot written exam and/or drafting another OneZuluDelta blog post last night, but instead, for two hours, read articles describing the differences between 747 types? This guy. ‪#‎avgeek‬ ‪#‎PROPcrastination‬ ‪#‎JustPlaneBadAtTimeManagement‬ ‪#‎StudyingIsBoeing‬ ‪#‎INeverJetTiredOf747s‬
 
The SP! NICE! What a weird little airplane. That's the one I got sucked into reading about the most. Especially this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006
YEESH. And its really weird post-incident history.

It was about the time I considered setting up alerts on FlightRadar24 for all the remaining SP's in the world that I thought, "I really should go to bed."
 
Little?

The only time that airplane looks little is when Boeing parks a 747-8 next to it.

And yes, they did that. Made it look like a little toy.

When the airplane was rolled out, it was parked in front of the main Dryden (now Armstrong) FRC hangar. I plopped myself down in the left seat and stared DOWN at the roof of the hangar.

And the one time I got to ride jumpseat, it took up all of KPMD rwy 25 -- width and length. Made a 150 foot wide runway look like a tiny spam can strip. Holy hell that was a long takeoff roll.

We keep a couple of spare horizontal stabilizers in the hangar -- spare parts for a 747SP are hard to come by. I like to ask visitors what they think they are, and the answer is almost always "wings." They are bigger than the G-III parked nearby….
 
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MAKG1 said:
Little?

The only time that airplane looks little is when Boeing parks a 747-8 next to it.

And yes, they did that. Made it look like a little toy.

When the airplane was rolled out, it was parked in front of the main Dryden (now Armstrong) FRC hangar. I plopped myself down in the left seat and stared DOWN at the roof of the hangar.

And the one time I got to ride jumpseat, it took up all of KPMD rwy 25 -- width and length. Made a 150 foot wide runway look like a tiny spam can strip. Holy hell that was a long takeoff roll.
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Relatively little then? Hahaha. I like to imagine it has a psychological complex about the other 747s.
 
onezuludelta said:
Relatively little then? Hahaha. I like to imagine it has a psychological complex about the other 747s.
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Well, it does have a bigger tail. :D It has to be for stability (along with the control surfaces back there) because the fuselage is 35 feet shorter than a 747-100.

It makes the proportions look weird.

In our egress training, they make sure we know how long a drop it is to the concrete. It's 16 feet from the lower deck door sill to the site of your broken legs. Two stories; jumping is a real bad idea. The upper deck egress is 3 1/2 stories, and there are only five egress cables up there (you grab one and jump out the door at the back of the flight deck).
 
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I MAY have spent far too long last night setting up custom alerts in FlightRadar24 for every 747SP still in service...Plus the Lufthansa 747 with the old-school livery, and John Travolta's planes, and Trump, and any other famous people I could find.
 
I can't blame you, 1ZD. The 747 is simply a majestic bird. I've flown (pax) basically everything in scheduled airline service (Boeing, Airbus, MD, Lockheed, etc) over the last 20 years or so, and by FAR my favorite airplane is the 747 (even compared to the A380 -- which was an awesome experience, of course). Last ride on one for me was a -400. Looking forward to a ride in a -8 hopefully before too long!
 
That dead reckoning stuff works better than it has a right to.

For CAP search training, I had to locate a 7.5 minute square grid, without the use of electronic aids. We operated out of an unfamiliar airport (Fresno), and I was assigned a grid some 40 miles away over largely featureless flat terrain. So I found a couple of really minor landmarks, calculated a heading and duration, and headed out.

The first grid corner had a "town" (actually just a couple of buildings) and a northbound road. And it was right there after the requisite time had elapsed. I was astonished.

Class B isn't that big of a deal, but you have to be able to do what they say.
 
MAKG1 said:
That dead reckoning stuff works better than it has a right to.

For CAP search training, I had to locate a 7.5 minute square grid, without the use of electronic aids. We operated out of an unfamiliar airport (Fresno), and I was assigned a grid some 40 miles away over largely featureless flat terrain. So I found a couple of really minor landmarks, calculated a heading and duration, and headed out.

The first grid corner had a "town" (actually just a couple of buildings) and a northbound road. And it was right there after the requisite time had elapsed. I was astonished.

Class B isn't that big of a deal, but you have to be able to do what they say.
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Well I'm glad to know it wasn't a fluke, and that it works for other people too! I figure you're right, the Class B won't be a problem, since I deal with D and C daily, and the approach controllers for B,C, and D too. And I will have to deal with Class B at some point, just to be able to go somewhere besides Connecticut.

There's a little cutout along the beach under the JFK approach path (500 ft or lower) so you can scoot west without having to make a long over-ocean journey. It looks like a ton of fun. I always enjoy it from the ground too, because that's the beach we go to, and you're always being buzzed by light aircraft at 300-400 feet.
 
Just remember that at 500 AGL, an engine problem will put you on the ground in 30 sec or less, counting WTF time. Not good around a crowded beach.
 
MAKG1 said:
Just remember that at 500 AGL, an engine problem will put you on the ground in 30 sec or less, counting WTF time. Not good around a crowded beach.
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True words.

"WTF Time", I love it!

I've seen a few guys flying way lower and faster than they need to, also. Little bit of a show-off factor, I'm guessing. Also, an NYPD helicopter periodically passes by way slower and lower than it needs to. I'm 99% sure they are using their fancy cameras to spy on the bikini-clad ladies. We call it "The T!tty Patrol".
 
85%. Not super happy about it. I swore when I hit "submit" at the end, I was headed for a 90%+. There are a few I missed because I just didn't remember (tri-color VASI), but there were definitely a few that were gotcha/trick questions, which i really don't see the point of.

I'm a little surprised that, even after the recent redesign, some of the questions are as poorly written as they are. I didn't want to just be Mr Sour Grapes man, so I thought about some of them in terms of "What do they want me to know here? What situations would this knowledge help me out in?" The answer to one of those was: When I am flying my BALLOON (taking the airplane test here, but whatever), and I come across an airplane refueling another airplane, they have to give right-of-way to me. Which is completely ridiculous. I'll let you know next time I am tooling around in my non-existent balloon at 500 feet and the Air Force decides to refuel some fighters at 500 feet.

I missed that question because I remembered "airplane refueling another airplane" as an exception to the general right-of-way rules. But it's a semi-exception: all POWERED aircraft have to give right-of-way to aircraft refueling other aircraft. So, since balloon was a choice, it was the right one, and I missed the question.

It's pointless and idiotic, and it's crap like that that makes people study to the test rather than learning concepts thoroughly that will KEEP THEM ALIVE.

Another fun one: When you get a DUI, who do you report it to? The answers were two different divisions of the FAA or an AME. I guarantee you, if I get a DUI, my life will be in shambles and I will have probably lost my job, and if I even CONSIDER flying (which I wouldn't), I wouldn't remember this information, and would have to look it up. Which would take all of 5 minutes to do. So why is this something I am supposed to memorize?

And now, for the oral, the DPE gets to look at my report with the subject codes and think "OK, this guy doesn't know anything about right-of-way or FAA regulations". Wonderful.
 
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