Ones and Zeros

I’m in the second half of my IFR training. And so I’m trying to think ahead and consider what IFR currency means to me and how I will maintain it. The legal currency in the US is as stated in FAR 61.57(c):

(c) Instrument experience. Except as provided in paragraph (e) of this section, no person may act as pilot in command under IFR or in weather conditions less than the minimums prescribed for VFR, unless within the preceding 6 calendar months, that person has:

(1) For the purpose of obtaining instrument experience in an aircraft (other than a glider), performed and logged under actual or simulated instrument conditions, either in flight in the appropriate category of aircraft for the instrument privileges sought or in a flight simulator or flight training device that is representative of the aircraft category for the instrument privileges sought—

(i) At least six instrument approaches;

(ii) Holding procedures; and

(iii) Intercepting and tracking courses through the use of navigation systems.

That’s to be legal. But what is the currency to be comfortably safe and feel on top of things? More experienced pilots that myself say that going over a month or two without doing an approach makes them feel rusty. Well, if that’s for experience pilots, then I should do at least as much.

The VFR rules for currency are the FAR 61.57 rules about biannual flight reviews, three landings and takeoffs in 90 days, and also night landing currency of three takeoffs and landings in 90 days. That’s the legal requirement.

But in addition to that I typically make a flight by myself every month or two where I climb to a safe altitude and find a nice unused chunk of airspace to cover this:

1) slow flight at minimum airspeed, including turns
2) a stall series: straight slow speed stalls, accelerated stalls, and turning stalls
3) coordination exercises: steep turns and dutch rolls
4) landing practice

That’s all to PTS standards or better. I plan to add to the above list, I’ll also do two IFR approaches per month, along with course tracking. I’ll add holding as well every few months. This will put me in 6 approaches in THREE months or half the time for the legal currency. That sounds conservatively safe to me.

Pilots for United and other large carriers typically have a 6 month check flight. And they have thousands of hours of experience and fly two-pilot aircraft. I have 300 hours and fly single pilot. So, I plan to have a currency exercise with an instructor every 6 months too. This constitutes a flight review and can be signed off as such. I can add instrument tasks to this flight review as well.

But, every flight I try to debrief myself too. Plastic Pilot has a post where he formalizes that self-debrief nicely. Since my goal is to improve, I need to have a plan to do so. Self-debriefing is the bottom most rung of that ladder. My monthly flights and 6 month reviews are higher levels.

I do this all mostly because I don’t like feeling like I’m just able to do something. I like to feel confident that whatever happens I can handle it. This is what it takes for me.

Yes, I’m being tongue-in-cheek. Ford, a pilot, helps out AOPA’s GA Serves America effort with a promo on their website.

The US has had a general aviation industry and presence that is larger and more diverse than most countries. This is partly due to both the larger population and land mass, but also due to the lower political control over free movement too. We have historically been open to using small planes for business, photography, pleasure, transportation, and charitable work. And as a result, until fairly recently, it’s been easier to train pilots in the US. Many non-US pilots learn to fly in the US.

After 9/11 things started clamping down. In some cases correctly: the 9/11 hijackers learned to fly here and had visas despite being on a watch list. And in some cases incorrectly: there were TFRs (Temporary Flight Restrictions) that became permanent like the Washington DC ADIZ - now SFRA (Special Flight Rules Area) and TFRs around Disneyworld, etc that were more politically motivated than from actual risks.

I’ve written about the ADIZ earlier in several posts. Suffice to say that it defends against small planes which are not a significant risk while doing little against large commercial aircraft which are the only ones used in terrorist incidences. When the ADIZ went into place a number of aviation businesses shut down in the area, some GA airports barely avoided shutting down too. It wasn’t till many years later that GA traffic levels got back to the same at the less affected local airports.

And now TSA rules plan to impose the same safety regulations on small planes as they do large commercial aircraft. This is like imposing these TSA rules when you give a friend a lift in your car! And user fees threaten to curtail aviation as well. Imagine paying a toll every time you left your driveway in your car.  And a smaller toll for bike riding!

The GA Serving America effort is a good one and a good thing that AOPA is doing. However, Ford’s plug is directed at pilots. We’re small numbers in general and he’s preaching to the choir. This effort needs to educate those people that think a “small airplane” is one with fewer that 50 seats. Most people don’t know their town has an airport if scheduled commercial traffic doesn’t stop there. And anyone who flies an actual small plane must be rich and it’s probably a corporate jet. After all, that’s all most people hear about.

GA Serving America looks like it will be headed in that direction and I’m glad to see it moving that way.

Some things you can do: If you’re going for a $100 hamburger, then take a friend or neighbor flying with you. Let them see how it all works. Explain things that are obvious to you as a pilot - it’s all new to them. Put them at ease and make them comfortable.  If you’re not a pilot and want to go flying - you might well know someone who flies.  Ask for a ride!  Your friend will probably be delighted to take you flying.

Use your plane for business travel, get people used to thinking of planes as alternate transportation. Push air taxi operations for others in your workplace. Propose solutions to business problems with small aircraft. Do charitable flights with FlyingPaws.com or AngelFlight or some other volunteer pilot organization.

These are all grassroots things that can be done to help get the word out. And they’re things we can all do with relatively little extra effort. Just go flying, and we already wanted to do that right?

Nothing’s wrong. Thats the verdict from the mechanic about the high voltage light from my last attempted IFR lesson. It either was a short-term glitch or an indication of some more complete failure in the future. In this case, we (the owners) can afford to wait and see.

But due to this maintenance delay and other scheduling problems I thought to have a long lesson and combine a couple lessons in a cross country flight. My instructors went along with this idea: A long cross country flight that included multiple approaches and multiple airports. It would be a good learning experience I thought, more akin to actually how I would use the rating. I should be careful for what I wish!

Instructor M and I have a planned route from home to OKV (Winchester) - CHO (Charlottesville) - RIC (Richmond) - XSA (Tappahanock), and TGI (Tangier). Then either possibly extend it with some of the airports in that area or head home again. This would get a few ILS and GPS approaches at least.

We depart and head for OKV. Our goal was to head to the JASEN fix and do the approach from there. First step was to get to JASEN. Direct-to on the GPS solves that, but that meant I will be re-setting up the GPS on the approach as I needed it for the DME distance. (I don’t have DME and use GPS as a legal replacement for it.) This is not the best time to do this. Later we decide to set the GPS up for the approach and let it sequence normally next time we do this.

The weather is beautiful today, sunny, clear sky, no clouds, and great visibility. I know that because I saw it on the ground before we took off. M took off with me under foggles and gave me the plane 200 feet over the runway. I won’t see anything but the instrument panel again except for short views of runways while on short final for approaches and landings. But that wonderful sunshine is making thermals that we’re bumping through.

This makes my hands jerk around when trying to reset the radios or GPS. It is like trying to change the radio in your car while driving at speed on a rough dirt road. Only more critical. It’s also tiring to be jostled around more or less constantly. The thermals cause disruptions with my altitude control. To be sure some of that is my own mistakes but I know I be more stable in flying than this!

I’m flying straight and level when the plane starts rising, next thing I’m 200 feet high. (Perhaps while checking on something else.) M, playing Potomac control says, “Nxxxx say altitude”. I reply, “3200 descending to 3000″ as I push the nose over to get back down, and trim off the yoke pressure. Occasionally I was 5 degrees nose down to just maintain a level altitude. As we were now going downhill the speed picks up, often getting higher that I wanted for turbulent air. So I pull power back to slow and stay in the green arc on the airspeed gauge.

Finally I would get my altitude back and level out again. I have to increase power to come back up to maintain my desired airspeed, and I’d have to retrim again too of course.

In the mean time the turbulence kicking the tail this way or that, or my inattention to my heading with the altitude adjustment work would cause my heading to drift and I’d need to correct that. And while M was handling the radios, the frequencies were busy and noisy with people talking over each other and causing more distraction. And the GPS would need adjustments to its settings sometimes as well. Then there’s the usual compass checks, and the routine various other things that occasionally need attention as well.

Of course, we would find the matching downdraft for the thermal updraft (the air doesn’t just keep going up, it rises, cools, then descends). The whole process would go on again only in the opposite direction this time.

This process went on for the full 4.3 hours we were flying.

We were pleased to find the glidepath that was NOTAMed out of service to be working at OKV. Since we were in VFR conditions and M was watching outside for me, we used it and did the full ILS. (If this were actual IFR I would not have done that.) After a the usual missed approach we headed to Casanova VOR and the approach to Charlottesville.

CHO is a towered airport and so we have to work with them unlike our usual pilot-controlled airports. They’re not using the ILS as it’s the wrong direction for the wind. So, my first GPS approach is to CHO. Instructor R had figured out the GPS with me sometime ago, this was my first use of it for an approach. I’d re-read the manual carefully earlier.

The approach worked reasonably well, M assured that I was clear of the mountain left of the approach path. In fact I came out too far clear of it as I was right of the runway. But not too much to correct back and land.

We taxied back for takeoff and picked up my first IFR clearance. Naturally it went too fast and I had to ask the tower to repeat the frequency and transponder code. I’ve practiced copying a clearance from recordings of real clearances, but things are always different in real life than in practice.

We were on to Richmond now. Again, M did the takeoff and gave me the plane soon after. I continued the climb as directed on runway heading to 5000 feet. Our track (from FlightAware.com) is below.

Richmond didn’t want to give us an ILS or GPS approach. They were landing on 34 and so we were going to land on 34. But that is ok, we got an VOR approach to 34, I did some VOR approaches a while back but nothing recently.

They sent us out toward the approach and turned us gradually 30 degrees each turn back to the approach course. I told M this felt like the controller equivalent of a DME arc. (The imperfections on the course line are, of course, mine and neither the controller’s nor M’s fault.) The approach course is 323 degrees. The runway heading is 340 (nominal). Depending on the actual compass bearing of runway 34 that was around 20 degrees off runway heading. Combined with a novice IFR pilot, that required some adjustment. The approach is VOR34 which means the approach course is within 30 degrees of the runway. That can be a fair amount and presents a surprising sight picture at minimums.

The GPS changed the fix (RIC VOR) it was showing during the approach. I believe I accidentally hit the “nearest” button in the bouncy air when adjusting the GPS. I reset it to the VOR, but that was a distraction I didn’t want then. That’s another thing to be careful of!

We didn’t land at RIC, it was a low approach then VFR turn off towards Tappahanock (XSA). On our low approach we heard another “company” plane from home and the same flight school. We’re somewhere around 100 nm from home, and about 140 nm by our route and hear a neighbor plane departing the same airport we’re now departing too. Pilots are a fluid bunch.

Tappahanock is a nice airport with a good GPS approach in either direction to its runway. The town there just demolished their old airport but first built a new one. It’s a nice country airport with a good set of T-hangars, cheap gas ($3.35/gal!) and a good terminal and friendly people. The on-site cemetery is quiet and restful too.

It is also my watershed. I told M that we needed to curtail and fly home now. I wanted the crab cake sandwich at Tangier’s Island (KTGI - a good trip if you’ve never been there). But I was beat. I wanted to take advantage of this time but I’d had enough.

We headed home, passed Shannon on the way and didn’t stop as we’d considered doing earlier. I thought about bringing it up, but decided against it as we passed by. At home we did a normal VFR approach and landed. Not as smoothly as I prefer as my flare was less than smooth but we were back, safe, and stopped.

In the end, this was the equivalent of a little over two lessons. And, it taught me something about flying in bumpy air, filing a flight plan, flying GPS approaches, and going places I’m not already used to going to. So, it was well worth it.

I’ve just finished lesson 17 and 18 out of 25. I have 22.7 actual or simulated instrument hours of out of the required 40. And today’s flying could constitute the 250 nm cross country trip. Although, I’m short of hours enough that we’ll do another long cross-country I’m sure. I would like to get more actual IFR weather time. I have only one hour of that so far. I also need to make sure I’m ready for my knowledge test. I’m at 80% on the sample test so I’ve been studying that too.

Here’s my commentary on this year’s tax protests.  Four ideas, for what they’re worth.

First, to the people that named the “teabagging” protest.  Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia are your friends, use them.  The point of a protest is to change minds.  It’s hard to do that when people are laughing at you for being clueless.

Second, if you’re going to hold a tax protest here are some points: Make it clear what you’re protesting.  I’m having a hard time figuring out what the teabaggers want to change.  And protest something that needs changing: Obama’s already lowered taxes on most of us.  Last, don’t use public parks and public facilities to protest in.  It’s hypocritical as they’re paid for and maintained by taxes.  (And a side observation.  Secession didn’t work very well the last time the country tried it.  Are you really sure you want to put that forward?)

Third to Fox News, Glen Beck, Limbaugh, and fellow travellers:  If you have to make it up it’s not called news.  It’s called fiction or perhaps fantasy.  See Wikidictionary.  News, aka “journalism”, is reporting facts that can be confirmed by something external to you.  Just because another of your friends also said it doesn’t make it true either.  Facts.  Not opinions.  For example, saying “fair and balanced” doesn’t make it so.  I can say that water is dry all day, but water still will be wet.

Fourth, to some American citizens.  There’s a difference between news and commentary. Know the difference and protect yourself. The first is reporting fact.  It has the usual “who, what, when, and how” and can be verified.  The second is someone’s opinion.  And in many cases today it can be shown to be unverifiable.  Too much of so-called “news” today is actually commentary.