Night flight and an FAA seminar

Plane: Cessna 172
Instructor: Jamie
Route: MGY-LUK-MGY 
Weather: Broken clouds, 55 degrees, wind 330 degrees at 6 knots

I'm not sure why but there were a few different FAA Safety Team seminars in the area tonight. Jamie sent me a message a few days ago asking if I wanted to go to one in Piqua and I mentioned that I was planning on driving down to one in Cincinnati. We bounced our schedules back and forth until deciding we'd fly down to Lunken in the 172 this evening.

Safety seminar (including WINGS credit) plus regaining night currency? Sign me up!

The flight line at Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport

We met at Wright Brothers around 6:15. The runway's still quite soft at Stewart so 2814L's been tied down at MGY this week. We'd have to return there anyway after dark (no lights) so it worked out quite well. Jamie was just completing his preflight as I walked up to the airplane so I hopped into the left seat and got situated; I had the propeller turning a few minutes later.

I turned onto Runway 2 at 6:30 and we were quickly off the ground and on our way to Lunken. It's only 35 miles (about 20 minutes) by air down to Cincinnati. I tuned in the ATIS and didn't bother calling approach; I called Lunken Tower 10-15 miles north and was told to report a two-mile final for Runway 21R.

Hour drive or twenty minute flight? I'll go by air, thank you very much.

Kings Island from a couple miles away

The image stabilizer on my new lens does a pretty good job, eh?

There was a jet off our left landing 21L, which I spotted and reported. Once I had him in sight, tower cleared us to land when we were still about five miles out. I landed long and turned right onto Taxiway C, then taxiied to the old terminal at the southwest end of the field.

We arrived just in time as the seminar started roughly the second we walked into the Greater Cincinnati Airmen Club on the second floor of the terminal building. It was a great seminar - controllers from Cincinnati Approach gave a really nice overview of the local airspace and procedures, followed by a Q&A with a bunch of folks who work for the Cincinnati FSDO.

It's always nice to meet the local controllers/feds and tonight was no exception. Everyone was enthusiastic about aviation and lots of helpful information was exchanged. It was also a nice reminder that I need to fly down to CVG and log some Class B takeoffs and landings while I can since they're not too busy down there these days!

There was a trio of Blackhawks parked on the ramp at Lunken

The seminar wrapped up around 9:00 and we headed back down to the dark tarmac to preflight the airplane. I was back in the left seat but Jamie taxied to the runway and made the takeoff, flying us back to Wright Brothers while I handled the radio comms. Tower cleared us onto 3L for takeoff but didn't turn the lights on. A quick, "tower, 2814L on 3L, can you please turn the lights on for us?" call over the radio took care of the black hole! :)

Visibility wasn't great on the way home, though it was still thoroughly VFR. I'd estimate it at 10-15 miles based on when I finally saw the antenna farm southwest of Dayton come into view. Jamie flew an approach to Runway 2 and landed, with two airplanes in the pattern behind us.

We took turns at this point, alternating each time around the pattern until we got in our three takeoffs and landings to extend our night currency for another 90 days. I never really nailed one (last July's solo night flight was much better) but all were acceptable. The winds were squirrely on final and I was quite active on the controls all the way down. Jamie certainly won this round!

Still, I'm night current again and I have a feeling that might come in handy at some point over these next three months. At this point, I think I've been night current more in the past year than in the previous five years since I passed my checkride. Not too shabby, huh?

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 1.9 hours
Total Time: 305.0 hours

One approach + two more years' currency

Plane: Cessna 150
Instructor: Jamie
Route: 40I-SGH-40I
Weather: Scattered clouds, 82 degrees, wind light and variable

Two of my aunts were down in Dayton this morning helping my cousin move into her dorm at the University of Dayton. We went out to lunch in Waynesville (at the Cobblestone Cafe, which I'd never been to before, but highly recommend - great food!) before they drove home to Akron. Anyway, it's not like I'm going to pass up an opportunity to fly when I'm less than five minutes away from Stewart... so I drove down to the airport after saying goodbye to the family.

Jamie had time to tag along so we could complete the final flight activities for my WINGS phase. If you're not familiar with the FAA's WINGS program, I explained it in a post a couple years ago. For the current phase, I've had the knowledge activities completed for a while. Jamie and I crossed off most of the flight activities back in June during my checkout in the T-Craft; we just had to finish the simulated instrument work in a properly-equipped airplane.

We departed on Runway 26 and I had the hood on before we'd left the pattern. Side note - I bought a Francis Hood in anticipation of working on my instrument rating (yes, still slacking on that!) and today's the first time I tried it in the air. Thus far, I'm a fan. It does a very good job blocking everything but the panel. Not ridiculously uncomfortable, either.

I looked like this, shirt and tie aside (Stewart's not nearly that formal!)

Under the hood, we started with the basic stuff - straight and level flight, then climbs, turns, descents, and combinations of everything. I did a relatively decent job keeping up my scan and not wandering too far from where I was supposed to be - especially considering I last flew under the hood two years ago. I really liked how Jamie was explaining things and feeding me tips and reminders as I went along... it was extremely helpful.

Next up were unusual attitudes. The idea is to be able to recover if you find yourself in a bad spot, solely by reference to the instruments. I closed my eyes, put my chin on my chest, and Jamie flung the airplane all over the sky - turns, climbs, descents, floating out of my seat, pushed into my seat. Once he was satisfied I was disoriented he called out, "your airplane!" and I had to recover. There are two basic tenets - you always look at your artificial horizon / attitude indicator and if you're nose-high, immediately add full power, lower the nose, and level the wings. You simply do the reverse (retard the throttle, level the wings, and raise the nose) if you're nose-low. We did it four times, the first being quite gentle and the last starting from a roughly 60 degree left-turning nosedive. Fun, fun. All my recoveries went well, too.

I had asked him about the graveyard spiral, which has killed more than a couple pilots. The gist of it is that you lose visual reference to the horizon (in clouds, in fog, at night, etc.) and think you're level when you're actually turning. So I closed my eyes for a while and he got us into position. I could tell we were turning slightly (I could feel the sun moving across my face) but was still all screwed up. I would've bet $100 we were turning left - and would have turned right to recover. But when I opened my eyes we were in a 30+ degree bank to the right! Just another reminder why you always have to trust your instruments - the human body is not designed for flight and trusting your senses is about the most dangerous thing you can do when flying IFR.

Finally, he asked if I wanted to fly an approach - something I'd never done before (other than monitoring as a safety pilot). He pulled up the SGH VOR 33 Approach plate on his iPhone and we dialed in the SGH VOR on the Nav radio. Jamie talked me through the altitudes and explained a few important things as we got closer to the airport. When he told me to look up, sure enough, there was a runway right in front of me!

Not too bad for the first approach I've ever flown, right?

We did a short field landing at SGH and a power-off 180. On the latter, I pulled the power abeam the numbers, slowly brought in the flaps while making a continuous turn from downwind to final, eventually dumping in all 40 degrees of flaps maybe 100 feet up. We touched down just past the numbers. Had I put in full flaps about five seconds sooner, I would've nailed it perfectly. Still... it was a darn good landing!

Neither of us had checked our watches and soon realized we were due back at Stewart, so I pointed the nose straight at the airport and put in Full Rental Power™. It took 10-15 minutes to fly there from SGH and I crossed midfield to enter a left downwind for Runway 26. Full flaps on final, 50-55 knots, I drug 60338 in over the trees for a final short field landing. We were turning off abeam the end of the row of hangars so we landed in roughly 500 feet.

With that, I'm 100% good to fly for another two years. I renewed my medical last month (which is good for another 5 years) and this checks off the flight review requirement for 24 more calendar months. Not that I don't hope/expect to spend plenty of hours in training during that time period - but it's always nice to know all my I's are dotted and T's are crossed in the FAA's eyes.

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 280.6 hours

MERFI 2012, a precautionary landing, and carb ice

Plane: Cessna 150
Route: 40I-I74-40I
Weather: Scattered clouds, 80-90 degrees, wind variable at 5 knots

Unable to attend for the past two years, I marked MERFI 2012 on my calendar many months ago. Somehow time has flown by and it was already three years ago that I last landed in Urbana during the regional EAA fly-in. Gina made the trip with me this year. We took off from Stewart around 9:30 in the morning and were in the pattern at Grimes Field just over 30 minutes later. The place was hopping, the pattern full, and the CTAF clogged, but we sequenced in nicely and I made a safe landing.

2012 or 1942? Just your average summer morning in Waynesville... 

First on the agenda was breakfast. It's not a proper fly-in without pancakes and sausage, now is it? Both of us scarfed down everything on our plates and then wandered around for a while.

The entrance, a nice homage to the infamous Brown Arch

Quite the tasty spread, especially for five bucks!

I went to an FAA Safety Team seminar at 11:00 about runway incursions that counted towards my WINGS credit. Gina wasn't very interested in the merits of proper phraseology on our taxiways so she continued to roam around the airport. After the seminar, which was pretty good, I had the chance to meet up with Samuel. He's another pilot who flies at Stewart who I'd only spoken with electronically up to this point. It's always enjoyable to meet folks who fly there and read the blog!

Gina wandered back over and I said goodbye to Samuel. My bride and I then headed over to the Champaign Aviation Museum for a few minutes to escape the heat and look at their B-25 and B-17. Eventually it was time to head home so we walked back over to the 150 around 1:00.

Here's where the day got interesting...

We took off and I noticed a weird sound shortly after leaving the ground, but beyond the point when I would have landed back on the runway. It quickly became an extremely loud banging noise. At first, I thought it might be an engine problem but all the gauges were in the green and I didn't see anything odd outside. Then I figured it was probably something hanging out the door, but we both checked our seatbelts and headsets and it felt like everything was inside the airplane.

Still, something wasn't right and the noise was really loud. I immediately decided it was best to sort this out on the ground and made a quick lap around the pattern, returning to land on Runway 20. In the end, it was my seatbelt; the very end of it, only an inch or so, had gotten stuck in the door when I pulled it closed. It was so small that I couldn't tell it was caught when I tugged on the belt to check it. But it was certainly big enough to make a heck of a racket banging against the airplane in the wind.

Unedited (other than some added commentary) video of the takeoff and precautionary landing

Problem solved, I started the airplane back up and we again taxied down to the end of the runway for departure. There were about four planes in front of us so we were sitting there at idle for a few minutes before it was our turn. Onto the runway, full power, and...

Well, just watch the video below.

Our second attempt to leave resulted in an aborted takeoff - here's the unedited footage

My best guess, as narrated in the video, is that we were in that magical temperature/humidity range and carburetor ice formed while we were waiting in line for takeoff. I had done a run-up and checked the carb heat; everything performed normally. However, it was a few minutes later that we finally rolled onto the runway for takeoff. Thankfully, it happened within seconds of pushing the throttle in and we were still on the ground.

You may be wondering if I felt we were doomed at this point. Honestly, I wasn't. Although at the time I was thought it was an issue with the carburetor accelerator pump (the carb ice idea didn't cross my mind until discussing it with other pilots later) everything else appeared normal. I did two extended, full-power run-ups and had no issues so I felt confident that everything checked out mechanically. We took off and - finally - headed home on an uneventful, 30-minute flight. Third time's the charm, eh?

More of Stewart's unique normalcy - all these planes were preparing for a stadium flyover

As you can imagine, this was a great learning experience. I feel as though I did the right thing in both instances. Diagnosing a problem on the ground and flying the airplane first (aviate, navigate, communicate!) is always the best option. I'm also a bit surprised that carb ice didn't cross my mind when the engine lost power and ultimately died. Still, I checked everything I could check prior to deciding to fly home and it all checked out. I also know that I'll likely never forget to consider carb ice in the future if I experience anything similar.

And lest I forget, the fly-in was a lot of fun too! :)

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File 
Today's Flight: 1.7 hours
Total Time: 235.7 hours

Hood work, yadda, yadda, yadda... Stearman!!!

Plane: Cessna 150 / Stearman / Cub, 85 hp
Instructor: Dave
Route: 40I, Local
Weather: Clear, 76 degrees, wind 110 degrees at 3 knots

Today was all sorts of fun - but we'll get to that. When we were at the airport last Saturday I booked time with Dave for this evening. I last completed a phase of WINGS in September 2009, so I either had to complete another or complete a full-on BFR by the end of next month. Since I already completed two out of of three of my required flight activities back in March, it made the most sense to go up with him and finish off this phase to extend my BFR currency by two more years.

Flight Tracks - Cessna 150 (red) / Stearman (green) / Cub (blue)

I had reserved the Cub but realized this afternoon that part of what I needed to do included hood work. Luckily the 150 was open, so I swapped rides and we hopped into the tiny Cessna. Hard to believe, but I haven't flown a 150 in nearly a year - that's what I used to always fly, nearly half my hours (98+) are in 150s! Anyway, after reacquainting myself with that tiny cockpit we took off and flew up to 2,500 feet over the lake.

Dave had me put the airplane into slow flight with 30 degrees of flaps, level at about 2,700 feet and hanging on the prop at 35 to 40 knots. I held the ailerons level and used the rudder pedals to turn us in a few circles. Then I pushed in the power and raised the nose until we had a nice break into a power-on stall. That went pretty well, so power to idle and two power-off stalls followed. The last one was one of the best I've ever done - a couple taps of the rudder and the nose dropped and the remained wings perfectly level at the break.

After all that, it was time to strap on the hood and do a little instrument work. The last time I went under my hood was my checkride in 2008, so needless to say I was overdue for some practice whether or not it was part of my WINGS activity. I won't say I did great, considering the lack of training and practice, but I did manage some decent turns and climbs. Obviously I've got a loooong way to go towards my IR. Dave then had me lower my head, tossed the airplane around, then had me recover for unusual attitude practice - always fun. I think he had me in a nose-low attitude once and an extremely nose-high attitude twice.

He asked for a landing just past a specific point on the runway, so I set up for a short field approach. Extended downwind, then all 40 degrees of flaps and 50 knots on final. Manage airspeed with pitch and descent with throttle. I was hanging on the prop as we crossed over the edge of the runway but we hit a tiny bit of lift and I touched probably 50-100 feet past my intended point. Still good, but I enjoy the challenge of a spot landing and would've liked to really nail that one!

Stearman + Grass = Perfection

Back in the office, Dave said he had to put the Stearman away. For those not familiar with the fine folks at Red Stewart Airfield, putting the Stearman away equates to a trip around the pattern and a free ride if you happen to be there at the right time. After over three years flying there, I was finally at the airport at the right time!

He explained how to climb in and I have to say it was easier than I expected - the cockpit was more spacious than you might think, too. The radial engine coughed to life and the smell was oh-so-vintage-airplane-good. Dave handed me the controls and had me taxi down to the other end of the runway. Needless to say, compared to a Cub, you really need to do S-Turns to see out of this thing on the ground!

I think I looked the part...

I did all the preflight checks and run-up, then taxied onto the runway. Dave was also on the controls but I managed to get us off the ground and climbed slowly at about 85 mph as we made our way around the pattern. Abeam the numbers, throttle back to about 1500 RPM and a descent at around 85 mph again. Dave said to give her a little forward slip on short final to really see where we're going, so left stick and right rudder and we lost some altitude and airspeed and I could see the grass strip out in front. With some more help on the controls, I brought the stick back all the way and we touched down somewhat softly. They really don't lie when they say it flies just like a big Cub.

So yeah, that was fun and awesome. The view was incredible - nothing like the air whipping past the wires and being able to see in every direction. No way I could come close to flying it without a CFI onboard anytime soon, but I did get to fly a Stearman this evening. 'Nuff said.

Gotta love the view from downwind - the runway's under the bottom wing

After all that fun, I still had the J-3 booked because that's what I originally was going to fly in with Dave. It really was too beautiful an evening not to fly some more. I figured I might as well take it around the patch three times for currency purposes.

A hot air balloon was launching on the field right when I took off, so I immediately side-stepped to the right of the runway to give them some room. If you watch the video below, you'll see me wave the wings to say hello a few different times as I fly past the balloon. Every landing was a monster slip power-off approach, partially because I thought they'd look cool with the fisheye lens and partially because they're just so much fun. The final landing was intentionally long to save some taxi time.

A little video fun - only at Stewart can you fit in 3 takeoffs and landings in 0.3 hours!

Between the finally-nice, fall-like flying weather and getting to fly three different airplanes there's not much else I need to say about today. Just one of those glad-to-be-a-pilot evenings. And, to be a little more specific, glad-to-be-a-taildragger-pilot. Sorry, but you'll never convince me you can have fun any cheaper or better than a Cub with the door open. Well, maybe in a Stearman - but then I'm not so sure that cheaper part applies.

Flight Tracks: Google Earth KMZ File
Today's Flight: 0.7 hours / (not logged) / 0.3 hours
Total Time: 205.1 hours

Currency plus some new stuff in the Cub

Plane: Cub, 65 hp
Instructor: Dave
Route: 40I, Local
Weather: Clear, 33 degrees, wind 040 degrees at 10 knots gusting to 17

I know, I know - this is a flying blog and I haven't had much to say about flying in what feels like forever. For that I apologize. Work and wedding planning and weather have either been taking up a lot of my time or preventing me from going up. And while I always want to fly, it's hard to justify going up for no reason when I'm trying to save money (can you say honeymoon?) and there's a chance I'll drop out of currency before I can fly again.

However, spring has mostly sprung around here. It was very cold this morning (below freezing, in fact) but the grass is rather green and it's that time of year again where there are some places I'd like to fly and people I'd like to take flying. So with that in mind - even though I was technically still current thanks to my last flight with CFI Dave in January - I decided it was a good day to go up with an instructor again.

Video from today using my new fisheye lens for my Zi8

We knocked off a couple things all at once today. I managed to get current in some slightly challenging conditions (it was quite windy, at least for a 65 hp Cub) and satisfied two different flight requirements for the FAA WINGS phase I'm currently working on. If you aren't familiar, WINGS is a pilot safety program that encourages additional, "more than required by the regulations" training. By completing a phase, you basically satisfy the FAA's flight review requirement. That means you can fly for another two calendar years before you are required to complete a Biennial Flight Review with a CFI.

I've had my Private certificate since November 2008 which means I would have needed to complete a BFR by November 30, 2010 had I not participated in the WINGS program. However, I last passed a phase in September 2009 and therefore I am legal to act as Pilot in Command until September 30, 2011. Once I complete a third flight activity - which I plan on doing with Dave in the 150 later next month - I'll have completed another phase in the program. So that will delay my BFR until mid-2013, though I expect to complete more WINGS phases before I ever reach that point.

Back to today, we ran through some usual tasks and I also had Dave teach me something new as I usually try to do when flying with an instructor. My takeoffs were all quite good (normal, short field, soft field) but the landings weren't great at first. The gusty crosswind made it more challenging but I had a slight mental lapse and set up incorrectly at first for a short field landing - forgetting I should be making the approach with power added. Once I sorted that out, my second and third short field landings were much better. I floated too much on the second landing but plopped the plane down just past my aiming point on the third and final landing.

We also ran through some maneuvers that are good practice for any pilot - steep turns, turns around a point, and s-turns. I held altitude reasonably well on the steep turns although I know I have done better in the past. That's something I'll work on solo in the near future. The strong and gusty winds made it a great day to practice ground reference maneuvers so the turns around a point (two water towers just outside Waynesville) and s-turns over a road were how we chose to tackle that portion of the flight. Considering I don't practice either nearly as frequently as I did when I was a student, I was quite satisfied with my performance on both tasks.

The new maneuver I wanted to learn with Dave today was the steep spiral. It's a requirement for the Commercial certificate, not something generally taught in Private training. However, since it's one of the primary ways to get an airplane on the ground in case of emergency like an in-flight fire, I wanted some practice!

Steep spirals are quite simple - you basically bring the throttle to idle, roll the airplane over into a 60 degree bank, and control your airspeed with back pressure on the stick/yoke. You're pulling 2 Gs at 60 degrees so you certainly feel the extra weight but that also means you're descending very quickly, about 15 or 20 seconds to lose 1,000 feet. Dave first demonstrated and then I gave it a whirl. I did reasonably well for a first-time student but, as you would expect, he was much smoother. It's definitely another maneuver we'll work on again soon, both in the Cub and the Cessna.

So there you go, I finally flew again! It's a clear start to getting back in flying shape for the year. Gina and I hope to take some smaller trips this summer, not on the scale of last summer's giant adventure around Lake Michigan but still overnight with a purpose. We'd like to fly up to Syracuse in June for a family graduation party - flying would thoroughly beat the 11-hour drive we made there last summer! My best friend Rob is also going to come down and visit soon and we'll go up and have some fun in the Cub like we usually do. I still have a crazy travel schedule for work in the upcoming weeks but hopefully I'm back to flying with more regularity!

Today's Flight: 1.2 hours
Total Time: 183.1 hours

Operation Raincheck at Cleveland Center

I have to put up a short post about the event I attended tonight at Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in Oberlin, Ohio. Reason being it's probably the best little seminar I've attended in my two-ish years of attending such things. Not only was it extremely well organized but I also gained some amazing insight into the life behind the radar scope. Plus, I met up with blogging pilto friend Dave who was also there for the tour.

In today's security climate you don't often have the opportunity to go inside an ATC facility so I was quite fortunate to be able to do so. Ever since September 11th, visitor access to ATC locations has been severely limited at best. However, many ARTCCs throughout the country are beginning to revive programs aimed at teaching pilots about the Center environment - collectively, they're known as Operation Raincheck.

We started out with an hour-long presentation about the history of ATC and the specific breakdown of Cleveland's airspace. Then we split into three groups (four people each, with a controller escort) and toured the different areas inside the building. My group first went to the simulator room, then to the Traffic Management area, spoke with the meterologist, and finished up in the actual radar room listening in and watching controllers work live traffic.

Speaking with the Traffic Management folks really cleared up the whole reasoning behind how they coordinate with other ARTCCs to sequence traffic into the arrivals to major airports. We were able to view all the traffic across the country on monitors and see breakdowns of how they were being set up to flow perfectly into the arrival sequences. Even though this is an area I really don't deal with as a simple VFR pilot, it was really interesting to me.

Perhaps my favorite moment was seeing how the large display in Area 8 (the Southeast corner of Cleveland's airspace) was set up to color-code air traffic into major airports on the East coast. You may be as amused as we all were to learn they went by the colors of the local NFL teams - Philly was green, Dulles and Reagan were maroon and yellow, Baltimore was purple, etc. Good to see they find ways to keep things light in an environment that can be quite stressful. It goes without saying that this was an awesome experience and gave me a whole new perspective of the voices on the other side of the microphone!

Check the event listings on FAASafety.gov to see if your local ARTCC is scheduling any Operation Raincheck events. They tend to fill up quickly (at Cleveland they only have 15 slots on any given date) so be sure to check often if you're interested.

Heading to Tampa

Sorry for the recent lack of updates on here - I haven't flown in a couple weeks for a multitude of reasons. The weather hasn't been great, I've been out of town on the weekends, and now this past week and a half I've been working obscene hours due to a critical project. Needless to say, it's been a perfect storm that's kept me on the ground. I do at least have a 150 reserved this coming Sunday so I hope the weather cooperates!

Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick update since I'm headed down to Tampa tomorrow for the AOPA Summit. I've really been looking forward to it for months now, mainly to attend a bunch of the seminars and meet up with fellow pilots. For those of you I know through the blog or the AOPA Forums, let me know if you'll be at the Summit! Send me an email (steve [dot] dilullo [at] gmail [dot] com) or call me on my cell and hopefully we're able to meet up at some point. I'll be in town for the whole event, Thursday thru Saturday.

I also should mention that the Indianapolis ARTCC Town Hall I attended a couple weeks ago was a great session. Not only did I pick up some useful tidbits of information, I also had a great discussion with a controller after the formal program ended. You all should take advantage of the opportunity to meet and interact with ATC folks if there are sessions in your area. Check out FAASafety.gov for event listings near you.

One last thing and that's a comment and question to you readers about the state of the blog in general. First I want to mention that I've got some posts in mind for the upcoming months when I'll likely be on the ground more often. My plan is to write about books/courses/materials I've used and recommend, review some more items I've picked up over the past year, and create a section for new readers. Second is an open call to all of you who read the blog... is there anything you want me to write about? Do you have any general comments, questions, or concerns? Please send in everything and anything that comes to mind - either as a comment to this post or via email. Thanks in advance for the feedback, I appreciate every bit of it!

AOPA Summit, seminars, and the like

In lieu of actual flying tales, this is a quick post with some information I've been meaning to share for a while. As I've mentioned many times before on here, one of the greatest things about the blog is all the people and pilots it's enabled me to meet from across the world. Sometimes our only correspondence is via email or Facebook but I've also been fortunate to meet some of you in person - from as far away as Australia! So it should be without any surprise that I wanted to share some upcoming plans and extend my hand in hopes I'll be able to say hello to a few more of you over the next couple of months.

AOPA Summit (Tampa, FL)

What used to be known as the annual AOPA Expo has been badged the AOPA Summit this year. This will be a first-time trip for me; in fact, it will be my first trip to any large-scale aviation gathering not counting airshows. Yes, I know I really need to get to Oshkosh still - planning on next summer, but I digress.

Anyway, I'll be in town from November 4th all the way through the end of the Summit on November 7th. Personally, it's all the seminars that I'm looking forward to - they're honestly the main reason I'm headed down to Tampa. There's quite a few folks from the AOPA Forums that I know are attending and I'm really excited not only to meet them, but also for all the things the Summit has to offer.

Operation Rain Check (ARTCC Tours)

What appears to be a nationwide education program hosted by our Air Route Traffic Control Centers is, at the very least, up and running around this area. I'm planning on attending events at both Indianapolis Center (ZID) and Cleveland Center (ZOB) in October and November. The events in Cleveland include a tour, simulation lab, and live monitoring session. Indy's is a different approach, more of a town-hall (not at the actual ARTCC facility) discussion with controllers and experts.

One of the things I've wanted to do since I first started ground school back in 2007 was visit an Air Traffic Control facility. Needless to say, I'm really excited about the opportunity to tour Cleveland. Similarly, any time you can learn from controllers helps build confidence in radio use and procedures so I expect the Indy event to be just as educational. I'll be in Cleveland on November 19th and over at Indy on October 22nd. By clicking the links in that last sentence, you can access the registration pages for each event.

ASF "What Went Wrong?" Seminar

The AOPA Air Safety Foundation hosts countless seminars throughout the country every year. Looking at my events page on the FAASafety site, there's probably five of these seminars in various locations between now and December. They're all set up to discuss accidents with investigators so that we can all learn from past mistakes. Sure sounds like a smart thing to learn more about to me. The closest event from my house is in Columbus on October 7th so that's where you'll find me. If you'd like more information (no registration is required) click either here or here.

Update 10/7 - I'm not going to be able to make it this evening. Thankfully the ASF schedules these fairly regularly, so I hope to make it to another one nearby soon.

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If you'd like any more information on the WINGS Program, check out the end of my last blog entry. There's a bunch of useful links if you want to join or learn more about it. Both the ARTCC events and the ASF seminar are eligible for WINGS credit so be sure you are enrolled in the program if you'll be attending.

As far as actual flying goes, a few things are in the pipeline. This coming Thursday I'm planning on making the short hop up to Wapakoneta to visit Marty, who I happen to know from the aforementioned AOPA Forums, and enjoy a BBQ dinner. Then there's a decent chance Gina and I will fly up to the Akron area to visit family and/or to Kalamazoo for some WMU football (Go Broncos!) during what I hope to be beautiful October weekends. It's a wonderful time of year to be flying!

This is what it's all about

Plane: Cub, 85 hp
Instructor: Dave
Route: 40I, Local
Weather: Clear, 74 degrees, wind 040 degrees at 5 knots

Honestly, I think that this is one of those flights where I'll let the video speak for itself. Watch and enjoy...

A fun way to view spins - the orange/red indicates a -2,500 fpm descent

Well, I wish I could be that brief but a couple disclaimers are in order. I must add that, in practicing spins and "wingovers," both were of the non-aerobatic variety and that's why they are permissible maneuvers per FARs 91.303 and 91.307. Spin training is required for the CFI rating and that's something I hope to achieve in the future, and the "wingovers" were really just a demonstration of the effect of engine torque in a power-on stall configuration.

I also want to note that most of today's flight involved me practicing maneuvers with Dave as set forth by the FAA Wings Program. Specifically, I needed credit in two flight areas today (FCA and FEA) to complete my Advanced Phase. For those who aren't familiar, it's a program designed to improve safety by providing opportunities for pilots to attend seminars, take knowledge courses, and build skills in the air. I would strongly encourage every pilot to visit the website and sign up if you have not already. There are many online courses available through the FAA as well as the great online courses provided by the AOPA Air Safety Foundation - and all can count towards your Wings credits. Again, I think it's a great program and, especially for the flight areas, it provides a nice incentive to work on specific maneuvers and tasks whenever you fly with a CFI.

Flight Track: Google Earth KMZ File
Today's Flight: 1.5 hours
Total Time: 131.5 hours