Because Glider – Audio Episode Show Notes

2-33 on Runway 02

This is a two-part presentation, but I wanted to keep everything in one place.  Accordingly, I’ll put links to both audio parts here as they’re released.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Because Glider: Being an Account of One Man’s Path to the CFI Certificate by Way of Uncle Ernie’s Holiday Camp, a Couch at a Radio Station, &c.

If you follow me anywhere on social media, you’ll know that I recently completed the Herculean effort of becoming a certified flight instructor (or “CFI”) in the glider category.

I first started flying gliders in 2012 when my friend, and later instructor, John Harte, invited me to go fly a motorglider after a haircut that I had scheduled in Detroit one Saturday. By the second time we flew, I was training for the rating. Four months later, I was a commercial glider pilot and, six months later, I flew my first airshows as a performer in the same aircraft. Since then I’ve logged more than 200 hours in motorgliders, more than half of that in formation.

 

Winter in the ASK 21

Through the kind efforts of Mark Grant, Chris Felton, and others in the Civil Air Patrol, I even added an aerotow endorsement so that I could fly gliders that had no onboard powerplants. I earned that one after about 20 tows, most of them conducted in Owosso, Michigan in single-digit Fahrenheit temperatures where you had to close the canopy and hold your breath until you had airflow through the window on takeoff so you wouldn’t completely frost the inside of the canopy. If you earn an aerotow endorsement in Michigan in the winter, you have well and truly worked for that endorsement.

And then, like the urge of Ishmael to get to sea, I began to feel the urge to do the next big thing. Certainly, there are plenty of challenges that could have been that next big thing. I really ought to add both single- and multi-engine airplanes to my commercial certificate.

But a number of things pushed me to go for the CFI. I’m very broad in aviation, but not very deep. Until I started flying gliders, I could fly a lot of stuff, but only with private privileges. I did my glider checkride at the commercial level simply because the practical test standards are about the same for private vs. commercial and the only other requirements are the knowledge test and a more comprehensive oral during the checkride. (Written test and comprehensive oral? Oh, please don’t throw me in that briar patch!) So the idea of taking a single category of flying all the way to CFI appealed to me.

I have a son who was getting close to turning 14 at the time. His name is Nicholas, but most of you know him by his callsign, “FOD.” He has about 30 hours bumming around in the TG-7A with me, most of it sitting there in the instructor seat while I fly. 14 is an important age for someone who flies gliders because that’s the age at which you can solo. And it doesn’t matter that the aircraft has an engine and a propeller. If it’s certified in the glider category, you can solo it at 14. I decided that it was not enough to just fly around with him or teach him without having the CFI in my pocket. I wanted to take him to a real CFI for the solo and the checkride.

Lastly, I had always thought that instructing would be fun and that I’d become a much better pilot if I did it. During the DC-3 rating, I had the chance to sit in the back and watch somebody else fly under circumstance where I could just watch and think about flying. That was one of the most productive experiences I’ve ever had in flight training. I couldn’t help but think that being able to really observe and critique would make me a much better pilot.

So, last spring, I decided to go for the instructor certificate. This is the story of that journey.
[Read more...]

More CFI Training – Focusing on the Fine Points

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Another session in the mighty Schweizer SGS 2-33A Absteigend Reibungmaschine. Two flights this time.  The first was a basic flight with wake-boxing, slack line, some thermaling, and an interesting landing abeam lots of other waiting gliders.  The second flight was a lot longer and involved a lot more thermaling and then the PTS airwork on the way back down.  The track from the first flight is reproduced below.  I apparently ham-handed the iPad on the second flight and didn’t capture the track log.  Bummer, because we maneuvered a lot and that would have been cool to see.

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It was a really good day for soaring.  Lots of bumps on tow, but lots of thermals as well.  A generally cool day through the whole relevant range of the atmosphere, but clear skies allowed the sun to heat the surrounding area unevenly and it was sporty.  Lots of non-school gliders lined up to get towed. The nice thing about training at Benz Aviation is that the tow operation belongs to the school and tows for other gliders are on an as-available basis while I go to the head of the line each time I’m ready.  Yeah, it costs money, but I get the training in and that’s what matters at this point.

This was my third time in the back seat and my fourth week of flying at least once each week.  I’ve nearly doubled the 30 tows that I had in the logbook when I first showed up.  I’m reasonably good in the maneuvers.  I need some work on the precision of my landings and dialing in the SA that I need in order to make the peanut butter and jelly of altitude and distance come out roughly evenly.

I’m scheduled to fly next Wednesday and Thursday.  We’ll go through the other maneuvers to make sure that I still have the inertial and muscle memory, but it will likely be mostly pattern tows to dial in the landings.  If I fly well on Wednesday, Lee says that he’ll sign me off and I’ll call the DPE/FIE to schedule the checkride.  That could be as soon as the first week in June, depending on schedules (and on whether I suck next week).  If it doesn’t happen the first week in June, I’ll probably have to put it off until after the Tuskegee Airshow 20-21 June. But I have a clear path forward one way or the other.

A lot of work stuff to do this weekend, but I’ll also spend a fair amount of it studying for the oral.  And David Allen and I will likely record another Airspeed episode about the impending airshow.

CFI Training Continues and the Checkride Nears – For Real This Time

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I trained again for parts of the last two days at Benz Aviation at Ionia County Airport in Ionia, Michigan. Those just joining this saga will know that last week, after three days of flying in the front seat to get the hang of the Schweizer SGS 2-33A, Lee Larder promoted me to the back seat.  We didn’t fly on Wednesday because of the low overcast and we did the knowledge review instead. Thursday was devoted to more flying from the back seat to get the maneuvers nailed down and to build muscle and inertial memory.

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The back seat requires some gymnastics for ingress and egress.  But, once you’re strapped in, it’s a comfortable place to be.  I was slightly worried about the pedals.  I have short legs for a guy of my height (28-inch inseam), so I had to adjust the pedals in the front to the full-aft position to get enough purchase on them to be able to box the wake and do slips with authority.  The pedals in the back don’t adjust, so I was concerned that I’d have to add some padding behind me.  It turns out that the pedals in back are a perfect distance for me.  This is a good thing because adding a cushion behind me would likely have made it so that I could not get full-aft stick travel.  As it is, I have to sit up straight and get my back flat against the back of the seat in order get enough aft stick to have my stalls break in a concise way.

There’s a little shoving-around over there on the left side if I need to move the stick much to the left while the dive brakes are engaged.  Between the stick, the dive brake handle, and my trusty iPad, there’s a jumble of activity when that happens.  Conveniently, the iPad simply moves around there on the elastic strap and things tend to work out.

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The biggest thing about the back seat is dealing with the lack of visibility.  Mostly because of that head and shoulders directly in front of you. You get all of the visibility you need, but not a lot of visibility that isn’t essential.  I don’t know that I’d be able to give dual instruction to Bob Ross or Pam Grier. You can fly along with your head centered just fine in most cases.  You can listen for your airspeed and, at least in the early parts of the flight, have a pretty good idea that you have enough altitude.  If you need airspeed information, you lean right and look (at least when Lee hasn’t covered the airspeed indicator). The picture above gives you that sight picture. If you need altitude information, you lean left.  Landing doesn’t seem to be a problem, especially after you quit looking at the airspeed and get into the flare.  You just use a lot of peripheral vision.  And the Force.

The biggest issue is on tow in the normal high-center tow position.  It’s pretty easy to lose the tow plane under the nose.  I fly a little lower relative to the tow plane while flying from the back seat to keep it visible.  But, in turbulence. the tow plane can drop out of sight very quickly, which means that I’m being more abrupt than I’d like with a push to keep him in the windshield.  More than a second or two and I’d need to tug on the clown nose and release, but it hasn’t come close to that.

The only other visibility thing comes with slack-line operations.  We go out to the left to climb and then descend to put in the slack. Visibility is fine that way.  But it’s sometimes hard to see the amount of slack that you’ve developed because some of it us under the nose.  And the slack usually isn’t much.  The 2-33A is really draggy and, even with a big push, you don’t get going fast enough relative to the tow plane to put much of a smile into the tow line.

2-33A Back Seat

My biggest remaining issue is situational awareness (“SA”) and other larger-picture things.  On almost every training day, I make some blunder of thought.  Today, I somehow reversed the windstock and briefed a left turn in the case of a rope break.  In fact, the wind was from the right.  I also let us get low two miles upwind of the airport while preoccupied with maneuvering.  We made it back just fine, even if a little low on pattern entry, but I have discovered that finding yourself at 1,400 AGL two miles out and flying in sink is one of my least favorite things in aviation.

Lee commented that I’m doing very well, but he noted that each session has some element of SA fail.  I had sure noted  this and confessed it each time, and he’s a good IP and noted it, too.  But that’s why I’m out here training.  I’m gradually becoming a high-time pilot (for recreational GA anyway).  I’m pretty darned good at a number of things and I pick up on new things fairly quickly if they’re complementary with skills that I already have.  But that can also hide deficiencies that I don’t know that I have.  I would imagine that lots of higher-time pilots have this issue.  And the mission for which I plan to use my IP skills will skew toward experienced students who will do well enough at some things that there’s a risk of complacency about the needs that are masked by great performance in other respects.

You may recall that I failed my first attempt at the commercial ride because I blew through the stop point on the no-spoiler landing.   In training, I did very well on the no-spoilers, mainly because the winds were favorable and I got lucky.  Neither John nor I had any reason to think that I didn’t have the maneuver nailed.  Then, on the ride, the winds were different and I was not lucky.  No big deal.  I re-took the deficient parts a couple of weeks later and I’ve flown safely and effectively in gliders for 200 hours since then.  But it was a lesson that will color my own training and will affect the way I teach students, especially higher-time people who are transitioning.

It is critical not only that we train, but that we think about that training and make generalizations out of the series of experiences.  We spend a lot of time thinking about trees.  This is fine, but we need to think about forests, too.  Find patterns that tell you things about the way you fly and how to be better every single time.

Sometimes, the only way to find out about these deficiencies is experience.  You have to fly more than is strictly necessary.  If you’re doing it right, you learn something every time you go to the airport.

Lee asked me on the way back to the terminal whether I wanted him to sign me off for the ride.  (Holy crap!)  He allowed as how my flying is fine and that I just need to get the SA dialed in.  I’m probably under-confident and over-persnickety about the way in which I stand up for a checkride, so I told him that I’d like to fly a few more times before the ride.  He agreed.  We’re scheduled for next Friday and then Wednesday and Thursday the week after that.  Then, probably checkride the first week of June.

Lee’s a good guy.  He thinks I’m very nearly ready and he told me that he doesn’t want to take my money unnecessarily.  Not every IP would do that.  That’s a mark of a guy who really cares about general aviation and instruction.

So the plan is two or three more training days, then the ride.  Sounds like this weekend and next will find me in a series of Starbucks with a bin of manuals and ACs next to me.  Watch Twitter (@StephenForce) and my Facebook feed and join me if you like.  I can even give you loggable ground instruction.

 

CFI Update: Possible Checkride Looms

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I got some good news yesterday.  It looks as though I might be able to get a checkride in the TG-7A here in the D after all.

Those following this space – and hearing the pre-roll on the Tony Condon episode might be familiar with my woes.  I’ve been trying since November to get a CFI-G checkride.  The fact that it’s an initial checkride and the fact that I’d prefer to do the ride in a self-launch glider makes it hard to find a qualified check airman.  Although the guys at the Michigan East FSDO have worked hard to find someone, they’ve been unsuccessful.  But a lead that I received on Friday panned out and the check airman is in the process of getting approved to do the ride.

So that means another abrupt changing of gears.  I had switched over and was training up in the ASK 21 to do the checkride as an aero-tow guy.  (With only 26 total aero-tows to my name, that would have involved a lot more time and money than I really wanted to spend when – after all – I’m ready to go in the TG-7A.  But one does what one has to do.)  But that also means that I haven’t flown the mighty Terrazzo Falcon for for awhile – Since December 2, to be precise.  So I needed to get back in the saddle.

So I loaded up my favorite right-seat counterweight – FOD – and launched for some practice this morning.  10 trips around the patch letting FOD take it except for the takeoff and landing (and except for the no-spoiler landings, which start downwind abeam).  On a couple of them, we flew a few miles upwind and then pulled power to idle, made a 180, and flew back to land.

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I took the controls for the no-spoiler ops.  It’s the thing that most rapidly deteriorates when I don’t fly, so I wanted to get a few of them in.  True to form, I stank up the joint on the first one, but they got better immediately.  I’m pretty consistently getting the aircraft down and stoppable by 1,700 feet down the runway.  The key is to be a quarter-mile out and on glideslope and airspeed with wings level.  From there, downwind rudder to the floor, upwind aileron to coordinate, and aim for the threshold.  I can take out the slip and check things if I need to.

Track 2015-01-31

This essentially means a two-step process.  Go a little long on downwind, then outside rudder and inside aileron the make the big sweeper onto final.  That places me where I need to be for the landing phase.  In a day like today, flying left traffic on Runway 15 with a moderate wind out of the west, it was a left sweeper into position, then a reversal to slip the other way for the landing.  I should probably do that another dozen times or so before the ride, but I think that I have it dialed in.

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I also spent some time working on my instructor patter, including distractions.  I’ll get a little more realistic with the distractions at some point, but this was a fun father-son moment in the pattern.

So it’s fly and study like it’s my job for the next week and a half.  I might or might not use the blog to keep you updated.  In any case, my Facebook feed is usually pretty reliable.

 

OpenAirplane with Rod Rakic – Audio Episode Show Notes

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These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedOAwith_PreRoll.mp3. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

Earlier this year, I sat down with Rod Rakic, one of two co-founders of OpenAirplane, a service that allows pilots to complete a single Universal Pilot Checkout and then fly aircraft in which they’ve qualified at FBOs all around the country without the need for a local checkout.  This episode contains that inverview.

I also did an OpenAirplane checkout at Crosswinds Aviation at Livingston County Airport (KOZW) in Howell, Michigan before having the conversation with Rod.  I recorded audio on the flight, but couldn’t locate that audio to incorporate it into the episode.  Thus, I wrote up a summary and included it in the episode.  That summary appears below.

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Okay, I looked for the in-flight audio for months. It’s going to turn up at some point, but there’s no use holding up this episode any further in the hopes that I’ll find it. So I’m just going to give you an account of what happened. Besides, doing this will cause the file with the in-flight audio to magically appear in a directory somewhere and I’m curious about where it is.

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I showed up at Crosswinds Aviation at Livingston County Airport (KOZW) early on a Sunday morning this March. I had already read the local briefing from the OpenAirplane website. Despite the fact that I’ve been to this airport a couple dozen times and had even flown by commercial checkride there, the local briefing told me a few things that I didn’t know, including Crosswinds’ specific information about fueling and obtaining oil.

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Shortly after I arrived, I met Scott McDonald, who would be my check pilot for the ride. Scott is a CFI and CFII who’s been flying professionally for five years and instructing for about half of that. He started out flying in Alma, Michigan and did his CFI training at Lansing Community College.

We began the checkout as all OpenAirplane checkouts begin – By reviewing pilot documents. Airman certificate, medical, logbook, and the other usual stuff. Then we covered the kind of ground review that you’d expect when checking out to fly at an FBO or getting a flight review. Here’s some of the audio of that phase.

[Audio]

I had already begun the early part of my studying for my own CFI checkride, so I had no problem with any of the aircraft systems, regs, or other information that Scott covered. Lest you be intimidated, he didn’t ask me anything that a pilot of a single-engine airplane shouldn’t already know as a matter of course.

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After that, we headed out to the hangar to meet our steed for the flight. N2322Y is a 2005 Cessna 172S with a G1000 glass cockpit. The preflight inspection checked out fine after I added a quart of oil. Fuel was about half full – plenty for the time that we were going to spend aloft.

I have maybe 70 hours behind the G1000 in C-182s and one jet and maybe 200 hours in C-172s, but no time in a C-172 with a G1000 panel. At the end of the day, neither Newton nor Bernoulli care about the panel, other than maybe the fact that the aircraft is a little heavier in the nose with all of the avionics. I briefed with Scott that this was my first time in a glass C-172 and we tried to figure out what could be different. We couldn’t come up with anything, but Scott allowed as how he wouldn’t climb into the back for a nap and I allowed as how I’d tell him if I had any difficulty.

We started up, taxied out, and took off about 15 minutes later. I used all of the available checklists and called out everything I was doing verbally so that Scott always knew what was on my mind.

It had been severe clear a few hours earlier, but cumulus clouds had started to build. A cool atmosphere with uneven heating of the surface by the sun resulted in what would turn out to be a great day for early-season soaring by glider pilots. It quickly became apparent that we were going to have to get on top of the scattered layer to get the airwork done, so I picked a hole and back-to-back chandelles got us above the layer and into some smoother air. Once established, I did clearing turns and demonstrated steep turns, slow flight, and stalls.

Satisfied with my VFR airwork, Scott had me put on the hood and we began the IFR part of the checkout. You can check out VFR-only if you want to. But I wanted the IFR privileges and also needed to get up and knock some of the rust off of my IFR skills. Scott put me through a couple of unusual-attitude recoveries, then called up Flint Approach to go in for some approaches.

We picked up a clearance and Flint gave us a descent for vectoring. That put us in and out of the clouds for the majority of the rest of the ride.

We shot an ILS and a VOR approach at Flint all the way to landing, using normal technique on the first one and short-field technique on the second one, and then accepted vectors back to Livingston for the RNAV 31. I hand-flew all of the approaches and the en-route parts. It was pretty bumpy in places, but my IFR scan came back very quickly and I think that I gave a pretty good account of myself.

Five miles out of Livingston County, we were in VMC, so we cancelled our IFR clearance and continued VFR. Scott had me stay under the hood to pattern altitude, then had me enter a left downwind for Runway 13, which the wind was favoring. Downwind abeam, he pulled the power. I pulled for 65 KIAS out of reflex, then called out the engine-out and restart procedures as I rounded the corner to land dead-stick.

The landing was uneventful unless you count some floating in the gusts once we got into ground effect.

We put the airplane away and headed back inside to debrief.

[Debrief audio.]

I was pretty pleased with the flight. A fair amount of rust on my skills and several imprecise things happened but nothing dangerous happened or even came close to happening. And now I’m checked out to go fly this or any other similar C-172 in the OpenAirplane fleet. A fleet that now includes 255 aircraft located at 73 operators on 71 airports in 32 states.

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OpenAirplane allows both pilots and operators to leave feedback about their experiences. It’s a process that keeps everyone honest. My feedback covered my flight ands some of the things I learned about Crosswinds Aviation and it was as follows.

“Solid operation that understands the OpenAirplane program and wants to make it work well. I did my UPC with these guys and found both management and instructor to be quality-focused and safety-conscious. If you have a chance, pay attention while you’re there to their other operations. With a program that reaches out to high school kids and enthusiastic attitudes about making pedestrians into pilots, Crosswinds is the kind of operation that’s going to help start the pilot population growing again.”

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Check out this episode’s Audible.com selection, Lock In by John Scalzi!

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