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So today I finally finished the first block of the commercial/instrument flight course with the passing of my AVIT 221 stage 20 flight. This comes after three weeks of being grounded due to weather, and an unsat on the first attempt at the stage check. Needless to say, I'm glad to be through it and on to the simulator block, so let me give y'all the rundown.
"Is that the Abex at my 6 o'clock?"
Back in April we had a few weeks of outstanding weather, so since I needed more night cross-country time, I decided to fly the Iron Triangle, from Grand Forks (GFK) to Jamestown, ND (JMS), to Fargo (FAR), and back to Grand Forks, for my lesson 7 cross-country, because I needed some night time. But since its North Dakota, it doesn't get dark until well after 9:30 that time of year, so I decided to do a 7:30 launch to have enough time to fly a cross-country with the airplane and get back before flight operations close down lest I have to spend the night somewhere other than my dorm room. With that in mind, the weather was excellent on the day I planned, so I got the airplane as planned and did all the usual pre-flight. It was about this time that I noticed a friend of mine was on the ramp with his camera. Lucky me:
The weather was perfect, and as planned I departed GFK at 7:30 pm into a clear evening sky, and climbed up to my cruise altitude of 6,500'. On the way, I enjoyed my first true sunset as a pilot:
Evening civil twilight ended with me about fifteen minutes out of JMS, About that time I started my descent into the airport, clicked the radio seven times to turn on the runway lights, and made a nice smooth straight in landing to runway 22 at Jamestown.
After about five minutes of taxiing off, doing my paperwork, and taxiing back onto the runway, I took off and climbed up to 5,500' en-route to Fargo. FAR approach closes at 10pm and with it the Fargo Terminal Radar Service Area (TRSA) is no longer in effect. Initially, I didn't plan on calling up FAR approach because I was going to be getting in there right about ten o'clock and the service is voluntary, but when I got closer I figured I might as well have them guide me in.
At GFK, Air Traffic Control is very laid back, because they all know who we are, so before we call up, they pretty much know what we're about to say. It goes without saying that at GFK our initial call-up is short and sweet. At FAR however, we have to do the full call up, so "Good evening Fargo Approach, Sioux 37 is a piper cherokee 30 miles west of Fargo at five thousand five hundred with Charlie inbound for stop-and-goes at Fargo Hector and departure to Grand Forks at four thousand five hundred and would you like fries with that?" She seemed bored, and she gave me vectors into Fargo. If you'll read through my earlier blogs, I believe I mentioned that at about 10pm the Airborne Express (or DHL...or Astar...Or ABex...or whatever that company calls itself these days) DC-9 comes in, along with the Northwest Airbus A319 from Minneapolis. As I was being vectored in, I heard the Abex call in "Fargo Approach, ABex117 with you ten miles west descending 2,600" ...well, I knew it was going to be a fun night.
On that control panel photo above, you'll notice 3 display screens. The 2 together are the GPS 1 and GPS 2 displays, the third is a Multi-Function Display tied to an ADS-B and Traffic Advisory system. This means that it puts out a signal that interrogates other aircraft's transponders, exactly the way an ATC radar works, and then displays the position of the other aircraft on the screen. This warrior is also equipped with a mode-S transponder, which means it can also interrogate other aircraft's transponders and display their position on the 2 GPS screens. Well about the time that the ABex called up, all 3 of these screens started flashing, signaling that I was about to have to do work. The two GPS screens showed a traffic proximity warning, and the MFD displayed an arrow pointing toward the offending aerial aluminum...directly behind me. You guessed it, the DC-9. Fargo Approach had me turn toward the south to enter the traffic pattern at Fargo and when I first caught sight of the now-looming landing lights of the DC-9 I came on the radio "Fargo Approach Sioux 37...uhh, is that the ABex right behind me?" "Affirmative Sioux 37, traffic 4 miles descending 2,600...Sioux 37 turn heading 180 to enter right downwind for runway 18 contact Fargo Tower." Ok easy enough, I contacted Fargo tower knowing there was, and having had listened to on approach, a Northwest Airbus, an ABex DC-9, and two other UND aircraft ahead of mine. And I was bringing up the rear.
As directed by Fargo Tower, I called them up when I was at midfield on the downwind leg, and just as I did that, I see the DC-9 coming down final unusually high, and then over the radio "Fargo Tower, can Abex 117 get a right hand 360?" "Approved" Nice. So the DC-9 did a complete circle to lose altitude, pushing the Northwest and the other two Sioux birds out farther, and me out behind them. "Sioux 37 would like to extend downwind back to Grand Forks please" ok I didn't really say that, they'd have probably given it to me. But I digress. I landed at Fargo and headed back to Grand Forks and called it a flight.
"Oh crap, should've used the carb heat"
So as I reported in my last blog, I got a new flight instructor who is actually more concerned with his students than his ride to the airline, which definetly works out for me. He's also pretty fun to fly with. On my first flight with him, we flew down to Hillsboro airport and did some late evening landing practice, then flew into the practice area for some VOR tracking and basic attitude instrument flying work. I was a little rusted up on that part.
The landings at Hillsboro were fairly uneventful, a normal landing, short field landing, soft field landing, and my introduction to precision power-off 180 landings, where you cut the throttle to idle while on the downwind and then do a 180 degree turn to land on a pre-designated point on the runway. The standard is +300 -0 feet. As I was flying downind, I did my normal downwind checklist "Boost pump on, mixture rich, carbureator heat off." And since the power off simulates an engine failure in the pattern, and since carb ice is a leading factor in engine failures, I decided to have some fun. After I closed the throttle, "O crap, should've used the carb heat, we lost the engine." my instructor replied "oh nuts we're all gonna die" in about the most nonchalant tone you could have in a cockpit, and 30 seconds later I was down just about right on my designated point on the runway.
During the basic attitude portion of the flight, we worked on steep turns, stalls, and slow flight while I was under the hood, relying solely on instruments. Now it'd been awhile since I'd done my steep turns, so I was a little rusty. The first steep turn I started at 3,500 feet, about a quarter of the way through the turn, the attitude indicator was pushing to 60 degrees of bank and the vertical velocity indicator needle was buried at a 2,000 foot-per-minute descent, so I bailed on that attempt and did an unusual attitude recovery to straight and level. After a bit of practice however, I got it back and was able to do the steep turns within standards.
"Time 0345 zulu over Devil's Lake at 7,500 sky clear and the Northern Lights are out"
I finally got some good weather to go on my long cross-country, unfortunately the weather wasn't good down in Minneapolis and along that route so I had to do my backup, the tour-de-nowhere, from GFK to Williston, ND (ISN) to Minot, ND (MOT) and back to GFK. At about 5 pm I departed Grand Forks, climbed to 6,500, and settled in for the long ride out to ISN, on the exact opposite side of the state.
The route of flight would take me from Grand Forks, passing over Devil's Lake, then over to Minot, and finally on to Williston. Here I am approaching Devil's Lake:
The rest of the photos along the route are pretty much the same, if you've seen one part of North Dakota you've about seen it all. I will say that the badlands and the missouri river in the late afternoon light was pretty cool though. Anyway, on to Williston:
The weather at Williston was amazing, the sky was completely clear, there was almost no wind, it was warm and humid. Since it was after hours, there was nobody around the airport and nothing was unlocked, and after three hours in the warrior, I had to pee. I called the phone number on the door so the guy could come fuel me up for the flight back to GFK. Thankfully the guy lives right near the airport and was there within 5 minutes. He fueled me up and I was off for Minot.
As it was about sunset, I knew that I'd be able to utilize the unique electromagnetic effects of the upper atmosphere to pick up certain radio stations that normally in the daytime wouldn't be recievable in North Dakota. I departed Williston and climbed up to 5,500 for the 40 minute flight to Minot, and tuned my Automatic Direction Finder radio to 850 KHz, and picked up the last few innings of the Rockies at St. Louis on 850 KOA Denver. It was pretty cool flying along the missouri in the fading light listening to the radio back home which kept me occupied, and soon I was talking to Minot approach being vectored in to Minot airport. As to why they refer to Minot as "Magic City Tower" I have no idea, but whatever floats their boat. I landed in Minot and since there was nothing going on, I asked the tower for a delay on the runway so I could just do my paperwork there and then takeoff when I was done, they approved it, I finished up my navlogs, and departed MOT for GFK. Just as Magic City Tower (magic city? ...anyway) gave me clearance to turn on course to Grand Forks, the Rockies put away the Cardinals, and I was enthused. Sorry Grampa, better luck next time. I kept listening because it was something to do, eventually it went on to some late evening talk show, I tried to see if George Noory was on am 630 but the ADF wasn't picking it up, so I set it back to 850 and settled in at 7,500 feet.
As I was cruising toward Devil's lake, I noticed something very peculiar about the evening twilight. Being that it's North Dakota, I expected the sun to set pretty far north along the horizon, but what I didn't expect was the twilight glow to extend past north and over to a good chunk of the eastern horizon as well. I thought that quite odd. What was also odd was that unlike the quickly fading blue twilight, this light wasn't quickly fading and it had a distinctively green color to it... another unique electromagnetic effect of the upper atmosphere: the northern lights. This was the first time I'd ever seen them, so I decided I'd take a picture:
Then, I called up Flight Service and gave them a pilot report: "Time 0345 zulu over Devil's Lake at 7,500 sky clear and the northern lights are out tonight" "oh really what color are they tonight?" "Looks to be a green kind of fading to purple higher up." "Ahh cool I'll pass that along thanks." So I'm cruising on a perfectly clear, smoothe night, the lights are out, and I'm listening to the radio station back home. There was nowhere else on that night that i'd rather be, it was perfect...mom and dad's money well spent.
Ok, I'm going to keep the cell phone turned off for awhile now...
"Wow, I feel like an Airline Pilot now!"
Because the next flight course utilizes the warriors with the Avidyne Entegra glass cockpit package, I decided to use my lesson 18 and lesson 19 flight as a double launch, and to get familiar with the glass cockpit concept. The glass cockpit does not utilize the normal gyros that are found in standard cockpits to display heading and attitude information, instead it uses a system called the Air Data Attitude Heading Reporting System, which uses a set of solid state gyros of which not much is known about them because they're a company-patented system. Also, instead of having a directional gyroscope for heading information that has to be re-checked against the magnetic compass every so often, it uses a horizontal situation indicator that is automatically slaved to a flux-gate compass. The flux-gate compass differs from the magnetic compass in that instead of being a magnet that points toward north, it's comprised of three electric coils uniformally spaced as spokes radiating out from a central hub. The theory here is that as the earths magnetic field lines pass through the coils, they create a current in the wires, with different directions, the field lines will be different, inducing differing current along the wires. From the current variations, magnetic north can be derived. The whole glass-cockpit concept was first introduced on the Boeing 767 in the early '80s, however it was mainly confined to the airlines until the late 90s because of the cost of the system. The system the airliners use costs well over $20 grand a pop, but with the advent of the patented systems that we're not supposed to know fully about, the price of the General Aviation ADAHRS system is about 1/10th of the cost of the airlines system.
And they gave me the keys.
Let me just say that at first glance the system may look like full information overload, but they've made it so rediculously user-friendly that it takes all the work out of being a pilot, and it really made for an enjoyable experience while I was up with it. Our system is comprised of two screens, a Primary Flight Display which shows us engine rpm, fuel flow, basic airspeed, attitude, altitude, vertical-velocity, heading, ground track, and course information, and a Multi-Function Display which has displays such as aircraft checklists, a moving map display, and a very detailed engine display including cylinder head and exhaust gas temperatures for each engine, engine rpm, manifold pressure, oil pressure, oil temperature, fuel flow, fuel on board, a clock, and how much coke is in the catering cabinet...if only. Its great because not only are the displays in standard dial format, displaying normal operating range, caution range, and danger range just as they would on standard gauges, they also display the data digitally. On the Multi-Function Display there is a Lean-Assist feature that allows accurate leaning of the fuel-air mixture to achieve best power (where the fuel mixture is leaned into the power band to allow for best power in cruise) and best economy (where the fuel mixture is leaned beyond the power band to allow for lower fuel consumption). Rather than trying to guess on the RPM gauge when you're 35 rpm below your power setting and when you've leaned it back to where the mixture is set for best-power, you now have the display telling you exactly what you need to do, removing all the guesswork.
And they gave me the keys. So what did I do with the plane? I landed it in the grass.
We went up to Warren airport northeast of Grand Forks just over the Minnesota border and did some landing practice, the winds were favoring the use of the grass runway, so I decided to do some real soft-field landings. This was the first time I'd actually landed on grass, so I was a bit nervous because you have to come down nice and soft so the airplane doesn't dig into the turf. I came in on the first approach and since the grass runway goes pretty much right up to the highway, my flight instructor had to make sure that no semis were coming down the road lest we make an early touchdown. Since it's the middle of nowhere, we really didn't have that problem. I made a nice smoothe touchdown, and then got my first taste of taxiing on the soft field. I'd never taxied with the rpm at 2000 before. On the pavement, that would have you going fast enough to takeoff, on the grass, it was just fast enough to keep going, that is until we had to cross the concrete runway. Definetly got a little kick in the pants when we hit the concrete, and a slight shove forward in the straps when we came back off it a few seconds later. On to the takeoff. About an eighth of a mile off the departure end of the runway we were using is a shelterbelt consisting of a line of 50' tall trees. The soft field takeoff procedure requires that you takeoff as soon as possible and fly just above the turf in ground effect until the end of the runway. Doing this with a stand of trees rushing forward is a very interesting experience. It goes without saying that we made it.
After tooling around in the practice area tracking various Bearings, Courses, Headings, Radials, and random 4-wheelers to build instrument time, we were getting pretty bored, so we decided to shoot the GPS approach to runway 30 at Warren. A GPS approach is a non-precision approach, meaning it can't guide you down to the runway but it can get you close enough to see it in most weather conditions, and it consists of crossing waypoints until you eventually track down a final approach course. So I shot the approach under the hood, and when I took the hood off at the end of the approach, I as nice and surprised because, surprisingly, the runway was in front of me. We decided not to land on the count of the tailwind to that runway, and we headed back to Grand Forks.
Here's a pic of the PFD. Another thing that this thing does to make flying so handy is that if your airspeed, altitude, or Vertical Velocity are changing at a certain rate, it will tell you where the airplane is predicted to be in the next six seconds at the current rate of change, so you can see the change and easily correct it before it becomes an issue. Also, you can set bugs on altitudes, headings, and vertical velocities. A bug is something you set that gives you something to track, for example if ATC gives you an altitude change, you set the bug on that altitude and just descend until the bug lines up with the altitude arrow. Very handy.
"You've got to be kidding me...oops."
This put me in for my 221 stage 20 checkride, I passed the Oral with no problems but I unsat the flight for the first time because I programmed the GPS Flight Plan wrong on the ground, oops. Simple mistake, but a costly one, in that I'd have to take a review flight before I could go in for the stage again. So I did my quick review flight, and right about time the weather came in again, so I was pretty much grounded for two weeks until the weather could clear up, I was feeling rusty so I took a review flight on the first good day I could, and then earlier today I passed the stage check and am now moving on to the block in the simulators, just in time for thunderstorm season...great.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this, I might post another report this summer depending on whether or not I fly again, since I'm going into the simulator block I'm pretty much done with flying for UND for the summer but I might get checked out on the FBO's Cadet (an airplane that is very similar to our warriors), I might fly with a friend who also happens to be a UND Multi Instructor in the Piper Seminole, getting some multi-engine experience and a complex endorsement out of that, and if I do then I might get a checkout on the FBO's Arrow instead (a complex aircraft, UND uses them as well for commercial training that I'll be doing later on, slightly faster and slightly larger than the warrior and the cadet but they don't look like it on the outside). Anyway, I'll catch y'all on the flipside.
Eric,
Out.
"Is that the Abex at my 6 o'clock?"
Back in April we had a few weeks of outstanding weather, so since I needed more night cross-country time, I decided to fly the Iron Triangle, from Grand Forks (GFK) to Jamestown, ND (JMS), to Fargo (FAR), and back to Grand Forks, for my lesson 7 cross-country, because I needed some night time. But since its North Dakota, it doesn't get dark until well after 9:30 that time of year, so I decided to do a 7:30 launch to have enough time to fly a cross-country with the airplane and get back before flight operations close down lest I have to spend the night somewhere other than my dorm room. With that in mind, the weather was excellent on the day I planned, so I got the airplane as planned and did all the usual pre-flight. It was about this time that I noticed a friend of mine was on the ramp with his camera. Lucky me:
The weather was perfect, and as planned I departed GFK at 7:30 pm into a clear evening sky, and climbed up to my cruise altitude of 6,500'. On the way, I enjoyed my first true sunset as a pilot:
Evening civil twilight ended with me about fifteen minutes out of JMS, About that time I started my descent into the airport, clicked the radio seven times to turn on the runway lights, and made a nice smooth straight in landing to runway 22 at Jamestown.
After about five minutes of taxiing off, doing my paperwork, and taxiing back onto the runway, I took off and climbed up to 5,500' en-route to Fargo. FAR approach closes at 10pm and with it the Fargo Terminal Radar Service Area (TRSA) is no longer in effect. Initially, I didn't plan on calling up FAR approach because I was going to be getting in there right about ten o'clock and the service is voluntary, but when I got closer I figured I might as well have them guide me in.
At GFK, Air Traffic Control is very laid back, because they all know who we are, so before we call up, they pretty much know what we're about to say. It goes without saying that at GFK our initial call-up is short and sweet. At FAR however, we have to do the full call up, so "Good evening Fargo Approach, Sioux 37 is a piper cherokee 30 miles west of Fargo at five thousand five hundred with Charlie inbound for stop-and-goes at Fargo Hector and departure to Grand Forks at four thousand five hundred and would you like fries with that?" She seemed bored, and she gave me vectors into Fargo. If you'll read through my earlier blogs, I believe I mentioned that at about 10pm the Airborne Express (or DHL...or Astar...Or ABex...or whatever that company calls itself these days) DC-9 comes in, along with the Northwest Airbus A319 from Minneapolis. As I was being vectored in, I heard the Abex call in "Fargo Approach, ABex117 with you ten miles west descending 2,600" ...well, I knew it was going to be a fun night.
On that control panel photo above, you'll notice 3 display screens. The 2 together are the GPS 1 and GPS 2 displays, the third is a Multi-Function Display tied to an ADS-B and Traffic Advisory system. This means that it puts out a signal that interrogates other aircraft's transponders, exactly the way an ATC radar works, and then displays the position of the other aircraft on the screen. This warrior is also equipped with a mode-S transponder, which means it can also interrogate other aircraft's transponders and display their position on the 2 GPS screens. Well about the time that the ABex called up, all 3 of these screens started flashing, signaling that I was about to have to do work. The two GPS screens showed a traffic proximity warning, and the MFD displayed an arrow pointing toward the offending aerial aluminum...directly behind me. You guessed it, the DC-9. Fargo Approach had me turn toward the south to enter the traffic pattern at Fargo and when I first caught sight of the now-looming landing lights of the DC-9 I came on the radio "Fargo Approach Sioux 37...uhh, is that the ABex right behind me?" "Affirmative Sioux 37, traffic 4 miles descending 2,600...Sioux 37 turn heading 180 to enter right downwind for runway 18 contact Fargo Tower." Ok easy enough, I contacted Fargo tower knowing there was, and having had listened to on approach, a Northwest Airbus, an ABex DC-9, and two other UND aircraft ahead of mine. And I was bringing up the rear.
As directed by Fargo Tower, I called them up when I was at midfield on the downwind leg, and just as I did that, I see the DC-9 coming down final unusually high, and then over the radio "Fargo Tower, can Abex 117 get a right hand 360?" "Approved" Nice. So the DC-9 did a complete circle to lose altitude, pushing the Northwest and the other two Sioux birds out farther, and me out behind them. "Sioux 37 would like to extend downwind back to Grand Forks please" ok I didn't really say that, they'd have probably given it to me. But I digress. I landed at Fargo and headed back to Grand Forks and called it a flight.
"Oh crap, should've used the carb heat"
So as I reported in my last blog, I got a new flight instructor who is actually more concerned with his students than his ride to the airline, which definetly works out for me. He's also pretty fun to fly with. On my first flight with him, we flew down to Hillsboro airport and did some late evening landing practice, then flew into the practice area for some VOR tracking and basic attitude instrument flying work. I was a little rusted up on that part.
The landings at Hillsboro were fairly uneventful, a normal landing, short field landing, soft field landing, and my introduction to precision power-off 180 landings, where you cut the throttle to idle while on the downwind and then do a 180 degree turn to land on a pre-designated point on the runway. The standard is +300 -0 feet. As I was flying downind, I did my normal downwind checklist "Boost pump on, mixture rich, carbureator heat off." And since the power off simulates an engine failure in the pattern, and since carb ice is a leading factor in engine failures, I decided to have some fun. After I closed the throttle, "O crap, should've used the carb heat, we lost the engine." my instructor replied "oh nuts we're all gonna die" in about the most nonchalant tone you could have in a cockpit, and 30 seconds later I was down just about right on my designated point on the runway.
During the basic attitude portion of the flight, we worked on steep turns, stalls, and slow flight while I was under the hood, relying solely on instruments. Now it'd been awhile since I'd done my steep turns, so I was a little rusty. The first steep turn I started at 3,500 feet, about a quarter of the way through the turn, the attitude indicator was pushing to 60 degrees of bank and the vertical velocity indicator needle was buried at a 2,000 foot-per-minute descent, so I bailed on that attempt and did an unusual attitude recovery to straight and level. After a bit of practice however, I got it back and was able to do the steep turns within standards.
"Time 0345 zulu over Devil's Lake at 7,500 sky clear and the Northern Lights are out"
I finally got some good weather to go on my long cross-country, unfortunately the weather wasn't good down in Minneapolis and along that route so I had to do my backup, the tour-de-nowhere, from GFK to Williston, ND (ISN) to Minot, ND (MOT) and back to GFK. At about 5 pm I departed Grand Forks, climbed to 6,500, and settled in for the long ride out to ISN, on the exact opposite side of the state.
The route of flight would take me from Grand Forks, passing over Devil's Lake, then over to Minot, and finally on to Williston. Here I am approaching Devil's Lake:
The rest of the photos along the route are pretty much the same, if you've seen one part of North Dakota you've about seen it all. I will say that the badlands and the missouri river in the late afternoon light was pretty cool though. Anyway, on to Williston:
The weather at Williston was amazing, the sky was completely clear, there was almost no wind, it was warm and humid. Since it was after hours, there was nobody around the airport and nothing was unlocked, and after three hours in the warrior, I had to pee. I called the phone number on the door so the guy could come fuel me up for the flight back to GFK. Thankfully the guy lives right near the airport and was there within 5 minutes. He fueled me up and I was off for Minot.
As it was about sunset, I knew that I'd be able to utilize the unique electromagnetic effects of the upper atmosphere to pick up certain radio stations that normally in the daytime wouldn't be recievable in North Dakota. I departed Williston and climbed up to 5,500 for the 40 minute flight to Minot, and tuned my Automatic Direction Finder radio to 850 KHz, and picked up the last few innings of the Rockies at St. Louis on 850 KOA Denver. It was pretty cool flying along the missouri in the fading light listening to the radio back home which kept me occupied, and soon I was talking to Minot approach being vectored in to Minot airport. As to why they refer to Minot as "Magic City Tower" I have no idea, but whatever floats their boat. I landed in Minot and since there was nothing going on, I asked the tower for a delay on the runway so I could just do my paperwork there and then takeoff when I was done, they approved it, I finished up my navlogs, and departed MOT for GFK. Just as Magic City Tower (magic city? ...anyway) gave me clearance to turn on course to Grand Forks, the Rockies put away the Cardinals, and I was enthused. Sorry Grampa, better luck next time. I kept listening because it was something to do, eventually it went on to some late evening talk show, I tried to see if George Noory was on am 630 but the ADF wasn't picking it up, so I set it back to 850 and settled in at 7,500 feet.
As I was cruising toward Devil's lake, I noticed something very peculiar about the evening twilight. Being that it's North Dakota, I expected the sun to set pretty far north along the horizon, but what I didn't expect was the twilight glow to extend past north and over to a good chunk of the eastern horizon as well. I thought that quite odd. What was also odd was that unlike the quickly fading blue twilight, this light wasn't quickly fading and it had a distinctively green color to it... another unique electromagnetic effect of the upper atmosphere: the northern lights. This was the first time I'd ever seen them, so I decided I'd take a picture:
Then, I called up Flight Service and gave them a pilot report: "Time 0345 zulu over Devil's Lake at 7,500 sky clear and the northern lights are out tonight" "oh really what color are they tonight?" "Looks to be a green kind of fading to purple higher up." "Ahh cool I'll pass that along thanks." So I'm cruising on a perfectly clear, smoothe night, the lights are out, and I'm listening to the radio station back home. There was nowhere else on that night that i'd rather be, it was perfect...mom and dad's money well spent.
Ok, I'm going to keep the cell phone turned off for awhile now...
"Wow, I feel like an Airline Pilot now!"
Because the next flight course utilizes the warriors with the Avidyne Entegra glass cockpit package, I decided to use my lesson 18 and lesson 19 flight as a double launch, and to get familiar with the glass cockpit concept. The glass cockpit does not utilize the normal gyros that are found in standard cockpits to display heading and attitude information, instead it uses a system called the Air Data Attitude Heading Reporting System, which uses a set of solid state gyros of which not much is known about them because they're a company-patented system. Also, instead of having a directional gyroscope for heading information that has to be re-checked against the magnetic compass every so often, it uses a horizontal situation indicator that is automatically slaved to a flux-gate compass. The flux-gate compass differs from the magnetic compass in that instead of being a magnet that points toward north, it's comprised of three electric coils uniformally spaced as spokes radiating out from a central hub. The theory here is that as the earths magnetic field lines pass through the coils, they create a current in the wires, with different directions, the field lines will be different, inducing differing current along the wires. From the current variations, magnetic north can be derived. The whole glass-cockpit concept was first introduced on the Boeing 767 in the early '80s, however it was mainly confined to the airlines until the late 90s because of the cost of the system. The system the airliners use costs well over $20 grand a pop, but with the advent of the patented systems that we're not supposed to know fully about, the price of the General Aviation ADAHRS system is about 1/10th of the cost of the airlines system.
And they gave me the keys.
Let me just say that at first glance the system may look like full information overload, but they've made it so rediculously user-friendly that it takes all the work out of being a pilot, and it really made for an enjoyable experience while I was up with it. Our system is comprised of two screens, a Primary Flight Display which shows us engine rpm, fuel flow, basic airspeed, attitude, altitude, vertical-velocity, heading, ground track, and course information, and a Multi-Function Display which has displays such as aircraft checklists, a moving map display, and a very detailed engine display including cylinder head and exhaust gas temperatures for each engine, engine rpm, manifold pressure, oil pressure, oil temperature, fuel flow, fuel on board, a clock, and how much coke is in the catering cabinet...if only. Its great because not only are the displays in standard dial format, displaying normal operating range, caution range, and danger range just as they would on standard gauges, they also display the data digitally. On the Multi-Function Display there is a Lean-Assist feature that allows accurate leaning of the fuel-air mixture to achieve best power (where the fuel mixture is leaned into the power band to allow for best power in cruise) and best economy (where the fuel mixture is leaned beyond the power band to allow for lower fuel consumption). Rather than trying to guess on the RPM gauge when you're 35 rpm below your power setting and when you've leaned it back to where the mixture is set for best-power, you now have the display telling you exactly what you need to do, removing all the guesswork.
And they gave me the keys. So what did I do with the plane? I landed it in the grass.
We went up to Warren airport northeast of Grand Forks just over the Minnesota border and did some landing practice, the winds were favoring the use of the grass runway, so I decided to do some real soft-field landings. This was the first time I'd actually landed on grass, so I was a bit nervous because you have to come down nice and soft so the airplane doesn't dig into the turf. I came in on the first approach and since the grass runway goes pretty much right up to the highway, my flight instructor had to make sure that no semis were coming down the road lest we make an early touchdown. Since it's the middle of nowhere, we really didn't have that problem. I made a nice smoothe touchdown, and then got my first taste of taxiing on the soft field. I'd never taxied with the rpm at 2000 before. On the pavement, that would have you going fast enough to takeoff, on the grass, it was just fast enough to keep going, that is until we had to cross the concrete runway. Definetly got a little kick in the pants when we hit the concrete, and a slight shove forward in the straps when we came back off it a few seconds later. On to the takeoff. About an eighth of a mile off the departure end of the runway we were using is a shelterbelt consisting of a line of 50' tall trees. The soft field takeoff procedure requires that you takeoff as soon as possible and fly just above the turf in ground effect until the end of the runway. Doing this with a stand of trees rushing forward is a very interesting experience. It goes without saying that we made it.
After tooling around in the practice area tracking various Bearings, Courses, Headings, Radials, and random 4-wheelers to build instrument time, we were getting pretty bored, so we decided to shoot the GPS approach to runway 30 at Warren. A GPS approach is a non-precision approach, meaning it can't guide you down to the runway but it can get you close enough to see it in most weather conditions, and it consists of crossing waypoints until you eventually track down a final approach course. So I shot the approach under the hood, and when I took the hood off at the end of the approach, I as nice and surprised because, surprisingly, the runway was in front of me. We decided not to land on the count of the tailwind to that runway, and we headed back to Grand Forks.
Here's a pic of the PFD. Another thing that this thing does to make flying so handy is that if your airspeed, altitude, or Vertical Velocity are changing at a certain rate, it will tell you where the airplane is predicted to be in the next six seconds at the current rate of change, so you can see the change and easily correct it before it becomes an issue. Also, you can set bugs on altitudes, headings, and vertical velocities. A bug is something you set that gives you something to track, for example if ATC gives you an altitude change, you set the bug on that altitude and just descend until the bug lines up with the altitude arrow. Very handy.
"You've got to be kidding me...oops."
This put me in for my 221 stage 20 checkride, I passed the Oral with no problems but I unsat the flight for the first time because I programmed the GPS Flight Plan wrong on the ground, oops. Simple mistake, but a costly one, in that I'd have to take a review flight before I could go in for the stage again. So I did my quick review flight, and right about time the weather came in again, so I was pretty much grounded for two weeks until the weather could clear up, I was feeling rusty so I took a review flight on the first good day I could, and then earlier today I passed the stage check and am now moving on to the block in the simulators, just in time for thunderstorm season...great.
I hope you've enjoyed reading this, I might post another report this summer depending on whether or not I fly again, since I'm going into the simulator block I'm pretty much done with flying for UND for the summer but I might get checked out on the FBO's Cadet (an airplane that is very similar to our warriors), I might fly with a friend who also happens to be a UND Multi Instructor in the Piper Seminole, getting some multi-engine experience and a complex endorsement out of that, and if I do then I might get a checkout on the FBO's Arrow instead (a complex aircraft, UND uses them as well for commercial training that I'll be doing later on, slightly faster and slightly larger than the warrior and the cadet but they don't look like it on the outside). Anyway, I'll catch y'all on the flipside.
Eric,
Out.
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