Tadpole's Blog

I've not been doing well at keeping up with this thing. Let's do a quick recap since the last entry.

Spring semester is almost over. I finished the Aviation Customer Service class and am struggling to catch up and finish my Meteorology course. I've got 3 weeks left. I registered for Summer semester. I'll be doing my Instrument Rating Ground School and In-Flight Service. It's a short semester, 7.5 weeks, but the In-Flight Service looks to be pretty simple and I've already been studying on my IR stuff so I'm not to worried.

I'm about to take the plunge and do some studying to become an Advanced Ground Instructor. This will allow me to teach the different ground school for flying, including ones for certificates I don't posess yet. I like teaching and I've been doing it for so long that it only seems the natural way to go with my flying. By teaching, I'll learn more myself and become more proficient in the knowledge than if I wasn't teaching. And heck, I might even pull in some extra cash for flying if I get to do some classroom teaching. I figure I'll try to knock out this rating after summer semester ends in June and before Fall semester begins in August.

I've got 50 hours now. I've only flown as the pilot 3 times since I got my license. Two times down and back to Pueblo for breakfast and once around the pattern here in town. I've been trying to get my mountain flight done so I can start going up there on my own or with friends, but the weather keeps preventing that. Maybe this weekend...

I was TDY the last 2 weeks to lovely Gila Bend, AZ. The jump team goes there for spring break every year and we do tons of training. We did about 4500 jumps as a whole, including several from C-130s. I got to fly 1.5 hours in an F-16 on a boming mission, training of course, but we did drop a couple 500lb laser guided bombs on a fake airfield. That was neat. Those G's still are a pain though..heh.

Abby will turn 1 year old this month, on the 16th. Jeeze, 1 year already. She's awesome though.

Well, I posted, there. Now back to trying to convince myself to do school work.

I passed! It went really well and wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I actually had fun through the whole thing.

Now on to getting checked out in the T-41Bs that we use for IR training so I can start getting comfortable with the plane before I start living under the hood for the training in a few months. Plus, I'm going to do my mountain checkout so I can start flying in the purty places and am able to take friends and family on some very scenic flights in the Front Range area.

As of this morning, I are a grad-gee-eighted student from my flight school!

My Private Pilot checkride is scheduled for this coming Sunday the 20th. So far the weather looks like it will be nice.

Now to keep studying my book for the Oral exam. Going to do some review with my instructor tonight. Tomorrow will be more studying and my flight planning for the navigation problem the Examiner gave me for the ride.

Wish me luck!

Finally, a flight that should've happened 2 months ago is completed. This morning I did the stage II check for navigation and it went well. My landings were off today, I don't know if I was just not with it, or if having the chief pilot with me made me a bit nervous. The flying went great! It was a nice smooth day with no turbulence. It was pretty much one of those days where you trim the plane in and just let go, just minor pressure here and there for wind correction.

Overall, the chief pilot said he was impressed with my flying. He said I controlled the plane very well, I just need to work on my technique for landing accuracy. He said the touchdowns were okay, but that my aim point and touchdown points weren't right. We worked a bit on it with the last landing, but it's clear I need to go up solo and just do some pattern work. He offered up some tips while flying on the navigation aspect, but not many. Most of the flight was discussing things on the chart that aren't really in existence or vise versa.

Of the 3 times I've flown COS to PUB, I've used one antenna as a checkpoint and never seen it. Today, I found out why. It was put on the chart because the antenna was to built, but never was. That explains why I've never seen it! Later on, he showed me one that is about 30 or 40 miles east that isn't on the chart at all. I also learned alot about different airports that have moved or gone away.

So I'm cleared to go on for my long solo XC flight tomorrow. I'm looking to takeoff around 0730, and the weather looks great!

I didnt' do the stage check today, high winds and turbulence would've just been an uncomfortable and frustrating flight, so now everything is pushed back yet again. I try again on Monday morning.

So much for taking 2 weeks of leave to get this stuff done. I've flown twice in the first week, and those were just for currency.

Got to do the practice flight today solo. My first leg, COS to PUB wasn't exactly as I planned, but it never is when it's two control towers moving me where they want, so my flight plan course and times weren't really accurate by any means, but I knew where I was and kept on trucking for the touch and go.

2nd leg, PUB to HGO (Hugo VOR) went pretty good, not to much desernable (spelling?) as far as landmarks, so once I saw the VOR ahead of me, I knew they worked.

3rd leg, HGO to ADANE intersection. This went really well, I was right on the airway because the ground matched the sectional, it was awesome to see that come together like that.

Last leg, turned inbound to COS and approach put me where they wanted so I tucked away my flight plan since I was 15nm out anyway and in their control. I got to fly 500ft over a Citation and turn in after him, number 2 to land, that was a cool sight to see him that close in the air.

Back on the ground, the controller, my coworkers in the Twin Otter (taxiing out), and myself had some giggles on the net, which was nice and rare for a freq that's usually to busy to say hi on.

I chatted with the chief pilot who I'm scheduled for tomorrow morning for the same flight as my Stage II check and talked about the flight. He reminded me that when going that when I go from KPUB to HGO and HGO to ADANE, to switch the VOR tuneage halfway across. I didn't do this on my trip and that explains why the futher out I was, I was sliding off and on the localizer for it..so that's in my mind and I reviewed the charts to chair fly that part already so I don't forget tomorrow. OH, and I don't think he thought it was very cute when I told him I looked at the GPS coords for the ADANE intersection on Google Earth to visually see what was in the area before I flew. I think it was smart though. The intersection is just west of what looks to be a pig farm, and I picked it up in my windscreen about 8 miles out. Super easy that way!

I've met all my FAR Part 141 mins for the certification now. I have all the hours, dual, solo, XC, night, and so on met already. So the rest now is just knocking out the syllabus and being done. /pray good weather

I always forget I have this thing.

Anyways, for those of you that don't read the purpleboard and follow what's going on, I'm home from the Bowl game demo trip (went well) and on 2 weeks of leave. I usually end up with 30 days of use or lose leave at the end of the fiscal year, and the rate I was on, that was going to happen again this year. So I decided instead of waiting to the end to squeeze the leave in, that I'd go ahead and burn 4 weeks when it's easier for work. So this 2 weeks, and then the middle 2 weeks in February.

The plan is to finish up my Private Pilot's certification on this 2 weeks off. When it started I pretty much only had 7 flights left to be ready for my checkride. Sounds doable 14 days off. Well the first 2 days I cancelled due to snow and winds.

I finally got back in the left seat, after almost 2 months, and flew for 1.2 hours with my instructor. We took off and did steep turns, which I wasn't super happy with, I know I can do better. We also did power on and off stalls, and then Bill suprised me with an engine out emergency. I could've been smoother, but I did okay. My flying was good, just my mind was a bit slow since it had been so long. Then we went over to Springs East airport for some touch and go's. It's a good place to go practice since it's such a tiny runway compared to what I'm used to. With all the snow patches on the runway, I got to practice soft field landings. That was fun.

I was supposed to fly again today, but the winds at Pueblo (for a touch and go) picked up a bit early and the forecast winds here and there were putting me out of limits to go fly. If I had gotten up earlier and reprioritized, I may have been able to go fly earlier in the morning. Anyway, the weather is good for tomorrow morning, so I scheduled the plane for 8am. I'll be showing up early, so most likely, I'll take off early and get the mini-cross country done for some practice.

After that, I'm doing a Navigation Stage Check with the chief pilot. That's the same route I fly tomorrow morning (get it, practice it before you get tested on it!) and we're scheduled for that on Friday morning. It better happen, because if it doesn't, I have to wait until at least Monday to try again, which scrubs my plans of getting my long solo cross country to Goodland, KS done this weekend.

Once I finish that long, solo XC, the lesson plan has me do 2 more lessons with my instructor to review everything and to ensure I meet the requirements of being a pilot. When my instructor feels confident that I can do it, then I'll do a final stage check with the chief pilot again where he reviews everything as well to make sure I'm really ready. If he says okay, I schedule with the Examiner for my check ride and oral exam. I'm more worried about my oral exam than the flying. I feel pretty good about my flying. So I'll need to take a couple days to study up I'm sure and hopefully get with my instructor for review and quizzing. If I pass both, I'm a pilot, yay!

I'm now on an about a 4 week break from my flight training. Well, it'll be 6 weeks by the time I actually get back in the left seat since it's been 2 weeks already. November and December are my busy times at work where I"m only home for half of the time and when I'm home I can't get out of work to go fly.

So, until January I'll be bummed. Although, I should get to fly some in AZ when I'm down there soon and it looks like I'm gonna get 4 hours in the right seat of one of my Twin Otters next week going KLAS to KCOS.

Today I went up solo for 1.3. I worked on my inflight flight planning and using my E6B and watch to calculate my actual ground speed and check point times. I also tossed in figuring a divert in there as well. Then back to the home field for some short and soft field practice. Those didn't go as well as I wanted them to.

I reserved the plane for Wednesday afternoon for a bit. My plan is to go over to Springs East, A50, and do some more soft and short field practice there where it's less busy and I can do full stops and start over. Plus the field is much smaller and shorter than I'm used to anyway. So it should be good practice even visually.

Friday afternoon I'm scheduled for my Stage II check with the chief pilot.

I just finished uploading some new pics to the galleries. New photos include additions to the Abigail and Airplanes albums and new album called Ultima Thule. That's for my trip out to the bush in Alaska.

The best way to see what's new is to go the site, http://jtepool.com/photogallery/ and click on "Last Uploads", or click this... http://jtepool.com/photogallery/thumbnails.php?album=lastup&cat=0

Well it's done. I'm not as excited as I thought I'd be. It kind of felt like I'd been doing this flying thing all along as far as excitement level. As for how well I did, well I guess making it to my planned destinations on time and not crashing I did good.

Although, I'm upset at myself for my flight planning. I didn't realize until I was in the air that what I had marked as antennas for checkpoints were actually power line markings. I was so pissed. So those checkpoints pretty much went out the window. I started using my VOR to track my radials and mark them on the sectional and cross referencing with the few noticeable landmarks to find I was a bit to the west of my intended course. I corrected and things went well. I saw the Lake Merideth ahead and was relieved.

I missed the freq for weather at LaJunta somehow, but a friendly pilot gave me the info I needed. I over flew the airport about 500 above pattern altitude to look at the windsock on a heading of about 120. I decided to land on Runway 8, so I did a wide left turn to enter the left hand downwind for rwy 8 and decended to pattern altitude. The landing went well with just a bit of a crosswind. I'm finally feeling like I'm starting to grasp crosswind landings now.

I'd sure like to do some more flying to uncontrolled fields though to build my confidence on that. I'm so used to being under the protection of a controller at home base that I felt a bit nervous on what I was doing and I found myself questioning whether or not I was doing the right thing. Maybe I should do some pretend chair flying at uncontrolled to go over what I'm supposed to be doing. Or I could just go fly back and forth between some of them.

Off to Pueblo it was. This leg went well. I had a road, river, and rail to follow and once I was 20ish miles out I got picked up by approach and they vectored me in for my downwind to land on 8R. Wow, 8R there is like landing on a taxiway. I swear it's just an old parking ramp that has had a runway painted on it. Turns out it was plenty long enough and it was neat having a parallel rwy that close so I was flying along side a Twin Comanche for the most part. He was a bit faster though.

I departed off to the north to come back home to Colorado Springs and the flight plan pretty much went out the window as both Pueblo and COS vectored me where they wanted me and kept me at assigned altitudes. I ended up landing at my planned time anyway, so that was neat to see that work out. One heck of a nice crosswind landing at that, I felt pretty good about it.

Now, according to the syllabus, I'm supposed to go do a navigation stage check with the Chief Pilot. I'm contemplating doing another solo XC using the same route I'll use on the stage check. One reason is to build my confidence on the flight planning part. Another is to familiarize myself with the route before I go fly it on a stage check. No uncontrolled airfields on that, so I guess that will come after the license. Like everyone says, it's only a license to learn and that's one thing I can focus on becoming better at then.

Well that's pretty much it. I had fun. It feels good to say I flew to La Junta, Pueblo, and back without a GPS. I only had one radio and one VOR. The leg from COS to La Junta is pretty baren and I still managed to know I was off course and figured out where I was and still made it on time. So I guess that's good. More later after I go fly again.

Well my trip to Alaska went well minus the reason of why I went (friend passed away). I went out to the Ultima Thule Lodge for a few days and got to ride around in a Super Cub with one of the best bush pilots there has to be. Flew in a Champ and Turbine Otter as well. The flying was awesome and only reminded me of why I love Alaska so much. I also got in some hikin and salmon fishing, caught my first salmon ever it rocked. One day I'll get around to uploading photos to my gallery.

I got back to my flight lessons today. Did a .9 with my CFI to get current again for solo. Pending weather, I'll do my solo XC this weekend. KCOS - KLHX - KPUB - KCOS. Weeee.

Okay, so at least a couple people read this.

A quick run down of what's happened in flying since my solo. I've done some more dual and solo lessons. I've done my night and night XC flights. Had to do a takeoff abort on the night XC for low RPM and discharging alternator. The chief pilot said there was nothing wrong with the plane and chewed out my CFI for us aborting. The next day, the alternator failed on someone else. I'm glad that wasn't us at night. I think my flight school is going down hill. It seems it's nothing but griping about how the place is losing money and going to be shut down. On top of that, the aircraft have been breaking alot. It may or may not be because the long time mechanic they had retired. But since then, there's only been part time mechanic help and coincidently that's when planes started breaking often.

I've been busy going out of town on leave and TDY, so flying has been spread out quite a bit. My next flight is my solo XC but I've not had the time to sit and flight plan it (which I don't enjoy anyway) and do the flight. And now I'm grounded since I've missed 2 safety meetings. I can't fly until I attend one. Hopefully that will be in a couple of weeks.

I go out of town tomorrow on leave for a little over a week to Alaska. A good friend of mine passed away and there's a memorial celebration Saturday. I decided to stay another week to visit friends and get in some flying. I had been looking at getting my tailwheel endorsement or some float training, but then I got an offer I couldn't pass on. A guy offered for me to come out to his bush lodge and do some flying with him and check out the lodge. It's a pretty nice place with a pretty nice price, but he offered that I could stay as his guest, no charge. I couldnt' say no to something like that. The place is called Ultima Thule Lodge. I just now found out that he's a famous bush pilot as well, with plenty of climbing records and so on. His daughter was is the youngest person to ever complete the Iditarod race and his son is well on his way of becoming a great bush pilot as well. I'm pretty excited to go experience the lodge and meet this family and spend some time with them. It's going to be a real treat and a vacation, and I'm sure I'll remember it for my whole life. It'll also make me want to move back to Alaska even more (not sure how much more I could want to move back though, I think I'm maxxed out already) and to own my own Cub for some back country flying.

I finished all the requirements for my CCAF Associates Degree yesterday! Woo! Now I just need to wait on the system to get all updated so I can get the diploma in my hand. As for my BS degree, I switched from Professional Pilot to Aviation Administration. I felt the Admin offered me more to fall back on if I can't fly for some reason in the future, that and it took away the timeline pressure for getting ratings. Now I can just enjoy flying at my own pace.

Well, when I get back from Alaska, I should have some awesome photos of bush flying...pending weather of course. I don't think I'll have internet access long enough to put anything on here while I'm there. They have the access, but I don't want to tie it up other than to email the wife. Besides, I'll be wanting to just enjoy the serenity of the remoteness of the lodge.

Does anybody even read this thing? I've not done anything on it in awhile, but I got to wondering if anyone ever read this anyway... post a comment if you do.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

That's all there is to say about that.

It happened. After several set backs I got back in the air and between my instructor and the flight school's hard work in scheduling, it came to be.

I soloed this morning, 14 July 2007 in an US Air Force Cessna T-41C, N7870N. I have 0.8 hours of solo / PIC time now!

It was awesome and everything I knew it would be and more. There are a few top memories in my life this will go along with.

We got up early and headed to the school...we being my wife Jen, daughter Abby, and friend Lil'John. Long story short, my instructor Bill and I headed out and got in the plane and did 2 touch and go's and then a full stop landing. Then I taxied over to the club and dropped Bill off and I headed out on my own for the first time. I did 2 touch and go's and a full stop and parked the plane. The tower controller wasn't very helpful for it being my first solo...they usually give you some priority and help out...not for me! I got to see a Regional Jet up close and personal that he forgot where he had put me and him...needless to say, I got to avoid the wake turbulence with some fancy flying...and the tower guy realized his mess up...but I didn't get a sorry...again, I don't think he realized I was on my first solo.

All in all, it went really good. I can tell I need more practice with crosswind landings and getting used to the flight performance of the aircraft without my instructor in it. I had right at 19.0 hours of total flight time when I took the plane up by myself!

Pictures are uploaded on my gallery...here's the direct link to them...

My first solo flight photos