Tailwheel Endorsement

Just finished doing 4.7 hours with Bruce to get my tailwheel endorsement out of Wings Field (KLOM).

Have to say he is a great bloke and good to work with in completing this endorsement in the Citabria he has access to. Currently $183 per hour for the plane and Bruce.

He also does spin training and other aerobatic work if you are so inclined.

I guess I was just lucky for that hour time as it seems to be considered low. Being coordinated with controls, stablized approaches and quick on my feet would have helped as well as the crosswinds over the few days we flew to provide that steeper learning curve.

Endorsed after 12 landings, but I went out for a lucky 13th which turned into a nice one wheel crosswind landing.

We also did about 40 minutes in a training area with some wing overs and other manoeuvres, so I will definitely go back for more of that.

Bruce was an unlimited aero competitor for a long time and his skill and experience it comes across really well in a training environment.

FAA Unrestricted

Managed to finish my checkride today. I passed.

Flew out from Wings (KLOM) under an inversion (which was around 8000 ft), so I had visibility of around 8 miles or so under haze, but the ride was super smooth.

The DPE Tom C was great. It was a pleasure to fly next to a very experienced pilot.

After speaking with a FSDO office, I will now have a number of licenses: the full Australian PPL, the FAA license based on my foreign privs and now a new cert number for the unrestricted license I just passed.

Time for instrument work, however after posting on http://pilotsofamerica.org I think I will complete a tail-wheel endorsement before completing the instrument.

In other news, things are brewing on the flying club front. More to come later, however as a sneak peek... I have partnered with someone else from Wings and we have been gathering interest and doing work behind the scenes to start another fractional. Working out whether it will be an equity or non-equity club. Time will tell.

FAA Checkride

Last week I started my FAA checkride to migrate my current FAA certificate (based on foreign privileges) to a full FAA certificate.

As previously mentioned, the process requires me to complete the written exam, be endorsed by a CFI (to sign off my IACRA application) and then find a DPE to conduct the oral portion of the certificate and then sign-off on my checkride.

I did mention weather on my last post and unfortunately I did have to ask for a discontinuance after the oral portion of the test. Winds were between 25 gusting to 35 in the area and continued for almost two days, so we also couldn't finish the following day.

We rescheduled for this coming Tuesday as the weather looked promising on forecasts, but now that seems to have turned sour as well, so I may have to hold it off again.

Sigh... I will get it done soon enough.

Ready for the FAA Checkride

I already have my Australia privileges recognized here in the States (which grants me an FAA certificate). This allows me to fly as long as my medical and flight review is valid.

Problem with this is that my medical and flight review expirations have passed, so it meant no flying for me.

The FAA are reasonable in that I was allowed to get a medical here in the US and they adjusted my file to allow me to fly on the third class medical so long as the Australian flight review was valid.

This is all well and good until that period of time expired and according to CASA regulations, I could only take a checkride with an Australian CFI and in Australian airspace. (So I couldn't find an Aussie CFI on holidays in the US and do the checkride).

Due to the extra complexity in gaining new ratings and certificates as well as owning an aircraft here in the US and also maintaining my flight review currency back in Australia; this prompted me to just pursue my full FAA certificate by passing the written (I got an 88%. A few silly mistakes), doing a Private oral and checkride.

I have spoken with a few DPE's and will get this done over the next week or so, pending weather.

RV10

I am now in possession of RV10 plans for my birthday. A great 4 seater aircraft from Vans.

I've spoken about building an aircraft, which was going to start with the RV7 however my general "mission" when flying has changed somewhat.

The house I made an offer on that I expect to get has a great two car garage which will more than suit the building of the 10.

I will be in Maryland tomorrow, so I am also taking the opportunity to grab a ride in an RV10 with Mitch from Vans.

Aside from the building, which will take me a few years, I'm also looking to get a C182 or start a flying club with a few people I recently met at a Pilots of America forum FlyBQ at Wings field (KLOM).

The plan would be to start the building within the next 6-8 months as well as buying a 182 to take care of the interim flying.

Getting started again

Hello again!

It seems I have lost all of my followers since I stopped blogging a few years ago, but that was to be expected, so lets give you guys an update.

- I live and work in the USA as per what some of my old posts mentioned.
- I am a green card holder, so my stay here will be of a very long duration.
- I did have my Australian flight privileges converted to an FAA license

Some newer items that I will cover in detail over time include the re-starting of my aviation podcast (it used to be rated #3 in the aviation podcasts category) which will cover the conversion to a full FAA license, going over some of the differences between CASA and FAA regulations as well as bringing topics on my instrument rating training.