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Team Tuskegee Ramps Up Training

February 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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Team Tuskegee has begun to ramp up its training. Element takeoffs and landings yesterday deep in the Bravo. Echelon. Tail chase. Overhead break back at Detroit City (KDET). It’s still less than a year since I first flew a TG-7A. Last march, it was all about giggles and having fun. It’s still a lot of fun.

But the standard is different this time. This is the first pre-season when I’m actively working with an airshow standard in mind. There’s nothing whatsoever wring with with working to PTS or working up to competent $100 hamburger flying. Train for your mission and for safe outcomes and I’m with you.

As for me, though, every time I take off, land or maneuver, I see a crowd line and 10,000-plus people out of the corner of my eye and I hear Ralph Royce in my headset. It’s not long now before I won’t just be imagining that crowd (or Ralph). It’ll be real. And, providing that we nail down out FAST cards and get some additional training done in time, the Tuskegee demo will be even more complex.

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Think landing at OSH is intimidating? It is. Or so I’ve heard. But what if everyone near the flightline at OSH was actually watching you instead of buying stuff and talking and not paying attention to arrivals? And what if they had all had cameras? And what if there was a guy on the PA system telling them who you are and where you live? Suddenly, even the simple act of landing an aircraft ought to become pucker-palooza.  That’s what it is to fly an air show.

But with enough of the right kind of training, it’s no more than you should reasonably expect of yourself. The airshow guys are fond of saying: “Perfection is expected. Excellence will be accepted.” They mean it. So you go out on cold February mornings, brief the flight exhaustively, fly it with everything you have, then pick it apart back at the hangar. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

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We’re working hard, bundled up with extra socks and thermal undies under our flight suits. Because each of us imagines that crowd line in the snowy fields near the flight line. And we imagine you in that crowd.

Soon, the fields will be green, the barrels and stakes will go up, and you’ll actually be in that field. We’re training hard now because we know what it is to be in that crowd and we’re very conscious of that part of your dreams that you vest in us by coming to see us fly.

And every single one of us can barely believe that we get to do this.

 

 

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Glider Rating – Part 2 – Audio Episode Show Notes

December 16, 2012 by 3 Comments

These are the show notes to an audio episode. You can listen to the show audio by clicking here: http://traffic.libsyn.com/airspeed/AirspeedGliderRating2.mp3. Better yet, subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your other favorite podcatcher. It’s all free!

This is the second part of a two-part series covering my glider rating. To bring you up to speed, in March of this year, I began training in the TG-7A motorglider to add a glider rating. In May, I soloed the aircraft for the first time. Part 1 covered events up through the solo. On to Part 2.

After the solo, things move more quickly. You’ve proven that you can operate the aircraft without the instructor aboard. Or at least that you’re so lucky that you don’t need the instructor. Same result.

Now it’s all about the checkride. It’s not as though you haven’t been preparing for the checkride since your very first flight. But now is when you think about it a lot more.

I bought Bob Wander’s commercial checkride guide. I borrowed some of John’s Harte’s materials. I looked (briefly) for commercial glider knowledge test prep software or online courses, but that was futile. I can perhaps forgive Gleim and the other test prep companies for not having a course tailored for commercial glider guys. We can’t be much of a market. So I paid for Gleim’s regular airplane commercial pilot ground school. It’s geared toward airplane pilots, but the regulatory review was bound to be helpful and I’ll probably go after the commercial for ASEL and AMEL soon anyway.

John and I started hitting the training once a week or so, usually first thing in the morning at the crack of dawn. Sunrise was coming earlier and earlier and we made it a point to turn the prop as soon after sunrise as possible on each of those flights. Mostly, we explored other parts of the glider PTS. We did stalls and slow flight and went looking for crosswinds to work on that technique. [Read more...]

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You Don’t Know Jack: Airspeed Completes the UCAP Trifecta – Audio Episode Show Notes

November 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

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

Even if your favorite show isn’t the Uncontrolled Airspace podcast, you probably subscribe and listen regularly.   In any case, most Airspeed subscribers also listen to UCAP.  I sure do.

We’ve had UCAP co-host Jeb Burnside talking about safety and Dave Higdon talking about aerial photography.  But it remained to have pilot, author, and UCAP producer and co-host Jack Hodgson on the show.

On UCAP, Jack spends much of his time eliciting reactions from co-hosts Jeb Burnside and Dave Higdon and directing the conversation.  I had always wondered what it might be like to give Jack a free hand to talk about stuff as a featured guest.  It’s not that Jeb or Dave crimp his style by any means.  They don’t.  But solo solo Jack is a different thing from UCAP Jack and I wanted to explore that.  So I called him up earlier this year and he agreed to jump on Skype and hold forth for an hour or two.

During the conversation, we talked about Jack’s flight training, airports, the pilot population, the aviation podsphere, and lots of other topics.  There’s something in this episode for everyone.

The episode crowds the two-hour mark, but that’s what the “pause” button on your media player is for.  Yeah, I could milk it for two episodes’ worth of download stats, but it’s better to have the whole thing right there, all in one place.

Please note that we recorded this in 24 May 2012 and it’s a little dated.  Several opportunities intervened this summer that caused me to delay production of several episodes of the show.  But better late than never.  Especially after you hear the episodes that result from the stuff that diverted my attention this summer.

Think you know Jack?  Listen in!

 

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Horsing Around in the Citabria with Ben Phillips

October 12, 2012 by Leave a Comment

I went out with Ben Phillips this afternoon and horsed around the Acro Camp Citabria (N7636S). I still have lots of bad habits by Ben’s estimation, but I fly with Ben mostly to have benefit of his estimation, so it’s all good.

Five takeoffs and landings. Three of them to a full stop. So I’m again current to fly passengers in ASEL, be it tailwheel or otherwise. I think my work in the TG-7A has broken me to some extent of stirring the coffee on landing. Still some stirring, but nowhere near what I used to do.

And, perhaps coolest of all, Ben gave me the go-ahead to take the Citabria out solo. It might strike you as counterintuitive, but I’ve never been cut loose in a tail-dragging airplane. Lots and lots of time in them, but never solo. I have lots of solo time in a tail-dragging motorglider, but nothing about the TG-7A’s taildraggerness counts in the airplane world. I got my tailwheel endorsement from Dan Gryder in the DC-3 in 2008 and I’ve flown movie stuff and competition acro since then. But never frequently enough at any one place to get turned loose in the airplane.

My landings were pretty decent today. Not perfect by any means. The first one was a little ugly, even. And the wind was nearly calm. I know the difference between what I’m authorized to do and what it would be smart to do. So I’ll be back to fly some more with Ben when we can get a good crosswind with which to play.

In the meantime, my clothes smell like Citabria. It’s a good smell.

 

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Michigan Aerobatic Open – Days -1 and 0

July 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

Yeah, it’s been a busy couple of days.  Day -1 and Day 0, Thursday and Friday before the Michigan Aerobatic Open.  It’s been hotter than hell here.  And Hell, Michigan is not far from here, so we know from Hell.  99 to 103 in the afternoons and a lot hotter than that in the Pitts cockpit.

I only got up once on Thursday.  The idea was to work on the spin and then put all of the pieces together to take the Sportsman to the box today.  Not happening.  I have most of the maneuvers together, but the spin took it right out of me and I just didn’t have the time to get everything else so that it’ll fit in the box.  So I’m flying primary at this contest and I’ll try to make my Sportsman debut at some later contest.  (Perhaps one at which I’m not working, which should make things a lot easier.)

With that decided, I took the Primary to the box today.  i have some work to do getting the maneuvers to fit in the box, but I’m not as awful as I was last year.  I actually have SA and I can at least tell that I’m near the edges.

This shot is a pretty good example.  It’s from this evening’s practice.  I got up once this morning and once this evening and managed to get a much better feel this evening.  The above shot is more or less right over the center of the box (which is essentially the numbers of Runway 14).

 

Just before this evening’s flight, I managed my only truly stupid move of the contest.  While sticking the fuel tank, I dropped the stick into the tank.  Disappeared.  Gone.  We could slosh the fuel around and see it floating around in there, but it’s a ruler-sized stick and it was floating flat.  A run to the auto parts store resulted in obtaining a grabber (like a large pickle fork), a flashlight, and a mirror.  We then spent a the better part of an hour fishing around for it.

Christian Smith managed to get it hooked with a but of coat hanger, then I worked it the rest of the way diagonally in the tank at the surface and managed to get it out.  Of course, to get the stick higher in the tank, we had to add 12 gallons of gas.  Which meant that I had to go up and fly it off.  Not a tall order, considering how much fun Sleazy is to fly and how much I needed the practice.

So the contest proper is tomorrow.  I have to confess that I’m a little blue about not being able to fly Sportsman.  But I’m feeling pretty good about the primary routine and it’ll be a good time up there in the box.  I get to fly back seat with the attendant better visibility and I get the best safety pilot that anyone could ask for in the person of Don Weaver.  And I get to hang out with the best bunch of people with which one could hope to hang out.  Aerobatic pilots!

More soon.  Now to hit the rack for some crew rest!

 

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