"26th Annual Virginia Aviation Safety Week"

"26th Annual Virginia Aviation Safety Week"
1st in the Safety Week Series at NASM, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
Monday, April 30, 2007, starting at 7:00 pm
John Nance talks about 'Beyond CRM - How to Fly and Steady IDI (Intuition Deviation Indicator)'. This FAA Wings approved seminar ends at 9:00pm.
http://faasafety.gov/SPANS/event_details.aspx?eid=14737

flew to FDK (Frederick, Maryland) today!

The weather was great so we headed up to FDK (Frederick, Md) today. This was my first time there. Previously, I had said that this was a towered airport and it's not. I had always assumed that it was so I had actually not checked to be sure (duh).
FDK is my first airport with more than one runway which was actually tougher than I expected. It is also much busier with both GA (General Aviation) and glider operations. There were always at least 3 other aircraft in the area while I did one go-around and two touch and goes. The go-around was supposed to have been a landing but I was too high coming in on the first approach. The second approach was too low and I realized what caused me to be low. The runway I was using (30) is 75 feet wide while I'm used to 100 feet. It being narrower (which my ground school instructor warned me about) can cause you to drop lower to make it look the same as a wider runway (which means pay attention to what your instruments are telling you as well as your eyeballs). An interesting thing about multiple runways is that it kept confusing me to see the wrong one when I was in the pattern making turns and I wanted to run parallel to the wrong one for a moment. Also, FDK is very close to P40 (Camp David) so you cannot enter that space no matter what which means make sure you know where you are unless you want to experience an intercept from a military aircraft.
Even though I had made notes on airport frequencies and runways I still did not have a good mental picture on approaching to the airport as to the correct runway to use. It would have been better for me to have a picture sitting in front of me when I was about 3 miles out.
We had a bit of crosswind on the return to JYO (Leesburg) but I actually landed pretty well (for a change).
Here's a tidbit, the plane I used yesterday had a stuck dipstick and I couldn't figure out how to check the oil. My instructor showed me a little trick. You can use the control lock (which has just the right bend in it) as a lever to twist the dipstick. It worked like a champ.

flying lesson - more practice

We didn't fly to FDK today because the weather looked not so good (and turned out to be not bad at all). We went to the practice area and did a little stall work, steep turns and so on. We had a late start because my usual plane was supposed to be reserved so I had reserved another one. The tach was stuck on it (which I noticed pretty quickly when we started) however so I had to get another one (my usual actually was available) and file a new flight plan. I did a better job using the trim this time so I wasn't constantly messing with the yoke. I also still need to get the hang on adding/reducing power on steep turns. My landing was ok but I leveled a little high so it was just a bit harder than it should have been. While I was doing the pre-flight a helicopter was doing practice fast approaches and descents to the runway. The first one I saw made me think he was going to hit the runway. I was pretty impressed with how skillful the pilot was in coming down pretty fast with forward speed and then suddenly leveling and shooting down the runway. And I just realized that I forgot to check 121.5 (ELT) on shutdown again (even though it is on my checklist). I'm going to have to tattoo that onto my arm so that I don't forget again.

next flight - another new airport

My next lesson should be to a new airport (my second towered one) which I'm looking forward to. It will be to FDK which means a different direction and so on which will be interesting. So, if you're going to be up that way keep your head down...

Doug

"personal jets"

a recent diamondaircraft.com ad for the d-jet says "flying a jet used to be a job for trained professionals - until now" and ends with "be a jet pilot". in my opinion. if you are flying a jet you should be a trained professional. flying high and fast isn't something casual that a rich person should be able to do by writing a check. some of the cirrus accidents have been attributed to less experienced people buying a higher performance aircraft than they were prepared for. of course, if i were rich i would feel completely differently about this.

flying lesson - nice weather and the da-20

The weather was so good and my instructor had 8am openings for Sat and Sun
so I flew twice this past weekend. On the Sun lesson though I decided
that I wanted to contrast the 172 with the DA-20 so I reserved one
for Sun. I had flown that for my discovery flight but I had forgotten
how different many aspects of it are. If you haven't flown a Diamond
(and if you're interested) some of the differences are:

pre-flight is noticeably different (I definitely needed help from my instructor)

fuel is in a single tank behind the cockpit (so half the fuel and no left/right/both selector)

trim is on the stick and the selection indicator is a set of LEDs that show gross movements only, I kept hitting the trim to get the indicator to move for a while before I realized that the trim was actually moving each time I hit the switch even though
the LED was not changing

rotate and best climb airspeeds different

has a fuel pump that is on for the entire flight

has a stick rather than a yoke which really doesn't make any difference (originally I thought it would)

no steerable nose wheel and I did a bad job of steering using the brakes, it required much more finesse than I expected and the brakes didn't seem to have much travel

I tried to get familiar with the DA-20 checklists Sun night but didn't do a good enough job on it in advance

low wing and canopy definitely make a difference in the in-flight view

gauges are in a different position (on the right) and harder to see quickly

radios are different and I fumbled with them each time I had to tune

gps also displays other traffic which is neat but the practice area was busy and it was a little distracting

cockpit definitely a bit tighter and it would be difficult to reach anything you've stored behind you while in flight

All in all it was very interesting to contrast them but I'm happy with the 172.

flying lesson - crosswind landings with some gusting

Flew yesterday, did a few T&Gs with a little crosswind and some gusting. One of the gusts happened after I had gone to idle and was crossing the threshold. It blew me a good ways to the right. My instr was clearly ready to grab the yoke but I recovered reasonably well I think. At least they could use the plane again. Definitely taught me to ""don't stop flying until the airplane has stopped on the ground".

FAA Potomac TRACON tour (yesterday)

I visited the FAA Potomac TRACON (Terminal Radar Approach Control) facility in Warrenton, Va yesterday. It was pretty interesting but I've been around technology like that in the past so it was not that new to me. However, I was impressed with the controllers that gave the overview, tour and the Q&A. They were very informative and clearly very interested and passionate about their jobs and responsibilities. One interesting point that they made was that they were willing to give tours whenever instructors wanted to bring students there. As a student (private pilot at KJYO) I am always interested in doing that kind of thing. They also said that controllers actually knowing the pilots in their airspace was always helpful.

flying lesson - a bit of everything and crosswind landings with some gusting

Flew this morning, did a number of things (some actually ""ok) and then got to do some crosswind landings with gusts. That was entertaining. My instructor says I'm over correcting in the gusts and that makes it feel worse than it really is. She did one approach and landing so I could watch and I was amazed at how little correcting she did in the same conditions. At least I didn't have the ""grip of death"" on the yoke this time.