Birthday And Flight Review

Yep, made another full cycle around the sun today.

 For my birthday, I gifted myself a flight review, as that was now due (you need to have one every two years). Kind of a mandatory gift, that.

Got to the airport and had the preflight done when Brian the instructor pulled up. 

Wind was blowing from 190 around 11 knots so there would be some decent cross-wind technique practice during the review.

We went over stuff on the ground as a refresher and then got in the plane.

I took off and headed for Linden as it was a close by un-towered field.

Completely buggered up the initial approach, and decided to do a go-around, and then redid it and then did a decent landing. I was flying too high and fast on final, which is a bad habit of mine, so we decided to break that habit, 

Linden did have a surprise for us on that landing - Sandhill cranes - which are rather large birds, and they decided they wanted to hang around the runway. Since hitting a Sandhill on final or takeoff can really wreck your day, we decided to head back and finish at Ponitac after doing some air-work. Landed on Runway 27 and one just walked across as we landed much fun.

So we then trolled the runway revving the engine trying to get the Sandhills to move, and they at least got off the runway and stayed off it long enough for me to do a short field takeoff to get up before we passed the point where they were hanging out.

Did a good short field takeoff from Runway 9 and up we went.

Then we worked on slow flight and stalls, and I did two good power off stalls and recoveries. More importantly, I really really worked on slow flight, using pitch and power to climb and descend, while keeping the airspeed right locked on at 60 knots which does help your landings quite a bit.

Then we headed back to Pontiac, and got some pattern work in.

The slow flight practice certainly helped, and I did three good touch and goes and then a solid final landing. 

That's 1.5, 5 landings, and a flight review done.

Now off to a birthday celebratory dinner. 

Flight Review Done, Complete With Some Extra Excitement

Had my Flight Review yesterday.

Required every two years, you need to go out with an instructor and show you can fly.  It's basically an abbreviated reenactment of your Private Pilot Test.  It has opportunities to both correct issues that may have cropped up in your flying, and to learn more stuff, so it is worth doing.

I had Brian, our flying club maintenance officer who is also a CFI do the review with me yesterday.

We were taking out the Archer and the prior pilots, who had flown to Oshkosh on Friday reported the Ammeter gauge was showing zero and not being responsive both on the way there an back. Prior to our flight review Brian had tested it out and couldn't duplicate it. More on this later.

So we started with the ground portion and he quizzed me on basic airspace, the items required for a pilot and aircraft to be legal and other useful stuff such as personal limits, issues in flight etc, and the current bugbear around Pontiac - making sure you don;t have a runway incursion as too many students have recently been doing their best to land on the wrong runway here.  He was quite satisfied that I knew my stuff and noted a lot of pilots forget a lot of it right after the test.  So the ground portion was no problem and I apparently know my stuff.  I also learned some new things, so it was worth it.

For the flight part, he stated we'd be doing dead-reckoning without using the GPS, just like on the private pilot exam.  We'd be heading to Linden. This was shades of my private pilot exam as that was the same route for it. He was happy that I knew Linden was under Flint's Class Charlie airspace so we'd need to be under 2,000 feet when we got near there.

So I did the run up and again, the ammeter gauge worked just fine, no issues at all. You might guess where this is going to go.....

I did a decent job using dead reckoning and the sectional chart and we made it to Linden, and I did an ok and decent pattern entry and a nice if somewhat long-ish landing due to some fun crosswinds that had whipped up. All good, but it did show I've been focusing on doing IFR stuff and approaches and neglecting VFR pattern flying so that's something I should be working on.  We then did a bit more pattern work at Linden and headed back to Pontiac, on the way doing steep turns and stalls.

Since the Archer now has the GFC500 installed, the plane automatically activated the autopilot during the stall and forced a recovery, which was kinda neat. It also was not a fan of very step turns again sounding an alarm. Neat to see the protective mode of the autopilot system works. We turned the protective mode off and did the stalls to spec, and then put it back on so the next pilot wouldn't be surprised by a lack of the protective mode being on. It works and it doesn't like you putting the plane into a bad spot.

Just for fun, we played with the autopilot a bit and Brian showed me a few neat techniques that answered some questions I had about the autopilot and its quirks with altitude settings.  I now know how to handle those quirks better and that makes it even easier to use.

Then, as we were heading back, not only did the ammeter got to zero but the alternator warning light lit up.

So we shed all unnecessary power consumption, shutting down radio 2, the landing light, fuel pump, autopilot. Basically we were trying to avoid losing the radio and power before we made it in.

We then booked it back to Pontiac at full throttle and got in the pattern rather fast we got a landing clearance and zipped in to make it happen but had to stay high as we had to do a long downwind for spacing. Brian then took the controls to show a really full-tilt, high-speed, side-slip to drop altitude real fast to get us down quick and line up on the runway at the same time, which was fun. A rather long landing as we had a fair bit of speed to spare but we got it down very nicely.

So, we got down fine, and never lost electrical power, and after taxiing to the hangar we checked and the battery still had 12 volts and hadn't been fried. So, he's going to see what the issue may be and so far the suspect is a loose connection somewhere on the alternator circuit.

One guess is that when the autopilot got installed something got knocked loose.

So, the Archer is now grounded until we get that sorted out, but my Flight Review is complete and I'm good to go.  

Apparently I'm still the World's Okay-est Pilot.

That's 1.1 and a couple fun landings for me, and one very fun one for Brian.

Flight Review Complete

After the match, I grabbed a quick bite, and headed over to the airport.

Met up with Alec and checked out N55EM for the flight review.

Could not ask for a nicer day for it.  Ceiling and visibility unlimited, winds light and variable and just a perfect day to fly.

Flew to Romeo and did some pattern work.  Been awhile since I've done pattern work as I've been focussed on IFR and it showed a bit.

Buggered up the approach for the first landing as I was in too tight and went around.  Romeo and I have issues.  

Then I settled down and got it done, did a series of takeoffs and landing sin the pattern.  Did some maneuvers and all was well.

Then back to Pontiac for some Power Off 180 practice as I haven't done those in a long time.

Did it both with and without flaps and that was very useful practice for emergency engine out scenarios.

It was a good flight review, Alec is a very good and helpful instructor.   Sadly he's full during the week when I'm available, otherwise Id have him as my IFR instructor as well.

Flight Review is now complete, so I'm legal for flying VFR yet again, and legal to take the Instrument Test, so that's something.

That's 1.9, with 7 landings.

Kinda tired and sore at the moment, but got lots of stuff done.

Flying - A Beautiful Day For A Flight Review

Every two years as a pilot, you have to (there's some exceptions, but you might as well do it) have a flight review with an instructor to make sure you're still a safe pilot, know the rules etc.

So this morning I headed out to Pontiac airport to get it done.

The club has some flight instructors and I had arranged with one, Joe, to have the review done.

We met at the hangar and did some ground review, touching on airspace, general aviation security and various other regulations and requirements for legal flying. He had also requested that I plan flight to KTVC and he liked how I did the flight planning. I'm happy to say I passed the ground part easily and learned some useful new stuff on the way.

On to the flying part.

I did my normal preflight and run up and we took off and headed to the northeast.

Once there, he had me do some power off and power on stalls. The power on stalls required the yoke held all the way back to finally get it to stall. This cold air gives some great performance but tends to make it hard to do a power on stall as the plane just doesn't want to stall until you get to a crazy nose-high angle of attack.

I did excellent recoveries for all the stalls and Joe was happy.

Then on to steep turns and he showed me a neat trick: Begin the turn, add a bit of power and two full rolls of trim and then the Archer will fly itself through the steep turn. Yep, I could be hands off the controls in a perfect 45-degree steep turn, no fuss, no muss.

That was fun.

Then back to Pontiac for some landings.

Wind was gusting a 7-12 knots out of 10-70 degrees or so, and as such we would be landing on Runway 9L. Of course I'm used to the 27R side so the sight picture was a tad different. The pattern was also packed and it was hard to get a word in edgewise on the radio.

First landing was fine, then into the pattern for more.

On the second landing we did a go-round as a huge gust caught me right as I flared so a go round it was. Joe was planning to give me a go round anyways and this one just happened to be required.

Next couple landings were decent as was the final and fourth one.

I've done better landings but they were serviceable and I could use the plane again, and Juvat's Navy instructor pilot would have liked the last two. Landings in gust crosswinds is something I can work on and improve anyways.

I officially passed my flight review, and am good to go on that score and legal to fly for the next two years.

That's 1.5 and 4 landings.