After adding up my latest salvo of flight hours, I figured It took me over 13 hours to earn my taildragger endorsement.

It has been a long time coming. Yay me.

One of my favorite things to do—I know, call me a nerd—is to attend WINGS seminars.  Where else can you get top notch training for free?

Fred Abrams runs his own training program in the east of California, but he was in town this week for Single Pilot IFR.  He made several good points, which I will try to cover here.

Because the IFR environment is so demanding, trying not to get spatial disorientation takes a huge chunk of your concentration already.  Now there are many things that an instrument pilot is supposed to be doing, mostly covered in the Instrument Pilot PTS.  However, Abrams argues that many of the skills tested in the practical exam are superfluous and unnecessary, adding to the complexity, and possibly contributing to unsafe operation of the aircraft.  Disclaimer: don’t try these during your flight check.

How to fly SPIFR: Eliminate Chores

• You can’t do it all – the PTS is impractical in everyday flying.
• Route logs and TOC fuel calculations are unnecessary.  Instead, use close to max fuel burn and plan your flight time to that limit, but lean aggressively.  Don’t fly to fuel reserves!
• ThereR17;s no need to write down frequency changes – use the STBY function on modern avionics to assist you.
• Be prepared for the route clearance – by using the internet, we can obtain expected route clearances that ATC issues, thus eliminating the need to write them down on the ground.
• If you have a less experienced pilot in the aircraft, let them fly while you do the non-flying pilot (NFP) tasks such as clearances, ATC requests, emergency procedures, checklists, etc.
• During instrument training, it’s helpful to let ATC know the desired course of events for the entire flight, not just what’s coming next.  Practice approaches will go smoother, and the student will know what to expect, thus maximizing training retention.
• Ask ATC for course intercept 5 miles from the FAF – this allows the student to get established on-course, and alleviates confusion during a critical phase of flight.
• Use the controller as the NFP – writing down entire missed approach clearances during a live approach may seem normal, but it’s silly because it’s occurring during such a critical phase of flight.  Let him/her know that you’ll need that clearance later; just provide an abbreviated instruction for now, i.e. climb to 2200, return to my freq, etc.
• If all else fails, ask for a “progressive” procedure!  I know, this one’s a tough one, and I’ll have to try it myself first.

How to fly SPIFR: Manage the must-do items

• Prioritize action items.
• Load shift by using your GPS’s moving map, and/or the autopilot if you have one.  This is a debatable point, because being able to handle the load is, by itself, a skill.  Using the autopilot is perhaps a good strategy if there’s no one else in the cockpit to help you deal with a change of plans, for example, if ATC declares that the planned approach is unusable.
• Try not to get ATIS while listening to ATC.  If you need to get off the freq to do it, then ask to get off the freq momentarily.  Also, try not to get a long ATIS while during a freq transition, because the next controller may be ready to give you an instruction, but you haven’t talked to her yet.  If you don’t get a chance to get the ATIS before the handoff, announce “negative ATIS” to the next controller.

How to fly SPIFR: Using the internet and smartphones

• Using websites like www.flightaware.com can provide the instrument pilot with txt expected routings straight to his/her phone.  These are not actual clearances, which you will need to get from ATC.  Check out the service!

How to fly SPIFR: Dos and Don’ts

• Ask for expected clearances and/or routing during your weather briefing with the FSS
• Avoid placing yourself at your limits by flying into difficult situations
• Avoid going into unfamiliar airports in hard IFR
• Avoid circling to land in weather below basic VFR minima
• Avoid night ops in hard IFR
• Use a home simulator and pre-fly complicated legs
• Use the planned approaches as much as possible
• Get ATC to work for us!
• Study approaches ahead of time – Try not to spring a surprise IAP on a student in the middle of a flight; the entire flight should be discussed during the preflight action.
• Write down important details, such as reciprocals or NOTAMs, on the plate itself.
• Check all relevant facilities during the cruise portion of the flight as close to the terminal area as possible, not just before you start using it.

How to fly SPIFR: Holding patterns

• Visualize hold on the DG, by assuming that the aircraft is on the radial to be intercepted, and draw the pattern as cleared.

More Training remarks

• Train the student initially using an RMI instrument for navigation.
• Transition to ADF operation by taking away the RMI’s inherent advantage: built-in heading indicator.
• Lastly transition to VOR windshield wipers by covering them in detail after ADF has been cleared.
• During basic attitude instrument training, cover all instruments, even NAVs, except for the attitude indicator.  The student should be able to set a basic attitude and expect the aircraft to be behaving as expected.

After proof reading this, I get the feeling that a lot of the items pose a challenge to most pilots who practice the macho attitude.  If you’re flying SPIFR, you’ve got nothing to prove.  Your passengers, family and friends all expect you safe on the ground.  There’s no need to increase your workload and risk safety of flight due to distraction or stress.  We’re all human and there’s nothing more fantastic to be just flying anyway.

And most important of all: Don’t practice WALRUS flying.  Wandering Around Lost in the Rural US.

Imagine a phantom menace out there. You can’t see it, but once you encounter it, you definitely know it’s there.

I’ve encountered moderate turbulence before, but only in intermittent fashion. But even though it’s fleeting in longevity, it leaves no lesser of an impression. When the air becomes so rough that the aircraft is begining to disobey your commands is a time when even the most brave of pilots may have a hard time denying their fear.

Being airmen puts us in a rarified position, much like being a sailor or a rafting crew. We expose ourselves to the mercy of nature. Like a great ocean, the inviting blue sky can be an invisible death trap. Aircraft that can fly at higher altitudes are equipped with sensors that forewarn them of windshear, but even with such great precautions, we are still vulnerable. Remember Air France? For us lowly GA pilots, we can rely on pireps and forecasts, such as AIRMET Ts. But nothing can prepare us for unexpected turbulence that no one knew was there.

At least that’s what I feel whenever unforecast and unreported conditions become my problem. At this point, I become the pirep. How to handle it when we hit some wind shear aloft? What are our options? What are our resposibilities to our passengers? Do we ignore the macho pilot in the airplane that flew by us the other way and brushed off the incident as “light chop”?

Things to think about whenever we do our preflight action before we take off and place ourselves at the mercy of the great blue void.

My instructor mentioned something curious today.  There are some things that can be so obvious, people miss seeing them, until someone points them out for you.  Well, he pointed out that as an instructor, your student will do as you say, or as you do.

When it comes to judgment, placing yourself in need of requesting a Special VFR clearance is definitely one of those that you could have made a better call on.  In my opinion, SVFR is a last resort, something that should be used only after all other options have been exhausted.  And even then, you should ask yourself, “how did I get myself into this?”

Living where I do, it’s pretty easy to predict the weather.  During the summer, advection fog rolls over the Bay, and sets up a marginal ceiling, shallow enough to fly through without much effort.  However, if you’re flying a non-IFR aircraft and you find yourself on top of this layer that magically appeared underneath you while you did your deals out over the valley, I think there was something else that you should have thought about before taking off that afternoon.

Before I spoke to my instructor about this scenario, I had assumed that an SVFR clearance would be necessary in this case.  However, he pointed out that had I not even taken off, or perhaps chosen a different time to do the lesson, it may have prevented me from having to scud-run and add this layer of risk called SVFR.  Flying a VFR-Only aircraft during a time when IFR conditions are likely to prevail later in the day is asking for trouble, especially in an area with terrain.

Judgment may be innate, but we all need someone to give us a kick in the senses for us to judge properly.

Having the opportunity to fly a complex airplane for an extended period of time and to learn its behavior and systems is rare.  It was an expensive proposition, but I am now completely confident with the Piper Arrow IV, after my trip to McMinnville and Seattle’s Boeing Field.  The plan was to depart OAK, take a break at CEC for fuel, and arrive at MMV.  The next leg was to go to BFI and back to MMV on the second day.  Then retrace my steps from MMV to CEC, then to OAK on the last day.  Things I learned on this trip:

An autopilot is a great device, if you know how to use it.  I continuously checked George’s track, and corrected the altitude manually (the A/P on N8279W only has a heading hold).  The convenience of not having to worry about holding a heading relieves almost half of my workload.  It was a good opportunity to learn using an A/P, and the resulting skills.  Having read the chapter on emergencies in the Instrument Flight Training Manual (Dogan, 2007), I did not allow George to fly any segment of any of the approaches; I hand flew all the approaches, including the DME arc to CEC, and any vectors to final.  An A/P also works great in IMC, as the Arrow flies in a slight bank (more on this later).  During departures into IMC, setting a heading for George to fly allows me to work with the radios, and focus on the checklist.

If you can depart an uncontrolled field VFR and obtain your IFR clearance in the air, do it.  It’s worth the extra trouble in the air.  The problem with obtaining a clearance on the ground is that the clearance will contain a Clearance Void Time.  This puts undue pressure on the pilot to get the airplane in the air before the void time, and risks safety of flight.  This one surfaced during my first departure from CEC northbound, as the marine fog had rolled in just after I landed for fuel, and the visibility dropped to 2 miles in mist and 300’ overcast. Not having a choice, I had to obtain my clearance using the telephone clearance delivery (the RCO at CEC was OTS).  I gave myself 10 minutes to taxi, runup, and takeoff, remembering a time when clearance gave me a hard time after requesting a 20-minute airspace block while I did the runup at WVI a while back.  The problem with CEC is that Seattle Center’s frequency does not reach to the ground, so I couldn’t talk to the controller directly.  My takeoff preparation took me 2 minutes longer than I had anticipated, and I was greeted with a very annoyed and rude Center controller berating me about the extra 2 minutes.  Apparently, there was a SVFR helicopter approaching the airport at the time, but he was still on the Center frequency and I did not hear him on the CTAF while I was taking off.  In all fairness, the controller was being mean to everyone, not just me, so it wasn’t personal.  If taking off IFR is absolutely necessary, I’d call clearance just after the runup.  It burns Hobbs time, but seems the more sensible approach to a complicated problem, not to mention safer.  I wonder if there’s such a thing as Clearance Start Time?

I tend to forget an assigned heading during a turn because of inattention or distraction.  I still need a solution to this problem.  I fell into this trap thrice on this trip, once while departing from CEC northbound, trying to track inbound direct to the CEC VOR as per the ODP.  I found myself unable to do this because I was so close to the VOR.  I was also cleared AF, so that meant not having to climb in the hold, as per the ODP, but I didn’t know that.  This resulted in a temporary loss of situational awareness while flying in IMC.  I placed myself in for further berating when I asked our grouchy Seattle friend if we should climb on course, or in the hold.  Anyone have an answer to this one?  The second time I fell into this trap was during an approach to BFI, vectors for traffic for the ILS 31L.  The third time was during a departure from MMV southbound, as I was given an erroneous vector by Portland Departure to intercept V287 while I watched the MFD’s enroute map (the Arrow has a Garmin 480 and an Apollo MFD).  I turned to intercept V287, but I blew past the assigned heading by 30 degrees.  The deal was that he had given me a bad heading, while telling me to intercept V287; he apologized afterwards and gave me an amended heading.  Can you say ‘confused’?

It’s unfortunate that the Arrow POH does not have a graph for Best Economy Endurance with fuel at the tabs.  The best I could calculate was using the power setting table and the given fuel flow of 8 GPH in the Speed Power Economy Cruise graph at 55% power.  Leaning the mixture to 8 GPH on the fuel flow gauge actually indicated a Lean-of-Peak indication in the EGT gauge.  Given the low power setting, lower than peak EGT, and acceptable TAS (130 KIAS), I found this to give an average of 20% savings over the planned fuel usage.  At 8 GPH, my endurance should be just over 6 hours.  However, factoring in the takeoff and climb to altitude results in around an endurance of around 5:30 hours.  I also noticed that leaning during the climb to the rich side of 75% resulted in better climb performance, but the oil temperature remained constant throughout the climb.  The A+P in me would say that by improving the fuel/air mixture ratio, power is added, and excess fuel is not dumped overboard or caked onto the valves and spark plugs.  Seems like as long as the EGT isn’t made to peak during leaning, and a reasonable fuel flow used during the climb gives both maximum performance and resonable cooling for the engine.  Operating LOP during cruise has some caveats, as it’s well known.  Since this aircraft isn’t equipped as such, I can only go by what the POH recommends, while at the same time balancing engine reliability with the reliability of my wallet.  However, the POH recommends running at PEAK EGT!  The A+P in me would immediately object to such a design!

It’s good practice to cancel IFR if you’re approaching an uncontrolled airport and you have the field in sight.  It prevents you from having to remember to cancel your flight plan once on the ground.  This one occurred when I first arrived at MMV.  I executed a circling maneuver after shooting the ILS 22 into MMV, for traffic on runway 4.  The circling maneuver was flawless, but once on the ground, I neglected to cancel my IFR flight plan.  The Portland TRACON supervisor had called into the FBO on the field and was speaking to the receptionist as I walked into the office.  She was very civilized and courteous about the whole thing, and explained to me that Portland must restrict all arrivals at MMV if they don’t receive confirmation that an IFR aircraft arrives safely at its destination.  She mentioned that radar coverage at MMV terminates around 2500 feet MSL.  I appreciate her lecture, but I felt like I had gotten schooled.  The next time I arrived at MMV on my way back from BFI two days later, I canceled IFR as soon as I saw the field; I learned my lesson.

In remote areas like the Pacific Northwest coast, it’s routine for aircraft to operate below the range of radar, under a SVFR clearance, or out of radio contact with Center.  Once during my flight, the duty of relaying a field-in-sight announcement and a request for cancellation of IFR for a Southwest aircraft befell to me.  In the Bay Area and the valley, we seem to be spoiled by the continuous availability of radar coverage and radio transmission towers.  Center controllers will often work several transmitter towers on the same frequency but in different locations; this gave me the eerie feeling that I had lost radio contact with Center a few times, as I could hear other pilots talk, but couldn’t hear the controller.  I also got the impression that SVFR is like a ‘cheat’ for pilots who, for some reason, don’t choose to obtain an Instrument clearance.  Helicopters were mainly the ones requesting the clearance when I was there.  SVFR isn’t common here at home, but it seems like in places like CEC it’s routine.  Holds are also more common, as I overheard at least one hold instruction to a Skywest aircraft during the flight.

N8279W flies crooked.  Perhaps it’s a rigging issue, but what my instructor and I though before as an attitude instrument error turns out to be an airframe issue.  The Arrow’s attitude indicator is off by a degree or two on the bank indication, so we used the rate of turn indicator instead, but this trip proved that the airplane flies straight and level at a bank—a left bank of 2 degrees, specifically.  So the attitude indicator is correct.  I was able to confirm this with the magnetic compass and the turn and bank indicator, which were both tilted, indicating a slight left bank.  This creates implicit problems in IMC, as I must compensate for this with a mental note during basic attitude flight.  I was tested during the second DME arc (ILS/DME 11) approach into CEC, as the marine layer’s tops were at 3100’, and bases were at 2100’.  The minimum altitude prior to the GS intercept was 1700, and I was cleared for the approach while still descending through 6000’, southbound.  Being in IMC while still descending during the arc, and holding proper turn-then-straight-and-level attitudes was a challenge, the erroneous bank indication notwithstanding.  I broke out just before the arc ended, and found myself fumbling to intercept the localizer while I was distracted by the breakout event.

Flying in IMC still scares the crap out of me.  On my second approach to CEC on the way home, I knew the base of the ceiling was around 2200’ AGL  However, even knowing this, my heart pounded in anticipation of breaking out of the clouds.  I can’t imagine flying an approach to minimums (257’ MSL!!! @ CEC).  It got so bad that I almost changed my flight plan to fly inland if the ceilings were forecast below 1000’ AGL along the coast.  I guess this shows my inexperience, and defines my personal minimums.

During this flight, I got a chance to experience some new ATC facilities and their ‘personalities’.  It seems to me that NorCal and Seattle TRACONs are the best of the bunch (having had limited exposure to Seattle Approach).  Oakland and Seattle Centers are less ‘skilled’ when it comes to busy approaches and people skills, particularly Seattle.  They were the most easily rattled of the bunch.  Portland TRACON was a mixed bag, with both a very courteous supervisor, and good approach controller performance, but they also seemed disinterested/bored with procedures (the second approach to MMV was cleared with the wrong type, and he seemed indifferent to the whole thing anyway).  BFI Tower gets the ‘best mood’ and ‘most helpful’ awards, as their ATIS almost had a musical ring to it, as it was July 4^th when we flew in.  I also neglected to bring along the Needles Six SID, and as I requested a FRC for that procedure, the controller was more than happy to oblige.  We also worked with the Cascade TRACON, and they seemed more like NorCal, although their radar was limited by terrain.

This trip up north allowed me to become more comfortable flying a complex aircraft.  Like I said in the introduction, I feel quite comfortable with the airplane and its systems.  I look forward to further instruction, as I am about to break the 250 flight hour barrier.

Chandelles are a difficult maneuver to execute.  I need not go into the details of how to do one here, but the fact of the matter is that timing is everything.  The FAA AFH calls for “planning” during the maneuver; it’s more like “if you get lucky”.  I find using outside references as part of the procedure the most difficult.  Since I’ve only performed this maneuver during one flight lesson, I can’t predict what the airspeed indicator is doing during certain parts of it; however, I’m sure that with practice, I will be able to hit airspeed goals at any position in the maneuver just like I can during an approach.

That still leaves having to look outside …

The steep spiral maneuver is much easier, and I, for one, am glad that it’s useless.  The reason why I say this is because it’s not as stressful as an emergency descent.  All I need to do is maintain a constant airspeed (constant pitch/trim), while varying the bank to maintain a circular course over a ground target—something that the examiner can’t see from his side of the cockpit anyway.  It’s a nice break from having to do chandelles and all the other crap.

Now that the commercial written exam is over, I can start writing again.

One thing I learned from my commercial instructor is that I seem to have a lot of bad habits; particularly in radio communications.  This is something I didn’t know I had a problem with.  It seems like I tend to either short cut certain calls, or deliberately leave out important information, or both.

Uncontrolled field operations:

• Whenever initial contact, or a runway selection, is made, announce your intentions.
• Never use “the active” to refer to the runway in use, always use its official number.

With ATC in VFR during/after initial contact:

• Altitude
• Request
• Termination/intentions
• Information
• When the controller gives a traffic advisory, respond with “negative contact” rather than “looking for traffic” if the traffic is not visible; it gives the controller a better idea of what is going on.

With my limited flight experience, I never knew I had these issues.  However, it usually takes someone looking in from the outside to reveal certain subtleties, and it definitely helps when they’re willing to point out to me what my mistakes are.

Some ideas to get motivated in preparing for the written exam:

• Schedule the exam a couple of weeks out

• Get a different form of study guide, such as software, to relieve the monotony of studying through the book

I’ve been having a lot of trouble getting motivated to sit down and memorizing the answers.  I find myself needing other ways to get through the material, and a little pressure never hurt anyone.

Static vs. dynamic stability:

Static stability relates to the initial tendency that the plane likes to handle; what the aircraft will do immediately after a control input is made.

Dynamic stability is defined as the behavior of the plane over time; what the aircraft will do after the initial control input, and its behavior mitigated or augmented over time.

N8279W is a strange one.  After calculating the CG’s position on the flight envelope, John admitted that its position was more forward than most other planes.  This would become apparent in its handling during flight.  And indeed it was apparent!  Its handling is effectively neutral, as soon as a control input is made, the plane will stay in that new attitude.  The pilot has to be always alert as to what the airplane is doing.  This is not much different from the 172s I fly nowadays, but the difference is in the weight of the airplane.  Given that it’s a much faster airplane, it’s also a lot heavier, so it requires a faster approach speed, as well as a completely different attitude during no-power approaches to landing (extreme pitch down to maintain airspeed).

In the Warrior/Archer or the C172, the glide speed is sufficient to take the airplane on its best glide path for greatest distance and minimum sink rate.  Because of its modified propeller (3-blade mod) and the extra air conditioner compressor dead weight, the airplane is nose-heavy, requiring a slightly faster glide speed.  Is this right?  Perhaps I should look further into this.  The bottom line is that if the airspeed is not greater than 80 KIAS, the airplane sinks like a rock in a pond, and the terrain creeps in a lot faster than normal.

Otherwise, the airplane is fairly predictable, and almost flies itself—as long as there’s power available.  Airspeed control seemed easier to achieve than a C172, but I thought that the constant speed propeller behaves completely different than a fixed pitch one.  However, as long as I expect certain things to happen (prop surge and extreme left yaw at full power), I can compensate for them.  Its extra weight also allows for a much more stable approach and flare, reducing the likelihood of ballooning during landing.