Flying

I did my Stage 3 check ride with Ken Stock today. After a few minor bumbles during the ground discussion (why are there so many types of Class E airspace on the chart!? Talk about confusing!) the flight went really really well.

It was great weather, which I think helped a lot. With very very smooth air I didn’t deviate more than 10ft from my assign altitude while doing steep turns, slow flight with turns, etc etc. Even my short field landing went very well, landing a mere 20-30ft past the threshold.

I didn’t realize this at the time, but I had booked the flight in the 172R, which has 20 horsepower less than the 172S (which is what I normally fly). Thankfully it didn’t play much of a factor and may have actually helped with my power-on stall, since I tend to drag it out in the 172S. I will say that it climbed awful-like! Leaving Longmont I swear it took 3 times longer than normal to get 500ft AGL so I could turn toward Jeffco and head back. While I don’t plan on flying the 172R again anytime soon, I certainly wouldn’t take it out on a hot day!

I’m scheduled to “fly” in the flight simulator on Sunday with my instructor Kyle. We decided this was the best way to get the additional .7 hours I need in simulated instrument conditions. After we run through that I plan on doing a short ground session in order to go over everything that I’ll need for the my upcoming Check Ride.

If I can find someone to do my Check Ride within the next week or two, I could be a certified Private Pilot in no time!

Hopefully, I’ve taken my second-to-last flight with my instructor on my road to the Private Pilot License. I’m scheduled to fly this Friday with another instructor for my final Stage Check. This Stage Check is where they make sure I’m good enough to take the Check Ride with an independent DPE. Which is a good thing, as it costs around $350 (not counting the plane rental)! Having to do it twice would suck!

After that, I need to do one more (hopefully only one more) flight with my instructor to get reach the ’simulated instrument’ time requirement. This is where you wear blinders to simulate flying through clouds and not being able to see anything but your instruments. We may do this in the simulator, but we’re not sure about that yet.

I’m excited to get this done, it’s been a really long time.. My first flight lesson took place at Boulder Municipal back in 1996, almost 10 years ago!

While I won’t own a plane the moment I get my license, I am well on my way to getting started on building one of those suckers. I suppose I can live with renting for now, as I still have my Instrument Rating to do anyways.. yay, only another 35 hours of lessons! (I guess that’s not very much compared to the 72 hours it’s taken me to get this far).

To infinity and beyond!

I took another trip to Fort Morgan, solo, this Sunday. I had scheduled a couple of hours with my instructor so that we could start reviewing for my pre-check ride check ride, and then my actual FAA check ride.

Turns out, I was missing .4 hours of solo cross country time. I didn’t realize that you needed a total of 5 hours of solo cross country time (plus 5 hours of non-solo cross country time), otherwise I would have tooled around a bit at Sterling when I went up there for my long cross country.

But, the weather was rapidly improving and I was able to jump over to N21180 and schedule a block of 3 hours for it. Hurriedly, I put together my flight plan (pretty much the same as my first solo cross country to Fort Morgan) and calculated winds aloft and all that fun stuff. 45 minutes later I was taxiing down to runway 11L.

It was pretty busy when I got clearance to “follow the two jets to runway 11L” and ended up playing chicken with another bizjet heading to parking. The ground controller was too busy reading an IFR clearance to tell him to “hold short of Alpha 12″ (which is where I was going) - when I was coming at him head on it was really hard to tell if he was moving or not; I wasn’t sure he had stopped at all!

Anyways, I quickly made my turn at A12 and proceeded to follow the two bizjets to the runway. After a somewhat uneventful soft field takeoff (darn it, I keep forgetting you have to steer with your brakes when you do those) I headed out to the north and east for those now familiar checkpoints.

Aaannndd .. it was a long flight. 2.1 hours later, I land back at Jeffco and all is well.

(Though I didn’t have my MP3 player with me, so I was fairly bored while flying around NE of Denver.. nothing around but me and a few cows).

Check out My Logbook for my latest flights.

On another note, I scored a 93 on my midterm for AES 1100 at Metro. Yay!

On October 13th, I finally took my final cross country solo!

Taking off from Jeffco I headed over to Fort Morgan. The weather was great! Cool, clear skies, with a touch of haze. On arrival to Fort Morgan I overflew the airfield and checked out the wind sock: Ouch, an 80 degree crosswind for runway 14. Fort Morgan’s semi-sane automated unicom system said “Winds 220 at 9″. Knowing this, I decided that I would land with only 20 degrees of flaps and get a chance to work on my crosswind landings.

Well, my first approach was a bit too fast (on purpose, actually) and I ended up floating down half of the runway before executing a go-around. The second time around was much better, with crosswind correction almost right where it needed to be. Needless to say, I was a bit left of centerline when I touched down but only a small amount of side load was applied to the landing gear.

After touching down I did a 180-degree turnabout and taxied into the (small!) run-up area for runway 14, so that I could adjust my radios for 15 minute flight up to Sterling.

The wind at Sterling was pretty much right down the pipe. Since I had never been there before, I also overflew this airport to check out the runways. The AWOS told me the winds were about 10 knots, but since they were only 10 degrees off runway 33 it wouldn’t be any trouble. After a not-terrible landing, I taxi’ed back to beginning of runway 33 and setup my radios/GPS for my return trip home.

On the way back I took out my camera phone (shh!) and snapped a couple of pics. The quality sucks, so next time I go on a “trip” I’ll have to bring my digital camera.

And that was that. Than that having to do S-turns on final because the controller couldn’t figure out spacing, all went well. Now to get ready for my FAA Check Ride..

A few exciting things going on now:

1) Finally home from Vegas. I’ll have to try really hard next year to get on a different trip for my 2 weeks (required for my Reserve commitment) - I don’t think I could do it again so soon without at least some resentment. Hopefully we will get to go to San Diego again next year, in which case I’ll have to exert all the force a 3 stripe Airman has to muster and get in on it.

2) I start attending the Aviation Fundamentals class at Metro State College tomorrow. It actually started two weeks ago, but since I was in Vegas for military activities, I had asked the professor if it was cool if I started late - he said it was alright. The class is really Ground School for the Private Pilot license, which I have already done and passed; so it should be an easy class to get done but I’m sure I’ll learn more from it. I have this class (which is 6 credits) and then another class I need to retake (Single Engine Flight Sim I - 3 credits) in order to correct the snafu that is my GPA. (Due to issues with my then employer (TeleTech) I was unable to continue attending those classes back when I originally took them some 5 years ago and wasn’t able to drop them - so two big Fs that need to be fixed). Once my GPA is fixed I’ll have to sit down and decide exactly what my major will be; currently set at Aviation Technology, which I may continue with, I’ve also been eyeballing English (Literature, probably). I’m also interested in getting my A&P license but Emily Griffith only does classes during the day so I am not able to attend those, but maybe in the future.

3) Just yesterday I ordered the “preview plans” from Van’s Aircraft for the RV-7A. Along with that order I got the RV Training Project which is suppose to teach you how to do riveting and other tasks needed to complete an RV kit. They just came out with this training kit, which I think is a great idea. I’d much rather learn how to rivet, dimple, deburr, etc, etc, on a $35 kit than the $1600 empennage kit I’ll be ordering later on! Not sure when those two will come in, but I hope to get a tracking number any day now.

4) In the spirit of purchasing the RV Training Project, this evening I have purchased all the major tools (except one) to actually do the training kit. This includes a rivet gun and a bunch of specialty items that go with it. You can see the complete list of items I ordered from Cleaveland Aircraft Tool, if you are curious. The one item I’m missing is an air compressor. I’m hoping to borrow one for awhile and then eventually buy one. Currently looking at a Craftsman 25gal 6hp model that I think is the best I can get for a 120VAC compressor. I really want an upright 60gal model, but those all take 220V and I don’t know that I’ll always have access to a 220V circuit (like at an airport hanger).

So hopefully I’ll have updates next week when I get this stuff in and can break it open. Such times make you feel like a kid at Christmas again; as long as you don’t look at your bank statement too closely!

[this was moved from the already long Oshkosh 2005, Part 2 post into it’s own post. - ed]

Onto a new topic (sort of), I mentioned my interest in a Lancair Legacy FG kit, with which you can build your own airplane for mere pennies. Actually, it’s pretty expensive, but if you compare the performance you get out of it with a somewhat new airplane (10 years old or less) you won’t find anything for sale that doesn’t cost twice as much. Couple of things have made me shy away from the Lancair kit: 1) I hear it’s a very complex kit to build, and 2) it might be more “high performance” (once it’s completed) than a low time pilot like myself should probably be dealing with. That said, I’m on a couple of Lancair mailing lists and they are all very nice people and the whole process of building an airplane is very cool and interesting. I think I will eventually want to build one (maybe a 4-place ES model), but I feel I would be stepping in over my head very quickly.

So, I “stumbled” upon the RV kits. Van’s Aircraft has been around quite a long time (some 4,000+ kits of theirs have been built and are flying today!) so I certainly knew of them but never actually checked out what they have to offer. After much reading and browsing the Van’s AirForce forums I’ve come to the conclusion that I will build an RV. Either the RV-7 or the RV-9. Both of these kits are sheet metal and rivet aircraft, which a lot of people think are less complex and “easier” to build than the composite aircraft. The RV community is also huge, with tons of resources out there for the newbie builder. The local EAA Chapter also has dedicated members who assist builders with their projects, and they even have a tool library that you can borrow from!

I did finally find the Van’s Aircraft tent at Oshkosh, but I only briefly hung around (remember, I was still into the Lancair at the time - the lady at their display was very nice too) and was actually on my way out to head home. Now I wish I had stayed and asked to sit in their models.

The kits come in different stages: empennage (the tail), the wings, the fuselage, and the finishing kit. Van’s has a Cost Estimator which is helpful, showing me that all told (with a used & rebuilt engine, professional paint job, and avionics) it’s going to cost me around $65k to build. Could add another $10k to that for the Quick Build versions, which would probably cut my build time by 40% (from ~1500 hours to ~900 hours). I’m very strongly considering at least getting the wing kit as a quick build because they put the fuel tanks in and test them for you - which I hear can be a big pain to do on your own.

Only two hurdles (ok, 3 if you count saving up the money):

1) do I get a -7 or a -9? The 9 has a larger wing and is more docile (apparently it stalls slower than most trainers) but can only accept a 160hp engine - I think I want at least 180hp here in Denver with out high altitude. It also cruises slower but seems like a more forgiving design (which would be a plus for a low time pilot like myself). However, I’m leaning towards the -7 which is aerobatic (the -9 is not, and that could be fun) and can take up to a 200hp engine.

2) Tailwheel or not. Right now I’m leaning towards the tricycle gear (no tailwheel, has a nose wheel like Cessna’s) mostly because of insurance reasons (tailwheel aircraft cost more to insure, probably only because there’s a required tailwheel endorsement (ie: training) required to fly one). I did hear that the tricycle gear version (the -7A) actually has part of the gear jutting into the cockpit which can be annoying for some people. I’m going to try to find a -7A to sit in (either locally or at the next Oshkosh) before I make the tailwheel/tricycle gear decision.

Current plan: save up enough money to buy the tools required (almost $2000!) for the kit, and then order the empennage kit (which is only $1700). This should get me started, and I don’t have to make the landing gear choice until I order the fuselage kit. However, I do need to decide between the RV-7 and the RV-9 before I order that kit!

Hopefully in the next few month I’ll have made my decision and started collecting all the tools (hello, Ebay!).

(Oh wait, I forgot another hurdle: do I wait for us to rebuild the garage (2+1/2) or start in our current one-car garage?)

The trip to Oshkosh was a lot of fun (though it would be more fun / less boring driving with someone else along). I headed out early Saturday evening and drove all the way into Iowa before taking a nap at a rest stop. At about 5am I headed out again and drove the rest of the way to Oshkosh, taking I-80 to I-35 to I-90 and finally onto local HWY 21.

I joined the EAA specifically so that I could camp on their members-only camp grounds, which is right next to the airport. At $18 a night it’s hard to beat.. especially since I couldn’t find a vacant hotel room within 50 miles of the place!

Once I arrived everyone had to wait in line to register their vehicles and get passes into show ($20 a day), it was crazy hot! Very high humidity and temperatures in the 90’s. After being in an air conditioned car for the last 20+ hours it was a huge slap in the face.

But that high temp and high humidity went away after a thunderstorm broke out that night. I swear, if I had looked outside my tent I bet there would have been a tornado not 100ft from me.. at least, it felt like it! Lots of people had their tents wrecked or filled with rain due to the very fierce rain we got that night. Lucky for me, the small end of my (really, Cheryl’s) tent was facing into the storm otherwise I think I might have gotten blown across the field like a tumbleweed!

Opening morning was a little dull until I realized that nothing opened or started until 9am. I guess 7am was a little too early to expect much excitement (but what else am I going to do when I wake up at 6am?). I was able to go to a few forums/classes that day, one of which included a class on how to drill, dimple, and rivet sheet metal. (At this point, I was 99% set on getting a Lancair Legacy FG kit which is all fiberglass, so I only took it for the fun and knowledge). Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get to the welding classes either day, but I hope to go next year.

The air show was great! It’s probably the highlight of the show, if only because you can sit down (and stop walking!) and just enjoy the show for a couple of hours. I really liked walking around and seeing the booths and airplanes but it gets tiring. The place is huge.

Before I left for home on Tuesday I had the opportunity to go through EAA’s museum there at the airport (free entry for Air Venture attendees and all EAA members). It’s pretty cool with lots of displays and lots of aircraft with their associated history. Close by was the small grass strip where they were doing helicopter rides, so for $30 I was able to do a quick jaunt (5 mins) that gave me a good view the show. Like I said: it’s huge. Tons and tons of planes, lots of warbirds (my favorite). Next time I need to go down the ‘for sale’ aisle in the warbird section - I didn’t realize it existed until I got back home.

Sadly, I was only able to stay until Tuesday afternoon, and then I had to head home. I did finally arrive home - late, late Tuesday night (4am, I think). Whew, that’s a long drive. Good thing I bought an XM Radio before I left! The Comedy channels kept me awake why driving through Nebraska and NE Colorado.

I took a couple of “movies” with my digital camera (which completely drained my battery - bad move, since I didn’t bring my charger!) so I shall share them here (right-click, save as):

Video 1
Video 2

Both of these show the T-28’s taxing in to their parking spot after flying in formation for the beginning of the airshow on Monday. (You can see pictures of the formations in the Gallery).

Just wanted everyone to know my pictures from Oshkosh are up in the Gallery, see them here!

I will write a more detailed post about it later. Enjoy!

Edit: You can see the “official” EAA Oshkosh gallery at the AirVenture website.