Nothing But Snow

It's been snowing off and on since December 15th and I'd say we've had at least two feet of snow in the Snoqualmie area over that time. There was a break in the snow this morning, so I was able to get a training flight in. Today's flight was all about practicing commercial maneuvers. After my instructor dug out the plane (from the snow) and we had it de-iced, we headed East for some steep turns, stalls, lazy 8's, 8's on pylons, and chandelles. Still a little week on lazy 8's, but they are improving. About an hour into the flight, the afternoon snow started to fall and we headed back to KBFI for some short field landings and power off 180 degree accuracy landings. Only one runway was open (the other was covered in snow), so during each downwind leg we had to do a 360 degree turn for wake turbulence spacing for each jet that was departing between our landings.

After the flight we had a ground session discussing what the areas of emphasis will be for the practical exam. The local FSDO had sent out a letter listing some of the common failure reasons and indicated that the failure rate was abnormally high. So, more to learn (or memorize) over the next few weeks.

Ground Briefs Completed

Presented my last two ground briefs this week. Finished up with the 172RG hydraulic system and airworthiness/documents. That's 24 ground briefs given. I still need to re-visit a few and make some updates and present a couple of the weaker ones as I get closer to the check ride.

I had flights planned for today and tomorrow but the first winter storm has arrived and that pretty much nixes any flying since there is nothing but rain/snow in the forecast for the next three days. I'm going to take the remaining days until Christmas to get my CFI written out of the way and then do some intensive training starting after Christmas since I have 11 days off from work.

80% of CFI Training Completed

My CFI training is coming together and am getting closer to setting a date for the check ride. There are a few new things still to cover and some refinement required for some of the manuevers, but completion is on the horizon. Chandelles and lazy eights are taking a little longer to master than I'd like but they'll eventually be standards.

This week consisted of two training flights and a ground brief. New for these flights was learning to demonstrate accelerated maneuver stalls, secondary stalls, trim tab stalls, and crossed-control stalls. Getting exeperience in these types of stalls exposes the CFI to more forms of inadvertant flight situations that a student can put you in. The interesting thing is that when demonstrating these stalls (or any stall) is that you can put yourself and the airplane in an inadvertant situation. This was just the case when I did my first trim tab stall, and as the airplane approached the stall, there was a little bit of yaw present and with a high pitch attitude, the airplane flipped over and entered the first stage of a spin.

I found myself pointing straight down and starting to rotate. It was interesting how my previous training helped me instinctively recognize the spin and recover (though a little shocked). So the take away is to make sure that you stall gracefully when demonstrating stalls.

For the ground brief this week, we went over log book endorsements and started looking at airworthiness requirements.