The Pilot Training Record is the document that has to be maintained as a student pilot - it records every flight, what you did on every flight, where you went, what you flew -- everything.
It belongs to the student, not the flying club or school. Alas, when you apply for your "real" license then it is sent in to Transport Canada, never to be seen again.
This morning, after dropping off my wife at the airport for her week-long vacation, I stopped in at the flying school and picked up my PTR. I'm changing schools. I had a brief chat with the Assistant CFI over the service counter, discussing the reasons. But ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I am going to commit a lot of time and money to finishing my PPL, and I am going to be happy doing it. And I didn't think I was going to be happy here.
My reasons:
They do not have an online booking system. I expect a web-based booking system, which is much faster when it comes to being opportunistic about making last-minute bookings. And I have had inconsistent results with them answering the phone, and even worse results in returning messages, so the absence of an online system is even more problematic.
They fly the Katana - which is a great little aircraft, easy to handle, but the useful load is minimal. With two adults (one of which is me!) and a full tank of gas, we're over-weight.
It will be more expensive - a good slice of the flying time is spent getting from the airfield to the practice area. It's a 20-minute flight (at least), not a 5-minute hop. And the Katana flies slowly because of the low power output of the engine.
The atmosphere - they are a business, operating on the GA apron at a major airport. The atmosphere is a bit sterile. I'm after a rather an additional factor, a casual, social, relaxed dimension to the environment, which a club-style organization can provide. In addition, I need to get my wife engaged in flying (starting with the social dimension), which I can get at Rockcliffe.
I was really pleased with my first lesson (with the ACFI) - we got along well, he's quit a cheerful guy, and in addition to being a good pilot he is also a good instructor. My second lesson - not so jolly.
So I picked up the PTR, and I'm switching. I'll write a thank-you email to the CFI, describing my reasons for changing.
I showed up at the flight school 20 minutes before my lesson, my instructor was not there. I picked up the bag for the aircraft and went out and did the preflight. After one visit, I learned that checking the oil on the Rotax engine is a pain - it has a dry sump so you need to hand-prop the engine to pump out the oil which has seeped into the sump and then check the oil level. It was, of course, low so I asked a ramper to fill the oil (nobody but staff is supposed to add oil), and went inside and waited for my instructor.
At 2 minutes to lesson the instructor breezes in, introduces himself, and we go sit down and he proceeds to give me an inquisition for an hour, checking me on all the Gate 4 items. Ummmmm, OK. I wasn't expecting this, and because I download and read manuals I could handle more questions than I expected. But how much oil does the engine hold? Coolant? Hell, I dunno -- but I should (the answer is between 3.2 and 3.4 US quarts). I knew all of the v-speeds cold. I discovered I was rusty on other things I should know, such as aircraft documents.
Because the Katana is low-powered and very different from the Eclipse, or because this instructor insists on molding everyone to his way of doing things, he got quite pedantic about the exact right way to do everything. I believe it was well-intentioned (to get me up to a level-4 crispness), but no context was provided by either this instructor or by the previous one. Hence the title for this posting.
We went outside, did a pre-flight, pointed at all the parts and asked dozens of questions. There are five holes on the front of the Katana, which let in air for the oil cooler, coolant cooler (for the cylinder heads), cooling air for the cylinders, air to the carbs, and a little one-inch hole which lets in cooling air for the generator. Plus two more on each side, for the air vents for the human cargo.
We loaded up, worked the checklist, worked the radios, and went flying.
The Katana flies like a pregnant goose. We were getting maybe 300-400fpm, and we were climbing to 3,000'. ATC was patient.
My altitude holding sucked. The feedback from the elevator to the stick was minimal, so you need to watch the attitude and the altimeter like a hawk to maintain constant altitude, and setting the trim was guesswork.
My confidence sucked. The inquisition took it out of me.
The only specific exercise we flew was steep turns, 45 degrees of bank while maintaining altitude. In this aircraft you need to do it right, because if you lose 200 feet of altitude it took forever to get it back, and an eternity to get it back if banked at 45 degrees.
The practice area was stupid busy - there must have been 5-6 aircraft in there, and most of us were doing upper-air work. More distractions.
Finally we started flying home, doing a descending 360 degree turn down to 2,000 ft and flying under the area where another aircraft was practicing. Flying west over the river we coordinated with another aircraft who was headed north, and another aircraft from the same school came barrelling through with no radio calls.
We reconnected with Ottawa Terminal then Tower, flew a right base, and landed. My landing sucked - no bounces etc, but I didn't maintain airspeed through final approach. And I succombed to the desire to put in right yaw.
There was no post-flight debriefing. My instructor said I did well (huh?), and then set about chewing a new one for the pilot that came barrelling through unannounced.
While all of the actions of this school are well-intentioned - and I can see how they would be effective - the packging leaves something to be desired.
The other factor is that the Katana just doesn't have much MTOW (1609 pounds), and it is easily at maximum weight, or over, with two adult males aboard.
I left. I'm not sure I'll go back.
In all, the lesson was worthwhile. I learned that I need to pick up my game. I am admittedly rusty in my flying technique, and switching aircraft has been a learning experience. I have been doing lots of reading in the past 4 months. But if I want to be a pilot, I need a lot more crispness.
I went flying again last Saturday... I'm not sure if I liked it or not (different instructor, different technique). I definitely learned that I am rusty on my finer techniques and that I will have to pick up my game.
However, I am also not the little lithe guy I was in my early teenage years, and so weight is a concern when flying the Katana especially with another (male) instructor and a full tank of gas.
So, I have an appointment with the CFI over at Rockland Flying Club at 3:30 this afternoon. Aside from flying different aircraft (172's and 152's), they are a club rather than a business, and so there apparently is a different culture around the place.
I don't know if I am going to switch, or not -- but my mind is open.
After not flying since January, on Tuesday I had enough of the absence. Time to get back at it.
So I phoned one of the local flying schools and booked a flight. I chose Ottawa Aviation Services, primarily because they fly the Katana, and I am so close to PPL that I did not want a drastic change of aircraft from the Eclipse. One of my instructors went to OAS, and others have had good words to say. I'll get my Cessna type-certification later.
This was a flight with several firsts:
First time flying an aircraft other than an Eclipse,
First time flying in a control zone (CZ),
First time flying to/from CYOW,
First time flying without a GPS,
First time flying with OSA,
First time flying with a carburetor instead of fuel injection,
First time flying an aircraft with a constant-speed propeller,
First time flying in 4 months.
Original plan for the flight was to depart Ottawa, fly to the practice area, do some upper air work, return. Along the way we decided to divert to CYRP to do some T&G, as I was still thinking about whether I want to fly this aircraft.
Flying went fine. W&B was done (we were at the max weight). Pre-flight was straight-forward. Checking the oil in a Rotax engine is a PITA, since you need to hand-rotate the prop to pump out the dry sump, to get an accurate reading on the dipstick. There is also coolant to check.
Phoned FSS to get a transponder code (they answered on the second ring), new checklist so I needed to be very methodical and not allow the checklist get corrupted by my memory, engine start was clean, taxi was easy. I had to think carefully about each radio call before making it, and stumbled the phonetic alphabet. I certainly didn't pick up the information from the controllers quickly. I also need to get a notebook and create some quick-reference sheets - the whole dynamic of receiving instructions from ATC is new, I will forget them. It was tough enough to be listening to every message to key on our call sign.
We briefed our departure. Rotate is 51kt in the Katana (Eclipse was 44). After take-off we turn right 30 degrees and increase pitch to drop the engine RPMs, because some folks who live at the end of the runway don't like the noise.
Over Bell's Corners we banked and headed north towards Constance Lake, then turned west and flew the approach into CYRP. The first time I landed the Katana I wanted it to be at a quiet airport. Good stabilized approach, decent rotation but I got the nose a little bit high (I wonder if it is because the engine is lighter, or because it is a lighter aircraft and so the control surfaces are more effective. Or if I am just rusty). Anyway, we ballooned, so I added a touch of power and got it on the ground. Not pretty, but not ugly.
Hit the throttle, retracted the flaps, got airborne and took a lap.
On the second approach I was high, so I carefully put in a forward slip (it has been 4 months, and we were low and slow - not a good place to stall), kept the speed at 60kt, straightened out at about 200 feet. Landing was OK except that I had to be reminded to remove the yaw - which I kicked out as we settled.
Throttle forward, flaps to take-off, get airborne, swing south, get ATIS, switch to Ottawa Terminal and say hello.
Orienting myself to CYOW from the air was different. I had only seen that airport from the ground as a passenger.
Final landing was not smooth, but I had the yaw corrected and I was doing fundamentally the right things.
Afterwards, we reviewed the OAS syllabus, determined where I would restart, and did the paperwork.
Now I need to book some vacation time, and get this thing finished.
Last week I spent a few days in Minneapolis, flying Ottawa-Philadelphia-Minneapolis there, and scheduled for the same routing to come home.
Wednesday I left the house late, since the pilot light on the furnace had gone out (scurry around and relight it), and then traffic sucked to the airport, and I missed the cutoff. Full marks to the agent at check-in for switching me to alternate flights and choosing to waive the change fee and difference in the ticket prices. With the resulting bad connections and wait for the first flight, it was 16 hours from leaving home to arriving at my hotel.
Friday, coming home, Philadelphia was in flow-control mode due to weather, resulting in a guaranteed missed connection in PHL US Air initiated re-booking of all the connecting passengers on alternate flights and airlines. The gate agent mistakenly put me on MSP-ORD-YUL (Montreal), and by the time I got back to the agent and got rescheduled on MSP-YYZ-YOW my baggage had efficiently been put on the now-departed United flight to Chicago.
From the time I arrived at the airport, to the time I got home, was 11 hours. My baggage is in one of MSP, ORD, PHL, YUL or YYZ but not YOW. My money is on ORD.
Complaints about US Air? No, I like flying them except that their schedule to Ottawa is not frequent enough. The cabin crew are great, the planes are new, the gate agents are helpful (though a bit-fat-fingered when rescheduling me). It would be great if their lounge had free drinks and food like Air Canada does.
But sheesh, let me get out the maps. For the price of the plane ticket (I booked this business trip on short notice) and for the length of time it took to get there, it would have been cheaper and faster in a Cessna.
"I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday." W.C. Fields
So I am stuck in the Philadelphia airport with a six-hour layover between flights.
It started when I got up this morning and the house seemed quite cold, so I checked the thermostat and it was displaying 12C. Not right. Checked the pilot light on the furnace, managed to get it re-lit, and then high-tailed it to the airport for this business trip.
Traffic was not pretty because I was a bit later than I wanted to be. And the net-net was that I got to the US Air counter 50 minutes before my flight, well after their requested 90 minutes. The agent phoned the gate, the gate said the flight was closed, and so we went to work to get me on a later flight.
No sense being abrasive (like I'm going to talk someone out of this?), so I just took my lumps and admitted fault. She put me on a later flight, and did not charge the difference in ticket prices or the at-airport change fee.
After the re-ticketing, and after clearing security (security for US destinations is as much of a theatre in Ottawa as it is in the USA), and after clearing US Customs & Immigration, I made it down to the boarding area - and they were doing the first boarding on the flight. Oh well.
And my stay in Philadelphia is six hours. It was a rotten connection between flights before, now it is a really rotten connection.
Oh well, they have a bar and a desk, so I am good. Though Air Canada lounges have free (albeit limited) food and a free bar.
Though I was musing that - for the price of this ticket and the time it will take me each way (the return flight has a better connection) - I could have rented a Cessna and got there in less time and money, weather permitting.
Except that I don't have my PPL yet.
And except that the weather on Friday is going to truly suck.
I haven't flown since the diversions practice in early January. A combination of the school choosing to close, the poor weather on the weekends, early sunset on weekdays, and a huge business travel schedule (I've been on the road each week for the last 4 weeks, and will be traveling again this coming week) has precluded more lessons.
I've been filling up the time by studying for my PPL Transport Canada examination, so I have not been idle - but I have not been flying.
Tomorrow (February 23rd) is the 100th anniversary of heavier-than-air flight in Canada. My goal was to have my PPL by tomorrow, a goal for which I was on-track and likely would have achieved - except for the weather and the flight school.
Oh well - any time you over-rush things in aviation you increase the chances for a Bad Result. I still have my goal, only the timing has been deferred.
On the upside, there are rumours that one of the other schools in the Ottawa area is going to open a satellite operation at CYRP. That will make things logistically easier, but I am still going back to first principles in deciding the next steps.
I am very sad that I have to announce that Carp Flying Academy Inc. is ceasing operations immediately due to a number of factors. Business and economic factors as well as weather have all contributed to this very difficult decision.
I want to thank everyone for their patronage over the last three years.
I can be reached at jenny.putinski@gmail.com to answer any questions you may have.
For the students, your PTR's will be still be available in the FBO during weekday hours.
Thank you, Jennifer E. Putinski
Drat. I liked flying with them. Jenny's husband used to coach one of my daughters in soccer. These are real people, who cared about their business and their customers. They had Christmas potluck dinners in the hangar. I never worried about the maintenance or safety of the aircraft, and they didn't pull any surprises on me.
But the short days (early sunset) in November, December and January precludes most people from flying after work. Anyone available to fly during the day is either not working or retired, which usually means "not flush with cash". And the weather this year in December has been brutal, with non-VFR conditions on many days and, most importantly, many weekends. In aviation the expenses continue even if the income doesn't. It's a business where fuel is the major variable expense and the one that decreases if you don't fly.... but debt costs, salary, insurance, rent etc all continue even if the birds are not flying and generating revenue.
To Jenny and all the people I met and flew with at CFA: Thank you. May you rebound elsewhere. Tailwinds and clear skies.
The mystique of "Those Magnificent Flying Machines" is well-preserved. Only a few select people have a license to fly an aircraft, and fewer still get paid to do it. The idea of jet-setting all over the world isn't thought of as "living out of a suitcase, always away from home", but as "constantly visiting exotic locales". And most people have no idea how a huge vehicle weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds can fly through the sky, making the entire business even more magical.
And when something goes wrong, like a double-engine failure over a major city resulting in a water landing, and everyone lives to talk about it, it is major news.
I'm a student pilot, at the post-solo, pre-license stage. I have a wife. My wife is (fortunately) worried about my safety, as she recognizes that any activity increases risk to life and limb.
And so I got The Interrogation this morning. My wife is very talented, and I am very verbose, so all she needs to say is "So what do you think about this water landing?" Thanks for the invitation, here you are....
Engine-out flying is no big deal. From early in a pilot's training, we are taught to fly engine-out forced landings. Every glider pilot flies without an engine. Most landings, I have the engine at idle.
Planning a forced landing is, again, a basic training activity. Within gliding range, find a "suitable" landing area. Effectively, suitable means least-worst. If you are within gliding range of an airstrip then you have access to a very good alternative - in fact, landing on a runway is such an attractive alternative that part of our training is to land straight ahead if the engine fails shortly after takeoff, as you have neither enough kinetic energy (speed) or potential energy (height above ground) to execute a 180 degree turn and get back to the runway. Glider pilots have a different attitude to an off-field landing. A power pilot thinks of a off-field landing as an emergency, while a glider pilot considers it an opportunity to go make friends with a farmer.
This landing will likely change the attitudes about on-water landings, and I'm not sure this is a good thing. Landing on water is routine for float planes, of course, but they are built for it, and they meet the water at a very low angle of incidence - the same angle as wheels on a runway. As Swissair 111 unfortunately demonstrated, when you meet the water at a high angle of attack and at high speed, hitting water is like hitting concrete. At a low angle of incidence, you bounce (ask a water-skier). The picture on the seat-back cards, showing a plane floating in the water tail-down while everyone makes an orderly exit through the front doors is the desirable, but extremely unlikely, outcome. An airplane with fixed or extended landing gear will have the gear dig in, the sudden drag will likely flip you over, and the sudden whip-lash is likely more stress than the aircraft can handle. The Really Big Risk for an aircraft with under-wing engines is that one engine will dig in before the other and cartwheel the aircraft, like the 1996 Ethiopian Airlines hijacking that did a forced landing in the ocean when it ran out of fuel. On the whole, if you don't have floats strapped to the bottom of your aircraft, you are better landing on flat land of any description, rather than on water.
I'm glad the pilot decided to put the aircraft down on the river. A fully-laden A320 will slide for a long way on the ground, and there isn't a "long way" available in a dense urban area. That means they would have plowed through homes, shopping malls and businesses for a distance, spewing fuel from the near-full fuel tanks and inflicting carnage on anything in their path. Given the known risks of landing on water in an engine-under-wing aircraft, the pilot considered the aggregate welfare of the people on the ground and on the aircraft, and put the people on the ground ahead of the welfare of the people on the aircraft. Exceptional decision making. That he had a flyable aircraft (it wasn't powered, but otherwise fully controllable) was an asset that he used to full advantage.
The landing itself was beyond outstanding. The aircraft didn't cartwheel, it just plowed in, likely planed on the surface for some short distance, and then settled in. It doesn't get any more perfect than this.
I heard a news report yesterday that they were looking for the engines. Since they knew where the aircraft was (lashed to a jetty at the side of the river), that implies the engines were ripped off mid-river during the landing run (I doubt they fell off mid-air, but to be pedantically accurate, we don't know). Ripping an engine off a wing takes a huge amount of stress, meaning that there was a huge amount of drag from the engine digging into the water. The aircraft didn't cartwheel or ground loop (water loop?), so the drag must have been balanced, and the engines tore off at close to the same time. The flight recorder will have captured the deceleration, altitude and direction (including yaw), so what happened will be authoritatively established during the investigation. However, all of this would not have happened unless the pilot kept the wings very level - another demonstration of exceptional flying.
Non-aviators, and non-professional aviators, will not understand the underlying attitude that competent pilots must have towards situation management. When something goes wrong, you have to do something, you have a range of choices, you have to select something and then do it. The next part is critical - you evaluate the results of your choice, and then you keep making more choices. No matter how many things have gone wrong and how bad the situation might be, you always have to have the attitude that there is management to be done, and there is always something you can do to make the situation better. This might be described as a can-do attitude, or glamorized as "the right stuff", or described in a low-tech manner as "flying the airplane until the last part stops moving" - and it is a required skill for a pilot.
Initial media reports are that the engines failed due to bird strikes, and in particular, Canada Geese. A Canada Goose weighs between 6 and 14 pounds, and they fly in flocks, so plowing through a V-wedge of them would certainly inflict heavy damage on an aircraft. My wife asked if I had an encounters with birds. Sure have. I worry about bird strikes on take-off, when speed, altitude, visibility and options are low. We commonly see flocks of snow buntings come off the ground on final approach - when that happens I continue the landing since I'm gliding or at minimum power and not dependent on the engine, and set up for landing. A bad thing would be to reject the landing and switch to a take-off, hit the birds, lose the engine, be at full flaps in a nose-up attitude at a higher altitude and with not much runway ahead.
The one group that did meet my expectations throughout all of this was the electronic media. But I have very low expectations of the electronic media, and they delivered at the expected level of hoopla (high) and expertise (low).
Circle, circle, line, Heading, distance, time, MEF and fuel are great, Tell someone you'll be late.
Today's lesson was diversions. Again, the weather was clear and cold, not a cloud in the sky, a wonderful day for flying. Especially since I was going to be busy in the cockpit, and turbulence doesn't help.
The Why:
A diversion is when you change your mind mid-way through a cross-country flight (or any flight from here to there) regarding your destination. Reasons might include weather (where did those clouds come from?), fuel issues (man, those are ugly headwinds), passenger illness, or maybe you just changed your mind (the burgers at xxx are yucky, let's go to yyy instead).
The Wrinkle:
When performing the diversion the pilot does not have the benefit of advance planning. Of course, before the flight alternative aerodromes are identified. However, the calculations (time, distance, headings, etc.) are not calculated before the flight. When the decision to divert is made, it's calculating and planning time.
Resources:
Because the pilot has to fly the plane as well as plan the diversion, in the cramped confines of the cockpit, and plan under a time constraint, there isn't time to use rulers, protractors or calculators. The planning will be a "back-of-an-envelope" exercise using estimates, not tools.
Focus On:
Don't get lost - we're going to be flying a course based on the DG or the compass (magnetic north), but the map's grid lines are oriented on true north. Using a VOR compass rose, or making an estimate using the grid lines and the local magnetic variation, can be used to determine the magnetic heading.
Safety - In each grid of the map there is a number, the MEF or Maximum Elevation Figure, which is the ASL height of the highest terrain or obstruction (towers, antenna, etc) in that grid. To this figure must be added the required obstruction clearance, for safe flight through that grid. As a specific example, if the reason for the diversion is a descending cloud base, calculating a safe transit to the alternate destination requires priority in the planning.
Planning Procedure:
Circle, circle, line
Choose, and circle, a Set Heading Point for the start of the diversion.
Circle the destination
Draw a line between the SHP and the destination.
Circle any obstructions along the route.
Select way points along the route.
Mark the halfway point along the line.
Heading, Distance, Time
Estimate the magnetic heading to be flown.
Estimate the length of each segment. Since we can't use a ruler, use what is hand (my thumb is 6 nautical miles wide). Some books suggest using a tool such as a notched pencil - the Transport Canada won't allow them during the flight exam.
Using the current indicated airspeed, calculate the duration of the first flight segment, and the duration of the diversion.
MEF and Fuel are great
Check the MEF on the chart, and chose an altitude for the flight. If you can fly at altitude, remember to comply with the VFR altitude requirements (e.g. 4500' for westerly course, 3500' for easterly).
Knowing the estimated duration of the diversion, is there sufficient fuel. If you can look up the fuel burn in the POH good, otherwise use a conservative estimate. Remember to include the VFR 30 minute reserve (45 minutes for night).
Tell someone you'll be late.
Fly to the SHP. Record the time at the SHP, and calculate the ETA at the destination.
Call up FSS (126.7), and amend the flight plan.
At arrival at the Set Heading Pint, the following should be complete:
DG is aligned with the compass
The aircraft should be at the chosen altitude, selected power, and trimmed.
The aircraft should be on heading
A cockpit check (temperature, pressures, mixture, etc) is completed.
Flying
After the briefing, we launched and flew two diversions. We flew at low altitude, so there was limited opportunity to look far into the distance and say "we're going there" and then just point the airplane.
And I greased the landing when we went home. It happens.
Time: 0.8 dual
After refueling the aircraft and catching up with my instructor inside, he notified me that I had been signed off to fly the Pembroke cross-country route solo.
I'm a husband and father who always loved flying, and always had a reason to not go do it - mortgages, young kids, unemployment, whatever. For my 50th birthday my family, having heard enough, told me to go do what I should have done long ago (see the Feb 10 2006 post). This is my "Dear Diary".
