Right seat

My second aerobatics lesson was cancelled on Saturday because the CFI was stuck out of town, so I went up with buddy and CFI John and flew from the right seat for the first time. Since I'll be spending much time on that side of the plane when I instruct (and later as an FO), I figured I'd take a gander at what it looks like.
All in all, I have to say there's not much to it.
John, who is sort of in between flying jobs at the moment, took off and went under the hood for a little bit. He then handed me the controls. Straight and level and tracking a radial were easy, so I decided to try my hand at steep turns. To the left, I lost a little altitude because the sight picture out the front is quite a bit different but remained within private PTS. To the right: no problem. Accomplished the 360 within commercial standards. Easy peasy.
John wanted to fly an approach, so while he pulled out his plate, briefed it and set up the radios for it I flew the plane around a little, rapidly getting comfortable with operating the controls from the right. The weather on Saturday was absolutely gorgeous and I soon lost myself in the comfortable and familiar feeling of flitting around the skies of New England.
When Boston finally got back to us for vectoring to the ILS29 at Bedford, I let John take the controls again and kept my eyes out for traffic as he once again disappeared under the hood.
He flew a nice tight approach and circled to land on 23, where he performed a nice touchdown then retracted flaps, added full power, took off and kept the plane level a few feet off the runway. The speed gathered quickly and he pulled the wheel back swiftly, which projected us several hundred feet in the air. Nice!
Plus, with the crisp cold air the 172SP was performing especially well.
Controls back to me to try out landing from the right seat. My first (left) pattern was a little sloppy as I had to look over John to see the field. Once on downwind, however, I was holding altitude, heading and speed without much effort and soon began a nice stabilized approach (albeit a hair low on final) to a decent landing. Flaps up, full power and we're off again.
Second time around the pattern, flying from the co-pilot seat now feels a lot more comfortable. I fly a nice tight pattern, level off at TPA, descend right on glide slope and plant the airplane softly on the centerline.
Very satisfying flight indeed!
Wonder what flying right seat in the soup is like...

Enrolled!

Two days after the most depressing day at work in my five and half years at the Evil Company, I am finally enrolled at ATP for the 90-day career program! What an oscillation of feelings! I came very close to quitting on Thursday when my morale dipped to an all-time low at work but found myself nothing short of elated the very next morning after having finalized my career change plans.
So January 30 is D-Day, 0800, Manassas, VA.
Between now and then I'll be kept very busy because I'm planning on taking all the writtens so that I can spend time on flows and procedures and hopefully make time to see my wonderful and very supportive wife. Being away will by far be the hardest part of the program for me, much more so than the hectic schedule I'll be keeping.
All my checkrides have already been scheduled and it seems April will be a long, long month, during which I'll earn my commercial ME/SE, CFI, CFII and MEI.
I'll also be taking my multi-engine private one week after starting.
In addition to studying for the writtens, I'll start reading the Seminole POH next week, as I'll be required to know it inside out by the time I arrive at ATP in January.
It's almost a weird feeling to stand of the edge of realizing a dream cherished since childhood. I remember watching airlines fly over my house as a kid and wondering where they left from and where they are headed (still do), or boarding a flight and being transfixed by the exciting sight of the instruments and the flurry of activity in the cockpit as the crew prepares for another leg (still do too!).
Well, perhaps a year or more from now, I'll be in that right seat learning a new trade and I'm excited and nervous all at once.
There's a lot of hard work ahead, but I think I'm ready for it.

One hurdle cleared

A few weeks ago, I posted a note about the process foreigners have to go through in order to undergo flight training. In short, it involves asking the Transportation Security Administration for permission to enroll in an aviation programme. The application is typically followed by a thorough background search, fingerprinting and the obligatory fee.
Well, the good people at TSA last night sent me the email I'd been waiting for for weeks and have decided to allow me to pursue my dream.
It's a small development on the surface, but an important one for me since everything from enrollment to financing was tied to it.
Incidentally, the permission to begin training came at a low point in my increasingly painful days at work. A nice upper, for sure. My departure from this hellish office will not come a day too soon.
I will enroll for ATP tomorrow... can't wait.

I can quit anytime, seriously...

I may have developed a new addiction...
Around 1530 yesterday afternoon, I took off from Hanscom's runway 5 in my school's Super Decathlon for my first aerobatics lesson. With little daylight left and only minutes of ground instruction, my CFI and I opted to run through a few exercises so that I could familiarize myself with the aircraft, similar to the one shown below.
We began with a few dutch rolls, designed to improve stick and rudder coordination, which after flying so long in 172s can get a little sloppy. The CFI picked a road ahead, lined the nose up with it and demonstrated the maneuver: alternating swift turns to the right and the left. He was spot on. My turn... hmm, the nose drifts here and there. His arm and leg movements were a lot more deliberate than mine. Must stop pussyfooting that rudder!
The Decathlon has much more aileron authority than the Cessnas I fly, mostly imparted by an additional surface hanging below the wing called the spade. It basically acts as power steering and my feet were, I think, a little shy in matching the deflection.
Within a few minutes, however, I got the hang of flying stick and the dutch rolls improved.
We moved on to the next exercise: drawing squares in the sky with the nose of the plane, all the while keeping the wings level. You start off straight and level and kick in some right rudder. The nose moves right and the wing wants to dip, so I use just enough opposite aileron to curtail the movement. Hold it there, then raise the nose. Hold it there for a second. Now, left rudder, a touch of right aileron, hold it. Push forward to lower the nose and keep it there. Finally, right rudder, some left ailerons and we're back to where we started.
It took a couple of tries, but my squares began to look like, well, squares, as opposed to weird distorted ovals.
As the sun receded in a distant and hazy copper horizon, we performed a few steep turns, which are part of private pilot training. While nothing new, I hadn't practiced them in a while and since I'd never flown stick before it was good to brush up on them.
As we headed home, my CFI demonstrated an aileron roll, which I can't wait to try myself.
Next lesson is in two weeks and I can't wait. We'll go over these exercises again and venture into spins and hopefully rolls and loops.
Flying the Decathlon is definitely different than what I've been used to up to now, but I think I will like the aircraft a lot. Visibility is quite good and the stick is quite a pleasurable way to control it.
The instructor I flew with is also a great guy who's been doing this sort of stuff since he was a kid. So he knows his stuff and most importantly he clearly loves it.
The aerobatics bug bit me on my wedding day when Jen and I rode in the front of a 1941 Waco UPF 7. Paul, our pilot, performed spins, barrel rolls, loops and hammerheads, opening up this whole new world of flying to my very very influenceable mind!
Now, having myself touched the controls of such a capable aircraft, which wants nothing better than to spin and loop and roll around the sky, I think I might get hooked.
Sure, some of it scares me a little, but that's what's been so great about flying for me: conquering the occasional fear to discover what I can only now describe as pure bliss.
I love flying!!!!!!

Night Skies

Yesterday's flight was one of the most enjoyable and challenging in a while. My school's night check-out had lapsed so I went out with my instructor friend to get signed off for another year. This is not an FAA required flight, but rather a policy at my FBO to ensure that you are competent and safe for night flying.
We took off close to 7 p.m. in somewhat turbulent but crystal clear skies and headed south. I'd planned to make an occasion of the check-out and add a night time tour of Boston to it, which would also be a memorable experience for Jen and my stepdaughter Emily. After calling Boston Approach we were cleared into Bravo airspace below 2,000 from the West, so we followed the Mass. Pike and reached the city in no time flat thanks to a healthy tail wind.
From our vantage point at 1,500 ft, the city, shining with a million lights, stood majestically out of the darkness of the harbor. While we maintained proper separation from the city, we could almost see through the buildings' windows and enjoyed spying the flurry of activity (read mind-boggling traffic) in the city center's congested and winding streets. We circled downtown from the south soon finding ourselves on what looked like a long final to runway 4R at Logan. Sticking their noses in strong southwesterly winds, a perfectly aligned stack of airliners flew toward us in the distance and in a perfect aerial ballet skillfully coordinated by the good people at Boston Approach touched down gracefully on 22L.
As we turned west to loop around the North End, the city lights projected faded orange spots on the edge of the water below us and the Custom House never looked quite so stunning. A minute later we followed the Charles River over the Zakim Bridge, which stood out with its modern design and pleasing blue lighting. Soon, we reached Fenway Park, which while empty was flooded with white lights. I made a steepish turn over it to prolong our view, which turned out to be good practice since strong winds forced me to pull out my rusty ground reference maneuver skills.
Approach kindly allowed us to make a second orbit around the city before we left their airspace and headed back for a few stop and go's, of which the FAA requires three in the last 90 days in order to be current to carry passengers at night.
I followed the Mass. Pike out of town, overflew my friend's house (where his wife, whom he had called beforehand, flashed the houselights on and off as we passed overhead) and soon prepared to enter the pattern at Hanscom.
"Report midfield left downwind for 23," came from the controller.
I'd spotted the beacon and was now trying to figure out which ones of these myriad lights delineated the dimly lit runway 23. It took me a while as I wrestled to keep the plane upright as we hit a few moderate bumps, but I finally did it. While very familiar with the area, it looked almost foreign at night.
It was a great reminder of just how different flying at night is. As a passenger on an airliner, with all the time to focus outside the window, I'd never have a problem spotting a landmark at night. But in turbulent skies, as I kept glancing back and forth between the panel to check my altitude and speed and outside to find the runway and spot traffic, it's quite a bit of work and can be disorienting. I was actually frustrated by my initial confusion and still am. Lesson: in spite of familiarity with an area I will from now on have an airport diagram handy to help me figure out the field's layout relative to the beacon.
Now on final for my first night landing in many many months, I wondered how I'd do. The physics, of course, are the same as during the daytime. But a runway at night can play tricks on you and typically a pilot will feel that he his flying higher than he really is, making it easy for an inexperienced night pilot as myself to make a hard, flat landing.
Yet, the first touchdown was soft and spot on the centerline in spite of howling winds.
I stopped the plane and went around the pattern twice more, with much more ease finding my bearings. My final two landings of the night were good, somewhat soothing the frustration about my amateurish entry to the traffic pattern earlier.
Night flying, while spectacular, is a different animal to your normal day VFR outings. It can be conducted very safely but as with anything else in aviation, great respect and humility on the part of the pilot is necessary. While I have no problems carrying passengers in the daytime, I plan on getting sharper at night on my own before I take anyone with me. I've had a couple of nice solo flights at night back when my skills in the dark skies weren't as rusty and it will probably take another two or three outings alone or with an instructor before my comfort level and abilities get back up to where I want them in order to feel safe flying other people around.
So here I am, sitting at my desk with a view on the Charles, longingly eyeing that little corner of the sky where I flew last night. Wish I was there again now.
I'll tell you one thing: My office looks a lot better from up there.