Flying for a living, at last

I landed my first flying job a few hours ago.
This week has been busy and couldn't have possibly ended better.
On a high from being home with my wife, I interviewed for a CFI job on Tuesday at the flight school I trained for my private pilot certificate in 2004. The meeting went well and they invited me the next day to come back for a test flight. Before doing that, however, I had to take my single-engine CFI add-on on Thursday, which also went well. But more about that later.
Earlier this afternoon, I strapped myself into the right seat of a spanking new Cessna 172 equipped with the very impressive Garmin 1000. The glass cockpit is absolutely amazing. I won't even try to describe its capabilities since John over at Freight Dog Tales has done a brilliant job at it in various installments.
The purpose of the flight was for me to demonstrate that I could fly maneuvers and teach them at the same time. It would, however, also double as an introduction to the G1000, in which I'll get to instruct.
Ed, the chief instructor, and I took off into windy and bumpy skies. I talked him through the take-off and discussed collision avoidance techniques during the climb-out. Once at altitude, I taught slow flight, stalls and engine-out procedures. After about an hour in the air, we headed back for a couple of decent crosswind landings.
"How did he do?" another instructor involved in the hiring process asked him after our return.
"He managed not embarass himself too much," Ed replied with a grin.
And with that, they offered me a position as a flight instructor.
While I don't think it has quite sunk in yet, the feeling is amazing. To think that in two short weeks I'll be teaching students to become pilots! It's incredible. I only hope I'll manage to instill the same passion for flying that my instructors cultivated in me.

*

Thursday was also a very special day.
Since weather rolled into Virginia last week, I decided to take my last checkride back here at home in Massachusetts so as to not delay my return home.
I had the pleasure of flying with Ray Collins, the examiner who gave me my private certificate back in September of 2004.
A little after noon on a beautiful sunny, albeit bumpy day, he handed me a new instructor certificate, adding single-engine privileges to previously-earned multi and instrument ratings.
Being the romantic that I am, I found it significant that my "final" checkride (for now anyway) should take place with the examiner who first granted me the right to fly as a private pilot.
As expected, Ray taught me a lot and couldn't have been a more pleasant person to traverse the ordeal of a checkride with.
The oral focused mainly on judgement, a trait of Ray's rides. He touched on wake turbulence, land and hold short procedures, runway incursions, systems-induced emergencies, short- and soft-field landings and take-offs, spin awareness and recovery and a few more items.
The flight went well, in spite of the bumps and winds that graced the Boston area in the wake of 10 days of heavy rain.
We started off with a soft-field take-off to a soft-field landing, which I taught reasonably well but frankly could've flown better. Next came a short-field take-off to a no-flaps landing.
It was then on to the practice area for maneuvers. First in line was slow flight. After discussing the region of reverse command and maneuvering in slow flight, I demonstrated a power-off stall. Ray then took the controls to perform a botched (on purpose, of course) power-on stall. My job was to critique it, so I noted the obvious lack of right rudder, which resulted in uncoordinated flight. The perfect recipe for a spin.
We moved on to steep turns, chandelles and engine-out procedures, which were all uneventful. Ray once again took the controls and flew an S across a road. Again, I had to critique what he had done wrong.
"Frankly, I think you did a very good job," he said after I shut the plane down.
However, he noted that I allowed the bumps to affect my altitude too much in the pattern during the opening stages of the ride. That of course, would set a bad example for students and I completely acknowledged my lack of discipline during those first few minutes of the test. Nerves, of course, played a role but I should've been on top of that. As the ride progressed, I grew comfortable and flew more precisely.
Flying with Ray was an absolute pleasure. He is friendly, extremely knowledgeable and it was evident that he wanted to pass on tricks he had accumulated over the years.
I look forward to dealing with him from the other side of the fence once I recommend students to him.

Memories from the road: Jasper, Alabama

Johnny Cash's rendition of I've Been Everywhere could be a good soundtrack for the cross-country phase of my training at ATP. While I don't even come close to having visited half the towns he rattles off in the song, those trips took me to a few places I probably would never have seen otherwise.
Among those is Jasper.
Ron, my flight partner (not the angry Red Sox-hating jet pilot), and I were dispatched out to the quaint Alabama town from Atlanta. The flight there was awesome as we found ourselves once more playing among towers of puffy cumulus clouds.
After landing, dispatch told us the aircraft was to be used for a checkride, so we had the afternoon pretty much open. Now, at this point in our training we were both eager to get home to our wives so the news initially irritated us. We walked into the shack that is the FBO and were greeted by two nice gentlemen, one of whom was the examiner for the checkride in question. He was also a warm and engaging person, FedEx Captain, former F-4 pilot and owner of this majestic military trainer.


With time to kill and empty stomachs, Ron and I inquired about local eateries and were kindly shown to the airport's crew car: a 1980s Cadillac stretch limo, seen here behind a Super Decathlon that flew in for the afternoon's air show.


Eager to return before the show, we hopped in our pimpin' ride to cruise to downtown Jasper. As we passed a few local pilots, they waved and with obvious amusement warned us about the car's many shortcomings. A couple of miles from the airport a roadside restaurant promised the best food in town. Good enough, so we pulled over. Parking a limo is fun.
Minutes later, I was in heaven with a giant plate of pulled smoked pork and homemade barbecue sauce and a bucket of ice-cold sweet tea, which I rapidly grew very fond of during those two weeks in the south.
Full of food, we headed back to the airfield for the show. As we pulled in, two Pitts crossed a mere few feet above the runway before coming back to land. Dang, we missed it.
The next hour was spent paying for such a big lunch. All that food combined with the heat and waiting around made us groggy. So I ventured outside in search of something to do and stumbled upon this: an old decrepit British jet trainer behind the main hangar.


My food-induced coma was, however, short-lived. While sniffing around the old jet, the Pitts pilots readied for another demonstration of their extraordinary skills.



Within minutes, they were airborne. I stood by the side of the runway, completely enthralled by the aerial ballet they performed.

The performance was followed by an equally breath-taking series of stunts by another pilot in a Super Decathlon. Much of his routine, however, took him only a few feet above the runway. With every pass, I was sure he'd smack the aircraft into the ground. My sentiment was echoed by the Pitts pilots. Hammerheads 500 feet off the deck just don't seem like a good idea but they're sure fun to watch.



As the sun set and the air cooled, we took off to return to Atlanta.
While waiting around for a whole afternoon wasn't what I had hoped for, the day in Jasper turned out to be pleasant. We met great pilots with a lot of good advice and enjoyed an amazing display of piloting skills. More importantly, it was nice to be away from the large fancy FBOs with sparkling new crew cars, sprawling sofas, plasma screen TVs and the inevitable couple of bragging corporate pilots.
The people in Jasper were genuine and true aviation nuts, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants pilots with amazing stories and the talent to back them up.
The Pitts drivers were down to earth guys who were out to have fun, not show off. What they did that day truly inspired me.
Maybe one day, I'll be fortunate enough to have the skills to take a little red biplane up for a similar ride.

Homeward bound

While packing for my final trip home, I found heavy sweaters and fleece, which seemed oddly out of place in the warm spring weather. They reminded me that it was bitterly cold and snowy when I first moved down here to Virginia to begin flight training. Now the trees are full of leaves, my skin is tanned and I feel like an entirely different person.
In the morning, I'll set off in my car for an 8-hour ride back home, where I'll resume normal life with Jen and Emily.
I'm happy. And tired.
Shortly before 2 a.m., I stumbled exhausted into my apartment after passing my CFII (instrument flight instructor) checkride. The 17-hour day had begun at 8 a.m. After some ground instruction and a training flight, it was time to complete paperwork ahead of the checkride, work on a lesson plan and generally brush up on knowledge areas I deemed weak. Around 8:30 p.m., the examiner pitched up after a retest that apparently didn't go so well.
I taught him a single-engine partial-panel non-precision approach, compass and timed turns on a procedure turn and a DME arc on the white board and answered questions until it was time to go fly around 10:30 p.m. Since I'd done my instrument rating with him, he flew the aircraft. My job was to teach him, the person who through several checkrides taught me so much. It felt odd at first, but I soon got in the groove of it.
We headed out to Martinsburg to shoot the full ILS and the full missed, then set up for the GPS-A into Winchester. Eight miles out, I pulled an engine and in short order "failed" the vacuum system by covering up his artificial horizon and directional gyro, all the while talking him through how to shoot the approach. Not surpisingly, he did a stellar job.
From there, we headed to the Linden VOR where I taught him a DME arc and had a blast setting up for unusual attitudes.
We landed back in Manassas at 1 a.m. I was now a CFII. A tired, worn out one.
The past three months seem like an eternity, yet they flashed by me. I came here a private pilot and am leaving a multi- and single-engine commercial pilot with multi-engine and instrument instructor ratings and a whole lot to learn. I think the most important thing I learned during the program is what I don't know.
The weather will unfortunately deter me from taking my single-engine CFI checkride as planned tomorrow, but I've already scheduled for next week with the examiner who gave me my private ticket in Massachusetts almost two years ago.

*

The flying has been awesome.
I love the Seminole. It's taken me safely everywhere I've needed to be and I'll miss the airplane very much. While putting it to bed for the last time last night after my CFII ride, a hint of sadness suddenly overcame me. So I sat in the cockpit for a few minutes enjoying the memories that rushed back, from clumsy training flights to that white-knuckle trip in icy clouds over the Smokey Mountains and many many more. They all made me smile.
I've also made many good friends, from Ron and Eric, my first two instructors here, to flight partners and other fellow students along the way. We were all bound together by the hectic pace of the course and I'm sure they will all turn out to be excellent pilots wherever they choose to go.
As for me, my first order of business is to return to my wife. From there, I'll begin to learn as an instructor, do my best to teach well, pay my dues and make my way to bigger and faster airplanes.
I don't know where I'm going yet, but I'm getting there.

Playing the in the flight levels

One of the first things one notices when reading about the career pilot program I'm about to complete is a ride in a Citation 525. While mainly a means to earn high-altitude and high-performance endorsements, the flight is intended as a bit of a break for students and a chance to taste what could one day be: being at the controls of a jet.
After passing my initial, I flew myself from Fort Lauderdale to Jacksonville for the ride, but ended up frustrated and grounded for three days waiting for scheduling matters to be resolved.
On Friday, however, dispatch gave me the green light and I boarded the Citation with much excitement and anticipation.


My flight partner went first, and flew the jet to Naples, FL, where we did a beautiful visual approach over the Gulf.


On the ground, I hopped into the right seat and under the patient and careful supervision of ATP's VP Jim prepared for an exhilerating experience.

On the runway, I held the brakes and advanced the throttles to 60% of N1, the fan stage of the engine. With all gauges in the green, Jim took the throttles to set take-off power while I released the brakes and kept the aircraft on centerline. Unlike other planes I've flown, the jet required only minor rudder input to remain centered. Jim called out V1, the speed at which we'd be committed to take-off no matter what, then Vr, at which point I pulled back on the yoke and followed the flight director's instructions.
We left the earth like a rocket ship and maintaining the correct pitch took a little getting used to, since an attitude like that would most likely stall the Seminole.
Jim called 400AGL and I replied by asking for flaps up, climb power and the after take-off checklist. A few thousand feet up, I engaged the autopilot to guide us up to FL220. On the way, Jim taught us about descent planning, which is essential to the proper and efficient operation of any aircraft but more particularly Jet-A guzzling jets.
The view from up there was amazing and the plane behaved superbly.
I set up for the LOC BC 25 at Orlando Executive and shot a pretty decent approach, especially baring in mind that this was my first time doing a back course. It was just another instrument approach with everything happening just a whole lot faster. It ended in a nice landing, with Jim helping me out on the controls.
From Orlando, I flew the Citation to Cecil. After take-off, I opted to handfly the plane instead of engaging the autopilot right away. We talked about high-altitude operations and too soon found ourselves close to Cecil where I did a visual.
It was sad to give up the right seat, but the experience will remain vividly etched in my memories.
Good times!

Hang a left at the gator

I was sweating bullets in the stuffy Seminole cockpit 4,000ft above the Everglades trying to pinpoint my position over the sprawling swamp. Next to me, in the left seat, was the examiner responsible for deciding my fate as an instructor candidate. And with precious few landmarks around us, I could feel that pink slip draw closer and closer.
There's something to be said for uncluttered landscapes where features stand out more. In this case, however, all I had were two highways running east and west, both with a reasonably similar bend in about the same spot. It took a couple of minutes, but I finally found our position and headed back in for short-field and single-engine landings.
In the past hour, I'd taught the examiner turns about a point, steep turns, stalls, a Vmc demo, slow flight, a full engine shutdown and an emergency descent. Except for the first series of steep turns, all went reasonably well and I still held hope of being an instructor upon our return to Fort Lauderdale.
My short-field landing was spot on the numbers, but far from soft. Up we went again and at 500AGL I failed the left engine and ran my "student" through the emergency drill before putting in a little power to simulate a feathered prop. Came around and made a decent landing. The examiner took the controls and I had to critique his take off and landing.
Minutes later, having flown a passable but far from perfect checkride, I was a multi-engine instructor.
Strangely enough, joy wasn't the first feeling I experienced. Rather, a soothing sense of relief came over me as I tied the Seminole down. The initial CFI checkride is said to be one of the toughest, if not the toughest checkride in a pilot's career and with only one incredibly intense week of studying in CFI school and little flying I felt utterly unprepared for the the big day.
Spin training a few days before made for a fun break. I love spins!
Monday morning came and I flew myself from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale, a pleasant flight with some actual, a nice view of the Daytona Speedway and the Kennedy Space Center. After landing, I rushed to the hotel to study more as time inoxerably rushed by me. Even after a week of prep, I wasn't sure where to start. Stability? The drag charts? Perhaps a final review of my lesson plans? Oh, crap, how about weather? And those regs could use a little more brushing up on.
At 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning, after only a handful of hours of sleep, I awoke feeling overwhelmed.
"Who am I kidding, I'm not ready, I can't do this," I thought.
Exhaustion had caught up with me and the monumental task ahead seemed insurmountable.
I arrived at the airport at 6:30 and loaded up on caffeine before starting the oral half and hour later.
The examiner seemed friendly, greeting me with a pleasant smile. We chatted for a bit and as the questions came my way I grew more and more comfortable. A lot of the knowledge sprung out from dark recesses in my brain, odds and ends I'd forgotten I'd stored there.
All in all it was a great experience and the examiner couldn't have been nicer. He also taught me a few good tricks to help my students along.
I should be going for my CFII checkride in the next couple of days, then on to the single-engine add-on. I'll then head home to reunite with my wife and teach.
It's definitely been a trip. A long one.
The last three months feel like a year.