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.

Boom!

I had a great flight today. Yes, I said it. It was great. We flew down to the valley. I got in the seat at Port Isabel and flew a GPS approach with a turn in holding followed by a circling approach. Both approaches were single engine. All went well and my IP even said I flew one of the best point-to-points he's ever seen. The winds were only about 25 knots at altitude, but it was still pretty good. I had to put on the mask on the way back for simulated smoke and fumes in the cockpit, but I got to take it off after the fumes "dissipated." We went through that checklist and then shot another approach - this time a needle-only TACAN. The catch was he failed my attitude indicator, so I did a partial panel, needle-only TACAN. I'd never even heard of that until today. On the climbout we couldn't get the visual recovery, so we shot the ILS. He failed my glideslope, so we had to transition to the localizer. Then, he gave me a fire, so we went single engine. I got halfway through the checklist and decided to just land and deal with it on the ground. No major fumbles with a pretty tough profile, so I was really happy with my flying this morning. One more, then check Friday.

San Antonio

Today I had my second review stage ride. It wasn't too bad, but I kept shooting myself in the foot. I haven't flown since last Thursday. I sat SDO on Friday, answering the phone and talking on the radio tracking the flights in the morning. We got canceled yesterday, so today was the first flight of the week for me. I flew a partial-panel (no heading or attitude indicator) ASR approach to start things off, then flew over to Beeville for a GPS approach and circling maneuver to the opposite runway. Those both had two bad moments in them, but were otherwise ok. On the ASR I got really slow at one point, and on the GPS I started descending at an intermediate fix I confused for the final approach fix. I'll have to fly another GPS approach to make up for that, but the SSE circling and missed approach went well. I flew the ILS up at Lackland AFB in San Antonio following that approach.

On the way back I wasn't flying, but the IP thought he had unsafe gear up indications, so we went through the checklist and did a low approach for the tower to check the gear and everything. Everything was fine, but when we got on the ground, we asked why he had called for the gear EP checklist and he couldn't really say. It was a lesson in CRM. He'd had a few gear issues in the past and thought he heard a weird noise, but when he called the gear on the climb checklist he thought he might have actually been looking for gear lights when they were actually supposed to be out. We thought he'd seen something we hadn't but never called him on it. Just a good lesson in assertiveness and speaking up when something doesn't look right. We did the safe thing though.

Not the best day for me, but not the worst either. Early flight tomorrow.

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.

Aircraft Tour and Review

After yesterday's information firehose repeat, today's review was a welcome relief. We closed with an aircraft tour after lunch. I'm off to a review session in about 15 minutes. The test tomorrow should go well.