CPL-ASEL-IA...feels good, man...

Punch - it took two concerted tries for the DE to hole-punch, i.e. "mutilate," my plastic credit card-like pilot's certificate. No, I didn't do anything wrong - I just received my commercial pilot's license today - it's not much at the moment, it's just a piece of paper, but oh, those words together...."Commercial Pilot - Airplane Single Engine Land; Instrument Airplane"

So where to now? the regular route - CFI-A (initial CFI-Airplane) with a multi-engine thrown in somewhere along the line. I'm still shopping around for places to do my multi rating, but with hiring expected to pick up at the end of this year (2011) I'm expecting that the schools will pick up their prices accordingly.

the ride itself was pretty standard stuff, very relaxed, got a couple things wrong  / grey area'd here and there, but all in all the DE liked that i knew where to look stuff up (even had my FAR/AIM labelled :D ) and as all checkrides go, it wasn't so much of a Q and A, but more of a conversation where he could find out that I didn't just memorize things, but that I understood them, and could apply them to real world situations...sounds like the fundamentals of instructing a bit, doesn't it :)

turns out i also hit 300 hours somewhere in the middle of a steep turn, or perhaps chandelle too!

300.8 hour$ and counting....

give me casual...meh, that'll do, i guess...

48kts at 3000 feet, oh my!

I opted not to fly yesterday as it was howling all day. Instead I chose today because it was better, and because the winds were set to die down as the day went on. Last week my instructor said he wanted to fly by myself one more time before taking the commercial checkride, and even though i'm okay with all the maneuvers, one more time on a calmer day will be ideal.

Coming out of KBED to the west, it was bumpy from the second i left the tarmac. Immediately weathervaning about 15 - 20 degrees (rwy 29, winds were 320/15/G23 i think?), I maintained the centerline while i took the winter elevator ride straight up. those who fly GA in the winter know what i mean. on the way out to the practice area, i hit probably the worst turbulence I've experienced since going up to portland, ME back when doing my private. BUMP BUMP BA-BUMP...for about a good 30 seconds while trying to write down a squawk code from boston departure. I managed to tighten the lap belt and get a quick bravo clearance to climb up above 3000 where the winds were supposedly smoother. the bumps were so bad, i had a hard time talking as i was fighting with the controls to keep it level. at about 2700 it was like a different day altogether - ride was as smooth as glass, although my groundtrack was definitely cockeyed with the 48kt reported winds. I slowed to MCA to see if I could appear to go backwards :)

anyway, lazy 8s are still right where i want them, so i headed back, and landed with only one notch at 80+ kts given the crosswind. WONK...crappiest landing i've had in months. i pulled off the runway, sat for a sec and thought, 'that won't do...what if this was my checkride?' so i called up ground and asked to head back to the active for pattern work. cleared to takeoff, i did two more crosswind landings, this time paying more attention, and they were nice and smooth - 80-85kts, and two notches of flaps. all in all, a great flight.

291.4 hours and counting...

Here's my PIREP:

And here are some Piper Arrow parts pictures of the legs I snapped during pre-flight...everything in it's right place!

right main

nose gear joints + bottom of the engine

the motor what makes the legs go up and down + the battery

corner office with a view.

lazy eights...think i've got it now

lazy eights have been dogging me since the start of my commercial rating. the last 45 degrees of each turn have been slow and my perception of that segment has been a 5-10 degree bank, NO rate of turn, and a sharp descent.

today that changed - somewhat anyway. i've been rereading the chapters on basic aerodynamics from the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge  (and just realizing that I have an older edition with not such nice graphics as those up there now!) in preparation for my CFI certification looming this winter. As I was doing my turns in the 8's all the stuff I have been reading was fresh in my mind, particularly lift, and it's changes in banks to wings level and the changing airspeed throughout the maneuver. I still find myself wanting to kick the plane over to the 180 degree point, and instead of doing so, find myself leaning in my seat at the end! anyway, i managed to figure out the magic number for Arrow N813ND : 19" of manifold pressure and 2400 RPM. I started with 18" and ended up 200 feet low, but the maneuver was nice and smooth. 19" did the trick! In addition, this guy's method of doing them has simplified the maneuver 10-fold. I've paraphrased the import part below, but give the whole page a read through. there's some good stuff on there:

All in all the first 90 degrees of the maneuver required very little control inputs on my part. After rolling into the initial 5 degrees of bank all I needed to do was to control the pitch attitude with back pressure on the yoke while keeping the ailerons and rudders neutral and the airplane basically did the rest for me.

As I allowed the airplane to return to a level pitch attitude at the 90-degree point and relatively close to the clean configuration stall speed the nose of the airplane sliced sideways through the horizon and into a descending pitch attitude without any significant intervention on the flight controls by me.

The second half of the 180-degree turn was somewhat more challenging as I was required to use the controls more actively to reduce the bank angle and controlling the pitch attitude throughout the descending portion of the turn.

and to make the flight sweeter - my chandelles were ending with some nice wing buffets - but no stall. I think I might just be a commercial pilot afterall.

250-260 hours and counting...

in the system

today i took my first cross country flight as an instrument rated pilot filing IFR. i went to see my folks up in VT, expecting a nice VFR ride, but the early morning fog in KLEB had hung around longer than expected. it was 100 broken when i departed KBED, but expected to lift, so I filed IFR, KBED - CON - KLEB. My clearance was radar vectors to MHT, then direct at 6000. The plane i was in was N6910J, one of the older warriors, but still legal for IFR flight - well, just barely anyway. The DG precessed a good deal, and VOR2 was 3 degrees off, but all within limits for IFR flight. the VFR GPS left much to be desired as well. besides these however, it was VFR the entire way. as I got close to MHT I was given a direct vector of 340 to KLEB. approaching KLEB the tower was reporting 300 scattered on and off as the fog was lifting. as i got close, a plane in front of me got in on the visual 25, and i could see the airport in plain view with only a few puffs here and there in the area. i cancelled IFR and made the smoothest landing I've had in a while into rwy 36 since I was used to that approach. here's the plot:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6910J/history/20101003/1345Z/KBED/KLEB

and some pics:

everything in it's right place

the fog over NH/VT up ahead

On the way back, I decided to file IFR again, despite beautiful VFR weather. I like it, and it's simpler to a degree than flight following, but that's a topic for another post. instrument rated pilots know what i'm talking about :) I filed for 7000 to make sure that weird fear of heights i had in the tomahawk a year back was gone. my clearance was one i didn't expect - cleared to bedford via the 167 radial of LEB, then BASUU, then direct. I read back and went to work on the map figuring out where BASUU was, and plugged it into the fisher-price GPS. (re: regulations - technically it is only for reference and i am required to use my OBS's to find the fix) once all that was squared away i was off.

BASUU turns out is right between Bedford and Lebanon, next to Manchester. After only a few minutes at 7000 i was directed to 5000 then 4000. Bedford in sight, I was directed to the visual runway 5 - an approach I have never made at that airport despite flying out of there for almost 3 years! The pattern was a mess, the controller mistook me for another warrior and put me on a parallel approach with a cirrus who had to break off. i felt bad, but i was only following orders! they also had traffic landing on a crossing runway, 11, so i landed in the first 6-700 feet of the runway (light trainers, yeah!) and had to accelerate off to the first taxiway, E, to facilitate the folks behind me.

Here's the plot for the trip home:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N6910J/history/20101003/1915Z/KLEB/KBED

All in all, a great flight. 2.5 hours on the hobbs...the part 61 $$$-suck continues...

on the way home at 7000 - laconia is under there somewhere.

looking west at 7000 on the way home

keeping current

i'm usually very good about keeping current, mainly because it's a reason to fly! my regular safety pilot and i made plans to go up tonight and while working out the logistics i realized that my night currency had lapsed. according to the CFR 14 part 61.57.b you need to make 3 takeoffs and landings to a full stop one hour after sunset in order to carry passengers at night. while technically he's also PIC (Pilot In Command) while i'm wearing those awful foggles, he's still a passenger when they're off. there's a grace period where if you're not current that you can carry passengers up to no later than one hour after sunset (and after one hour before sunrise.) Since sunset tonight was at 7:50pm, we would have to be on the ground by 8:50.

the purpose of the flight was to keep my instrument rating current (CFR 14 61.57.c.) my safety pilot doesn't have his instrument rating, but he is current (CFR 14 part 91.109.2.b) in both pilot certificate as well as category and class ratings for the airplane we'd be flying in (P28A - a Piper Warrior.) since he's VFR only, we'd have to conduct the flight as such, but I'm still allowed to file IFR, which makes things a lot smoother for us and for ATC (except for maybe that 10 minute wait for release into the system, i.e. waiting for clearance to actually take off into Boston's airspace.

so i got the weather and filed IFR from KBED to KBED with the routing as KLWM KBVY, and the remark of practice approaches. we took off, and had a great flight - ILS5@KLWM (good) held as published at LWM, LOC16@KBVY, not my best, touch and go and the vectors back to the ILS11@KBED. the last approach was a minor challenge as i was told to keep "max forward speed as is practical" because there was a falcon jet (little business class jet) 10 miles behind us inbound.

my safety pilot got a taste of what an instrument flight (more like an instrument lesson as we just shot approaches) will be like when he finally amasses the money to start on his own instrument ticket. ok, I have about 4 and a half more months to make at least 3 more approaches to satisfy the 6 approaches in 6 months (yes, and holding and tracking a radial...)

here's the flightaware plot:

commercial cross country

beer? check. shower? check. warmed over pizza while watching futurama? check and check. $800+ less in my bank account? ugh, check. yup, this is the aftermath of my commercial cross country which I flew today. here's the flightplan in skyvector. (if it doesn't show up, just move the map a smidge)

It was a great trip despite two near misses - one a cherokee not on with ATC who decided to make a sudden turn into my path, and a corporate jet passing under me by barely 500 feet (thanks for letting me know, NY approach control.) the feeling of that much flying - 6 even hours on the hobbs, and the distance flown made me want to do it all over again. I thought i'd be bored, hungry, need to pee, etc...but not at all - just a great long VFR flight to a lot of new places.

and some shots;

the clouds were at the most innappropriate level - 5500-6000, so i bounced from 4500 to 6500 the whole way:

approaching Newburgh, NY:

here's aeroflex andover airport  (12N) at the end of that lake, and the Stillwater VOR (STW) just at the bottom of the pic:

finally, I made it to KZER!

stopped in for some quick refreshments:

and talked to one of the CFI's there - cool guy. He ran to get the phone about 15 minutes after I landed...asked me if I was N238ND...oops...forgot to close the flight plan in all the excitement!

Leaving Joe Zerbey airport (KZER):

This is Summit Hill, PA; where the graveyard is almost as big as the town itself...I imagine this will be ground zero of the zombie apocolypse:

BEHOLD! the Lehigh Gap!!!

amid the swarms of gliders I was calling out for Allentown approach control, here's a fire just south of Stroudsberg on the Appalachian Trail. If you look at the shadow on the right it looks like a giant eagle took a steaming crap on the mountain:

aaaaaand, Aeroflex Andover on the way back:

Waterbury Ct, starting to approach Hartford Brainard Airport (KHFD):

this is New Britain, Ct - I lived in the brick buildings in the lower corner of this graveyard 11 or 12 years ago in college. 625 Burrit Street - the amazing flooding basement cave!

and here's my favorite picture of the whole trip - Hartford, Ct. while on right downwind for runway 20 at KHFD, my second stop on the trip:

to my surprise, while inbound to hartford, I heard an old tail number, N4336E, I used to fly back in Northampton days in 2000 (while living at 625 burrit street, as a matter of fact...weird conincidence) who was coming for touch and goes at the airport. it's the plane taxiing in the middle:

after tallying up the logbook and taking a 15 minute break, I headed back to KBED. as I neared Boston I took this one last picture approaching our fair city:

life in part 61 training continues...

quick birthday flight

for Claire's birthday, I took her out to KPYM - Plymouth Municipal in the very same place where the "Pilgrims" landed in the "new world" on Plymouth "rock". Alas, no Bravo clearance through boston this time either.

We ate at Plane Jane's cafe, a favorite of mine as it's all day breakfast food. As we were heading in, a news helicopter asked a plane on final if they could film them coming in. As it turns out the helicopter was filming stock footage for a news report of a crash that happened an hour or so before. the footage is at 1:38 in the link. so, no fuel leaks and no fire? one engine cuts out and then the other? poor fuel management, i'm guessing - glad they're safe, but could have been a lot worse. the news lady was at the airport after we left (as it's night) but the cafe is in the building behind her...huh...neat.

I practiced a few steep turns for the commercial ticket with Claire too - 60 degree banks - she loved it! it was all topped off by a fantastic red sunset setting over the storms off to the north as we headed back to KBED.