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.

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.

He can fly for another two years!

Flight hours: 2.6

There haven't been many updates over the last 5 weeks due to my travels and planning for relocation to the U.S.

Over Christmas I flew in a human mailing tube to the U.S east coast to suss out the location from the point of view of living and working there. Over the month long period, my girlfriend and I tried to lead a normal life so I could establish some sort of baseline for living costs. This also included driving past an airfield right next to my work headquarters... hoping to find a good general aviation presence at this particular airfield.

So, that leads us to my Biannual Flight Review (BFR). It is due in December and I really don't like the idea of letting my license lapse, so I tentatively booked my flight review to occur sometime over the next week.

I figured I would do the planning early in the week and watch the weather to see when it would improve, then book the BFR. Obviously, this wasn't going to happen. The instructor I had chosen, called me in the late afternoon on Saturday and said "I have a cancellation for flying tomorrow due to weather, how about we do your BFR instead, what time would you like to start? I think 10am will be fine".

The only issue, the weather was quite lame. "The weather isn't the greatest".

"I think you should do your BFR, it would be good to practice in and exercise your decision making".

OK, so it was on, I decided to head down there by 9:30am and plan the trip at the flight school. The trip was only planned up to my first landing destination and minimum planning was asked to be performed. He wanted to ensure I could cope with a maximum cockpit workload. This would include determining the tracks, heading, ETA's etc, whilst in the air to any other location or diversions.

Usually I would use Air NAV and thoroughly do my pre-flight planning, so I can relax and enjoy the flight knowing that all normal operations have been accounted for. This flight was far from that.

The first landing was at Cessnock, a relatively easy exercise as I could follow the coast up north, the only concern being that due to cloud cover, I would have to provide overflying and transiting radio calls for other aircraft operating at the airfields I was to pass within 10nm. The actual landing was a full crosswind, potentially at the maximum XW component of the C172 (15 kts). The windsocks were showing around half-mast and perpendicular to the runway. I did quite a good job.

On the return and randomly selected destination/diversion legs, we finally headed out to the western training area and performed airwork and emergency landings. We stayed out there for around 45 minutes when I also noted that we are at bingo, excluding mandatory reserve fuel (a military term which means there is enough fuel to return to base of intended landing). The return landing was performed as a shortfield.

I passed my BFR and am now authorised to fly for another two years.

Night VFR Instruments

Flight Hours: 2.9
Study Hours: 1
Aviation Reading: Killing Zone: How and why pilots die

Note: This event occurred around early-November

A few days ago, I was booked in to complete a component of the Night VFR rating, which is instrument flight, instrument failures and unusual attitudes with recovery based on instruments only of which some may be failed (by covering the instruments up) at certain times.

One of the other members of the syndicate is an instructor at a Bankstown based aviation college, so I decided to transfer my integrated CPL training over to that school.

I arrived earlier than required as the session would start after closure of the fuel trucks and I also wanted to inspect the aircraft before last light to make things easier.

I taxied the aircraft across the airport to the college and met up with the instructor. After a quick chat and seeing as last light would be over 35 minutes away, I decided to bang out some crosswind circuits.

Doing circuits as the sun is setting is interesting at times when the sun is directly in your eyes, but it was nothing that intermittent use of sunglasses couldn't fix.

Finishing the circuits, I headed back to the college for the training brief. I was to take off visually and once 3nm from the airport boundary, I would be under the hood for the next 2 hours.

During this time we went over some instrument flight, quickly getting more complex such as failed vacuum pump (no Attitude Indicator or Directional Gyro), No instrument or cockpit lights, climbing and descending turns to a certain altitude and heading, whilst determining my exact location on a chart using two differing navaids and if needed, broadcasting on the appropriate CTAF frequencies. No sweat.

We then covered unusual attitude recovery under the hood along with covering the instruments completely from my field of view and flying towards an area with no lighting to see what night visual effects can occur.

The training was coming to an end and finished up with some circuits at Hoxton Park before heading back to Bankstown.

Simulator Training

Flight Hours: 1.2 (Simulator)
Study Hours: 0

Note: This event occurred around mid-October

As part of the NVFR training requirements, it is better to learn on the ground with an approved synthetic trainer where it is cheaper and you can pause the session to go over items.

My simulator training involved general instrument flight, tracking navaids and practicing intercepts. For fun we even covered some instrument approaches along with random and frequent equipment failures.

Tracking (not homing) to navaids I find easy. The only issue for me was that I would take around 6-10 seconds to create a mental picture in relation to my position from reading the directional gyro and VOR in order to execute random intercepts. I will want to get this down to a second or two at most, although a greater understanding of where I am on a chart would help reduce my mental lag.

I found the simulator work fairly simple, probably due to the frequency of my childhood flight sim usage along with my Xbox/Xbox 360 l33t skillz.

Night VFR Nav

Flight Hours: 3.3
Study Hours: 1

Note: This event occurred around mid-October

I was given the following route to plan for my first night VFR nav:

YSBK - PAA - YPEC - YCNK (Circuits) - MQD - CAA - HBB - YSBK

Simple enough, track the lane of entry, follow the coast north until Aeropelican, swing inbound to Cessnock for some circuits. After the circuits, track to a VOR followed by an NDB and practising intercepts at both navaids, then finish off with a direct track to Sydney for some orbits around the city before tracking home.

The first few circuits at Cessnock where okay but could be much better. I'm generally hard on myself with flying skills so that I keep at it them until I am comfortable and proficient. Because of this, I ended up wanting to keep doing circuits which saw me complete around 10 touch and goes before continuing the navigation.

With less light available, the landing perspective takes some time getting used to, however after a few circuits, things looked and felt much better. Happy with this, I tuned in the navaids and tracked to the VOR followed by the NDB.

After the last navaid, I headed towards Sydney, requested airways clearance and proceeded to do some orbits of the harbour, then the city and a practiced missed approach at Sydney airport (it's great to have a good friend who works for Airservices (the air traffic controllers within Australia). After frolicking around the city, I took a direct track back home.

Sydney at night looks amazing so after my NVFR check ride, I will have to take some photos.

Night VFR Circuits

Flight Hours: 3.5
Study Hours: 0

Note: This event occurred around mid-October

Now that I have access to an aircraft, it will be much cheaper for me to chase
endorsements and ratings. A school rental + instructor runs upwards of $250 AUD with taxes applied. By using my aircraft, an instructor only costs between $60 and $85.

I did find a neat trick with flying training in Australia though. Sign a form stating that you will pursue your commercial rating (CPL) and you can fly GST tax exempt. This takes 10% of the price away, which at least provides an extra incentive.

A night rating (NVFR) is the first new rating that I will complete. The rating provides me with greater options if the weather is going to pose a problem during daylight or if I am needing to leave earlier or later than planned. Before I get a chance to use it for weather related issues, I will probably be instrument rated, but none the less, I could let my IFR recency slide, but still have Night VFR options and the ability to fly scenic at night.

My only obstacle was to find an instructor who would be willing to teach NVFR-SE. Not many instructors in Australia seem to be interested in teaching single engine night VFR, however I believe you can mitigate the risks by thorough and smarter flight planning, managing not to go over areas that provide little option for emergency landings without a proper light source. An engine doesn't know whether it is day or night, although it usually performs better at night in the cooler air.

Funnily enough, it is either the young instructors or the very old war pilot type instructors who seem to enjoy providing the training and rating check ride for NVFR. Flying at night is great fun. Smooth air, completely different viewing of the same items, especially scenic flights around cities. The rating also resets my BFR time.

My first lesson involved circuits. I had only a few hours in a C172 by this stage, but landing a 172 is nothing compared to a Sundowner, Sierra or Mooney. The 172 is a piece of cake most of the time and greaser landings are fun to rinse and repeat.

The perspective at night is quite different and I noticed the cockpit workload felt like it was higher few the first few minutes, but that isn't really the case. By the end of the hour, the instructor felt confident enough to provide me with a solo night circuit endorsement along with telling me to plan a NAV with circuits at other airfields.