Lesson #21: False Start

Was scheduled to go out solo this past weekend both on Saturday and on Sunday. Saturday I had scheduled the plane from 9:00-11:00. I got up nice and early and decided to take my motorcycle up to the airport. The weather couldn't have been nicer.

KPWK 241453Z 00000KT 10SM FEW065 22/08 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP219 T02220083 50002

I got to the airport at around 9:05 parked the bike and saw two people around 560DH, the plane I had scheduled to fly. I thought the previous lesson had gone a touch late and they were just packing up. As I walked out to the plane I saw that they weren't running late at all they had never even left. It turns out that 560DH had lost a bolt which hold the exhaust header to the manifold. In fact I had a lesson cancelled before due to this same problem. The owner of the flight school was trying to fix the problem, but I pretty much knew that my lesson was a lost cause.

All in all I was kinda pissed/disappointed. It has been really hard to schedule any time to fly due to one plane being grounded for the last couple of weeks. So when I finally get on the schedule and the weather is great I drive the 20 miles in traffic only to find that the plane is grounded. I just wished the the flight school would have called me. Don't get me wrong before all of this I have been pleased with my choice in flight school. Their prices are very reasonable and I am very impressed with my instructor. However, their small size seems to be a limiting factor right now.

Anyway I am scheduled to fly tonight so I hope the plane is fixed my tonight.

Cash or finance - AOPA Forums

Cash or finance that is the question. I found this thread out on Aopa talking about a number of different opinions regarding if you should finance your plane or if you have the cash, pay in cash. Check it out.

Lesson #20 Second Solo : More Landings

On Monday I was scheduled to go up on my second solo flight. I had scheduled two hours in the plane and was really looking forward to my time in the air. As luck would have it I failed to check my calendar (my wife) and I seemed we had promised to go to dinner with some friends. Now some of you may think that I should have just tried to fly and make dinner. Those of you who said that must live closer to the airport than I do. I live in Chicago near Wrigley Field (god the Cubs suck this year) and fly out of PWK. Google maps says the distance from my house to the airport is 24 miles. Those 24 miles take me over 90 min to travel. As a result I needed to cancel my lesson. Luckily there was some open time on the plane's schedule yesterday at 7:00pm. I scheduled an hour in the plane. My plan was to go up and work on my patterns and landings. It took me the before mentioned 90 min to get up to PWK and I barely made it on time. Once at the airport I went to meet the owner of the flight school in order for him to give me the keys. After handing me the keys I got a little bit of a speech about "going around". As you have read in my previous posts, there have been a couple of incidents with students at our flight school. Basically he was saying not to try and save a bad landing but to instead "go around". That in and of it self is good advice, however, the subtext behind the speech, to me, was "a student already broke on of my planes and cost me a lot of money so don't mess up the only plane we have left". I guess I can't really blame him, but it did make me really nervous. He then drove away and wished me luck and to be safe (read don't crash my plane). I had already been listening to ATIS and had all of the necessary info written down on my handy post it note. I radio PWK ground and told then my intentions. Apparently the controller had responded to taxi to runway 16. Well I missed his reply. I waited there in the plane feeling a little dumb and not really wanting to ask the controller to say again. I quickly overcame the moment and radioed asking again for taxi instructions. The controller replied in his best annoyed voice that he had cleared me to runway 16. Gotta love cranky controllers. He must have known I was a student, although, I think my radio work is pretty good. I taxied to the runup area for 16 and went through slowly my checklist. I was really nervous about something going wrong so I wanted to be really cautious about all of my pre-takeoff checklist stuff. I tuned into the tower and was told to "position and hold" and then was cleared within seconds for take off.

Time for take-off. Full throttle, check rpm, check engine instrument, check airspeed alive. This whole time I was saying this outloud. Is it wierd to talk to yourself when flying? Airspeed 60 mph, rotate . . . and we are flying. Hold the extended center line..... tower clears me for right closed traffic follow sundowner traffic. No problem I have traffic in sight. On base to final turn find myself a bit high. . . no problem reduce throttle a bit, third notch of flaps and I get back on the glide path. Here is where I learned some new stuff. On my final I had about a 4 knot crosswind. In the past I had done all my landings using the "low-wing method". This time I, for reasons unknown established my crab to correct for the wind. I held this crab close to touchdown and then kicked the rudder to straighten out. This resulted in a fantastic soft landing with the stall light coming on at touchdown. I wish I would have known that the crab method of landing really isn't as hard as it seemed when reading about it.

The four other landings of the night were very similar. All right traffic, which for me is much harder than left. Got some good practice on the radio, and got to see a beautifully sunset. Need to work on my tendency to pull the airplane right when I look out the right window during right traffic and need to keep a very close eye on airspeed when working the radio. All in all another great day of flying. And I didn't bust up our school's last airplane. Oh and one more thing the picture in this post is from google maps and actually show where our plane is parked and I think you can actually see the plane I fly circled in red.

The Plane I Fly 560DH and 1423T

I had a little extra time over lunch today and after checking the weather I saw that most likely my scheduled lesson will be scrapped. As a result I decided to write a quick new post. I included some pictures of the interiors of the two planes that I fly. Currently only one, N560DH is airworthy. If interested in that story take a look a some of my previous posts. The picture to the right is the interior of N1423T.

Suggestions for Traffic Information: TIS, TAS, TCAS?

I was up late a couple of days a ago surfing around and wound up reading a really good thread on Aopa's Forum. There was a really good discussion about different types of traffic allert and avoidance system and getting the most for your money. Check out the whole thread at this Link .

Propstrike ! ! ! UPDATE

N1423T Bent Prop Picture
Originally uploaded by Mar26.

A quick update on the incident we had at my flight school this weekend. The student who had this accident posted on StudentPilot.com. Link to thread here with his original post pasted below:

Hello all. Though I have never posted before, I have thoroughly enjoyed
reading everyone's helpful advice and solo stories.My own story is that I soloed
last week at 15.1 hours. Today I went for my 2nd solo to practice maneuvers and
touch and goes. Unfortunately, I had an accident during the landing the 3rd
touch and go. Out of caution, I cannot provide details.However, I am extremely
grateful for being alive. I had no injuries, but the accident scared the hell
out of me. In terms of damage, the prop was bent a little bit and the nosegear
off-center a bit. I was able to taxi back with the engine running.As the day has
worn on, my worrying has only increased after having read others' stories.
Still, I haven't been obtain a clear picture of what actually occurs following
the accident.My instructor told me to expect a call from the FAA once he files
the report. Beyond this, what else should I expect (in the immediate and distant
future)? Will this go on a permanent record? Will other flight schools not take
me in?At this point, I am done with flying. I am relatively young (22) and have
a hopefully promising future ahead of me. I have a great extended family who I
don't want to lose. It has also shaken my core that someone else's property was
damaged under my care and that potentially I could have hurt someone else as
well. Though I have loved flying since I was a kid, at this point I have too
much to lose and cannot take on the responsibility that being a pilot
entails.thanks to all for being a supportive community. I will sincerely
appreciate any guidance on the matters I discussed above.

Please, if possible take the time to read this thread and ecourage this individual to get "back on the horse" as they say. Additionally some of the other posters give some really good advise on things such as renter's insurance and dealing with the FAA. I plan on writing up a post in the near future exclusively on renter's insurance as I currently don't have any and after reading all of this have decided that I NEED it.

Lesson #19 Soft Field Takeoff

Cherokee N560DH

The plan today was to go up with my instructor and fly to a number of airports close to Palwaukee so he could endorse me to solo as these airports as well.

I got to the airport a little early so I could get the ATIS information written down. My instructor called next and said he was running a little and that I should go pre-flight the airplane myself while I was waiting. Too bad I didn't have the key to the plane, but I took the opportunity to walk out to the plane and take some pictures.

My instructor got there a couple minutes later and we were off into the sky. From PWK we flew to C81 . My instructor promptly cut the engine as we were on the entry to the downwind leg of runway 90. No problem, I had plenty of altitude to make almost a full pattern. I added one notch of flaps, made the turn to base and still had plenty of altitude to make runway 90, added second notch of flaps and started my turn to final. PROBLEM, the tail wind on my base leg had bled off way too altitude and at this point it was obvious that I wouldn't have made then runway. I was a little upset with screw up, but after obviously not making the runway I was instructed to add some throttle so as to finish the approach with power. Here is where I was really pleased with my self. There was a direct crosswind on runway 90 and I was able to correct for it and made a very respectable landing.

A couple more laps around the patch for consisted of me making my first attempts at both a short-field, and soft-field takeoff. It was a lot of fun but I will need a bunch of work on these maneuvers. Each of my landings got a little better which I was pleased with. I did have to go around once as I wound up a little too close on my downwind which led to a u-turn final that was too fast and too high.

After the whole prop incident I wrote about yesterday I really wanted to be comfortable going around.

From C81 we headed to KUGN to get a couple of touch and gos in. As we headed northeast toward KUGN I got cleared straight in to runway 5. I made a pretty good landing on this approach. I would call this landing a greaser except that I drifted about five feet off the center line. My instructor tells me that occasionally I attempt to hold the center line with the rudder instead of the ailerons. I don't know what causes that, but I need to concentrate on this aspect more.

From here we headed home. This leg was uneventful except for one thing and it was a big thing. We flew a higher altitude than I was used to. As a result my sight picture of the terrain around PWK looked much different. I thought that ORD was PKW, not good.

Key takeaways form this, be very vigilant in watching your surroundings.

Prop Strike!!!!!

Yesterday I scheduled myself for a two hour slot in N1423T to work on my pattern work around PWK and to get some solo time in. I was a little nervous as the winds were around 9 knots and my first solo was in dead calm air. On the way to the airport I tuned into PWK tower to get a feel for the amount of traffic in and around the airport. I always try to listen to both ATIS and the tower before my lesson, I write down the ATIS info on one of those sporty's post it notes designed just for ATIS information. This helps me because I don't have to worry as much about the ATIS info while sitting in the cockpit going through my preflight checklists. I just check the ATIS in the plane to make sure that the info I wrote down is still current. Also having all of the freqs jotted down is very usefully to me as I always seem to forget what PWK ground freq is.

Anyway as I pull up to area three parking lot I see that my instructor and his previous lesson have just landed. After he signs the student's log book he tells me that N1423T is grounded. I asked the reason. Well as it turns out a student going out on a solo flight, I am not sure if it was his first or not, banged the prop pretty bad. Thus the grounding of N1423T.





I saw this accident as an opportunity to learn from other mistakes. I asked my instructor to tell me the particulars of the accident. According to my instructor, the student came in over the threshold fairly hot and as a result bounced/ballooned the touchdown. He then attempted to recover unsuccessfully and bounced again. At this point he was about 7 or so feet in the air with out much airspeed and proceeded to stall the plane. The stall forced the plane into a somewhat nose down attitude. It was in the attitude that the plane came down to the runway, landing pretty hard on the front gear and banging the prop. The aftermath of the accident was a badly bent prop and damaged front gear. I was told that luckily the engine never quit. Apparently if you hit the prop hard enough to stop the engine there is a very high likelihood of engine damage, most likely to the crankshaft.

So what do we learn from this? Well my take away was a couple of things:

• Approach speed is so key to a good landing
• Don't be afraid to go around. If anything doesn't feel right. . . Go around

The bad news about all of this is really for the flight school. N1423T had just gotten back from getting a new zero time engine put in. I am really bummed too as this was the plane I soloed in and really felt good flying in her. I hope that she comes back as good as she was before the incident.

I am scheduled to fly again to night, only this time in N560DH. The game plan for tonight is for me to go up with my instructor and fly to KUGN land a couple times and get signed off to solo at KUGN. Next on the agenda is flying to Campbell (C81) land a couple times and get signed off for solo there as well. Finally, head back to KPWK to drop off my instructor and finish out the rest to my scheduled time for the day working on my pattern and landing skills.

Winging It

Winging It

In trying to get a bunch of posts out this first week my blog is alive I have found a number of other student pilot blogs. This one is especially interesting to me as he is another Chicagoland student pilot. Good Luck tom

Jimmy Dreams.......of flying

Jimmy Buffett has been flying for over fifteen years now. His love of flying first blossomed when he was in college. A friend of his at the University of Southern Mississippi was a pilot and introduced him to flying. Jimmy had a flight lesson here or there but it didn't amount to much in the early days. Money was tight and flying is certainly not cheap. As a notable sign I once saw in an airport said, "If God had intended man to fly, he would've given him more money." However, that flying bug stayed with Jimmy. He set the goal of having his license by his 40th birthday. So as more success brought more money, Jimmy was able to resume his flying dream. He purchased a Lake Renegade amphibian and was instructed to his private pilot certification with single engine land and sea ratings just a year shy of his 40th birthday. Jimmy now owns several planes including the Hemisphere Dancer, a restored Grumman Albatross, which was sometimes flown over concert venues. However, the Albatross was recently retired and put on display at Margaritaville in Orlando. A Dassault Falcon 900c zips Jimmy around for business. Not forgetting pleasure, a Cessna Caravan amphibian lets Jimmy island hop while a Stearman biplane gives him a sense of nostalgia. There have also been a few close calls in Jimmy's flying career. In 1994, Jimmy was performing a water takeoff in his Grumman Widgeon when he encountered a swell in Nantucket and was unable to maintain control. The aircraft nosed over and sank. Read the accident report. Thanks to Naval survival training (required for a flight in an F-14 that Jimmy took), Jimmy swam out relatively uninjured. In 1996, shortly after landing the Hemisphere Dancer on the water outside of Negril, Jamaican authorities shot at the airplane mistaking it for a drugrunning seaplane. This incident inspired Jimmy to write the song Jamaica Mistaica for the Banana Wind album.

Hemisphere Dancer

Hemisphere Dancer, originally uploaded by Mar26.

Hemisphere Dancer, originally uploaded by Mar26.

Just thought I would share some of my insparation for getting my certificate. This is a picture of Jimmy Buffetts flying boat (now retired) which was a central part of his auto-biography. It was this book which finally pushed me to start the journey toward obtaining my wings.

Aopa's Win A Six In '06

Cherokee6, originally uploaded by Mar26.

Sitting in a hotel room while away on businees leads to a lot of motivation to work on ones blog. So as I was surfing around on the hotel's woefully slow wireless network I started day dreaming about my plane.

What plane is that you ask? Well it is of course the Piper Cherokee Six that is will be given away toward the end of this year. As of today I have sent away for over fifty entry forms. This is in addition to the fifty I have already sent in. I have a goal of sending in an entry for every day between now and January 8th 2006, the last day of the contest. I am wondering what the insurance will cost? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Solo Flight!

Who? Me .... Marcus
What? My first solo in N1423T
Where? PWK Palwaukee Municipal Airport
When? Thursday June 1st 2006 1:00 UTC


I did it, the first big accomplishment of my avation adventure. My first solo. I hadn't flown in roughly two weeks due to travel and was pretty nervous about beeing rusty. My instructor had been telling me that I was ready to solo, provided I didn't screw up anything too bad he would endorse me to solo my next time out. Well that next time out was this past thursday.

The weather couldn't have been better for a rookie pilot. When I got the airport aroud 6:30 pm ATIS was reporting calm winds, the sky only had a few clouds just a fantastic evening. I can't tell you how much more confidence the condiditions gave me. My instructor got there at five minutes or so before we had the plane reserved and we proceeded to prflight the airplan. The preflight finished up with out a hitch and we proceeded to get taxi clearance to hold short of runway 16. We proceeded to fly three touch and gos. My first touch and go was ok a bit hard but safe. My second landing I was concentrating very hard on greasing it but came in a little too hot and balloned just a touch. This kinda had me discouraged and thinking now I would get to solo but got ready for my last dual touch and go. My last landing was probably my best one yet. At this point we taxied to parking and my instructor did all the paper work signing me off to solo at Palwaukee Airport (PWK). My instructor got out shook my hand and told me to go out there and give him three good full stop landings.

I was really going to fly all by myself! No more training wheels. I was the only one that could get me up into the sky and down safely. I was really nervous for like ten seconds and asked my self why I was doing this. In fact I am pretty sure my voice cracked while getting taxi clearance from Palwaukee ground. It is not cool when you are thirty and your voice cracks. But the nerves quickly faded away as I got taxi clearance to runway 16, in fact I was so excited my cheeks hurt from smiling. Following my take off clearance I proceded to start my takeoff roll. The first thing I noticed was how much faster the plane accelerated and also how much more left turning tendancy there was with out my instructor. Airspeed indicator alive check, engine rpms check, rotate..... and I am flying. As I climb out I noticed that I am almost at pattern altitude even before midfield, talk about better performance with out the instructor. My turn cross wind is uneventfull. Same goes for my turn downwind. As I approach beeing abeam the numbers reduce the power to 1600 or so and one notch of flaps and trim to 80mph. So far so good. I turn base second notch of flaps trim to 75 so far so good. At this point I realize that my cross wind wasn't wide enough leaving me effectively a u-turn from downwind to final, need to work on that next time around. Third notch of flaps trim to 70, check I am lined up with the center line and am right on the VASI, so far so good. As a come over the threshhold cut the power and give a little tug on the yoke so as not to come in flat as a pancake. I am now floating down the runway, increase the back preasure on the elevator now about 2 feet off the ground, a little more back preassure, I hear the stall horn and then feel the wheels touch down ever so softly. I did it! I did it and I didn't break the plane.

Now that I am done congratgulating myself I realize that I have drifted right of the center line. Not real bad but a good to feet to the right of the centerline. So much for the perfect first landing. Now it is time to slow down so I apply the toe brakes. I apperantly but too much preasure on the right brake as I started to swearve around. I taxi off the active and get cleared to taxi back to runway 16 and proceeded to get cleared for take off. Before advancing the throttle for take off I run though a quick check list and in doing so realize that I still have three notches of flaps. Thank good I caught that error. Just goes to show you how important checklists are. I proceeded to land two more times with out incident, and I must say the landing were pretty good.

So now I have .5 hours as pilot in command and can't wait for the next time I can fly. I only wish my wife could have been there to see. It took me 22 hours to solo so I wasn't the fastest to solo but I am very happy with my progress.

Who Doesn't Want To Fly

So this is my first post to my newly created blog. The idea for this blog is to mainly be a journal of my progress toward my Private Pilots Certificate. After each lesson I am going to post what is did and my thoughts about the lesson along with any ideas I have that will make my subsequent flights better. Hopefully some one else will read my posts and maybe give me some pointers or even (gasp) learn someting from me.

A little introduction is probabally in order considering this is my first post. I always knew I was interested in avation. When I was about ten or twelve I saw a remote controlled airplane flying in a neighbors back yard. I thought it was the coolest thing I had ever laid eyes on. That next day I had my mom take me to the public library where I proceeded to check out every book on radio controlled airplanes. After reading all those books I saved up enougth money to buy a remote controll plane. I spent about a month building it and proceeded to crash it 30 seconds into its maiden voyage. I think my parents still have the wreckage in a box somewhere :) After that my interest subsided due to other interests coming up such as playing football and skiing. Fast foward to the summer of my junoir year in college. Being a huge Jimmy Buffett fan (hense the name of the blog) I purchased Jimmy's autobiography and spent some lazy summer days reading the book in the sun on the lake. I was Buffett story telling about his learnign to fly a seaplane and take it around the islands that really sparked my interest in flying. However, as a college student I didn't have any money tobuy beer let alone flyign lessons. So the dream was left to simmer a bit longer. Fast foward to 2006 I am now 30 years old and married with some extra disposable income. Some friends of my wife and I were getting married in Cabo San Lucas and I needed a book to read for the trip so I took the Buffett book to reread. This time after finishing the book I started looking for a flight school. Which brings us to today where I have roughly 21 hours toward my certificate.