Well, had an interview and was hired at a flight school here in the Phoenix area. I start on 3/24/08 and can’t wait! I’ll be flying 4 times a day with each flight being between 1.3 and 1.5 hours long. Thanks for reading, check out azcraigfamilycfi.flyblog.com if you’re interested in what it’s like to be a new CFI teaching people how to fly.
Well, my final 3 checkrides all went smoothly. On 3/5/2007 I had a combined Commercial Single/CFI-single checkride. The oral was about 1.5 hours - basically went over the Cessna Skyhawk’s systems (fuel, powerplant, electrical, etc) and how I would teach these systems to a new student pilot. The flight went smooth, I flew some manuevers: Chandelles; high performance climbing turn. Lazy 8’s: imagine how a snowboarder goes up one side of a half pipe, turns at the top, and comes back down past where he started but at about the same height before going up the other side - that is basically a lazy 8 in an airplane. A few other manuevers. I did a couple landings and then taught the examiner (who at this point is role-playing a student pilot) steep turns, flying by reference to instruments, and a couple other things I can’t remember.
On March 7, 2007 I had my CFI-Instrument checkride. Oral was about 2 hours long and the flight went smoothly. I gave the examiner (role-playing as a private pilot trying to earn his instrument rating) a made up clearance that would get us out of the airport environment while still using the common departure routes, taught him how to do some Instrument navigation, how to shoot a GPS approach, then I went under the hood and did some holding patterns, shot an ILS approach and did a couple landings.
Wow…I’m done with training. Just over 7 months ago (August 6, 2007 to be exact) I started the private pilot program at ATP with zero flight hours. I completed the final checkride (CFI-Instrument I was just talking about) after completing the self-paced 10 month program in 4.5 months (no busted checkrides, woohoo!).
There’s no way that a married 33 year old with 2 little girls can do this without ALOT of help. My wife D has been amazing, putting up with the frequent pre-checkride stress/grouchiness that came up frequently during this process. My parents: thank you for all the help - you are amazing. My second set of parents: thank you for all your help also - couldn’t have done it without you! My sister and brother (in-law): thank you for the help watching the girls - never would have gotten through the private pilot program without you! And thanks for everyone on jetcareers.com, I’ve received so much valuable and accurate info about this industry that it’s incredible. I may even land my first flying job thanks to JC - will keep you posted.
Well, I’m going to consider this blog complete. Will post the link to the new one once I start CFI-ing but this blog was about sharing what it is like to go through a fast-paced academy type flight program to become a professional pilot. I’m done with that part of it, time to get to work!
Ratings/hours/certificates:
Flight Instructor - Airplane Single and Multi-Engine Land, Flight Instructor - Instrument Airplane, Commercial Pilot Airplane Single and Multi-Engine Land, Instrument Airplane
231 Total hours Airplane
95 Total hours Single-Engine Land
53 Hours PIC Single-Engine Land
136 Total hours Multi-Engine Land
128 Hours PIC Multi-Engine Land
Advanced Ground Instructor
What a week. Just got back from Certified Flight Instructor school - one of the longest weeks of my life. I drove to Las Vegas (where our CFI school is; North Las Vegas airport) and got there on Sunday (2/17), checked in, and headed over to the apartments they put us up in while in Vegas. It’s about 2 mins from the airport, 2 guys to a room, and overall not a bad setup.
My room/bed:
Living room:
During CFI school each person has 5 flight hours to prepare for their CFI checkride with an FAA examiner. We do 2 flights with an instructor and one flight with the lead instructor. Before someone is able to go on their faa checkride, they have to fly with and be signed off by the lead flight instructor. I had this flight with the lead flight instructor on 2/18 at 5:30am. Got to the airport bright and early at 4:45am, pre-flighted, calculated weight and balance, and we pulled the plane out of the hangar. Engine cranks at 5:30am and we taxi out to a dark airport - pretty quiet. On takeoff he has me simulate killing one of his engines - something a multi-engine flight instructor will have to do during training. After that we take off and he guides me out to their practice area. Next he has me do the 10 or so maneuvers I will have to demonstrate during my checkride. He’s looking for me to not only perform the manuevers with instructor proficiency but also talk/explain/teach while I’m doing them. Oh yeah, and instructors sit on the right seat - I flew most of my cross countries from the right seat to get used to it but I hadn’t done manuevers from the right seat before. I did fairly well, he pronounced my mistakes ‘fixable’ and we headed back to the airport. I came to appreciate getting this flight out of the way right off the bat. A couple of people in my class wouldn’t come out of this flight unscathed and the longer we were in training the higher his expectations during the flight with him was.
Monday through Thursday we had ground school. This was from 7:45am until about 5pm. After ground school most of the class would stay and work on homework we were assigned - usually about 1.5 - 2 hours. After homework was done we’d usually head back to the apartment to study. That would usually go on until 12 or 1am. Rinse and repeat - this was our schedule for the first 4 days. On 2/20 the checkride schedule came out - my checkride was scheduled for 2/25 - 7 days after the first day of class. My nights just got shorter. After finding this out I would stay up studying until about 2am each night and wake up at 6:30am, shower, head to class, and study until class started.
Starting Tuesday (2/19) we started losing people from the class. We started with 7. By the end of the first week we had 4 in the class. It was a bummer because I knew each of the 3 that left because they trained at the same ATP location I did.
Now that I knew when my check ride was, my instructor and I were able to plan when I should do my last 2 flights. We figured on Saturday and Sunday so I was flying each of the days before my checkride. No sooner did we book the plane than the weather started to crud up on us. Friday was forecast to be cloudy and rainy, Saturday fair, Sunday cloudy/rainy. Looks like we’ll fly twice on Saturday instead. It worked out fine actually because I was able to spend my whole Sunday dry flying (sitting in the plane and pretending to go through the manuevers while teaching), studying, etc.
Here’s the classroom:
A view of the Stratosphere from the ATP office:
Checkride day was scheduled to start at 8am for me. I got to the airport at 6:45am, pulled weather info, preflighted my plane, and got the room I was going to use for the oral exam ready. I felt prepared and wasn’t as nervous as I have for some other checkrides. No surprises in the oral exam and I was out of there after about 2-2.5 hours. Time to fly. We took off and he quizzed me on some of the Seminole systems (powerplant, electrical, fuel) while we climbed to 8000 feet in the practice area. The flight portion was (thankfully) not very exciting. All the manuevers went well, he said I explained each of them well, and we headed back to the aiport. As soon as we parked the plane and shut the engines down he shook my hand and said ‘congratulations flight instructor.’ Man - what a relief to get this one done. The initial flight instructor checkride is rumored to be the toughest of all checkrides (not counting in the airlines).
Up next:
This next week should be my last week at ATP. I have my Commercial Single Engine and CFI single engine on Wed (3/5) and my Instrument Instructor checkride on 3/7. I’ll update this page for the last time after my last checkride. After all, this page is about BECOMING a professional pilot - after next week I will BECOMING a professional pilot and should be starting with a particular flight school shortly thereafter.
After finishing up my cross-countries a week ago I began working on the commercial multi-engine rating. First, I passed the commercial written exam. It is 100 questions and covers anything from weather, aerodynamics, systems- basically everything. The difference between this and other tests is that it gets a little more in depth with each subject. Next I had two flights with an instructor to work on maneuvers: 50 degree steep turns, power on and power off stalls, Vmc demo (flying with one engine to the point of the plane being uncontrollable; not as exciting as it sounds), emergency descent, and slow flight (flying at a speed just above where the plane will stall). After a couple attempts at each I was nailing them so I felt good about the maneuvers portion of the check-ride. We also worked on diversions. He would have me fly a certain direction for a while and would then ‘kill’ one of my engines. I would then have to find the nearest airport, plot a course, estimate the time, distance, and amount of fuel we’d use to get there. After doing this a couple times it came back to me, no problems.
Check-ride day was yesterday and everything went well. The oral part of the exam went smoothly: we talked about the systems on the Seminole, jet engine basics, forces affecting single engine flight, and more. After that it was time to fly! We flew the first flew legs of the cross country trip I had planned; each leg was on time so he killed my engine and had me divert to Casa Grande airport (KCGZ). Did my simulated single engine landing, short field take off, short field landing (approach at a little slower speed, max braking on touchdown), normal landing and we were out of there. Next was maneuvers; no problems and we were done and headed back to Gateway (now officially known as Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport).
I’m off for CFI school at ATP’s north las vegas location on 2/18 for 10 days. I’ll do an instructor check ride up there at the end of training. After that, I’ll come back and do my single engine commercial, single engine instructor, and instrument instructor check rides. All those happen within a few days of each other. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Some pics from trips to Long Beach and Riverside.
Mountains just south of Palm Springs:
Wind farm near Palm Springs:
Blythe airport:
View of Queen Mary while climbing out from Long Beach:
Angel Stadium and the Pond (or whatever it’s called now):
We parked near the Texas Rangers team plane (Boeing 757) while in Long Beach:
On 12/31 I flew to the North Las Vegas Airport. Had great views of Grand Canyon National Park, Lake Mead and Temple Bar resort. Also had awesome views of the Stratosphere and the surrounding casinos. Fun flight - no issues and got back by 4:30pm.
Western edge of Grand Canyon National park on the way up to Vegas:
Coming up on Lake Mead:
Rock formation known as the Temple:
Temple Bar resort:
Nice tail wind on the way back. Indicated airspeed was 130 but our GPS told us our speed over the ground as better than 180 knots:
Shot of the San Francisco peaks just north of Flagstaff - we were on our way back to the Phoenix area:
Time to put that instrument rating to good use! My flight school was closed for about a week during Christmas and I was in CA until 12/27. On 12/28 I made my first time building IFR flight. I have 75 hours of cross country flights to complete before starting on my commercial and instructor ratings.
I called our dispatch center at 7am on 12/28 to check in. They let me know I’d be going to Long Beach and gave me the name of the person I’d be flying with and the airplane I’d be flying. The last 2 digits in the tail number of this plane were ‘CK’ - affectionately known as ‘Chicken Killer’ by people at my school. This is a 1979 Seminole with a bit of a right turning tendency - if you let go of the yoke it does a slight turn to the right. No big deal - just a cute idiosyncracy.
My flight partner and I decided I’d be the pilot in command for the flight. That basically means that I have overall authority for the flight, I file the flight plan, and make any decisions that need deciding. We were originally planning on leaving at 9am but a small preflight issue (severed grounding strap on left aileron) kept us on the ground for a couple hours. Wouldn’t have been an issue if we had flown but might as well have everything just right.
We headed out to Long Beach (KLGB) late morning. We had a nice 30 knot (approx) head wind so our plane thought it was doing 120 knots but we were only going 90 knots ground speed. It took 4.2 hours total to get to long beach. After landing we had the plane topped off, grabbed the crew car, and got a couple sandwiches from a nearby Togo’s.
Departing Long Beach we flew through a cloud layer until clearing 6000 feet (Instrument rating/training definitely handy at this point) then were on top the clouds and cruising at 11000 feet back to the Phoenix area. No issue during our entire flight. It felt good to plan a trip to one of the countries busiest airspaces, navigate there, and return with no problems. I felt comfortable beforehand but it’s great knowing I’m able to do this stuff without an instructor looking over my shoulder. My next date of availability is 12/31 so I’ll check in and see where they send me!
Right. Just not on days I have checkrides. Since we couldn’t do the flight portion of the checkride Monday, we set it up for 8am on Wednesday (12/12). So off the the airport at 6:45am. Except I can barely see to the end of my street. Are my eyeballs still steamed up from the shower or is that fog. It can’t be fog, we hardly ever get fog. Rub my eyes, look up again, yup it’s fog. Thick fog. Well, maybe it’s just local to our area. After driving the 10 miles to the airport (at 25MPH) I realize my 8am checkride is in jeopardy.
7:30am comes and Examiner shows up and we chat about the fog. Thank goodness he didn’t have any other rides scheduled and he is determined to get this done. Finally about 11am or so we are able to go up. We did a GPS approach in Casa Grande Airport (KCGZ), VOR approach into Williams Gateway, and single engine (a ‘bird’ killed my right engine) ILS into Williams Gateway. Also did some unusual attitudes (I close my eyes, he climbs, turns, dives, basically tries to get it so I can’t tell which way is up or down. Then he says ‘recover’ - I open my eyes, figure out if we’re climbing or diving and recover the plane to straight and level flight only using the instruments), and DME arcs.
After getting back he said he’d meet me inside. I thought I did pretty well but he didn’t outright say that I had passed so I was a little nervous. Tied the plane up, headed in, and he debriefed me. He gave me a couple things to work on a little but said over all I did well and that I was now an instrument rated pilot! Woo hoo! Glad to have this checkride behind me.
Today I started 3 days of training for my upcoming cross countries. Instead of doing everything myself, I’m learning how to fly with a partner who will handle radios, navigation, and checklists. Weird to have help. Tomorrow I do a practice cross country with an instructor to Laughlin (will take camera) and back. After that, it’s 75 flight hours of cross countries with another instrument rated pilot going through the program. I’ll basically call up our dispatch each day I’m available and they’ll tell me where, when, with who, and what airplane I’m taking. I’ll be heading to El Paso, Vegas, Sacramento, Riverside, Long Beach, and Jacksonville, FL. Too fun, can’t wait!
The view from my plane (259AT) on my 14th trip to check on it while waiting for the fog to burn off:
Wrong. Woke up bright and early, was at the airport at 5:45am for my 7:00am checkride. It was cloudy and a little drizzly but I fingered it would clear up by the time the oral portion of the checkride was done (I was figuring 9am or 10am). First thing I did was check on my plane, 206AT. I’ve done the last few flights in 206 and have had it reserved for today since last week. People usually do an awesome job of not swiping other people’s planes but you never know. Plane, check. Weather….hmmmm….well, it’ll clear up by 9am.
Went back in to pull some weather reports, calculate weight and balance, landing distances, and other performance stuff. Looks like we won’t be able to roll with full fuel since me and the examiner are both pretty big guys. Weight-wise we’re OK but our center of gravity would be too far forward. No problem, will just ask the fuel guys to put in a little over half a tank. My CFI calls for fuel and gets that taken care of for me while I’m in the oral.
7am, show time. Examiner and I shake hands and sit down to go over my Instrument Airplane application, logbook, and just chat. Everything checks out so we go into the torture chamber - I mean briefing room. Examiner tells my CFI to just ignore any screaming he hears coming through the door. He’s an Air Force vet and I already like him. The info I received on him is accurate, he is thorough. Very thorough. We go over everything from interpreting weather reports, instrument approaches, departure procedures, airplane electrical system (explain the airplane’s electrical system and how it powers the instruments…), instruments (explain how the altimeter works, what moves the needles?), etc.
Got through in 2 hours, not bad. He said I did a good job and pointed out a couple answers I stumbled through and should read over at a later date. Cool. Time to fly.
So I walk out to the plane. Things I notice walking up: tires don’t look flat, no large puddles of liquid under the plane, no noticeable dents or other abnormalities. Climb on the wing, open the door, put my stuff in the cockpit, grab my checklist and climb back down to start pre-flighting. Item #1: Fuel. OK….open the gas cap….holy crap, they topped it off. To the top. The tippy top. Not good, this screws up the weight and balance and we can’t take this plane. I check on another available plane. OK, the fuel hasn’t been topped off yet, this is good. We check the fuel with the fuel dipper - says 20 gallons. We ask the fuel guy for 20 gallons. No sooner does he start filling it then fuel starts pouring onto the ground. Apparently the dipper did not give us an accurate reading and already had a good amount of fuel - great, another plane with full tanks that I can’t take. Sorry about that fuel guy! At least 2 other people won’t need to call for fuel. Finally get the plane situation taken care of, plane 3 gets 15 gallons per tank for a total of 40 per side. Woohoo!
Still drizzly, and are those clouds getting lower? We get in, buckle up, and get the plane started. One of the first things I do after turning on the radios and navigation equipment is tune in and get the airport’s weather update (clouds, temp, runways in use). Every hour they update it and give it a new letter (Information Alpha, Information Bravo, etc). So I pick up information Hotel and taxi up to the taxiway to get permission to taxi toward the runway. After asking permission, the tower guy comes back and says information India is now current: 800 foot ceilings and the airport is in instrument conditions. This means only instrument rated pilots on an instrument flight plan are allowed to fly. I am not instrument rated and we weren’t on an instrument flight plan. I look over at Examiner and he is looking straight ahead with his arms folded. He looks over at me and asks what are we going to do? Crap. I call back to the tower. “Gateway ground, Seminole 206AT. Nevermind, I’m going to turn around and park it, we’re not going up.” Examiner looks over and says good job, that was the right call. We ended up waiting for a couple hours but it never got any better. We’ll try to fly Wednesday at 8am. I’m sure the weather will be just fine.
Been busy with alot of sim time, studying, and getting to know my new instructor. Iceman interviewed with American Eagle a couple weeks ago and was hired on the spot. He starts his training class 12/10 - good luck Iceman! And thanks for teaching me how to fly safe!
My new instructor is someone who completed the program here in the PHX location so he’s familiar with the airspace and the area. We’ve started flying nearly every day as well as practicing on the sim. Most of my flights are ‘under the hood’ - that is I don’t get to look outside and I wear this set of glasses that blocks my vision except for the instruments. A few hundred feet (it varies depending on what approach we are doing) above the ground I take of the glasses - if all is well I should be pretty lined up with the runway and I land like normal. Also been doing a lot of single engine (simulated) landings and partial panel (simulating certain instruments failing) flying. My instrument checkride is 12/10 - my examiner is a former B-52 pilot known to be very thorough.
My instructor (no nickname yet) and I flew to Long Beach last Friday - left at about 1pm, flew some approaches at the Casa Grande (KCGZ) airport, then headed west toward the ocean. Had some lunch/dinner at Bob’s Big Boy and waited for it to get dark before returning. Fun flight - got to fly over some oil rigs and tankers just off the coast while departing the area. It was cool to see all the commercial air traffic filtering into SoCal as we headed out. Definitely a busy place, but fun.
Signature FBO where we gassed up and picked up the crew car to get some grub:
Our plane, 243AT, with the Long Beach tower in background:
Some blurry pics on Long Beach on our way out of the area:
