Flight Bag: Part 2

The aviation gods were probably sitting back, pointing there fingers at me and giggling. Everything was set for a flight on Saturday afternoon and the stars seemed aligned. Reality came crashing back when I received an automated email on Friday afternoon from the flight school cancelling my flight with the reason simply being "Equipment Failure".

Don't get me wrong, this is a great reason for the flight to get cancelled. According to the online booking system the aircraft was out of commission for an undetermined length of time, or as they appear to say in this world "UFN". I5 was available most of the day and since it was a Saturday there was an opportunity to simply book him and another aircraft. Alas - it was not to be. The remaining two DA20's were booked solid all day. Knowing that things change on a regular basis, I put in a "standby" request for I5 and ANY aircraft (DA20C1's) between 1230 and 630 PM. I checked on a regular basis including this morning at 6AM when my kids ran into the room to wake me up (gotta love early sunrises).

Somehow, somewhere between 6AM and 8AM, the bookings all changed. To make a long story short, there were a bunch of jumbles that happened, and of course the "standby" requests either didn't work or were completely ignored. I5 was available at one time but no aircraft was, and conversely an aircraft was available at a time when I5 wasn't. I was too frustrated to call in and ask them WTF the deal was with the standby requests and decided it simply wasn't going to be my day to fly.

I had to come into the office to complete some work but decided to treat myself on the way. I stopped at a local "camping" or "outdoor recreation lifestyle" type of store. Knowing full well that I'm soon going to be flying alone and embarking on some cross country action - it's time to put together a true flight bag.

As a starting point I purchased the following:

Small Mag Lite with extra AA batteries.
Leatherman "Wave" multi-tool
Small First Aid Kit (yes there is one on board all aircraft)
Personal survival kit (lots of cool stuff)
Small shoulder bag
Larger shoulder bag

The small shoulder bag is the key. It holds my David Clark headset perfectly in its large pouch. In other various compartments I was able to fit the leatherman, first aid kit, survival kit, and my kneeboard. There was ample room to fit my E6B, a protractor, ruler, pens, pencils, an eraser, a pencil sharpener, some sticky pads, two highlight pens, two extra maps, my spare glasses (I wear contacts), my wallet, my crackberry, a fuel tester, my documentation, and two energy bars.

It's truly amazing how much you can fit in a tiny bag - and there is lots of room to spare. With the headset out I could easily fit an additional few litres of water in the bag. I plan on weighing it prior to my next flight but it will surely accompany to the aircraft for future flights.

The larger shoulder bag (replacing one I had been using which I constantly swap with work stuff including my laptop) had ample room to fit my POH, two large training books (From the ground up and the FTM), my notebook where I write stuff down during briefings, and my binder where I keep various checklists, school regulations, aviation related receipts, and all other documentation.

I've been following an interesting thread here about what various people carry in their flight bags, starting with a bush pilot suggestion that the most important item you could carry is "A roll of duct tape". I would love to hear more suggestions from people with any personal experiences.

Next potential solo is Thursday afternoon.

Walk Around

I was fairly certain that the solo wasn't going to happen today. The winds had been 45 degrees off the runway over 10 knots since the morning and by the time I showed up at the airport the windsock was fully extended even without the gusts.

I5 confirmed this when he showed up and we went through the "solo checklist" to make sure all of my documentation was in order. As it turns out I don't have to wait for transport canada to send any paperwork back, the chief instructor at the school has the authority to issue me a student pilot permit based on meeting the criteria. I filled out some MORE paperwork and we decided to spend some time reviewing the quiz I was required to write prior to the solo as per the flight school's procedures.

Although I passed with flying colors - it took a good half hour to complete since we discussed many of the answers which were in my opinion the types that led the student to an answer they were looking for, yet had too many variables missing which needed to be part of the final answer.

For example:

During your landing you float more than normal and notice that you are already half way down the runway. What do you do?

It's obvious they are looking for the steps in the overshoot procedure (Full Throttle, Up attitude, takeoff flaps, and climb out at best rate (Vy 68). However the first thing that came into my mind was "make a decision based on the runway remaining if I could continue with a safe landing". It doesn't say anything about the runway so it could have easily been 12,000 feet long which would have allowed me to float for another 1000 feet, do a touch and go, and then land again (tongue in cheek).

Once we completed that the winds were at the level of insanity (30 knot gusts) so we mutually agreed that flying wasn't going to happen. I5 asked if there was anything else and since he had told me had nothing booked for a few hours I asked if he would go out and do a long walk around with me.

I hadn't done a walk around with an instructor since my first or second flight. After watching the attention to detail some of my friends had done during a group flight in New Jersey back in March, I realized that I didn't feel 100% confident doing my walk around. Naturally I5 obliged and we spent a full half hour walking around the aircraft - going into minute details that I had never learned or considered.

Finally satisfied I noticed a Diamond Star (DA40? 4 seater Diamond) had parked at the ramp and we decided to check it out. Very fancy G1000's in this bird. I was impressed. I5 seemed interested in my love for airplanes and asked if I wanted to check out a few others on the field he had access to. I followed him across the airport to a hangar where we spent some time sitting in a Cessna 310 chatting about aviation. Following that we checked out a Skylane in the same hangar with some fancy engine upgrades which I didn't really understand that had some affect on the aircraft at higher altitudes (can you tell I've been struggling at the engine section of ground school?).

After over an hour in this hangar we departed to another where we spent some time in a Piper Navajo Chieftain with the Panther conversion. This was a HUGE airplane. I could barely reach the horizontal stabilizer from the ground (granted I'm only 5'4"). The coolest part of this craft was the vortex generators just behind the leading edge of the wings. I5 explained how they work and for the first time, all of the reading I've been doing about the theory of flight somehow clicked in the gears of my brain. I actually understood (on a limited basis) what he was talking about.

We booked a few more sessions for the potential solo including one this coming Saturday and I departed the airport. One would imagine I'd be down since I was unable to take to the skies solo but this was not the case.

The solo will have to wait for another day.

Crosswinds, Emergencies, and Paperwork

I was checking the forecast and live winds since the previous evening - just hoping for a crosswind scenario. Unfortunately the winds had been light and down the pipe all morning. Perhaps this wasn't the day to complete the crosswind sign off - or was it.

It had been 5 weeks since my last flight and I made the most of any free time I had since then reviewing emergency procedures and plowing through as much ground school material as possible. Many of my friends with FAA licenses were a bit taken aback by the requirement to know the emergency procedures for your aircraft by heart prior to solo. I reviewed my printed copy of the emergency procedures from the Diamond POH but still found myself fumbling through them upon each review. Finally I decided that I needed to create my own checklist, with the hope that writing the information out would help commit it to memory. I spent hours creating a two page checklist on a spreadsheet and meticulously formatting it so that it fit on a single 8.5 x 11 sheet (back to back) that I could laminate. My final review the night before was still somewhat lacking - perhaps the adage about writing it down wasn't true after all.

I5 asked if I wanted to fly today or just do emergency procedures. Obviously my preference was to do both and as luck would have it, he didn't have a booking after me and didn't mind sticking around to do the procedures after we flew. The aircraft was back early so I had all the paperwork filled out - we made a dash for the aircraft considering how busy the circuit had been all day.

With "spring" arriving to southern Alberta - so was the risk of forest fires. This meant the return of the fire fighting aircraft that fly out of the airport, and compared to my tiny Diamond - they looked big.. actually HUGE. I had so much attention focused on one coming down the taxiway behind us that I hardly noticed the windsock at about 8-10 knots 45 degrees from the runway heading - crosswinds could be in the cards for this flight!

It was obvious that the checklist work had paid off when I nailed the takeoff briefing. I will also admit that the in depth review of the procedures coupled with the reading I had done on engine and electrical systems of the aircraft resulted in the normal checklist (engine start, taxi, run up, takeoff) making a whole lot more sense.

It was also obvious that I had not flown in 5 weeks. It was bumpy and gusty with winds blowing us from the side, above, and below - however my mental errors had nothing to do with that. First problem was a poor ground track on departure, followed by poor ground track on downwind. My altitude was consistently dropping close to 100 feet below circuit altitude and resulted in a whole lot of throttle work on my end. This compounded into horrible speed management on the downwind leaving us fast and super high on base. Knowing that I usually want to be 750 feet on the half base, carrying a lot of speed and with the winds behind me increasing our ground speed, I was in a bad situation. Once I finally cut the throttle and got the takeoff flaps out I had to go with major attitude to drop below the white arc. As soon as I got flaps all the way down I went into the slip and transitioned to a slipping turn (or is it a turning slip?).

This is when I5 was not impressed. We were in slip, about half way through the turn, super high, super fast, and I decided with the slip I should be able to put the nose down and turn steeper. Before I knew it we were at about a 35-40 angle of bank and the airspeed had climbed out of the white arc. After pointing his displeasure out to me I corrected the speed and took a breath. I concentrated on getting us back to center line, holding 60 knots, correcting the descent angle while holding the forward slip. I transitioned to a gentler side slip and the landing was miraculously on the center line and smooth. Someone once said that a great landing starts 10 miles out and they weren't kidding. This was a lot of work!

The rest of the spins were uneventful. I managed to improve on ground track, altitude, speeds, and approach planning somewhat, but still was consistently performing steeper turns than I should have. The combination of slips (side and forward) and landings were all well done. On one of the roll outs we actually had a bit of a tail wind and we actually were lifted up off the ground before we hit our rotation speed. Identifying this I simply nudged the nose forward and let us accelerate while in ground effect before climbing out at the proper speeds. Another thing that was in my opinion purely the result of watching, asking, reading, and listening to other people.

After the flight we sat on the couches upstairs and went through the procedures. Rather than having me spew out them out line by line he would present a scenario without making it obvious which of the emergencies we were facing. I found this very interesting, since smoke pouring out of your panel and filling the cockpit doesn't result in a big red hologram yelling "You have an electrical fire - execute section 3.3.8 of the emergency procedures!". Needless to say, our review lasted 45 minutes and went very well.

I5 then asked me to bring in my passport, radio license, and medical as soon as possible. We filled out some paperwork, I signed some stuff in my PTR, and he showed me the front page where emergency procedures and crosswinds had now been signed off.

Once I get this paperwork in the flight school will send it off to Transport Canada who issues a student pilot certificate. Time to process is usually just a few days (I dropped off the paperwork the next morning).

Afterwards we discussed how the how the solo flight would work and what happens after the solo including sign out permissions. Not sure if the paperwork would be completed before my next booking he asked if I wanted to scrub it - of course I said "not a change" as I'd be happy to do another flight with him prior to the solo if I "had to", especially in light of the areas requiring improvement.

At the conclusion of that conversation, I5 pulled out the PTR again to fill in something else in the front section before showing me (it went something like this):



"I [Certified Instructor Name] certify that [Student Pilot Name] meets the minimum requirements for a student pilot license"



20.6 Hours and counting...