Category: Flight Training

After fits and starts I finally completed my IFR training and passed my checkride the other day.

The reality hasn’t settled in and it feels a bit different vs getting your private. I’m looking forward to filing IFR for my XC flights.

Learning to fly instruments was hard, at least for me but I’m glad I did it. I’ll be calling my insurance agent soon to update my policy and see what that does to my rate.

This also means that I or have more time to build since I’m not trying to fit two flight lessons in each week. Almost done with the top skin for my wing and hope to make more progress shortly.

So I haven’t posted much about my progress on my IFR cert or any of my flying in general.  Around April I decided that I really should just get my IFR ticket done and have been working with Travis (one of our local CFII’s) to get back on the horse and finish up my IFR training.  After my last post last year, I decided to just take a break and do some more XC flights with family.  Multiple trips to NJ (before the TFR’s were an issue) as well as some flights to Ocean City MD and other destinations to help build time.  Basically I just flew for fun for a while.

I just passed my Stage 2 Check ride (and yes I know I could have done better!) and am working on getting both my BFR and my IR XC flights done in the next few weeks.  This will then fulfill my experience / time requirements for the IR Checkride.  I still have a vaild IR written test result that expires in Nov and I’ll just need to study up for the oral and polish up my maneuvers with Travis.    Hopefully I’ll be posting that I got my IR cert in the next month or so.

So I’m well into my IFR training at this point and have I believe at least performed most of the necessary skills. I’m getting better with my scan and correcting for errors as well as getting more comfortable dealing with “unexpected” issues. Did two longer lessons where I was logging XC time and had more interaction with ATC. Nothing that made me feel like a failure. 🙂
My concern at this point is that I still only have about 35 hours XC time and around 30 hours simulated instrument time. Last weekend I flew the family up to NJ to drop my girls off at “camp grandma” for the week so that helped get some additional XC, but I still need Simulated Instrument time as well.

Do I push to get my IFR completed now, or do I take a small break from training and pick up again later (fall / early spring?). My IFR test is good till fall 2018 and I’m sure if I look around I can find someone to split time with. As much I as I want to just get it done, I also don’t want to keep throwing money at Instruction time just for the sake of building hours.

Any, enjoy some photos from my most recent flight!

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While not “technically” part of my IFR training, I was given an opportunity to fly in a TBM 700 as it was being delivered to it’s new owner.  Basically the conversation with my friend went something like this:

Friend:  “Hey, you want to go for a flight in a TBM tomorrow”?

Me:  “Are you serious?  If you are I can totally be available.”

Friend:  “Yes I’m serious.”

Next I took to youtube to get a bit more familiar with the TBM.  Not that I was expecting to do anything, but more so I could follow along without asking so many questions.  I brought my flight bag with me but was a bit nervous mounting cameras since this wasn’t my plane and ended up just taking some photos from my cell phone.  (I’m trying to be respectful of the new/old owners as well as to my friend by keeping identifying information out of my posts / photos.  I wanted to share how awesome the aviation community is, not get anyone upset.)

Did practice some of my IFR clearance copying skills and helped out on the radios and got a little bit of time “hand flying” the plane.  Biggest takeaways?  Flight Directors are VERY COOL, the plane is fast, and the controls are heavier than I expected.  I would LOVE to own one of these, or be in a partnership where I could have access to it, but for now this is outside of my financial means.  Doesn’t mean I can’t dream.

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Well after a series of long breaks due to my schedule as well as my instructors schedule not lining up, I was able to get in an hour of IR training yesterday.  I’m amazed at how quickly the skills I was building up have vanished!  My self-debrief was basically that I was disappointed in my performance and am not where I want to be.  Feedback from my instructor (as well as some others at the airfield) were all similar;  IR training is hard and it take time for it to “click”.  If you are not regularly flying twice a week (or more), you can’t expect to progress.  Difference between logic and emotion.  Logically I completely understand, but it still doesn’t change how I feel.  😛

The remainder of the day was pretty awesome.  I was able to hang out for a bit and give a debrief of S&F to my instructor and a local RV pilot (Robert).  Who doesn’t love talking about aviation, or about the cools things they saw at the latest airshow / vendor booths.  Also retold the story of how my opportunity to fly the Vans demo RV10 didn’t happen.  A few more stories later, and Robert offered to take me up in his -7 for a quick flight from VKX to Cambridge and back before our IMC Club meeting.  DONE!

Quickly file our FRZ / SFRA flight plans and it’s time to pull the plane out of the hangar.  This was a whole bunch of firsts for me.  Taildragger, CS prop, Glass, High Performance, Stick vs Yoke.  I’ll admin, I think I was drooling most of the flight.  Did I get an RV Grin?  Yep!

Robert was awesome and took me over to a quiet area to practice some maneuvers to get a feel of the plane.  I was totally nervous as this thing had so much power, and was EXTREMELY responsive on the controls.  I think the most jarring was when he was having me do a stall in the -7.  I was rightfully nervous applying full power to recover from the stall, so I was totally wimpy in my stall and recovery.  Robert then demonstrated it and I swear the power compared to the weight is insane.  He really knows his plane and was very generous in letting me tag along!  Luckily I was able to provide a small amount of value as I helped fix a minor issue with his on-board GPS.  If only I could get my piloting skills up to the same level as my Tech skills!

Finished up with a great discussion in our local IMC Club where I continue to learn a lot and ask what I’m sure others consider “silly” questions.  Hey, this is how you learn right?

Overall it was a great day of flying and hanging out with fellow pilots at the airport.  Can’t beat that.