Step By Step

The last two weeks have kept me busy flying and studying. While flying I have been focusing on soft field operations, steep turns and ground reference maneuvers. Studying for my written exam has been going fairly well and I hope to take that in two weeks. Planning cross country flights to Ponca City, Oklahoma (PNC) and Newton, Kansas (EWK) has greatly helped in bring everything together. The toughest part of the practice tests is the chart questions, the computer screen makes it hard to draw lines and what not. Thankfully on the actual test I will get paper copies. This past Saturday my instructor and I flew to PNC and EWK. Before the flight we went over the flight plans that I had made. The flight plan consists of several things. There are obvious aspects such as your flight route but even that is not as simple as just pointing the plane in the general direction of your destination and going. You have to account for wind direction and speed, magnetic variation and magnetic deviation. Once you figure all of that you will be able to figure out you just need your distance and speed to figure out the time and fuel you will need. Fuel needed and fuel burned is also highly necessary aspect. For flights under visual flight rule (VFR) conditions you have to have a half hour of fuel on board when you land during the day and 45 minutes at night. Studying what potential obstacles you will have, airspaces you will go through and if and or when you have to talk to ATC are also highly advised. Doing this also gives you a good chance to look at your route and know what landmarks you can use on the ground to make sure you are on the right track and to find potential alternate airports. The flights went great and I handled all aspects of flying. I don't like to boast too much since I know I have a lot of learning to do (there is a great saying that a pilots license is just a license to learn) but I those flights gave me a lot of confidence that I can do this whole piloting thing. Most of the landings went good and I thought that my communications with ATC were very good. The real test will come later this week when I do those flights on my own. Next Saturday we are tentatively planning on flying to a couple of airports with control towers which is a requirement of getting the license. Look for an update after those, as always questions and comments are encouraged. Oh one last thing... GO CYCLONES!!! BEAT IOWA!!!