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DC-3 Type Rating – Type Rating Complete!

May 26, 2008 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. For audio and show notes, please check out the other entries.

Sorry to leave you hanging on the podcast feed. For reasons explained below, I was just too tired to do a competent post and I needed to get some rest in order to complete the training on Sunday.

In any case, I finished the training and I’m type-rated (second in command) in the Douglas DC-3. Roland and Gerrit also completed their ratings and Tom was on track for his recurrent checkride for Tuesday.

And James got a low pass and a landing in the aircraft, so I’m sure that he’s going to have great material for his story.

(Pictured above: Dan, me, Tom, Gerrit, Ronald, and James.)

I’ll try to put out another episode covering the third day of training here soon and then another, more complete episode covering all of the training from beginning to end.

 

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DC-3 Type Rating – Day 1

May 23, 2008 by 2 Comments

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. Or listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedDC3SIC2.mp3. It’s all free!

First day of training today. Started out at 8:30 when everyone arrived. We headed out to the aircraft and split into two teams of two. Two did the interior preflight and two did the exterior preflight and then the teams switched.

Took a reasonably long time, but there’s a lot of stuff in a DC-3 that’s not in or on a C-172.

Dan walked us through both the interior and exterior inspections. Here are a few audio outtakes from each of those inspections.

[Audio 1]

We got up sometime around 11:30. We took off from Griffin and headed over to Thomaston-Upson County Airport (KOPN) for pattern work. Gerrit took the first tour in the left seat and did a really good job flying the aircraft. Had most of his callouts memorized and in sequence, but goofed a few. We all did. As much studying as we did before this course, you really have to just get in the airplane and fly it before the memorized events take on substance and start to have practical meaning.

I was second up. Okay. I get to fly the beastie! The ‘three basically flies like a big Apache. The only real difference in the feel is the greater mass and the fact that you turn using a lot more rudder than aileron. In fact, you start the turn with the rudder and follow with as much aileron as is helpful. And you need to figure out by feel how much that is. And it’s nowhere near as much as you might think it would be.

I started out by doing a few turns and by climbing and descending a little. Three or four trips around the pattern on the first flight. It’s actually weird how similar the airspeeds are to a C-172 or other lighter aircraft. You rotate at V2, which is 84 KIAS and make your way to a climb speed of 120 KIAS. But, buy the time you get downwind midfield, you’re basically doing 90 KIAS and then you come over the fence at a little over 75 KIAS.

Touchdown is pretty basic. You retard the throttles as you come over the fence and target maybe 80 KIAS and hold her off a little. The only weird thing is that you can’t descend all the way to a familiar landing sight picture because, at about 10 feet above where you think you should be touching down in a C-172, there’s an obstruction. It’s the main gear of the DC-3 squeaking down. So far, almost every landing has been a surprise that way.

But it’s amazingly well-behaved. I don’t think I’ve ever landed any airplane for the first time as well as I’ve landed the ‘three. Dan is following on the controls a lot and I can’t yet judge how much. But I’ll take some credit for the landings.

Here’s audio from one of my first landings. My callouts are really ragged here, but Dan rolls with it.

[Audio 2]

Roland was next. I think his second landing was one of the best of the day. After that, we taxied to the ramp and went for some lunch. After lunch, it was preflight inside and out again, then up.

Tom, the ATP, took the first turn at the controls. He’s really smooth and it’s clear that he’s flown for the airlines. He has as much of an issue internalizing the litany of the pattern as anyone else (and that gives me a little reason for relief), but his underlying technique is very smooth and Dan’s instructional comments to Tom are a lot more direct and assume Tom’s greater familiarity with Cockpit Resource Management (or CRM). It’s clear that there are two airline guys in the front at this point and it’s cool to hear.

Of the four of us, Tom is the only one who has a checkride coming up. The second-in-command course that Roland, Gerrit, and I are taking is a straight-up train-to-standards program with no checkride necessary. Tom, on the other hand, is prepping for a checkride on Tuesday. Dan gets Tom up front in the foremost jumpseat as often as possible and snatches moments when he can to point out things as one of the other guys flies.

I was third to fly on the afternoon flight and got another three landings, one of which was a circle-to-land. The first time around, I ran to the back to start the recorder before taking the left seat and, by the time I got situated, we were a little off-kilter in terms of the pattern. By the time I had her turned around onto something approaching final, we were pretty high and, although we could have gotten her down, Dan decided to have a little fun. We did a high-speed pass.

Yeah, a DC-3 at 160 KIAS barreling down the runway 50 feet off the deck and then a big pull and turn that ends beautifully on downwind for the next trip around.

Here’s audio from one of the trips around the pattern in the afternoon. Note that my callouts are a lot crisper and that I’m getting more of them. Plus, Dan’s holding me to a tougher standard, which is good and what I expect.

This is also going to be my circle-to-land approach.

[Audio 3]

Three last observations before I hit the sack.

First, I’m a fan of describing yourself at an uncontrolled airport by your appearance unless there’s another similar-appearing aircraft in the pattern, in which case you revert to your tail number. I flew with a guy recently who objected pretty strenuously to my doing that on the theory that another similar aircraft could appear in the pattern at any time. I’m not busting his chops here, but I think that, unless you’re at Oshkosh in July, the chances are pretty thin that another DC-3 will be sharing the pattern with you. I delighted in making the calls that “The DC-3 is turning left base.”

Second, this is a great way to train. When you’re not flying, you’re able to watch the other guy flying. You do the callouts in your head and learn from the other guy’s miscues – or get driven to perfect your own callouts when the other guy nails his. I noted in a couple of cases that we were taking cues from each other, integrating stuff that wasn’t expressly on the syllabus into our own routines because they made sense and enhanced the experience. That’s true teamwork.

Lastly, one could fly the ‘three solo, but it’s truly a two-person job. To learn to fly the ‘three is to learn to actively fly with someone else as a synchronized team. You’ll hear the callouts and the responses in the audio here and they’re all pretty necessary in order to safely and efficiently operate the aircraft. This is my first real experience with CRM and with operating the aircraft in the way an airline pilot would expect to. In some respects, the CRM is even tougher to get right than flying an airliner. But I like it a lot.

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Multi-Engine Rating – Day 2 – Rating Complete!

April 21, 2008 by 2 Comments

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. Or listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedMultiDay2.mp3. It’s all free!

The feeling is starting to come back in my right leg and I can almost open and close my left hand again.

But it’s all worthwhile because I just added Airplane Multiengine Land to my ticket! And it doesn’t have the VFR restriction. Too cool!

I just finished the two-day accelerated multi-engine course with Tom Brady of Traverse Air. We flew at Wexford County Airport in Cadillac (KCAD) Saturday and Sunday. Two flights of 2.0 each and four instrument approaches and nine landings Saturday. Sunday was two shorter flights of 1.5 hours each and four instrument approaches and seven landings. Then the checkride Sunday afternoon with 1.2 (pilot in command!) hours, one instrument approach, and two landings.

I also got my complex endorsement as part of the process.

Lots of studying for this. A lot to get into your head in just two days. Here’s the obligatory parking-lot engine failure drill. I think I had just stomped on the ball and was going to full forward on the levers here.

That would be the left engine and prop and, yes, that would be the prop feathered and not turning. We did two or three full-feathered shutdowns throughout the training and the checkride. This is the second one – on the last flight with Tom. Pretty benign, actually. It’s really amazing how much drag you get with a windmilling prop that’s full forward. Other than a fair amount of rudder and some bank into the good engine, it’s pretty much like flying with both engines at lower power once you get the dead engine shut down and feathered.

Capt. Force at the controls. This was on the way out to the practice area after an engine failure on the runway and another right after takeoff. Note the maneuver cheat sheet stuck in the headliner, ready for reference. Whereas I simply memorized the setup for other checkrides, there’s just too much information and too short a time to internalize all of the maneuver setups. Memorize the stuff that is truly memory stuff (e.g. push up, clean up, gas, pumps, verify, feather) and use checklists for the other stuff. I made a lot of outlines in law school, but the primary benefit of the outlines were actually making the outlines. It usually took only a couple of glances at the cheat sheet in the course of setting up for a given maneuver, but it was very helpful knowing that it was there.

Multi instructor extraordinaire Tom Brady in the right seat. Tom made the whole thing systematic and as easy to digest as possible. I’m not saying that it was easy. It wasn’t. But Tom did a great job of presenting the material in a cogent way that could be rapidly absorbed by a competent pilot who arrived prepared.

It’s an accelerated course. In Tom’s or any other accelerated course, you’re going to have to show up having read all of the materials and having a good understanding of the theory before you get in the car to go to the airport. You should be current and proficient in single-engine aircraft and it would be a great idea to have some complex time, too. (I got my only complex time just a few days before the multi training, but even that little bit really helped.)

You’ll have to have all of your stick and rudder skills second nature because you will spend the entire weekend working on the multi-specific stuff. You must have your A-game together so that you can pay attention to the multi-specific information. There’s only enough time (and you probably only have enough energy) to learn the multi stuff. If you’re not used to holding an airspeed within five KIAS, holding an altitude within 50 feet, and otherwise doing what you need to do in a single, all of those basic things will take up bandwidth that you need for the multi. You don’t have time or energy enough to take the rust off of your single-engine flying skills while picking up the multi skills. I’m usually pretty good with airspeed, altitude, and other precision matters. But I was consistently 100-200 feet high and a little fast in the Apache until late the second day. I don’t want to think about what this weekend would have been like if I hadn’t gotten up in the Cutlass a few days before.

Lastly (at least until I get an episode out covering the whole training experience), is it just me or does everyone draw great designated examiners? Kevin Spaulding gave me a great checkride. He started with a measured and thoughtful discussion of what we were going to do and used that discussion as an outline to talk through the required information. Weight and balance, performance, the elements of Vmc, how those elements affected maneuverability, etc. Then he was relaxed and objective during the checkride.

I floated the cabin once on the instrument approach. I think I pushed at the same time there was a downdraft, but if there really wasn’t a downdraft, I’ll take the responsibility. But that was a huge float.

Unlike many of the training approaches, I nailed the heading the whole way down the stairs. I got a little busy playing with the power and that might have contributed to some of the pitch oscillations. As soon as I relaxed a little on the corrections, things got a lot smoother. Funny how that works . . .

If you’re near Traverse City or Cadillac, Michigan (or if your family can find ways in those places to amuse themselves while you’re flying your ass off for a couple of days), consider the accelerated multi-engine program at Traverse Air with Tom Brady.

Traverse Air, Inc.
294 West Silver Lake
Traverse City, Michigan 49686
231-943-4128
tbrady294@charter.net
http://www.traverseair.com/

Tom also does seaplane ratings in a PA-12! Hmmmm. I think we’re going to Traverse City for vacation this summer . . .

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Multi-Engine Training – Day 1

April 19, 2008 by 2 Comments

Subscribe to Airspeed through iTunes or your favorite other podcatcher. Or listen online right here by clicking: http://media.libsyn.com/media/airspeed/AirspeedMultiDay1.mp3. It’s all free!

Day one of multi training. I am a noodle. Nothing like four or five hours of mortal combat in the skies to take a little out of you.

Two flights today with Tom Brady of Traverse Air in his 1957 Piper Apache (PA-23-150) N3207P. Met Tom at the terminal building at Cadillac (KCAD) this morning at about 9:30. We talked about the training and the maneuvers and then went out to see the aircraft. After a brief tour, it was time to start her up and get airborne.

The maneuvers are fairly straightforward and basically amount to all of the elements of flying that you don’t get in a single-engine aircraft. The most similar stuff to single-engine flying was the stalls and steep turns. Steep turns are essentially the same, except that there’s no power change involved. You just go around at 20” MP and 2,200 RPM.

Stalls are a little different in that we didn’t go to full break. Additionally, power-on stalls are done at 18” manifold pressure (as opposed to 25” of more manifold pressure on a normal takeoff takeoff). Fine with me. I’d rather not be at full takeoff power with 150 HP on each wing with the possibility of asymmetric evils if the break happened in an uncoordinated way.

The other maneuvers are concentrated on engine-out operations. All of this is brand new territory. The instructor fails an engine in one way or another, depending on the circumstances, and you compensate in all of the appropriate ways.

If you’re close to the ground, the instructor will simulate an engine failure using the throttle, which isn’t as authentic, but is safer. We did a couple of failures on takeoff, at least 500 feet AGL. Failures at altitude are usually done by the instructor pulling the mixture.

In any case, you look at the ball of the inclinometer and step on it hard and then bank about five degrees into the good engine. Then it’s “power up” (all of the handles – throttles, props, and mixes full forward), “clean up” (flaps and gear up), check the gas, and check the electric boost pumps.

After that, you configure the aircraft to fly as best it can with just one engine. That means identifying the dead engine (“dead foot, dead engine” – whichever foot isn’t pushing on the pedal is the “dead foot” and that tells you which engine is out). You pull the throttle on that engine. No change? Leave it off. Same with the prop. No change? Leave it off. Then you secure the dead engine by pulling the mix.

Then you fly the airplane at blue line (Vyse or 95 MPH on the Apache) until told to recover or land.

The other maneuver is Vmc demonstration. This amounts to flying the airplane to (but not over!) the edge of its control envelope. This amounts to flying the airplane to or near Vmc (generally 78 MPH) in the configuration that has the most asymmetric thrust condition with as many factors as possible set to make control difficult and, generally, producing the circumstances most likely to put the airplane on its back. Left engine out and windmilling (not feathered) right engine full power and prop full forward. Gear up. No flaps. You get into this condition and then you slow up the airplane to Vmc and recover at the first sign of incipient loss of control. That means a buffet, a heading change, or similar indications.

And here’s the thing. Unlike a lot of single-engine maneuvers that are very reminiscent of this condition, you don’t push the good engine to full power. After all , it’s already there and that’s part of what’s getting you into the situation. No, you push the nose over and decrease the power on the good engine. That’s so the good engine doesn’t whip its side of the airplane over when the other wing stalls.

And here’s the other thing. Big thing, kind of. Unexpected anyway. I assumed that I was just getting the rating VFR. I assumed that the multi-engine VFR and multi-engine IFR ratings were separate things. After all, I’m getting the multi primarily so that I can qualify for the SIC type rating in the DC-3 in May down in Georgia. But it turns out that there’s simply a multi-engine rating and, if you don’t do the IFR part, you simply get a restriction saying that the multi-engine rating is VFR only.

I know. Six in one and a half dozen in the other. And I may still have it wrong. But I found out when Tom and I sat down that I can get the rating without the VFR limitation this weekend. All I have to do is fly an approach as a part of the checkride with an engine failure thrown in for fun.

I flew four localizer approaches today, the first two without the hood and the second two with the hood. Talk about being busy! Holy crap! I won’t be disappointed if I end up having the restriction on my ticket, but it would be really nice to get the rating without the VFR-only restriction. I’m going to have to chair fly a few approaches tonight in preparation.

More later!

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Multi-Engine Training – Off We Go!

April 19, 2008 by Leave a Comment


This is a regular blog post. Looking for show notes or audio? Please check out the other posts.

Headed to Traverse City last night as base of operations for the multi-engine rating. Packed everything from the instrument ride in case I needed it for the checkride (e.g. IACRA documents, etc.). that pretty much filled up the back of the family dinghy.

Cole’s going along. He’ll hang out with my folks in Traverse City while I head down to Cadillac (KCAD) to fly.

Serious bugs on the windshield! This is just north of West Branch on I-75 with two hours to go. We had to pull off in Grayling to wash ‘em off. They were actually beginning to constitute a hazard to navigation.

Study, study, study! Got up this morning, got a weather briefing, and tried to study the materials again. The fact is that no amount of reading is actually going to keep be from being surprised in a lot of ways, but I’ll have the book learning part as complete as possible before launching.

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