Lunch at KHQM

Loaded up the family plane and flew West to the coast where we had lunch at Lana's Cafe at the Hoquiam airport.

No Right Seat Flying This Week

My instructor was out of town this weekend and next week he has part 135 training, so I'm spending my time prepping for the CFI written and preparing more ground briefs. Have a ground session and flight on the schedule for this week. Next up will be a brief on Navigation and Flight Planning.

More Right Seat Time

N6141R 1.4 hrs -I flew another training flight today in the 172RG. I "taught" about wind correction on the taxi out to the run-up area and then talked my "student" through a soft field take off. After departing the area I was once again the student and had to demonstrate slow flight, stalls, and step turns. On the way back to KBFI, went through the steps of dealing with an engine failure and landed demonstrating short field technique (I actually landed a little long, so it wasn't that great of a short field landing).

More CFI Ground Briefs

I had a flight planned today, but after arriving at the flight school, the airplane was down for maintenance. This is a sore point with me and this particular flight school in that I'm rarely notified when the airplane that I have scheduled isn't available for a flight. It seems like an easy enough problem to solve but they just don't get it. I would also think that as an instructor, one would check that the equipment for your students is actually available and then inform your students or make equipment changes as appropriate. Enough ranting for now.

Plan-B was to give a ground brief, so I had 8's on pylons already prepared and taught my instructor all about the manuever. This one went well and I now have 19 of 24 briefs done. Earlier in the week I gave briefs on Chandelles, Lazy Eights, and weather information. All of the flight maneuver ground briefs are complete, so we're shifting to doing more flying than ground instruction.

Instrument Currency

My instrument approach opportunity this summer has been few and far between. With the airplane being down for major engine work for almost two months and working on my CFI, I havn't had much opportunity to keep instrument current by flying six approaches in six months.

So today I went out in the 182 with my regular CFII and executed some instrument approaches. My plan was to fly a couple of ILS's at KPWT and then do the published missed approach hold just to make sure I knew how to use the Garmin for just such an occasion. Typically missed approach instructions are given by ATC, so flying the missed approach as published is something that needs revisiting once and a while. After KPWT I planned to fly the GPS 23 approach at KSHN since ceilings were reported as 700' and I could get some actual instrument time.

Turned out that KPWT was also IFR, and there were several other airplanes holding and waiting for their turn to fly approaches. We ended up going to KTIW and I shot the ILS 17 approach a couple of times following by the published missed, which is a hold over the outer marker. Runway 17 was the opposite direction of landing traffic so I experienced some localizer/glideslope interference as other airplanes briefly blocked the ILS signal. This was really noticable when trying to fly one of the approaches coupled to the auto pilot and the auto pilot wouldn't track the localizer accurately. It finally clicked with me as to why the ILS critical areas are there.

After KTIW, we headed over to KSHN for the GPS 23 approach and then ended up holding while waiting for another airplane to complete their approach. After that, headed back to KRNT for one more GPS approach.

Spin, Spin, Spin

N561UA 0.9 hrs - Today I got my spin endorsement which is a requirement for the CFI rating. I had already presented my ground brief on spins so after a safety briefing we launched in the C-152 Aerobat. We wanted to start at 5500' for spin practice over the Carnation valley, so we got a clearance to climb through class Bravo airspace shortly after takeoff from Boeing field. First, my instructor had me do a few 60 degree turns just to get the feel of 2G's of load, since that is close to the G forces encountered on the pull-out from a spin recovery. Next I practiced putting the airplane into a stall and mainting directional control with rudder/aileron. Suprisingly, the Aerobat will fly with full back elevator.

Next my instructor had me try and spin the airplane by doing "stupid" things that one of my future students may do at some point and its amazing how docile the Cessna's are, and with crazy control inputs they still remain stable.

After that is was showtime, and we reviewed what is required for a spin to occur (stall and yawing) and the recovery procedure (power idle, aileron neutral, full rudder opposite direction of spin/elevator briskly forward to break the stall, neutralize rudder when spinning stops, recover from the dive).

I started with a spin to the left, by reducing power to 1800 RPM, slowing to stall speed, and then full back elevator, full left rudder and full left aileron (basically doing a roll to force the wing over). The incipient stage lasted about 1 1/2 turns then the full spin developed and we corkscrewed for another 3 turns before recovering. I was supprised how my hands and feet just went through the recovery procedure without me having to think about it. I actually applied too much forward elevator to break the stall and pulled some -G's on the subsequent dive. The accelerometer showed +2.5G and -1.0 on the recovery.

I did a few more spins to the left and to the right with my instructor demontrating a few in between. We headed back to KBFI where I proceded to make a squeeker landing in the 152 (this was my first time ever in a C-152).

Observation Flight

I had a chance to sit in the backseat and observe another CFI candidate get some training. Its interesting to see how someone else "teaches" and how their methods differ from mine. I learned a few things and noticed some similiarities in how I teach at this stage of training. This flight helped me "get" some of the things that an instructor must do to be an effective teacher. One thing that will help all CFI students is to start talking outloud whenever you are doing something with your hands. This will make it much easier to "teach" a maneuver if you are in the habbit of talking through it. Also, I noted a few other things:

• Give students specifics, like turn left to a heading, with 20 degrees of bank. (don't just say, turn left)
• Give specific power inputs, like 2000 RPM, not reduce/increase power a little
• Etc.

Also this week, I presented the basic instrument maneuvers ground brief, so thats one more out of the way. Next week I'm presenting the weather ground brief and then flying again in the 172RG.

Cancelled Training Flight Today

Had a flight in the 172RG scheduled this afternoon but Fall has arrived in the Pacific Northwest and that means cancelled flights. Today was rainy and a "little" breezy as the last few hours of METARS show:

KBFI 042353Z 19014G29KT 10SM FEW025 BKN110 14/09 A2960 RMK AO2 PK WND 17035/2300 SLP022 60006 T01390089
KBFI 042305Z 19020G35KT 10SM BKN025 14/09 A2956 RMK AO2 PK WND 17035/2300
KBFI 042253Z 18016G29KT 10SM SCT023 14/09 A2955 RMK AO2 PK WND 18034/2232 RAE2155 SLP007 P0000 T01390094
KBFI 042213Z 19017G31KT 10SM SCT025 BKN033 14/10 A2953 RMK AO2 PK WND 18031/2208 RAE2155 P0000
KBFI 042200Z 19016G24KT 10SM BKN025 BKN032 OVC050 14/11 A2952 RMK AO2 RAE2155 P0000
KBFI 042153Z 18012G28KT 10SM -RA SCT023 BKN030 OVC050 14/11 A2952 RMK AO2 PK WND 19029/2115 RAB29 SLP995
KBFI 042150Z 18014G28KT 10SM -RA SCT022 BKN030 OVC050 14/11 A2951 RMK AO2 PK WND 19029/2115 RAB29 P0000

Was at least able to get a few ground briefs in this week:
- Spins
- Short Field Approach and Landing
- Flight Instructor Professionalism and Characteristics