Commercial pilot

Became a multi- and single-engine commercial pilot last week, before rushing home for a couple of days with my wife at home. I'm now swamped in Atlanta, trudging my way through CFI school. Lots of work. My initial CFI checkride, or MEI in this case, is scheduled in Fort Lauderdale this coming Tuesday and should be followed shortly by the CFII and single CFI add-on.
Started the week off a little overwhelmed but am slowly gaining confidence. It won't be easy but definitely feasible.
Back to the books...

Rest and fire clouds

The past three days were very welcomed indeed.
After completing the 75-hour cross-country phase of the course, I raced to Baltimore to catch the last flight home to Boston and made it home utterly shattered around 1 a.m. where the soothing presence of my wife and heavenly sleep awaited.
Jen and I had a chance to spend some time together and we took Emily bowling on Thursday evening, when I got to show off my hitherto undiscovered talents as a bowler. Scenes from Kingpin rushed through my mind...
Being home was a nice change of pace after about two weeks of constant uncertainty about my schedule and what state, city or bed I'd get to sleep in.
The cross-countries were fun but tough, especially on a newly-married couple. While we knew it'd be hard to see each other, Jen and I attempted to make plans to get together on a couple of occasions, only to have my schedule, dictated by our dispathers, foil them with invariable consistency.
Those 75 hours of cross-country flying were, however, very beneficial. I flew in icing conditions, logged a lot more IMC time than I'd expected, flew over the cold Smoky mountains and in Florida's warm and performance-hindering weather, dealt with the gear issue after a very long day of flying, caught a leak in the exhaust manifold before dispatch had a chance to send us back out in that plane and flew from the right seat.
Dealing with dispatch was also a big lesson. While mostly pleasant and easy, some of our experiences with them forced us to be more assertive and act as pilot in command rather than submissive students. Flying on a schedule was also a new and very educational experience.
The cross-country phase of the training is also designed to allow students to practice CRM, or cockpit crew management, where one pilot flies the aircraft while the other works the radios, navigates and handles checklists. I admit that before launching into the cross-countries, I was more excited about the flying part than the monitoring role. But after 75 hours of it, I realize the benefits of CRM and of being equally dedicated to the pilot monitoring duties as to flying the aircraft.
I flew most of the cross-countries with a fellow student, Ron. Inevitably, we fell into a CRM groove and developed a good system. A few days ago, however, dispatch sent him off to Atlanta while I was told to overnight in Jacksonville, Florida. The next morning, I was assigned to fly to Atlanta with another student and wondered how it would be to fly with a new pilot. I was surprised when everything happened the same way as it did with Ron. Within minutes, the new guy and I fell into a groove and both legs that day were completely uneventful and as smooth as if we'd flown together for weeks.
In the past two weeks I've also seen parts of the country I'd never been too: Knoxville, TN, Jacksonville, FL, Wilmington, NC, Jasper, AL, Atlanta and Trenton, NJ. While most stop-overs didn't give me a chance to see the cities, our trip to Alabama gave us a few hours to sit around the backwater airport and talk with great people including a couple of former Navy pilots who showed off their skills in two awesome Pitts and a local examiner who also flies as a Captain for FedEx. I'll post pictures from that day soon.
Three days at home wasn't quite enough, but it sure was a nice break and the perfect way to recharge my batteries. I boarded the AirTran flight back to the D.C. area today with my heart just a little heavy and my stomach gripped by sadness. But with my single- and multi-engine commercial checkrides coming up this week and CFI school the following week I'll be home soon.
As we approached BWI, I looked outside at the darkening sky and shimmering lights on the ground. A muted flash of light suddenly caught my eye off our left wing. As I turned my eyes in that direction, I noticed lightening inside a large isolated cumulonimbus. The flash was followed by another one in a different part of the cloud, and then another and so on. The strikes varied in intensity but some were strong enough to light up the entire cloud with a strange yellowish light making it seem like it was on fire. It was quite an enthralling sight.
Even after so much flying in the past two weeks, the perspective on the world from up there is unrivaled.

100 hours!

Somewhere between Trenton, NJ and Manassas today, I broke my first hundred hours of multi-engine time. Totaling my logbook tonight revealed a total 101.3 hours of multi and 230+ total time.
A large chunk of that came from the recent flurry of cross-countries. More important than the numbers, I've really grown comfortable in the Seminole, improving my flying skills of course but also getting better at seemingly smaller chores such as synching the props, efficiently leaning the mixtures, better cross-referencing engine gauges during flight, flying the IFR system and talking to air traffic control.
With yet an infinity of things to learn, I truly feel that I am a much more confident and capable pilot than I was 10 days ago. In that period I've learned first-hand about icing, mountain wave, logged many hours of flying in the clouds, dealt with an emergency gear extension and an exhaust manifold leak (also a story for another time).
There's more I have to document about the past few days, such as the afternoon spent in a backwater Alabama airport chatting with geezers and drooling as a handful of aerobatics pilots showed off their skills a few feet above the runway, but that'll have to wait since badly needed sleep awaits.
After flying 6.8 hours today, dispatch said my flight partner will go with another student tomorrow, hinting to the end of my cross-country phase for now and the beginning of commercial training ahead of CFI school in a very short while.
It's exciting to think that if all goes well, I'll be a commercial pilot this time next week. But it also means tons more studying. Before that, I'll need a few hours of sleep... perhaps 100 will do.

The Carolinas, Florida and Georgia

After a late flight to Wilmington, NC, last night, Ron and I took off for Jacksonville, Fla. this morning. Rain and clouds swept through North Carolina and we left in grey and hazy skies. As we pushed south, however, the clouds lifted a little but the haze remained.


Notice the little spot on the windshield in the picture above. While flying at 6,000 feet something smashed against the plexiglas. After taking a closer look, I noticed a little blood and what looked like a piece from the shattered carcass of a bee. Of course, I didn't expect bees to fly that high and thought that it might be from the digested remains of a bee via the backside of a bird. My wife looked it up when I told her about this and it turns out that some bees do in fact soar many thousands of feet in the sky in something of a hibernating state. They supposedly just float around in the wind and awake when they hit warmer temperatures. So I guess this one really did go in its sleep.

Here is the coast of Florida, a few miles north of Jacksonville, where we were greeted by 90 degree temperatures.

After a very quick turn in Jacksonville, and a switch of seats, we took off and headed for Atlanta. I filed for 8,000 feet. After a brief while in the clouds, we punched through the deck and discovered crystal clear skies above and enthralling cloud formations. Unfortunately the most beautiful sights weren't recorded on film -- or digital sensor in this case -- because they occured very briefly as we broke out between big cloud formations.
We zipped through narrow canyons of clouds and were at times dwarfed by monumental columns of cumuls clouds that stuck out of the sky like plumes from explosions.
Below are just some shots taken when I wasn't wrestling today's aircraft, 1CK, which earned the infamous nickname "Chicken Killer" because it's a piece of junk. For instance, the throttles were impossible to synch and when I got them anywhere near they would quickly get out of synch. Also, the aircraft had a nasty rolling tendency. To test it, I let go of the controls and within 8 seconds it was in a 30 degree bank.
The flight was, nonethless, very enjoyable and stunning.




Is it me, or is that cloud below giving me the finger?


After about two hours, ATC dropped us below the clouds and we were once again in a thick haze that enveloped Atlanta's skyline.

Another shot, while on the GPS 26 into Fullton County airport. About a minute after this photograph was taken, we had a great up-close view of the city but I was too busy flying the approach to take a picture.