Passing the test!

I took the "FAA Private Pilot Knowledge Test" today and passed!  Yay!  A 93%.

When was the last time you took a real test?  It's probably been awhile.  It has been for me.  You really have to shift gears and go back to your test taking days.  There is a skill involved in taking tests.

Of course, it helps if you've studied and know the material.  I took my ground school through the King School Online course.  It was exactly what I needed because I could consume the material at my own pace on my own time.

The course offers a set of practice exams that I used to prepare once I had completed the course.  After each practice exam I would go back and repeat the lessons for the questions I missed.

I supplemented this with the Jeppesen Private Pilot course books and test guides.  These are great resources to have in your library regardless of whether you need them for test prep.

One more item off the checklist!

Teaching vs Learning...

You can't "teach" anyone anything.

You can help people learn, but you can't actually "teach" them anything.  They must "learn" it.  Learning is done through some element of experience.  Helping someone learn is about creating that space where they can experience whatever it is you want them (or they want) to learn.  Further, we learn the most through trial, failure and re-trial.  So, helping someone learn is also about creating a safe place to fail.  The stakes for failure are pretty high in general aviation, so a flight instructor is first and foremost about keeping the learning place a safe place to fail.

Today I planned and flew a cross-country flight out to the foothill airport of Calaveras.  When we took off I asked my instructor, "...don't correct my mistakes unless I'm about to kill me, you, other people or otherwise seriously damage this plane or other property.  Let me see if I can catch and correct my mistakes."  He loved this idea.  Most of the time, flight instructors are trying to stay ahead of both the airplane and the students.  They want their students to enjoy the experience and not scare them off and out of flying (and they also want to avoid killing themselves).  Not me.  I want to learn.

For the most part the flight out went as I had planned it.  I hit the waypoints right on time.  I overflew the field and descended into the pattern.  The landing wasn't crisp, but it was good enough.  The airport sits up on a plateau which plays tricks on your visual perception (and I'm sticking with that story...).

We had a short debrief and then headed back out.  On my second VOR turn point, I neglected to change NAV frequencies to dial up the next VOR.  Matt said nothing.  I tooled along for awhile and then slowly realized something wasn't right.  I was flying a heading without the support of the Nav system because it was tuned in to the wrong navigational beacon.

Now I am flustered.  And, it takes me awhile to realize that I just needed to advance my last fix based on the time I'd been flying that heading, and I'd know pretty much where I was and how to get organized to get back to Livermore.  Matt had this big cat eating grin the whole time.  He knew it all along and well before  I did.

He created a safe place and he let me fail.  That's what makes him a great teacher.  I will NEVER make that mistake again.  However, had he caught the error right when it happened and said something, I would have corrected the mistake and flew merrily along, but I really wouldn't have learned anything.  Not likely anyway.

So, that's my big "ah ha!".  Teaching isn't really about teaching.  It's about helping people learn.  This is true for my kids, my employees and myself.

How do you help people learn?  Create an experience.  Don't tell them what to do.  Hang back.  Watch.  Listen.  Pose questions to help them think it through.  When they ask for help, don't help.  Ask more questions.  Help them think it through.

We are all in a hurry.  It's easier to jump in and do it for them.  Don't.  Let them suffer and persevere a bit.

In any endeavor there are life-and-death moments.  This is not only isolated to flying.  So, you do have to  "grab the controls" sometimes.  But, not nearly as often as we think.

Parents lecture endlessly at their kids.  Teachers stand at the whiteboard and hold forth with their ideas -- teaching.  Leaders in business tell everyone what to do.  Corporate training programs hose down participants with endless powerpoint presentations.  It's all done in the name of training and teaching.  And, yet, nobody is really learning anything.

From here on out I am going to stop teaching and instead help people learn...

It's For Real

Just to make sure yesterday wasn't a dream, I went by the flight school after work today.  They handed me the keys to the plane.  I walked out, preflighted it and all by my lonesome, made three trips around the pattern.  How cool is that!

I was much more nervous than yesterday.  The runways were turned opposite of their normal direction and there was quite a bit of traffic in the pattern.  So, I didn't want to push it.  3 take offs and landings were plenty for my first solo, solo.

I think the key for me will be doing these solo flights in little "sips" instead of big drinks.

Solo!

Today I took off and landed a plane by myself.  Alone.  I am pretty excited about this.  No, I am WAY excited about this.  I think the last time I felt this pumped up about something was at the birth of my kids.  You just don't get this mix of excitement, adrenaline and pride of accomplishment very often.

I met my instructor after work and took a short written test and an oral review of various operating procedures and emergency scenarios -- all things we'd been over many times.  Once he was satisfied, he endorsed my logbook for solo and we preflighted the plane and took off over the Altamont pass for the Byron airport.

The sun was starting to set.  A big moon was rising in the east.  The air was calm and the sky was clear.  We landed at Byron and as I was taxiing back to the runway he said, "...stop here."  Then he opened the door and looked at me and said, "...do three take offs and full stop landings.  Watch your airspeed.  You'll be fine..."  And that was it.  I was on my own.

He stood on the taxiway with a handheld radio while I taxied off.  On the first landing, I was a bit high and landed a little off center.  On the second landing, I flew a good pattern and pulled off a pretty good landing.  And, on the last one, it all came together and it felt great.  During the entire time I was soloing the only time he used the radio was to ask me how to turn on my video camera.

I was surprised about a few things.  First, while I was very jacked up on adrenaline, I didn't feel nervous.  Second, at some level, it's actually a little easier to learn and refine your skills alone than with an instructor.  I think there is just more mental airspace to work things out when you are alone.  You obviously can't be alone early in your training without killing yourself, but there is clearly a benefit to this solo thing.

After the third landing, I picked him up and we took off for Livermore. It was getting dark and by the time we made it back the runway was all lit up and I got to make my first night landing.  A very nice bonus on an already amazing day.

When we got back, the school owner insisted we walk back to the hanger and take a few pictures.  As he put it, "this is the only day that will ever be the day of your first solo..."  He is right!

The real credit goes to my instructors Matt and Rhett -- especially Matt with whom I fly most.  I was really at a loss for words except to tell them how much I appreciate them helping me get to this point safely and with confidence.

Click!

I can land an airplane now.  3 weeks ago I couldn't -- at least not very well.  It's funny how the learning curve goes -- up, down, flat, up, down.  For me this landing thing has finally clicked.

Today my instructor and I went out and did a short hop to Tracy, an uncontrolled airport a few minutes away and shot several landings there.  One was a simulated engine failure with a glide all the way down.

The pattern altitude is only 800' at Tracy -- less than the typical 1,000' at most airports.  So, you have to visualize the landing slightly differently than usual.  Good practice.

Then, we took a short hop north to the uncontrolled airport of Byron and did the same.  It was busy.  Gliders, skydivers and other student pilots all buzzing around.

All in all 11 landings -- all of them good enough to make it through the FAA exam according to my instructor (who might be a bit generous in his evaluation).

What did I learn?  I learned that landings are part process, part analysis and part feel.  You have to balance out all three aspects.

So what does me bragging about my landings have to do with the photo and the video in this post?  Before we took off, the owner of the flight school was taking a student up for his first jet flight.  Yes, jet flight. For a mere $2,200 per hour you too could do the same.

How cool is that!

Half Way There...

I hit the half way mark today.  Or, at least the theoretical half way mark.  I've logged 20 hours so far.  The minimum required for a Private Pilot Certificate is 40 hours though most students require more than this to be ready for their FAA check ride.  The national average according to the FAA is from 60 to 75 hours.

To date I've spent $4,645 including all of the aircraft rental charges, instructor fees, books, pilot supplies and ground school.  The second half of my training may be a bit less expensive as I'll be spending less on instructor fees (flying solo more) and I won't be buying the one-time items I needed getting started.  So, I'll wind up in the $6,000 - $8,000 range that is common for private pilots around the US.

There are a few ways I could have reduced the cost-to-date somewhat.  I could have flown an older, smaller or cheaper airplane.  But, I wanted to train in the airplane I would likely wind up flying with friends and family and I enjoy flying in a nicer, newer plane.  The hourly rate difference between a Cessna 172 from this decade as opposed to one built during the Nixon administration is about $30 an hour -- a potential savings of about $600 to this point.

I could have also chosen to learn with a flying club instead of a flight school.  Flying clubs are essentially not-for-profit so their aircraft rental rates are usually lower.  I flew with an instructor from the local club and attended one of their meetings.  It's a good option for some students but it has some drawbacks.  The biggest drawback is availability of the plane and instructors.  It will just wind up taking longer to get through training with a flying club because the instructor and aircraft availability is spotty.  The club is really setup to provide cheap, economical flying for its members -- not for training new pilots.  But it can work for some students and the rental rates are about 30% less than an equivalent plane at a flight school.

I feel very good about where I stand at this point.  Yesterday's flight was solid.  I had a good lesson plan made up and we executed as planned.  Though I need more practice on this, I had my best simulated engine failure landing yet.  And, all my landings ranged from acceptable to good (but nothing remotely close to great or perfect).

Despite the progress thus far, it's clear flying is something you never fully master and thus I will always be learning.  But, man am I having fun!

Rest in Peace...

This is my favorite speech by Steve Jobs:

How to Live Before You Die

At first I thought this post would be a digression from the main point of this blog.  But then I started thinking maybe learning to fly in middle age was one more way of "staying hungry and staying foolish."

Thanks, Steve.  You remain an inspiration to many...

The First Page...

Somebody told me that when you fill the first page of your pilot log book it is cause for celebration.  Mission accomplished.  After 18 hours and 50 landings I still feel like I am just starting to figure this out.

But, that won't stop me from a little celebration!

Draggin' your tail...

Alex (my son) has decided tail draggers* are where it's at.  I get it.  I think if you look up "fun flying" in the dictionary, it shows a picture of this plane -- a "Citrabria."   (Quiz:  What does Citabria spelled backwards mean?)

This was his first flight in a tail dragger and he loved it.  He and his instructor both seemed a little queasy when they got down so there must have been some fun aerobatics going on up there.

Meanwhile, I sauntered off in the boring, old Cessna 172 for landing practice.  Ho-hum...

On the drive home from the airport we had one of those memorable talks you sometimes have as a parent.  He was commenting on how much he LOVED flying.  I told him that it has taken me a long time to learn that you need to pay attention to those feelings.  At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I told him those feelings are the "voice of God" speaking to you.

We are each called to a different purpose in life and that purpose isn't always obvious.  But I've learned that those feelings of intense engagement -- what Aristotle called "Eudaimonia" or "flow"-- are signals or signs that help us figure out a direction in life.

Unfortunately, may of us are brought up believing that if something is fun or engaging or captivating or otherwise speaks to us, it somehow must not be appropriate or righteous, or worthy.  I wish I had learned this 30 years ago, but I know it now.  This is why I'm supporting his flying habit.

To Alex's credit, he could have just rolled his eyes, plugged in his iTouch and tuned me out.  Instead, he just nodded and sat there.  And, then he said, "hey, when are we flying again?"

Soon my friend, soon...



*The term "Tail Dragger" refers to aircraft whose landing gear has a tail wheel instead of a nose wheel.  They are more challenging to fly but are often more interesting to fly.  While many people think of them as relics from the past, most of the hot, aerobatic planes are tail draggers.  Think of them as airplanes with a manual transmission instead of an automatic transmission...

Take Control of Your Lessons...

I've been a bit passive about my flying lessons to date.  I realize that I really need to treat each lesson as a "mini check ride" if I am going to get the most out of them.

So, I've been spending an hour or so the evening before I fly mapping out a full flight plan and lesson plan even though it's only 17 minutes out to the practice area and back.

I've also started verbalizing all of my maneuvers during the flight as if I were flying a check ride.  My instructor loves this.  He is starting to see himself as one of those curmudgeonly old FAA examiners giving me the full check ride treatment.

All of this is having the wonderful effect of slowly getting me ready to run the gauntlet of earning my private pilot certificate...

The Accidental Ground School...

I wanted to get in a short after work flight but my instructor was tied up with other students.  So, I got hold of the school owner who agreed to fly with me on short notice.  He doesn't normally fly with students at my level and I knew this.  But, this was part of my evil plan because I know he has a vast storehouse of knowledge and experience and I am eager to get some of it.

When I got to the airport, he wanted to sit down and discuss the flight.  At that point I realized I really wasn't prepared.  I didn't have a flight or lesson plan mapped out.  To date, my instructors tend to map out my lessons and I tend to go along with their ideas.  Not so in this case.  (To be fair, I basically need help in every facet of flying so it's not like it's a big mystery to figure on what areas I need work).

He read through my logbook and we started talking about my experiences and where I was struggling.  That discussion turned into a 3 hour whiteboard session which was incredibly insightful for me.  He gave me all kinds of ideas and strategies for everything from flight planning to landings.

We never wound up flying that day.  When we finally ran out of energy, we both walked out to the ramp and pushed the plane back into the hanger and called it a night.

That may have been the best 3 hours of "flying" I've done yet!

Oil Change...

I got in a little late, after work flying today.  Just a short session to work on some basics -- flying ground reference maneuvers and working on trim, pitch and power settings for the landing pattern.  We also shot a few touch-and-goes.

When I went out to pre-flight the plane, I found it had been washed and the oil just changed.  I don't know why this makes me happy, but it does.  I'm starting to think of it as "my plane."

The plane was happy.  The flying was good.  The weather was amazing.  I am happy!

Cross Country

I flew my first cross-country flight today.  I think it was exactly what I needed.  The flight reminded me of why I took up flying to begin with.  It is the pure joy and excitement of being up in the air, above the terrain with nothing else in the world to think about other than flying.

My lessons are often a great deal of work.  We get up, fly out to our practice area and get right to work on maneuvers.  Then it's right into landing practice at whatever uncontrolled airport we are near.  Then, as I approach mental saturation, it's back to home base and one more landing.

The result is that I often land mentally spent (in a good way) and with mixed feelings about my progress.  Usually I'm happy about something I've figured out but also slightly frustrated at something I still have to learn; or frustrated about something I could do last lesson but not this lesson.

But today was different.  Matt emailed me that it was time for some cross-country flying and had me work out a flight from Livermore to the small, foothill airports of Columbia and Calaveras and then back to Livermore via an instrument flight route.

The weather was mixed -- 7,000 foot ceiling with broken clouds at about 2,700 feet.  It was clear where we were headed and the forecast called for continued clearing all day.  I mention this only because in Northern California in September we are completely shocked with anything less than perfect, cloudless, mild days.

On the way to Columbia we practiced ded reckoning navigation using time, speed and heading as well as pilotage using ground references.  On the way back, we used the VOR nav aids and the Livermore ILS or instrument landing system.  More on my first instrument flying experience in another post.

Columbia is another world.  It's a funky little Sierra foothill town with a great little airport.  It's a bit tricky to land there because of the mountains around the airport and the fact that it sits up on a plateau.  This plays visual tricks with your mind when trying to get oriented for landing.

But, I got down without completely embarrassing myself and we taxied in for a quick soft drink before heading to our next stop, 6 minutes away at Calaveras.

Rumor has it that I'll be taking my FAA checkride exam at Calaveras, so our plan is to fly here a few more times while I am building up my student time.  The idea is that I'll be a bit more at ease in an airport with which I'm familiar.  Again, it is a challenging runway as it is situated on a small plateau up against a low mountain ridge.  I shot a few touch and goes and then we headed back home for Livermore.

All of this is to say that it pays to change things up from time to time.  It really helps you gain a fresh perspective and refresh your learning engine.

Oh, and it was my birthday...

Maximum Bandwidth Consumed...

 I can tell I have a long way to go with this flying stuff.  How do I know?  Because when I am flying the landing pattern and landing the plane, I don't make the right, consistent radio calls.  What this tells me is that the process of thinking through and managing the landing is consuming 100% of my mental CPU cycles and there simply aren't any cycles left over for doing radio calls (or anything else for that matter).  This is why there is an instructor sitting right next to me.  Part of his job is to be the second CPU and handle the overflow of tasks I can't quite cover.

I know this will change as I get more time and experience in the air.  But it is a very unsettling experience at my age since I am so accustomed to having near absolute mastery in most everything else in my life (ok, well, not when it comes to golf).  It's also a great reminder of what it must be like for our children who are dealing with first-time experiences almost every day.  And, it also makes me more sensitive to the trials and tribulations new employees go through when they join our team at work.

Awareness of maximum mental CPU capacity:  yet another benefit of learning to fly.

Sloppy Flying...

I tried to get in some landing practice during lunch today.  It turned out the battery in the plane was dead.  Someone had left the master switch on overnight.  So, we put a charger on it and went to lunch while it charged.  Having the cowling off was an educational experience in itself because I got to poke around the engine bay.

All this meant we didn't have a lot of time to fly -- about 30 minutes.  But it was enough for a few touch-and-goes at our home airport.

I just couldn't get into a groove.  My takeoff climbs were a bit sloppy.  I wasn't trimming for a consistent climb pitch attitude and so I was chasing the airspeed indicator.  I don't think the FAA examiner would have approved.

There were a lot of birds soaring around the airport and at one point my instructor had to make an evasive turn and dive to avoid one (it's still hard for me to gauge the relative distance of a soaring bird versus my plane).

I couldn't seem to fly a crisp pattern into the landing.  I kept over-extending the downwind, ending up too low on base and final.  Some of this is due to the fact I don't do a lot of landings at this airport and this runway so the visual cues are different.  But this is the point of this practice -- pilots need to develop their visual sense of the pattern and landing based only on the runway -- not the surrounding area since you can't take the surrounding area with you to a new airport.

My instructor made some key points today:

• Fly the pattern a bit above the glide slope so that if you lose your engine on final, you can glide to the airport.  If not, you may wind up landing short and "break your leg or wreck some motorist's car..."
• Think through the turns and crab angle of the pattern so that you fly a nice square pattern
• Stay on the pattern altitude before the descent starts -- being a little low just makes it that much harder to get to the right altitude on final
• Use the base leg as a point of "key decision" because at that point you can correct many approach problems while it is still easy to do so:  more flaps if you are high, more power if you are low, timing the turn to final to accommodate the wind.
• Don't add more flaps until you can make the runway on a glide.
• If you can't tell if you are a little high or a little low it probably means you are just right.  

I have come to truly appreciate the point he is making in learning to fly the pattern and land without the instruments as a crutch.  Judging altitude, descent rate, speed, distance and timing by visual cues and feel is important because you never know when you'll be without your instruments at a crucial time.

Hopefully I'll make progress this weekend...