Out For A Drive

This afternoon, we decided to get out of the neighborhood to enjoy the sunshine and try to find a park that I see every time I fly the pattern at Sebastian Airport. Behind the Wal-Mart that sits on US Highway 1 is a swampy area with trails and boardwalks weaving through the bushes and palms. I looked on Google Earth, but I couldn't find the location, so we were driving blind, hoping to see a sign along one of the nearby roads.

I found the Wal-Mart, right where I thought it should be, but no sign of any swamp trail out back. We drove around with the help of our GPS, but still couldn't find a sign for the park, or even the swamp. How can such a large swampy area be so completely hidden from the road?

After driving around for a while, we came upon a nice playground and decided to stop. It was getting late and the sun was getting low in the western sky. Susan gently removed Andrew from his booster seat and carried him to the playground. He slowly woke up as we walked through the gate into the sand surrounding the equipment. He was still tired and said he was cold, so we headed back to the car. As we started to pull out, he looked out the window and said, "I want to go to that playground, not the one we were just at." We tried to explain to him that he was looking at the same playground, but he said, "No, this one is much bigger." So, we pulled into the other entrance, pulled out our fleece jackets, and played for about an hour. Andrew had a great time, running from one thing to the next. The main piece had eleven sliding boards coming down from it, and most started about ten feet off the ground.

Before we left, I programmed the location into my 'Favorites' in my GPS. Otherwise, I don't think I could find it again.

CFI-A Lesson 10 (Part 1)

This afternoon, I flew with a check pilot and brought along a pre-solo student pilot for the ride. Like the last practice flight, I planned a flight that would cover basically everything I've covered since the beginning. Before flying, I did a ground brief on Short Field Approach & Landing. I used multiple colors on the whiteboard, a model airplane, the VFR maneuvers books for the Cadet, and the performance charts for the Cadet. I talked and wrote for about 25 minutes. Afterwards, the instructor 'student' asked some questions and drove me to areas that I hadn't thought of, like how turbulence from the nearby obstructions, if any, might affect the approach and how the definition of a short field can change with elevation and temperature.

Out in the plane, I demonstrated a Soft Field Takeoff and headed east for the coast. I did all high maneuvers and stalls over the ocean, then headed for Sebastian for landings and takeoffs.

After Sebastian, I flew west to the practice area and coached my 'student' through Eights on Pylons. On the way back to Vero Beach, we had a simulated engine failure. I coached my 'student' through a Soft Field Landing and we called it a day. The flight time was 2.3 hours.

I had a few rough spots in the lesson, so I will need to go back and do part of it again. Trouble areas included forgetting to do the pre-maneuver checklist, not recovering to cruise flight after all demonstrated stalls, and applying the wrong crosswind correction on one landing.

CFI-A Lesson 10 (Warm-up)

With my next lesson scheduled for Thursday morning, I scheduled a plane with another student today to practice all maneuvers. I scheduled from 3:00 - 6:00PM, knowing that I'd have the airport to myself when I got back, and smooth skies during the flight. I scheduled it for three hours so that all time pressure would be removed. I brought along another CFI student because A) it's good to have a peer review you because he may see things that you miss and B) I've never flown solo from the right seat, so I wanted a pilot in the left seat, just in case.

We started our flight by doing a soft field take-off and climbing to the east over the Indian River. At 1,200 feet, we turned north and flew along the beach for a while. Oh how nice it is to just fly along enjoying the scenery. We turned west just south of Sebastian and headed for the practice area.

I went through my entire repertoire of maneuvers and headed back for the airport. On the way back, we were cleared the straight-in approach to runway 11L and told to report a four mile final. At the VOR, I was just about to report in when the tower told me that I had traffic at my six o'clock - a Challenger jet. Cool!! The jet was aligned with runway 11R, so I slowed down a little and let it pass us on the right at our altitude. It wasn't as cool as seeing a Boeing 747 or 777 up close, like at Paine Field in Everett, WA, but it was as cool as it gets in Vero Beach.

I practiced all the landings types and a couple power-off 180 degree landings and called it a night. Overall, a very fun, confidence-building flight.

CFI-A Lesson 9

Today's lesson was the easiest yet, and remaining. We simply covered the three questions that I missed on my FAA exam, then covered some of the many federal regulations, and NTSB accident/incident reporting. This was also my last lesson with my current instructor. After my stage check with the head instructor, I'll be flying with a new instructor.

CFI-A Lesson 8 (Part 2)

Today I continued with Lesson 8. Last time, we didn't have time to do an Aborted Take-off or Emergency Decent.

I started today's lesson just like last time; I presented a brief on the Emergency Approach and Landing. I incorporated feedback from the critique of my first presentation, and I thought the presentation went well. My instructor suggested that I move the order of the items around to help the student understand the importance of each step. For example, I described the intial steps first - flying the airplane to the landing field at best glide speed, then went into the approach and landing. At that point, I reverted back to the beginning and discussed troubleshooting items that should be done while enroute to the landing spot. My instructor told me that that would lead the student to believe that troubleshooting is not important. I pointed out that in some cases, that is true; for example, when close to the ground. He pointed out that with practice, the student should be able to do all the troubleshooting in a matter of seconds, so it should be taught as a necessary and critical part of the procedure.

We asked for a delay and the option on take-off and were granted permission. As my 'student' accelerated down the runway, I pulled the mixture control to simulate losing an engine. The student should then pull the power to idle, maintain control of the plane, and stop as quickly as necessary. Since we didn't properly brief this ahead of time, I didn't know that I was also supposed to advance the mixture once the student pulled the throttle to idle. As a result, we had to stop the plane and restart the engine prior to departure.

Once in the air, we headed northwest to the practice area, climbing to 4,500 feet. I discussed Steep Spirals and asked my student to help identify when the plane was over the point. I made sure that the point was an intersection and its location could be roughly estimated from my point of view. I pulled the power to idle and rolled to the left. As I continued the turn, my speed control left a little to be desired, but we rolled out after three turns at 1,500 feet, as desired.

While climbing back up, I demonstrated an engine failure at 2,500 feet, adjusted my pitch for 73 knots, and headed for my intended landing field. While glidiing towards it, I went through the troubleshooting steps, then set the plane up for an emergency landing. I missed a few of the final steps of the checklist. I'll need to get those items firmly emplanted into my brain soon.

At 500 feet, I added power and started climbing. Next up was the Emergency Descent. I demonstrated first, but was unable to get the speed up to the desired 103 knots. My instructor demonstrated and showed me the key mistake that most students make. You must turn into a steep turn and let the nose drop (that's the un-intuitive part) to start building speed before adding the flaps, otherwise the extra drag will not let the plane accelerate much past 80 knots.

On the way back to the airport, my instructor demonstrated an engine failure at 1,500 feet. He quickly set the speed and picked a landing site, then within seconds, completed the entire troubleshooting checklist. Amazing. I'm now totally convinced that doing the checklist troubleshooting items can be done quickly and thoroughly, even from low altitudes.

I did one touch and go, then a full stop landing and called it a day. My landings are still not as accurate and controlled as I'd like. I'm not sure what the root of the problem is. It might be related to being in the right seat and flying with my right hand, but I'd have thought I was past that by now. Maybe it's just something that needs more practice.

CFI-A Lesson 8 (Part 1)

Today was all about emergencies. Before the actual lesson, I created lesson plans covering Emergency Approach & Landing, Slip To Landing, Fire On The Ground, Fire In Flight, Aborted Take-off, Emergency Descent, and Basic Instrument Attitude flight. In the briefing room, I introduced Emergency Approach & Landing. I drew pretty pictures on the whiteboard and used the model airplane to demonstrate what a slip looks like and how it can be used to lose altitude without gaining airspeed.

After wrapping up, my instructor gave his critique. He wanted to know how the student would know if he was too high or too low. I answered that it will come with experience and practice. He asked what one thing the student has already practiced and understands that he could use to help determine his rate of descent. Sight picture, of course! In VFR flying, visual cues are the most important aspect of flying, followed closely by the other senses.

In the airplane, I requested a brief delay on the runway, followed by the option so I could demonstrate the aborted take-off. Unfortunately, the tower was too busy and I was denied, so I demonstrated and talked through a soft field take-off instead.

Once out to the practice area, I reviewed and demonstrated slow flight, then reviewed and critiqued my 'student's' power-on and power-off stalls. In both cases, I noticed an error, pointed it out, and verified that my 'student' understood what he did wrong.

I then handed my foggles to my 'student' and talked him through climbs, descents, and turns while 'under the hood'. He had no problem with this, so we started climbing to do Steep Spirals. On the way, my instructor pulled the power while we climbed through 2,500 feet. Most of our western training area is over citrus fields, so finding a suitable landing area with short notice is pretty difficult. I picked two, but neither was very good and I failed to reach my intended landing point and started climbing again.

So I tried again. This time I had time to pick a good field, verify the wind direction, and set myself up on a downwind heading. I pulled the power and descended down in a spiral over the field to 1,400 feet. At this point, I had to decide whether to go around one more time or start the approach to the field. I chose the latter and ended up coming in too high. Better, but still not very good.

Back to the Steep Spirals. They turned out to be more challenging than expected. There were three other planes in the immediate area and the clouds were broken at 3,500 feet. For Steep Spirals, I need at least 4,000 feet to ensure getting three full 360 degree turns in before reaching 1,000 above the ground, so we had to find a point with no clouds above it. I asked my 'student' to tell me when we were abeam my ground reference point - I cannot see well out the left window from the right seat. He did, but when I banked into the spiral, I realized that we were not directly over the point. My 'student' told me we were abeam, but not over the point; just what I asked him to do. When it comes to students and instructions, you must be very precise about what you demonstrate or ask.

By this time, we were running up against the clock, so I decided to skip the Emergency Descent and head back to the airport. On the way, I discussed our pattern entry with my 'student' and how to compensate for the gusting conditions. I described every action I was making on the approach, downwind, base, and final leg. Unfortunately, in the back of my mind I was thinking that the tower had not officially cleared me to land - he simply said to "Continue" while I was on the downwind leg. With this distraction in my head, my approach was not precise enough and I ended up a little high and a little fast. I corrected, but the plane balooned slightly, so I pitched down slightly, but then had to add a little power to decrease the descent rate. Then we were hit by a crosswind gust that pushed me left of the centerline. I corrected this as well, but still had a rather solid, side loaded landing.

Phew, that was a tough lesson. I'll be redoing part of this lesson again; probably Saturday.

I feel that I'm to the point where I'm no longer a 'new' student, so I get no sympathy when making mistakes, and I'm nowhere near as proficient as I need to be to not make mistakes. Hopefully, I'll churn through this uncomfortable period quickly and start feeling like I have control and awareness of everything going on inside and around the airplane.

CFI-A Lesson 7

It's been a week since my last lesson, but it couldn't be helped. My instructor had family in town, so he set me up with another instructor, but I ended up being sick most of last week and ended up canceling the lesson.

Today's lesson was just a ground brief, so it went pretty quickly. I prepared briefs for four areas: Weight & Balance, Performance & Limitations, Airport Markings & Avoiding Runway Incursions, and National Airspace Systems.

My instructor went into his student role while I walked him through an example weight & balance calculation and a calculation of minimum runway length. While going through, he was very lethargic and didn't seem interested in what I was saying. He answered my questions correctly, but as briefly as possible. I wasn't sure what to do about it, so I just plowed through the material. After wrapping up, he asked what I thought about the student's attitude. I told him and we began a discussion on how to get the student involved in the brief. One thing I could have done was tell the student to stand up and write the numbers on the whiteboard, then have him do all the actual math and see if his numbers agree with mine. Same is true with the performance calculations.

For the next hour, we discussed everything there is to know about airport signage and lightage and airspaces. I had most everything in my notes, but we found a few ways to reorganize them to make things more clear. We also talked about ways to have the student explain airspace requirements using real-world examples. For example, if we were flying to Okeechobee at 1,000', what would the cloud clearance requirements be? How about if we diverted to River Ranch? Could we fly through that Military Operations Area? Who would we contact to find out if there's currently training taking place? And on and on.

Real-world examples are great for proving that the student understands the subject, but they also gets the student to think about the relationship of the knowledge to the symbology on the chart. And that's what learning is all about.

CFI-A Lesson 6 (Part 2)

Today I completed lesson 6, which I started on Friday. I arrived at the flight line 45 minutes early and casually gathered the latest weather and calculated the performance numbers and weight and balance. At 25 minutes until flight time, I went to dispatch to pick up the can for the plane. The dispatched asked if I could do a Gemini (another student riding along in the back seat). I said, "Sure, no problem." The dispatcher handed me the can and introduced me to my passenger, Harry.

I asked Harry to follow me to a briefing room so I could calculate the weights and balances again, factoring in his weight. A couple minutes later, I determined that we'd need to siphon off about 4 gallons of fuel to stay below the weight limit. My instructor showed up and we were off the the ramp.

On the ramp, Harry helped out with the pre-flight tasks and we talked about his flight history and his background. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do after completing training at FSI, other than going back home to England and looking for a job. The fuel truck finally arrived and pumped 5 gallons back into the truck. We were all set to fly.

We quickly go airborne and headed to the southwest to complete the lesson. The remaining items were the four new stalls, the Steep Spiral, and Eights on Pylons. The Secondary Stall was exactly what I expected. I look forward to showing my future students this stall because it demonstrates how things go from bad to worse if you don't correct the initial stall properly. The Trim Stall was also very interesting to demonstrate because the plane slowly pitches up to near stall attitude, but doesn't have quite enough power to continue climbing, so it just mushes over.

The next two were more troubling for me, since I didn't know what to expect. The Cross Control Stall surprised me with its quickness. Within a second of crossing the controls, the stall horn blares and the plane shudders. I was also surprised by how quickly the condition is resolved by simply removing either rudder or aileron control pressure. The Accelerated Stall was next. I entered a steep turn to the left and began pulling on the yoke. The stall horn blared a good 20 knots above the normal stall speed of the plane. Again, recovery involved simply removing some of the back pressure on the yoke.

The Steep Spiral is a descending turn around a point with three full turns. I started mine at 4,500 feet with left turns. Being in the right seat, it is impossible to see your point until you actually enter the turn, so you have to ask the student to let you know when you are abeam the point. The turn is made to the left because we want to show the student what we're looking for and the student can see best while in a left turn. My first turn was too steep on the upwind side, so I was pushed closer to the point. After seeing this after one complete turn, I correct my bank angles and the following turns looked great. I leveled off from the third turn at 2,000 feet.

The final manuever is the commercial Eights on Pylons. I wasn't sure how well I'd do these from the right seat. I found a decent pair of pylons and descended to 800 feet at 95 knots. I circled around the upwind side and entered the pylons on the downwind 45, as required. Surprisingly, both turns went very well. My altitude and airspeed stayed with PTS standards and all the timing worked out well. There were some bumps to deal with, which is sometimes a good thing because they can mask some of your smaller errors.

Then it was back to the airport. My instructor became my student and I had to guide him through the normal landing. I asked him to tell me exactly what he planned to do, then I sat back and watched like a hawk as he set us up in the pattern. He started off good, but got too slow a few times, so I prodded him to watch his speed. He rounded off the turn from base to final, so I suggested he work on squaring off the corner next time. The he discounted the crosswind effect and began drifting right of centerline. I told him to crab into the wind. He did and returned to centerline, but then released the crab angle and again drifted right. I told him to maintain the crab all the way to within 100 feet of the ground. He was too high and fast, so I told him to reduce power slightly. Once the runway was made, he was still a little high, so I told him to reduce power to idle. He did, but simultaneously leveled off, which dropped our airspeed. At this point, he started pitching for the flare. I pushed the controls forward and we landed safely, but I should have had him add some power, too. The lesson here is that once a student hears power to idle, they will not add power unless the instructor tells them to. Good to know.

Full-motion Simulator Flight

Today, I took a friend up on his amazing offer to fly the Boeing 747-400 Level D simulator.

The day started quite early. I was out of bed and in the shower before 5:00. We were on the road by 5:50. First I had to get to Melbourne airport to meet another friend who was also invited. We arrived at the airport at 6:45 and waited for our friends to arrive. At 6:55, I started to get nervous, so I gave him a call. He called his wife, who then called me back, and we talked ourselves into meeting by the main gate to the GA ramp. I jumped in her mini van and headed for the hangar. Susan and Andrew waited outside the gate.

My friend recalculated the weight and balance one more time, then added five gallons of 100LL to each wing tank. Everyone climbed in and we were off to [undisclosed location]. I sat in the back and followed our progress on the secional chart. After [undisclosed amount of time], we arrived at the airport to meet our generous friend.

While the ladies dealt with refueling the plane, the guys jumped in my friend's car and headed for [undisclosed location]. I was surprised by the amount of security, but then again, in this climate, I guess I wasn't really all that surprised. We entered the building and walked to the simulator room. There were two simulators (that I'm aware of). One was an older 747-200, and the other was a new 747-400 simulator. We were scheduled to fly the 747-400.

Our friend gave us a tour of the simulator and it's mechanical systems while technicians finished up some testing. We had some time to kill, so we went back to the office area and grabbed something to drink. While waiting, the ladies called from a cab. They had planned to go to [undisclosed location], but the cab driver wanted too much money, so they decided to join us.

A few minutes later, we joined up and headed back to the simulator room. I climbed in the left seat and my friend climbed in the right seat. We had a quick briefing on the throttle controls, flaps, landing gear, and glass panels. The system was configured and I was sitting on runway 28R at San Francisco International Airport. I applied half throttle, then engaged the auto-throttle. The plane lurched forward and accelerated much more quickly than I imagined. At rotation speed, I pulled back the yoke to move the dot to the pink line (the flight computer draws pink lines on the primary display and the pilot follows the lines). My co-pilot raised the gear as we climbed out. Within a minute, we were turning crosswind over downtown San Francisco. I continued to turn to downwind and leveled off at 3,000 feet. We were flying along at 190 knots with 10 degrees of flaps. The wrap-around scenery was very nice, but not quite photo-realistic. Even so, the feeling of flight was so realistic that I truely expected to be able to see the wings and engines when looking back out the side window.

Back to work; it was now time to land this big mama. I started my right turn to base and began my descent. Turning base to final, the nose dropped markedly, and then we entered a steep roll to the left. I countered with right aileron, but all I could see out the windshield were the waves on the San Francisco Bay. I figured we had 30 seconds to live.... And then everything froze. Due to the full motion capabilities of the simulator, I felt like I was actually hanging from my seatbelt. Too bad real planes don't have the PAUSE feature. The technician said, "That wasn't supposed to happen."

The simulator was reset with us sitting about three miles out on final at 1,000 feet. I tried my best to keep the dot on the lines, but I was overcontrolling the plane. We ended up high, so once again, the simulator was reset. This time, I concentrated on very light control pressure and not chasing the line. The altitude callouts started at 500 feet and continued: 300 feet, 100 feet, 50, 40, 30. At 50 feet, I pulled up sharply to a nose-above-the-horizon attitude and let her settle onto the runway. Boom, chirp chirp, we were on the ground. I slowly let the nose down while the reverse thrusters came online. We slowed to 30 knots and took a high speed taxiway off the runway. Phew!

We switched seats and my friend took the controls. His first approach was pretty good, but he didn't pull up sharply enough at 50 feet. As a result, I'm pretty sure we left a huge hole in the runway. The simulator gave us a hefty jolt that made us feel like we were really there.

Then we both sat back and watched the simulator fly a Category II approach with 300 feet RVR (runway visual range) visibility. As I sat there, I watched how gently the controls moved. So that's how it's supposed to be done. I felt the ground before I saw the ground. As the nose slowly dropped and the nose wheel made contact, I finally saw the centerline lights - one or two - in front of the nose. Remember, the cockpit of a 747 is 30 feet off the ground.

We both flew approaches with 500 feet overcast sky and one mile visibility. Since I was focused on the dot and pink line, the sky conditions made no difference. At 100 feet, it's eyes out, stay on centerline, and prepare for the 50 foot callout to pull the nose up and slow the descent rate.

My friend wanted to see one more simulation. He wanted to experience a three engine departure. The simulator was reset and he applied the throttles. Everything was going smoothly until we lost the outboard engine on the left side. The plane lurched to the left and was quickly heading for the grass. My friend stomped the right rudder to keep it on the runway and pulled up at rotation speed. The plane easily climbs out on three engines, but the pilot workload is pretty intense. He let me take the controls and again, the plane lurched to the left before I could correct it with right rudder. I was pretty amazed at how powerful the rudder is. It seemed to have as much response and yaw rate as any of the small planes I've flown.

At that point, we ran out of time and had to leave the simulator. I left with a feeling of awe. First, that such a behemoth airplane can actually get off the ground and fly, and second, that a computer and some hydraulics can simulate the experience so precisely. I was surprised during the flight that I could feel slight turbulence as we flew around the pattern. But what really surprises me is the lack of sensation of speed. Our approaches were around 160 knots - nearly 100 knots faster than I fly in the Piper Cadet - yet it did not feel like we were moving any faster than the Cadet. It is all just a matter of perspective. With 200 feet wide and 10,000 feet long runways, the visual feel is very similar to approaching a much smaller runway at much slower speeds.

And one last thing I saw first hand is the power of networking. I would never have had this opportunity had I not met this person and started talking about flying and flight simulators. It really is all about who you know.

CFI-A Lesson 6 (Part 1)

Today's lesson had a mind boggling number of items to cover. The ground briefs included Lazy Eights, Wake Turbulence, and Low-Level Wind Shear Avoidance. The flight lesson included reviewing Short and Soft Field Takeoffs and introducing/demonstrating Steep Turns, Chandelles, Lazy Eights, Cross Control Stalls, Trim Stalls, Accelerated Stalls, Secondary Stalls, Steep Spirals, Eights on Pylons, and No Flap Landings. Before the lesson, I had my doubts that we could cover so many maneuvers in only two hours.

The ground briefs went well, although I need to work on understanding Lazy Eights even better. For instance, what happens if you pitch too steeply in the first segment? Or, the student consistently ends the manuever too high/low. I need to be able to relate cause and effect better so I can help the student understand the root of the problem.

On the ramp, I checked the maintenance Hobbs meter and according to the log, the plane was due for its 50 hour progressive check. I told my instructor, who then went back inside to see what was up. I continued preparing for flight. When he came back, he told me that the plane had just been put back on the line after maintenance, but the log was not up-to-date yet.

At this point, I made a command decision and said that we would not be attempting to do everything on the list during this flight. I'd rather spend more time on each of the maneuvers to get them right and to learn what mistakes a student might make. He agreed with my plan and off we went.

In the air, I talked my 'student' through a Soft Field Takeoff. He did everything right until we reached climb speed. He should have pitched up to cause the plane to climb at 79 knots, but instead he pitched too much and began losing airspeed. I immediately told him he pitched too high and he corrected the pitch and all was fine. Apparently, this is a common mistake that new students make.

When we reached the practice area, I demonstrated Steep Turns and Chandelles. I didn't do so well. I was well below commercial PTS standards. Then I demonstrated Lazy Eights and talked my 'student' through. Once again, mine were quite sloppy.

By this time, we had thirty minutes left before the plane was due back, so I asked my 'student' to fly us back to the airport. While he flew, I got the latest weather and verified my location. Outside the Vero Beach airspace, I called to report inbound and got no answer. I waited a while and someone else reported in to the east of the airport. Again, no answer. Finally, an obviously strung out and overstressed controller came on and told everyone to standby because there was too many airplanes. That was odd, because there were only two or three in the air that he had to deal with. As we waited, I must have done 6 or more circles to the left. I was beginning to feel like a NASCAR driver, so I started doing circles to the right instead. The controller finally started getting his act together and asked for location reports. My instructor again reported over the outlet malls. In the mean time, another plane to the north of us was allowed into the airspace. We entered the airspace and noticed the other plane approaching us a few hundred feet above our altitude. The controller eventually noticed, too, and told us to turn 20 degrees to the right. We did as we were told, but the controller never gave us a pattern entry, so we just kept going south east. After crossing the extended centerline of the runway, I was beginning to think we were going to Fort Pearce instead of Vero Beach. The controller came back to us and asked if we were heading for the runway yet. My instructor said, "We are now" as I turned back to the north east.

I really felt embarassed for the controller. My instructor says he's been here for years, but still gets overstressed too easily. I wonder why the FAA doesn't move him to another tower.

Looking back on this lesson, I'm starting to get the feeling that the purpose of the lessons is to make future instructors concentrate on time management and NOT on instruction. I know that sounds very odd, but it sure seems that way to me. If all goes well, I will finish this lesson easily on Monday.

CFI-A Lesson 5 (again)

I refused to let myself go to this lesson unprepared again. I worked through all the lesson plans that needed to be discussed and/or flown, printed them out, and reviewed the checklists prior to today's flight. I was as prepared for this as for anything else I've ever done in aviation.

My ground brief on Turns Around a Point went very smooth, with me asking questions to my 'student', drawing nice pictures on the white board, and using the model airplane to visualize the changing bank angles and wind drift correction. Then we quickly covered what I'd prepared on Aeronautical Decision Making. After that, we headed for the ramp.

In the plane, I demonstrated a short field take-off - rather poorly - then headed for the practice area to do ground reference maneuvers. On the way, I demonstrated a wind drift turn and determined the wind was from the west.

First up was the Rectangular Course. We found an area with nice smooth fields and long rectangular patterns. I had my 'student' fly parallel to a canal to see the effect of wind drift. Then I showed him how to correct for the drift. At this point, my 'student' flew a lap around the rectangular course.

Next up was the S-Turns Across a Road. My 'student' demonstrated this to me to near perfection. I then helped him pick a point for Turns Around a Point. I showed him the 90 degree points around the turn with specific landmarks and demonstrated the first lap. He then took the control and I coached him around two laps. He had some difficulty with the bank angle and lost track of his altitude a few times and I pointed these out to him. Finally, I demonstrated a Go-Around while approaching a grass strip.

Then it was off to Sebastian to do some pattern work. For some reason, I haven't been able to get the pattern settings to work out smoothly in the Cadet. The first time around, I was too high, so I did a real Go-Around. The second and third time were better, but still high. To save time, I slipped these approaches in and landed.

The next three loops around the pattern, I did Power-Off 180 Degree Landings. The first was bad. I had no idea what the sink rate would be in the Cadet. I was too high again. My instructor gave me some tips on the second attempt and I nailed it. The third time, I did it on my own and nailed it again. At this point, I was starting to feel less like a student pilot and more like a Commercial pilot.

To wrap up, we returned to Vero Beach along the beach. We set up for a Soft Field Landing approach. The approach was to the numbers, gliding along nearly hands off to the runway. As I flared and added a touch of power, the tower told me to take the first taxiway. My instructor anticipated this and jumped on the brakes. So much for my nice, gradual reduction of speed.

We debriefed for a while. I critiqued myself, then he critiqued me. Overall, I think I did very well, except the poor approaches in the pattern.

CFI-A Lesson 5

Today's lesson never had a chance. Last night, I was too intrigued with the thought of finding a way to watch the football game on my computer to verify my lesson plans were complete and ready for today - strike one. This morning, I couldn't get myself out of bed when the alarm went off because I was so tired from being up most of the night listening to Andrew coughing in his room - strike two. Feeling the rush to get out the door so Susan could be at Andrew's school in time, I again did not ensure my lesson plans were complete and ready for today's lesson - strike three.

When I arrived for my lesson, I realized that I had not printed out any of the material that I needed to cover for today's lesson. No problem, I thought, I'll just grab my documents off the Internet at school and print them out. Unfortunately, FlightSafety Academy locks down their network and allows access to only a few sites; Microsoft Office Live is not on the approved list. So there I sat, unable to present my lesson plan from memory, feeling like a fool. And the worst part is that I basically forced my instructor to charge a no-show fee for the full 3.5 hours of brief and flight. There's nothing that irritates me more than spending money wastefully.

So what did I learn from all of this? Preparation is the key to success. A flight instructor must be thoroughly prepared for each lesson. It is unprofessional to be anything less. The problem with that point is that achieving thorough preparation is a hard goal to achieve. Nothing and no one is ever perfectly prepared for everything that might happen. I must at least be prepared with all my paperwork in order and a detailed plan for what will be covered on the ground and in the airplane. My future students deserve nothing less.