End of Block

Happy Easter everyone! I flew my last review stage sortie on Friday. It wasn't really as bad as I thought it would be. My first and third rides were more difficult. It was on par with my second review stage flight. I flew a PAR to start things off. Everything went fine, but I got an engine malfunction at the end. I decided I was about to land, so I wasn't going to shut it down, but it turned into a fire, so I had to shut it down anyway. I misjudged the time I had on final. I should have just shut it down when I got the first indications, but I learned something there. I flew down to the valley and did a fix-to-fix to an arcing circling approach. That went single engine, but it was fine. I landed it. My ILS went to a localizer and I had to wave it off because of simulated weather. Then my IP played "bad copilot" and tried to have me land on the wrong runway during a visual approach. I caught it all and ended up with a solid end of block ride. Checkride tomorrow after a restful weekend.

Intro to Review Stage

We canceled for lack of aircraft yesterday, but I finally got my first taste of review stage today. We flew down to the Valley and shot an ILS, a LOC Backcourse to an opposite circle, and a VOR approach with a point-to-point. I was single engine on the back course as well as the VOR, but I landed them all ok. On the return I flew a PAR while simulating smoke in the cabin, and I had to wear the oxygen mask. Terrible! Can't see anything when it fogs up. I had to take the comms at the end, because we simulated a copilot radio transmit problem. On top of that, I was single engine. Thankfully, that was a full stop. Welcome to review stage.

Just a few more sims

Yesterday's sim was a tough one for me. I didn't fly (sim?) very well, but today made up for it. I maintained the final courses well, never busted the minimum altitudes, and completed the emergency checklists. I was a little fast on final, but there's always something to work on, and you'd rather be fast than slow, especially single engine. Hopefully tomorrow goes the same way. I'm planning another TACAN approach, and ILS, and a PAR. We'll see if they give me a partial panel PAR. Partial panel is where you lose your attitude indicator, so you only know you're straight and level based on the turn needle. I figured it would be smart to get some practice in the sim, because we'll have to do it in the aircraft.

EP Sim

I flew alright on Thursday. I need to focus on not getting slow in the pattern while single-engine. It's one of the few things that are really bad. It's just a matter of adding in more power and staying coordinated. The highwork was fine. Friday I had the EP sim, which ended up being a little easier than I thought, but the instructor we got was a real cranky old guy. Interesting anyway. Checkride Tuesday morning!

Much better

I flew much better today. I cleaned up everything in my gradebook, but I messed up the break entry to the pattern. We waited for an hour to fly, but eventually got a plane. It was going to be a 3-student sortie, but daylight left wouldn't allow for two contacts to go. My wingman got sent home, so I could catch up. He was one ride ahead of me. We flew the highwork, I took all the IP's techniques and advice to heart for this flight and it served me well. The stall, ditching, and engine cut all went fine. We headed back to the aux field and all the SSE stuff was within limits. In an effort to not get slow on SSE landings I was carrying a little extra power on touchdown, which we fixed as well. On the RTB I was didn't get the flaps and gear down quick enough so we were still high on downwind at the perch. I'll fix that tomorrow.

Saturday Flying

For the first time today, I was on the schedule on a Saturday. It was a little quieter out there, but everything was the same as is during the week besides not having radar coverage of the working areas. I struggled with the power off ditch, but did it a couple more times and got it within limits if not pretty. The pattern was pretty much a disaster. My SSE work just didn't feel smooth, although the rudder control was decent. A few more flights to practice up.

Not the new guy

Today I had my last flight with my on-wing instructor. From here on out, I'll have an assortment of different instructors from flight to flight. The flight went pretty well, the highwork flowed well and I finished in a timely manner, AND with better practice ditches than the previous couple flights. We flew over to Corpus Int'l (KCRP) for the pattern work. They gave us a downwind entry to runway 17 and we did a couple normal patterns before transitioning to the SSE work. The SSE work wasn't really all that bad today, but I had to go-around a couple times just because I wasn't quite lined up due to winds. Holding the rudder in for a whole pattern gets old real fast, but it's better than trying to land a terrible pattern out of parameters. Four more flights to practice before checkride.

The funny thing for the day was a Cessna in the pattern with who I can only assume was a student at the controls, because he had a terrible radio presence. You could tell he was stuggling with SA and radio procedures. It just felt good not to be the new guy.

Slow week

Tuesday's flight was more of the same, single engine practice, trying to trim the airplane out to ditch smoothly, and building up my leg strength with the rudder fully deflected in the SSE landing pattern. We flew over to KCRP for touch and go practice, because of a runway closure at the aux field. It was interesting to see, but a little inconvenient, because they kept switching us from one runway to the other seemingly for no reason at all.

Wednesday we canceled for WX. On instrument ride went up, but they didn't break out of the clouds until 200 off the deck, which is actually minimums for precision intrument approaches. The clouds went up to 9000'.

Today I didn't fly, because I had a flight physical, the annual checkup for military pilots. I was poked and prodded, mostly in the eyes and veins, all morning but there were no med issues thankfully. I was sent home with dilated eyes, which always amuses me.

SSE and a C-17

After the crazy Texas snow and the monstrous storm that swept through the country canceled us last Thursday and a weekend of leave back up in Washington to attend my grandma's memorial service, I was back up in the air today. We did the standard high work, stalls, ditching practice, and a dynamic engine cut. Then we beat up the pattern at the aux field with full flap, normal, and no-flap landings. The IP introduced the SSE (simulated single engine) procedures today. On the downwind leg of the pattern the IP took the throttle of the left engine and brought it back to idle. I had to fly the rest of the pattern and land the aircraft with only one engine providing useful thrust. It's good training for emergency situations, and it builds confidence to know you can still handle the plane if one engine quits for any reason. That said, it's still not comfortable. The aircrafts performance suffers, lots of rudder input is required, and the workload is higher. This upcoming block of training is devoted to practicing malfunctions and dealing with emergencies in the air, so we should be fairly proficient when checkride time rolls around.

When we returned for the full stop, we saw two C-17s parked on the ramp getting refueled. After the debrief we just walked over to see if the pilots would let us check out the inside. They were just waiting for the fuel trucks to finish their job, so they gave us a brief rundown of the cockpit and let us sit in the copilot seat and look through the HUD. It's really a nice aircraft! It's a strategic transport aircraft with a stick and auto-trim! I new it was nice, but seeing it up close was impressive. It was nice to just be able to walk over and be welcomed into the cockpit. This job definitely has benefits.