The Gulf of Mexico Ocean

Wow, it sure has been awhile since my last post.  I believe I left off with my prep-for-checkride flight and was hoping for a checkride in the next few days.  Well, that didn't happen.  I ended up waiting almost a week until an examiner was available.  On Monday, I had my last prep-for-checkride flight and boy was I a little rusty.  There were three different times during that flight where I would have busted my checkride. 

 So, I landed and, of course, I was really upset with myself.  I didn't come all this way to screw up now.  Not to mention that the guy who was going to be my examiner had "failed" two of the last three guys he checked.  So, I was nervous and almost sick to my stomach.  I thought I was prepared but how can anyone who thinks they are ready for a check ride do so bad that they fail on the oral exam. 

I suppose I should give a little more detail on what a check ride entails.  First, the exchange of money.  There are two ways to get a rating added to your certificate.  The most common way is to use a Designated Pilot Examiner.  The DPE is not an employee of the FAA but is certified by the FAA to conduct check rides in their place.  Due to not being employeed, they are permitted to charge a "fee."  I say "fee" because some of the money they charge is borderline ridiculous.  The guy I flew with charged $500 (in cash only) and is allowed to fly twice each day.  The day after my check ride, he flew with two different guys seeking out their Airline Transport Pilot certificate.  He charged $600 cash for those two guys totally $1200 for the day.  Cash.  Do I need to say cash again? So, in two days, he earned $1700.  This particular examiner also did a Multi-engine add-on ($450) and two private pilot check rides ($450 ea) this month and that was only at our particular facility.  There are 3 other flight schools at St Pete International and another airport down the road in St Pete.  Note to self: get that job when I get older.

Anyways, the DPE comes in, collects his fee and does some paperwork before getting started.  I did forget to mention one thing.  Those guys who failed their check rides not only have the stigma of busting a check ride but they also have to pay the examiner fee again.  Another reason to pass the first time.  Back to the story.  So, my examiner comes in and we exchange some small talk before getting started on the oral exam.  The oral  exam is a myriad of questions to judge your competency in the regulations, aircraft performance, weather, flight planning, etc.  The oral exam can last anywhere between 30 minutes to 90 minutes.  So, he comes in and starts asking questions rapid fire.  Tell me about the equipment required to fly IFR.  What inspections are required to fly IFR?  Tell me about the currency requirements to legally file an IFR flight plan.  What do you do if you don't meet the requirements?  Etc. And, I ROCKED it.  I mean, I hit it out of the park.  There were a few times he stopped me mid-answer, said that was good enough and asked a different question.  And then we got into my bread and butter.

We get through most of the oral and he gets on his computer and pulls up the latest weather observations and forecasts.  Trap set.  I have yet to tell him about my collegiate background and borderline obsession. He has me read the encoded Terminal Aerodrome Forecast (TAF) and the current observation for St Pete.  Of course, being that I had to practice encoding them at the Academy, it really wasn't an issue for me to just blow through it.  After I answered, he kind of looked at me funny and said, "well, that was really good."  And that's when I showed my hand.  

Me: Well, weather is kind of an obsession of mind.  I mean, I majored in meteorology.

Him: Really?

Me:  Yeah, at the Air Force Academy

Him:  Wow.  Wait, are you joking?  

Me: Haha, no.  I have a B.S. in Meteorology from the Air Force Academy

Him:  Well, I think we are just about done with the weather questions then

We finished up the oral exam and he sent me out to pre-flight the airplane.  I found later that my instructor asked him how the oral exam went.  He said, it went well.  My instructor then asked if he asked me any weather questions.  The examiner laughed and said that after he found out it was my major, he didn't want to ask many more questions so that I didn't embarrass him.  Point me.  Maybe in the future I'll keep that little bit of information to myself and just answer a bunch of weather questions.  It couldn't hurt, right?

So, I went out and did the flight portion of the check ride.  It went really well too.  After we landed and I turned off the engine, the examiner says, "Great job young man.  Congratulations."  He got out of the airplane and walked into the building.  I had a little party on the ramp.  Wow, what a relief!!  I was told that the instrument check ride was one of the most difficult ones and I hit a home run.  

So, we filled out a little more paperwork and then my instructor and I got in the plane to fly to Daytona again. It was the last flight with him before I started the "time building" portion of the program.  I have to fly 50 hours in the next week or so to prepare for my commercial check ride.  I will be flying with another guy who got here a week before I did.  Funny story.  I was a cadre in his basic cadet squadron my junior year at the Academy and he was one squadron over the whole academic year.  Small world, right?  

So, you might be thinking to yourself, what's with the title of the blog.  Of course, there is a good chance you might not be thinking that to yourself but you sure are now that I've mentioned it.  I'm going to share what I heard as I'm climbing out of St Pete enroute to Daytona.

Pilot: Tampa Approach, Cessna 37S with request

ATC: Cessna 37S, go ahead with request

Pilot: Yes, we'd like to shoot an approach into St Pete and then fly out over the ocean for some practice maneuvers.  

ATC: What?

Pilot: We'd like to fly an approach into St Pete and then fly out over the ocean for some practice maneuvers.  

ATC:  The Atlantic Ocean?!

Pilot: No, ocean right by St Pete.

ATC: You mean, the Gulf of Mexico.

Pilot: Yeah, the Gulf of Mexico Ocean.

ATC: Are you KIDDING ME?!

That's all for today.  I did my first cross-country to Jacksonville and back a few days ago but we've had to cancel the last two days because of aircraft availability and weather.  Hopefully tomorrow we'll take off for a literal across the country cross-country.  Thanks again for all your support.  It means the world to me.

I'm sorry, did you say Channing Tatum?

Yes, I did say Channing Tatum but more on that later.  

Yesterday was a VERY long day.  I got up to the airport around 9:30am for a scheduled 10am departure.  This was going to be a "Prep-for-checkride" flight.  When I got to the airport, it was evident that the weather that was forecast to arrive the day before was already showing its teeth.  It was drizzling and it was windy.  The winds were about 10 degrees off the runway center line steady at 15 kts gusting to 25kts.  A 10 degree crosswind, even at that speed wasn't bad.  So, we taxied out to the active runway, runway 17L and got ready for takeoff.  

A quick note before I get too far.  As I'm sure you are aware, the runways are numbered.  What you may not know, however, is that the number of the runway isn't just a random two number combination that the airport people made up.  It is the direction the runway is pointing to the closest 10 degrees.  So, if I am taking off on 17L, when I am centered on the runway center line, my compass and heading indicator should both read somewhere around 170 degrees (almost south).  There is a little room for error in the numbering system.  Obviously you aren't going to have a runway 16.7.  The runway heading is usually rounded to the nearest ten . There are also times when they have more than one runway at an airport pointing in the same direction.  These are called parallel runways and are identified as either the Left, Center, or Right runway.  I think that's pretty self-explanatory.  BUT I digress.

So, this particular flight was going to be all the things I would see during a check.  We took off and flew directly to the airport's missed approach holding pattern.  We held there for about 15 minutes and then got clearance to attempt our first approach.  The routine was pretty much the same for all the approaches.  We were radar vectored (controller telling us the direction to fly) to a point where we could intercept our final approach course.  When we were leaving the holding pattern, the controller would come up and say:

ATC: "N644, turn left heading 360.  Expect vectors for the ILS 17L." 

Of course, you have to repeat all instructions.  This one isn't bad.  As we were vectored, we would get minor heading/altitude adjustments and then they clear you for the approach.  

ATC:  "N644, turn right heading 150. Maintain 2000 until established on the localizer.  Cleared ILS 17L approach....your missed approach instructors are turn right heading 270.  Climb and maintain 1600.  Return to this frequency."  

I flew the approach, got to the decision height and my instructor told me to perform the missed approach.  Then we turned right 270 and were headed back out to the beach to hold.  We did a total of 4 approaches (ILS, ILS single-engine, GPS, and VOR).  I know this means nothing to most of you but just know that it's a different procedure that gets you to the airport using different navigation systems.  Also, as a twist to each approach, he would "fail" equipment.  This, of course, required you to use other, less useful, equipment when performing the approach.  Do I have an example, you ask?  Well of course!

I'll use the last approach.  We did a VOR approach.  We had been flying and doing approaches for about an hour and a half and I was getting mentally tired.  You could tell because my radio calls were getting sloppy and disjointed.  So, we were getting vectors to set up on the final approach course and the instructor covers up my heading indicator.  The heading indicator is a gyroscopic instrument that gives you a very reliable heading indication.  It is set using the compass while on the ground and in straight and level flight but it far more reliable than a compass when turning and in less-than-smooth flight.  A compass is prone to various errors while flying.  So, when the gyroscopic heading indicator fails, you have to use the magnetic compass.  Great.  

To give you an idea of what it's like to use a magnetic compass while flying I want you to close your eyes and picture this.  Ok, maybe don't close your eyes but picture this. Imagine you are somewhere with gentle rolling hills only it's REALLY REALLY foggy.  You can maybe see 100 yards in front of you.  Now, I'm going to give you a magnetic compass and tell you that you have to run straight ahead for 2 miles heading due east.  You must read the compass on the run and can't stop.  Good luck.  

Ok, back to my story.  So, it's really bumpy out.  I am told to hold a 130 heading and, of course, my compass is bouncing back and forth from 100 to 160.  Now I'm getting frustrated.  Out of nowhere I hear a jet somewhere declare an emergency.  Something might be on fire.  So, we are cleared for the approach and I'm getting set up using my shitty compass as my only means of direction.  

Legacy Private Charter Jet: "Tampa Approach, Legacy 4SG.  Please contact St Pete and have them roll the equipment (the firetrucks and EMT).  Passengers are reporting smoke in the cabin."  

ATC: "Legacy 4SG roger.  Cleared ILS 17L...N644 (me) turn right heading 270.  Approach clearance canceled.  Emergency aircraft behind you on final.  Expect vectors back to VOR 17L."

There were 4 aircraft doing approach work and getting set up for approaches.  One by one, we all got vectors out to the Gulf as the Private Jet came screaming into St Pete.  Luckily, we were closest to the approach because we were essentially spun around and sent right back towards the approach course once the jet passed.  Ok, almost done.  We were cleared for the VOR 17L.  About 3 minutes later ATC comes back and says,

ATC: "N644.  Runway 17L is closed due to disabled aircraft on the runway.  Cleared for the VOR 17L circle-to-land Runway 22."

In the grand scheme of things, not a big deal.  So, we line up and approach 17L and when we have the airport in sight, we essentially just circle over to the other runway and land on it.  We changed over to tower and let them know that we were VOR 17L Circle-to-land 22.  

Tower: "Roger N644, cleared to land Runway 22.  Wind 150 at 16 gust 25."

And that's when I started calculating crosswind.  I knew that a 30 degree crosswind would result in 50% of the wind.  A 60 degree crosswind would result in about 90% of the wind as the crosswind speed.  At 50 degrees, we were looking at a crosswind of around 14 knots gusting to 22 kts.  The maximum demonstrated crosswind of our aircraft was 17 kts.  As we were turning final, the winds shifted to 160 at 16 gust 25.  This was about a 40 degree crosswind and was a little better but going to be tough regardless.  The VOR approach to landing for me was a complete disaster but it resulted in a good crosswind landing on my part.  

As we walked into the FBO, there were a bunch of skater punk looking people hanging out in the lobby.  Girls with pink hair, guys wearing hats three sizes too big cocked to one side with gross patchy crusty looking facial hair.  One guy was complaining that all the alcohol was left on the plane while the mechanics checked to find the source of the smoke.  It smelled like a bar in there.  My buddy comes back and says, "dude, that was Channing Tatum's jet.  He walked into the FBO right after you left."  

I'm sorry, did you say Channing Tatum?  I thought that was kind of cool...his entourage was a sketchy though and left much to be desired.  

One last thought.  Last night I passed both the instrument rating and instrument instructor rating written tests.  They are essentially the same test.  I didn't leave until around 6:30 last night but I'm another step closer...

Last Instrument Cross Country

Welcome back everyone!  I hope you all enjoyed my last post about Alabama.  Every so often, I question whether what I'm doing is really the correct decision.  The reality of the industry sets in and makes me panic a little.  I know I won't be making hardly any money for the next year or two.  I know that it's going to require a lot  time away when I do start flying.  When I become more senior I'll only have to fly 10-14 days each month but until then, I'll be away from home a lot.  It's times like those in Alabama that help me to justify those realities.  That and all the of encouragement from all of you.  

When I was first trying to make the decision to do this, one of my really good friends Colin told me that if I wanted to make money and be marginally happy at work then I should have just stayed in the Air Force.  He's right.  Yes, I'll be away from home a lot, but which serious professional isn't?  If I wanted to "make it big" in business, I would have to work 10-12 hours a day.  I would have to to travel a lot and always be connected to an email account.  Plus, working in the airline industry gets you some pretty sweet travel benefits.

But I digress.  So, I had my last instrument cross-country on Saturday.  We took off and headed south to the city of Venice.  The flight itself wasn't memorable at all.  Just flew for about 30 minutes to the south and did an instrument approach.  Then we flew to Sarasota for another instrument approach.  Finally, we arrived back at St Pete with plenty of time to do two instrument approaches.  I thought I did pretty good on the last 3 approaches.  The first one...well, that one was a little rough.  Sunday I spent 4 hours in the simulator again.  I've included a picture of the sim below so you can visualize what I was spending all that time in.  I only have about 3 more sims left in the entire program.  After today, I have two prep-for-checkride flights and then my instrument check on Thursday....hopefully. I've been keeping an eye on the Yucatan over the last 24 hours and things might get a little interesting over the next few days.  After my check, I have one or two more sims to teach me about "crew procedures" and then I go on a cross-country.  

One cross-country you ask?  No.  The cross-country I'm going on will be a 50 hour cross-country.  I show up each day with my "crew partner" and they tell us where to fly.  One of the guys said he flew all the way out to New mexico and then back to the east and up the coast to New Jersey.  I'll be sure to keep you all abreast  via here and Facebook about where I'm headed.  You'll even be able to track me on flight aware if you're bored.  Well, that's all I have for today.  Below is a picture of the sim.  It really is pretty simple.  Have a great day and as my Uncle Charlie says, "keep the brown side down."  

Alabama and Back, a must-read story.

After nearly a week of delaying, it was finally time to go to Dothan.  After a quick peek at the weather, it was clear that the weather in Alabama wasn't going to cooperate.  We were supposed to go the day before but the cloud deck was just barely high enough to conduct non-precision approaches.  If something happened to make the weather worse in Alabama and we were forced to divert, we only had about an hour of fuel before we started getting into our reserves.  Life is better when you aren't burning into your reserve fuel.  So we waited.

The weather in Dothan on Thursday was still forecast to be marginal.  After decided to go, I got excited that I would be able to get some "actual instrument" time. Up until now, other than a few puffy clouds I had flown through, I had just used a few limiting device to use the instruments.  The flight to Dothan was spent flying in and out of clouds.  It was pretty cool to say the least.  I have a more important story to tell so I'm going to skip all of the unimportant details and skip to the end of the flight.  As we approached Dothan, the clouds were getting thicker above us and were beginning to form lower in the sky.  Soon, the intermittent cloud deck had become nearly solid.  As we were cleared to our final approach altitude in Dothan, we flew into the very bottom of the clouds.  It was still possible to see the ground below us but visibility was significantly reduced ahead of us.  As I picked up the electronic glide slope, I could barely see a white light in the distance.  After a few minutes, that white light turned out to be the bright lights of the instrument landing system.  The strobes flashed in rapid succession toward the runway showing us where the runway was located.  It wasn't until a mile or two from the airport did I see the lighted outline of the runway.  It was my first instrument landing in instrument conditions.  I did really well and was really proud of myself.  

Once we got to Dothan, we went into the FBO and had them top-off our airplane.  It was nice to get out of the relatively uncomfortable seat for a few minutes.  I grabbed my sandwich I brought, ate dinner and started checking out the weather for the return flight to St Pete.  The flight is scheduled to be a night flight to St Pete via Kissimmee, Florida (yes, that’s near Orlando) and Lakeland. 

We got word that our plane was ready to go but it wasn’t quite dark yet.  I filed our flight plan for the return trip, finished off my soda and headed out to the airplane to preflight.  By the time we finished the preflight inspection, the weather started to deteriorate further.   The intermittent mist had turned into a steady drizzle with periods of light rain.  The clouds were low, gray, and covered the entire sky much like the clouds that blanket the Midwest in the winter.  I pulled my red flashlight out of my flight bag because by this time, it was too dark to read without artificial light.  We hurried into the cockpit to get out of the rain, started the engines, and headed out to the runway for the return trip. 

The tower cleared us for take-off and in under a mile down the runway we were airborne.   Air Traffic Control cleared us to turn back to the east and almost immediately cleared us to climb to our cruise altitude of 6000 feet.  So, I need you to bear with me here because I’m going to try and paint you a picture as best as someone can who isn’t James Schannep.

A few minutes into the climb, I looked down towards the city of Dothan and could see several layers of clouds grouped over the city and near the runway.  The light grey wisps of clouds obscured the otherwise crisp street lights transforming them into orange orbs.  The discoloration made it easy to find the edges of the low clouds.  As I turned my attention away from the city back to the task at hand, I looked ahead and noticed the base of the clouds looming only a thousand feet above us.  After a quick glance at the altimeter, I realized we were going to be entering the cloud deck in a matter of minutes if not seconds.

               

As I reached 3000 feet, it seemed like the clouds loomed just above the airplane.  I felt an instinct to slouch so that I did hit my head on the thick cloud deck above.  When seen from the ground, the gray ceiling rippled and bulged in every direction.  Up close, the ripples and bulges were imposing and cavernous.  Seconds later the lights of the city vanished below as we were swallowed into gray nothingness.

We were now in the cloud deck.  At first, I was a little surprised at how much our strobe lights lit up the air around us.  The strobes, located on the wingtips and normally not visible during flight, were almost blinding.  And then, I noticed something off the front of my left wing.  The hairs on my neck rose as I glanced to the left and saw a round white light in the distance shining through the clouds.  It looked as if another airplane were bearing down on us.  After a second of rational thought, I realized that it was nothing more than the moon shining through the top layers of the clouds.  The eerily-full moon shone through the clouds and was barely visible.  For the next minute or so, I kept glancing over at the moon, watching it fade in and out as we continued our climb completely enveloped by the clouds.

I remember thinking to myself, if we are going to be in this cloud the whole flight, this could get tiring fast.  Almost as soon as I finished that the thought, the dim and fading light of the moon lit up the entire cockpit.  I looked to my left just as the last layers of clouds fell below us.

The sky above was completely free of clouds and below us was something unlike anything I’ve ever seen.  The nearly-full moon appeared to sit merely inches above the horizon and shined a bright white light over the new landscape.  As far as I could see in every direction, the clouds looked like a light gray blanket covering the earth below.  They appeared to be gently rolling but were actually motionless, as if a rough white sea had been frozen in time.  Further in the distance, larger, darker clouds jutted out of the nearly flat layer below like a crag juts out of the Atlantic along the New England coast.  It was breathtaking.

We leveled off a little less than a thousand feet above the clouds and for the next hour all I could do was look down at the beauty below.  Every so often, the clouds turned a shade of orange as the lights of the city penetrated through the thinner layers.  As we approached Tallahassee, the solid white blanket below us started to deteriorate.  The apparent moonscape below appeared to be getting torn apart like the cotton clumps used to make faux Halloween spider webs.  Above the tears in the clouds, I was able to get a brief peak at the world below: a street here, a town there.  They were short glimpses of land under an otherwise featureless white terrain.

After an hour, the clouds began to rise ahead of us like the Great Plains rise into the Rockies.  The crags that I saw in the distance were now looming directly ahead; a collision seemed imminent.  The beautiful white blanket with occasional windows to world below was, within minutes, just below us.  After a brief glimpse at serenity, the clouds reclaimed us and took us from the alien world above.  After a few short minutes of being immersed in the clouds again, the cities below were visible again.  There was no longer a layer of clouds above us or ahead of us to climb into.  The weather ahead of us was beginning to clear and the clouds that remained above were mere fragments.  The moon could be seen shining brightly above onto the flat Florida landscape below.  

Long time, no blog.

Well, I do suppose it has been a bit since my last entry so I'll go ahead and fill everyone in on the details.  For the most part, the last week or so has been pretty uneventful.  I was supposed to go to Dothan, Alabama on Thursday but one of the planes wasn't cooperating.  To indicate that the landing gear is fully extended prior to landing, three little green lights above the gear extension handle illuminate.  The other plane's left main landing gear light was flickering.  We noticed it on one of our flights but with a little flicking, it came back on.  Prior to one of the flights, they were having a hard time getting it to come on and when it did, it only came on for a few minutes.  While this isn't a big deal, the little green light bulb is the only way you can know if your left main is down and locked.  So, they moved the flight that was in the other plane, a check ride, to our plane.  Since a check ride takes precedence, our flight was scrapped.  

What followed was sim after sim after sim.  We did two sims on Thursday, one on Friday and one Saturday morning.  After almost exactly a month, I had my second day off since coming down here on Sunday.  It was definitely needed.  The sims we did were scenario based training.  I would take off from a random airport.  I would fly into the clouds and after I had pretty much completed a departure procedure and was enroute, ATC would call me and let me know that "the company" had requested I return to the original airfield.  Each time on the way back something happened.  

On the first approach, right as I was turning final, one of my engines quit.  I declared an emergency to approach control and they informed me that the current ceilings at the airport were only 100 feet.  My instrument approach procedure that I was currently on only got me down to 200 feet.  If I didn't have the airport in sight at 200 feet, I would be forced to perform a missed approach.  I could take a risk and hope the ceilings at the end of the runway were low enough so that I could see the approach lighting.  If I couldn't see them at my decision height, I would be forced to perform a missed approach on a single engine.  This is very risky.  "ATC" informed me that an airport 30 miles away had higher ceilings (well above minimums) and asked if I would like to divert.  I chose the safe option and landed safely at the other airport.  

The second sim was almost identical to the first except at a different airport.  This time, when I was about 1200 feet above the airport, I popped out of the clouds and was cleared to land.  Easiest sim approach ever. Just as I got close to the runway, I could see an airplane on the runway and what looked like a fuel truck.  It was very Windows 98 graphics.  So, I put the power in and went around.  I contacted tower and they told me the runway was now closed due to a disabled aircraft.  I flew to another airport where I performed yet another instrument approach.  

The third sim was just more of the same so I won't bother to get into details.  I did good I thought and so did my instructor.  

Today (Monday), we were supposed to go to Dothan again.  This time, there was light turbulence and low-level wind shear forecasted in the Florida panhandle/Southern Alabama.  So, we decided to scrap the flight and move ahead in the syllabus.  We needed a 2 hour instrument cross country somewhere so we picked out an airport right outside of Fort Myers.  We lined up for the GPS approach and he failed my heading indicator(by putting a piece of paper over it) and then he simulate-failed my engine(pulled the throat to idle).  I performed all the corrections but struggled quite a bit with maintain my final approach course.  Since I had to use my GPS as my reliable heading, I was constantly chasing my heading.  For those with GPS in your car, it would be like trying to determine if you had turned to the right direction and were headed straight just by using the GPS in your car.  It lags a bit and makes it hard to determine your actual heading out of a turn.  I also had a hard time because whenever I adjusted my power, the airplane would yaw and bank.  It's a lot harder to tell if you are yawing when the heading indicator is out.  So, I struggled.

On the way back, we did a similar approach into St Pete.  This time, he was just going to let me use my heading indicator and simulate-failed my engine.  Unfortunately, as I was getting ready to turn final, my heading indicator failed all on its own....for real.  So, I performed the instrument approach into St Pete with another GPS approach with a "dead" engine and a failed heading indicator.  This time it wasn't nearly as bad.  I blew through my step-down fix AGAIN but realized it wasn't my fault...completely.  With my flaps and gear down, I could only hold 500 feet and couldn't climb any higher.  So, the 560 feet that I was supposed to shoot for was above the single-engine absolute ceiling in the landing-configuration.  I landed at St Pete safe and sound and we taxied back to parking.

Ok, TOMORROW, we are supposed to go to Dothan.  I've been posting a link on my wall which will allow you to track me as I fly.  It's almost a live feed (delayed by I think 15 minutes) that'll show you where I'm at, how high I am and how fast I'm going.  It's pretty cool.  You can also listen to ATC live as it happens on LiveATC.net.  I won't say that you should do that but if you type in KPIE around the time of me leaving, you'll be able to hear me on the radio as I depart.  So, there's that.  Thanks again everyone for your encouragement and kind words.  You are all so great to me and I'll never forget it.  

Why am I so hard on myself?

Today was yet another cross country for me.  We took off from St Pete and headed north to Ocala, Florida.  I would say, all-in-all, it was a very successful flight.  I maintained my altitude within 50 feet during the enroute portion to Ocala.  As Jacksonville Approach cleared us for our instrument approach into Ocala, it started to get a little hairy.  We were cleared from 4000 feet down to 2000.  As we passed 2500, it started getting REALLY bumpy because of the early afternoon convection.  We did the VOR approach into Ocala.

A VOR or VHF Omnidirectional Range is a ground-based navigational aid.  There are stations all across the country and look like a round flat building with a bowling ball on top.  The VOR transmits a radio signal which allows an aircraft to track any one of 360 degrees.  When you identify a certain degree from or to a station, you are identifying a radial.  If you are flying directly east of the VOR, you are on the 090 radial.  The name of the radial is completely independent of your direction so it is still the 090 radial regardless of if you are traveling 090(east) or 270(west).  The process to track a radial is as follows:

1) Tune to the specific VOR that you want to use.
2) Turn your dial, which is round and looks like a compass to the radial you want to track.

Pretty simple, right?  Now you are able to determine where you are with respect to the VOR.  If you are directly east of the station traveling west and you have the 090 radial identified, it will show you as on course TO the station.  If you are traveling east on the 090 radial, it will show you as on course FROM the station.  If you happen to veer off course, a needle centered in the gauge will move left or right showing where the course is from your present position.  If you turn towards the needle, you will bring the course closer to center.

That's pretty much how we navigated from St Pete to Ocala.  When we set up for the VOR approach, it aligned us up with the VOR and when we reached our lowest altitude for the approach, we were pointed at the VOR.  It only took a 20 degree turn to the right to align us to the runway.  I did all this while using only instruments and no visual references.  It's pretty cool to be able to take off, fly 90 miles using only two different radio frequencies and end up a few hundred feet off the ground no more than a mile from the end of the runway.  All-in-all, pretty successful.

On the way back, the enroute portion was pretty good too.  In fact, I would say great until the approach.  I set up for the approach fine and even though there was more turbulence because of convection, read the chart and started my final approach into St Pete.  What REALLY pissed me off was that I missed the step-down fix.

A step-down fix is an intermediate altitude used prior to crossing a certain point along the approach.  For instance, they fly you into the final approach fix at a certain altitude.  From there, you are allowed to descend in one of three ways.  You can fly a glide slope using a gauge in your airplane.  It will tell you how high or low you are using radio waves transmitted from the end of the runway.  This is called a precision approach.  Other approaches will allow you to descend from the final approach fix altitude (for this scenario it was 2000 feet) directly to the minimum descent altitude or MDA (450 feet).  That is what I thought this approach was doing.  The third type uses step-down fixes.  A step-down fix is exactly as it sounds.  Between the final approach fix, the point at which you are cleared to descend toward the runway at your discretion using establish procedures, and the end of the runway, there are obstacles that you have to avoid.  In this case, a step-down fix is used to allow you to descend on the final approach but not completely to the MDA.  So, I was cleared down to 720 feet until I passed 2.3 miles from the end of the runway and once I was within 2.3 miles, I could descend all the way down to 450.  Apparently I didn't see it and my instructor had to sternly correct me.

I guess I just want everything to be perfect.  I thought that I should have all this down by now and shouldn't be making these seemingly simple mistakes.  As such, I considered the entire flight a failure.  Even though my instructor said it was really good, I felt like I had failed.  I wish I could look at it as a success but for some reason only saw the negatives from the flight.  I wish I wasn't so hard on myself.

In fact, today we did a bunch of abnormal stuff in the sim.  During one of the approaches, he broke one of the gauges that gives me a visual representation of how my airplane is oriented with respect to the horizon.  It's really nice because it will tell me if I'm in a bank or a climb in one easy to interpret gauge.  Well, he broke that. And then, while setting up the approach, he killed an engine.  It was a complete disaster.  I was so mad at myself for doing poorly that I had to take a break after I realized I completely screwed up the approach...even though I'd never seen that scenario before.  I know that I do this and yet I still am incredibly hard on myself.  Maybe it's because I want to be the best I can be because I know what I gave up to do this. I don't know.

Tomorrow I have another cross-country flight.  Here's hoping it goes well.

The Disney World not-so-TFR

Tack on another 2.0 to my cross-country, multi-engine, pilot-in-command, and total time as I headed into Orlando.  

The oven has finally been turned off.  On Saturday morning, I woke up to a cool 70 degrees with a projected high of 80.  Even better, the oppressive humidity had finally moved out of the area.  I drove to the airport with my windows open and enjoyed the "cool" wind.  When I got to the airport, my instructor informed me that we were headed to Kissimmee Gateway airport just outside of Disney.  So, I filed my flight plan online and then called up Flight Service to get all of the NOTAMs and TFRs along our route of flight.  

A NOTAM or Notice to Airmen were the things that I talked about in the last post.  They include runway closures, obstructions like cranes, navigational equipment degrades or increased activity in areas like jump-zones or around glider airports.  The TFR, or Temporary Flight Restriction, is a lot more serious.  A TFR is set-up around areas where flight operations are essentially prohibited below a certain altitude and are created for things such as firefighter operations, search and rescue operations, and sensitive security situations (i.e. president speaking or high visibility sports games).  Apparently, Walt Disney also thinks he is pretty important.   After 9/11, Disney World set up a "temporary" flight restriction over the theme parks to prevent any aircraft from flying below 3000 feet.  Apparently, there is a perpetual security threat against Disney that doesn't warrant placing a "prohibited area" (an area where flight operations are permanently restricted) on an aviation map.  

Anyways, I was informed about the Disney World TFR as they call it ran out to the airplane to start the engines.  Again, for the first time since I came down here, I wasn't drenched in sweat before we took off.  It was glorious!  The rest of the flight was actually pretty uneventful.  We took off to the east and were vectored over the Tampa Airport again.  We flew to Orlando and controller in Orlando took us on the scenic route all the way around the TFR.  It was pretty cool seeing Epcot and The Magic Kingdom from the air.  I think that's a flight I'd like to take again and maybe take a camera.

As for performance, I thought the flights went well.  We came back and did a sim which went pretty good as well.  Today (Sunday) I spent 4 hours in the sim "shooting approaches."  Talk about a long day.  It started off pretty bad but by the end the approaches were almost perfect.  I guess practice does make perfect.  Who ever said that is a pretty smart guy.  

Tomorrow, we hop in the airplane again and head to Ocala, Florida.  It should be another fun day!!