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.

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.

Incomplete

Today's flight did not go as planned. I started out with an uneventful taxi and takeoff out to the working areas. We did my highwork, which went reasonably well for Day 2, before switching to my wingman. He did his highwork and transitioned to the aux field. Just as I was about to switch back into the pilot's seat, the props started acting up. In the T-44 you move the props to full forward to slow down while on final at the end of a landing pattern right before you touch down. When he moved the props forward, they weren't changing their blade angle, so the IP decided to return early after replicating the problem three more times. We wrote it up, so it would get fixed. I got an incomplete, so I get to do the ride over again. Free flying time!

Fam 1

I flew today for the first time in 5 months. It was great to get back in the air. My wingman took off, and did the highwork first (speed change, level turns, and slow flight). We swapped about and hour into it, I did my highwork, then transitioned to the aux field Navy Cabaniss. We broke over the numbers and flew about 10 touch-and-go's. We switched seats again in the landing pattern and my wingman finished up his pattern work and flew back to land at Navy Corpus where we got a downwind entry for the full stop landing. This aircraft seems to be very forgiving in the landing transition. I'm sure the wheel struts are taking a beating, since it's a Navy plane, but hopefully it won't be such a fight to land it well. Good feedback and plenty to work on tomorrow when it'll be my turn to start up and do the takeoff.