Aviation

Our Airports

Paul Petrov — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 05:30:34 GMT

Fellow pilot and talented IT professional, David Megginson, put out neat web site http://www.ourairports.com that allows to leave comments about airports visited (as pilot or passenger), and share personal maps. I added those where I landed as a pilot from the logbook and it shows how I definitely need some real "cross country" trips :)

Year of Flying

Paul Petrov — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:16:25 GMT

Happy New Year! It's good time to summarize flying experience as year past since getting pilot certificate. So, here's some dry statistics:

Hours total	105.7
Night	10.3
Cross country	28.1
Actual Instrument	0.1
Simulated Instrument	11.8
Day landings	270
Night landings	39
Instrument approaches	5

Airplanes I've flown: Cessna C152, Cessna C172M, Cessna C172SP, Cessna C177RG, Piper PA28-161, Piper PA28-181, Evektor Sportstar, Vans RV-7A, Wheeler Express.

Airports I landed at: PAE (Everett, WA), AWO (Arlington, WA), BLI (Bellingham, WA), OLM (Olympia, WA), RNT (Renton, WA), CLM (Port Angeles, WA), S43 (Snohomish, WA), W16 (Monroe, WA), GPM (Grand Prairie, TX), ADS (Addison, TX), RBD (Dallas, TX), TKI (McKinney, TX), XBP (Bridgeport, TX), SEP (Stephenville, TX), FTW (Fort Worth, TX), CRS (Corsicana, TX), JWY (Midlothian, TX), LNC (Lancaster, TX), GKY (Arlington, TX), UTS (Huntsville, TX), GLS (Galveston, TX), JXI (Gilmer, TX), T31 (McKinney, TX), SWI (Sherman, TX), DTO (Denton, TX), GYI (Sherman/Denison, TX).

One thing I don't want to add up though is the amount of money spent on flying :)

I started instrument training and logged some simulated time under the hood. So, the new year flying resolutions will be to finish instrument training and get that rating, log at least 60 hours total time, get tailwheel endorsement, get high performance and/or complex endorsements. This should keep me pretty busy, I guess. :) Happy flying in New Year!

Annual breakfast pancake fly-in photos

Paul Petrov — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 18:47:35 GMT

I took son and a friend to Mid-Way Regional airport for the annual breakfast pancake fly-in. It was second time my older son was up in the small plane and he coped very well with his fear he had on the first flight and was really excited. We got there a bit late and missed racing cars but we saw all planes, toured into DC-3, watched T-28B Trojan and T-6 Texan take-offs and other good things. On the way back we landed at Lancaster, had a lunch and sat in the L-29 cockpit owned by local pilot. One day I want to fly one.

Evektor SportStar Checkout

Paul Petrov — Thu, 24 May 2007 16:19:47 GMT

I recently got checked out in Evektor SportStar. It's a two seat Czech built light sport airplane that becoming increasingly popular with the new sport pilot rules. I've been wanting to try it out for a long time but it's so popular that's always busy flying and booked well ahead. Apparently, many jumped on the sport pilot bandwagon as it's cheaper and faster way to get up in the air. At the same time some folks saving money during regular private pilot training as SportStar's hourly rental rate is lower than Cessna 172 and comparable to Cessna 150/152.

The preflight is simple and includes all typical checkpoints for 2-4 seat trainer airplane. The geared liquid cooled engine adds checking coolant level step. During preflight I noticed good quality construction and excellent fit and finish. The cockpit has adequate shoulder room and bubble canopy has plenty of headroom for over 6' pilot. In Texas heat though this greenhouse will fry you in no time, so keep it open as long as possible. Seats are firm and comfortable all controls are laid out well and within hands reach. Manual flaps extension handle is between seats and flaps position can be verified by the handle position only as the flaps are not visible due to wing design. Headset jacks located on the panel behind the seats and slightly to the right which all makes favorable condition for tangling headset wires with 5-point seatbelt harness.

Starting engine is very simple and once it's on there's only one throttle handle to operate, no mixture here. The vernier throttle control is something to get used to after Cessna's plunger type. I always wondered why all aircraft have such different user interfaces: panel layouts, control levers, switches grouping and locations etc. Why don't they create a few standards for critical controls. It would make pilot transition into new cockpits much easier and reduce workload especially during critical situations when motor reactions kick in. Anyways, the vernier lever must be twisted to smoothly adjust engine RPM (clockwise to increase ) and for abrupt changes can be moved back and forth after releasing the lock button. Almost as mixture control in Cessnas but loaded with push-in spring. The spring pushes throttle in pretty strong and engine response is quick, so be on your toes. And we complain about confusing UI in software. :)

Take-off roll is pretty easy, it doesn't require as much right rudder input as 172. Also, nose wheel is connected with rudder by rods so it's very sensitive comparing to mushiness of Cessnas. That makes one more transition gotcha from Cessna as you don't expect it react so quickly and can start yawing left and right during take-off roll. The trick is in quick smaller rudder inputs. Once at rotation speed it will lift off itself with just a hint of back pressure on the stick.

Once in the air - it's fun. The visibility is outstanding: high seating position, low cut sides, small engine cowl and all around glass canopy makes you like flying in the soap bubble. Steep turns are easy and stalls are non-event - it's just mushing around and sinks without noticeable wing drop tendency. No stall warning though, so watch your airspeed. Speaking of which it was about 40 kts when it decided to stall and I observed 95kts at 4500 rpm at cruise. I wish it had better radios, they suck in this airplane, constantly picking interference from TV towers or some other sources. Old Cessna's radios don't do that.

Landing was where I had most difficulties. The light weight makes it even less stable in turbulence than Cessna 150. And after 172 I had a tendency to overcontrol because of SportStar responsive controls. The throttle handle didn't help either and I was behind in making power adjustments. Geared engine RPMs are not the same numbers as for direct drive motors and it took time to find right approach power setting first times. It has three flaps settings: 15, 30 and 50 degrees. At 50 it makes quite steep approach and sinks fast when you loose speed. I used it twice but think it's better kept for short field landings. Most of the landings I've done with flaps at 30 and it worked best making it similar to 30 degrees flaps approahes in Cessna's. Flaring is easy as long as you get new sight picture. The rollout was tricky due to it's highly sensitive nose wheel - it can easily lead into pilot induced oscillation. Crosswind landing is different too as SportStar has a little wing clearance that limits amount of allowed wing drop in a side slip. This essentially dictates crab all the way to touchdown and kick-in the rudder in the last moment. Once rolling on mains keep the nose wheel off and don't forget to straighten it before it touches runway - it can take you to the boonies.

Once all of transition's trouble areas have been addressed the fun begins. It's nice vroom-vroom airplane for sightseeing and local trips. Makes a good trainer too I guess. It's new, comfortable, responsive, looks great in the air and on the ramp and easier on the wallet while building time (5gph fuel flow). It's good to see FBOs coming to understand the value of light sport planes and hope it will keep flying affordable.

Locating Airports - Google or Local Live? Neither.

Paul Petrov — Wed, 02 May 2007 05:21:42 GMT

I was delighted to find out that Local Live is able to search by airport codes. Google Maps also has this feature for some time, I don't know for how long, as such small updates aren't usually announced, so it's not clear who was first and who just caught up. Anyways, it was interesting to see how each map handles this task. Apparently, both pretty much suck, but each in its own lovely way. Local Live can search by three character FAA airport code, i.e. DFW is the identifier for Dallas-Fort Worth International. Don’t try to search for this airport using four characters ICAO identifier (KDFW) - you will end up in West Africa. If you’re heading to Moscow Sheremetyevo (UUEE) it will toss you to another side of African continent (why do they think that all unknown locations must be in Africa?). You will have better luck with IATA identifier for this airport – SVO..

Google Maps, in turn, will reliably point to DFW using either code. But what if you’re looking for something smaller than bunch of 12,000ft runways? Google Maps is pretty comfortable with many smaller airports although you’ll have more chances with four letter identifiers. For example, it won’t find GKY (Arlington Municipal Airport) or GPM (Grand Prairie Municipal) but will locate them using KGKY and KGPM. At the same time, other airports like Addison (ADS) or McKinney (TKI) can be located using three characters FAA identifier. But all fails if one needs to find small airports. Google Maps won’t help finding T31/KT31 (Aero Country) or any other similar down to the earth airport (that’s where, as we all heard, real pilots fly J ). Will Local Live do better? No. KT31 is not identified as an airport by Live engine and T31… is found on the southeast edge of Texas in Port Isabel, TX instead of just north off Dallas! It just shows that Local Live uses basic and an awfully outdated airports database (Port Isabel was reassigned from T31 to PIL in 1998).

Of course, these sources weren’t intended for flight planning, that's what FAA publications are for. The question is whether adding a feature just for the sake of itself justifies the erroneous and confusing information it serves. Online map providers in the race against each other often forget that main feature of the map must be reliable map and location information. And by the way, good sites to locate airports: www.airpnav.com, www.skyvector.com. Smooth landings!

I got my wings!

Paul Petrov — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 04:32:00 GMT

Today, September, 27 2006, one of the biggest dreams of my life has come true - I'm a pilot!

I was pressing hard to get done this week as I had no other chance. I'm leaving Seattle area end of week. The FAA checkride initially scheduled to 8AM Wednesday was rescheduled to 1PM which added to my time pressure.

It started with paperwork and then ~1.5 hours of oral part. All usual stuff you'd expect: Federal Aviation Regulations, pilot responsibilities and limitations, legalities, airworthiness, currency. Then charts, airspaces, weather and airplane systems. Hands-on tasks on density altitude and performance calculations. Then review of cross country flight planning (PAE - 27W - EAT) and explaining my decisions. With this part completed flawlessly we headed to the airplane where all I've learned to date would be put to practice.

Started with short-field take-off and departed eastbound on planned course. Nailed first two checkpoints and was asked to stop climbing (I was supposed to fly at 3500 ft first legs before the mountains). It messed up my speed calculations a bit as I leveled off earlier at 3000 per his request. Then interesting stuff begins once we past Monroe. He asks if I know where the Sultan is (my next checkpoint). Sure, I say, we're heading right there and it's at 12 o'clock ahead of us. He is like, lets see... and we keep flying. Now, I've never flown past Monroe to the East so this area is new to me. Sultan is really small village and the land area lacks prominent landmarks. When he asks me again after several minutes, I tell him we're already over Sultan. Ok, he says, there should be an airport here, find it. Ok, I look at the chart, here it is, unpaved strip on the NE side of the Sultan. I look out of the left window, right window and don't see the damn airport. Well, he says, were are we then? May be it's even a wrong city. Here I'm getting that unpleasant feeling of uncertainty (it's never a good thing to get lost on your checkride). I do the circle, and pretty sure I'm where I am supposed to be. I don't see the damn airport! He asks again - where it is? I look out, check the chart and answer with confidence - It's right under our belly I just can't recognize it. He smiles and says - Then, lower the wing. I bank and he points out something like a little driveway on the back yard of the house surrounded by trees on both sides (yes, very narrow driveway alley). And it's right under our belly! I was right but who'd think that this thing is called Sky Harbor airport! :) So, good job, he says, and let's divert to Arlington. No problemo, I draw the line on the chart, figure out new heading, turn, mark the time and calculate distance and fuel. Then the same story - prove me that you flying to _that_ airport. I had to pick out all possible landmarks and indications to back up my course. No instruments here - pure visual pilotage, he's big on it and I had fun doing that too. Then steep turns, slow flight, power-off and power-on stalls, turns around a point and ...oops, engine “failure”. I set best glide, did checklists and flew to the nice field with base to final turn and brought flaps in. Go around at 400 ft, climbed and performed turns around a point. Then flight under the hood, unusual attitudes recovery and then lost operations. I dialed PAE VOR, turned to it but the needle was so shaky so I told him we're really near the airport. He took hood off and here we go - Paine Field is 8 miles in front of us.

Went back to the airport and did soft field landing which was not pretty at all but he was satisfied. Then short field with the 50ft tree that grows out of numbers. I did nice approach, nailed speeds but when leveling off ballooned badly! Shame, shame, I performed a go-around, but was a little slow with bringing nose down so the examiner expressed a serious concern. That's were I started sweating twice while feet going cold. “That's it, I failed” - was dominating thought in my head. First, so-so landing, then sloppy go-around, what's next? Next, he said, try it one more time. I set good approach, cleared the obstacle with 25 ft margin, and planted the plane firm again. Well, for short field, that's how it's supposed to be, right? I said to him humbly: Sir, I don't know why, but me does not want to flare much today :). You're all right, he said, you passed, you're a safe pilot. Oh my God, what a feeling!

Almost 4 months of training at about 55 hours of flying time was pretty challenging to share with overtime work and family with small kids. I'm grateful to my wife she understands what it means to me. I'm worn out but the reward is great. It's like standing on top of the mountain after steep brisk climb - tired and happy at the same time. Now the real learning begins. :)

Long Cross Country Flight Completed

Paul Petrov — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 13:09:00 GMT

I've done it. On Sunday I completed my long cross country flight requirement. The route was KPAE (Everett) - KCLM (Port Angeles) - KBLI (Bellingham). There were low cloud ceilings first half of the day and I had to wait for the afternoon before taking off. I had prepared two flight plans to choose from in case the weather is bad on one of them. It turned out to be a good decision: even by afternoon ceilings were lower than VFR minimums along two legs of my first choice route: Everett - Port Angeles - Olympia - Everett. So at 14:00 I filed backup fight plan, preflighted and fueled the plane and took off.

Being two weeks out of practice I felt rusty and decided to stay in the airport pattern for a while and to refreshing landings a bit. Boy was I right, my landings sucked. First one was ok but on the second I was too high, tried to slip and gained some extra speed, ballooned and had to abort the landing. After I did three more, and they were consistently improving, I announced westbound departure and left Paine Field towards Port Angeles.

Flying to Port Angeles was somewhat adventurous. Since I departed from the south end of the airport and climbed in southwest direction for a while I ended up way south of the 265 radial from the Paine Field VOR which I intended to track. I couldn't intercept my course right down to the peninsula shoreline and then had to take north of planned path because of low cloud layer hanging from Olympic Mountains. Being busy chasing down the course and thinking about rusty landings I didn't open flight plan for this leg and did not get the flight following. Granted my route fell in between areas controlled by Seattle and Whidbey approach so neither would be able to provide continuous radar services. Meanwhile, as Port Angeles showed up I got to the business of landing. There were no planes in the pattern and I announced my intentions on common advisory frequency, overflew the airport from south side, turned 180 and entered pattern...as I realized later from the wrong side. Runway 26 has non-standard right traffic pattern in order to avoid flying close to mountain ridge on the south side of the airport. I had the airport diagram, made notes in my navigation log and nevertheless made standard left traffic entrance. I even ingored pattern indicator on the ground, definitely two weeks break did not do any good. The airport is uncontrolled and I was alone in the pattern so nobody pointed out at my mistake. Landing was not bad given 8 knots crosswind which is about my maximum endorsed limitation. I decided to park, take a breath and meditate on just happened experiences. After 20 minutes of break, taking pictures and snacking an apple I went off to the next destination - Bellingham.

During flight to Bellingham everything fell in place: take off, course tracking, flight plan activation, climb and level off, in route checkpoints. I climbed to 5500, contacted Whidbey Approach radar control and enjoyed flight following by their friendly controller. He asked do not directly overfly Whidbey Naval Air Station, and that's the only deviation I had to make during this leg. It was pretty cold at this altitude (~0C), so a little of cabin heat made me feeling warm and cozy. In route I observed beautiful views of Puget Sound, made some pictures, and watched Bellingham approaching on the horizon.

Stop at Bellingham International airport was concise. Land, clear off runway, request taxi to departure and take off. On the way back I got some nice views of Lake Whatcom and peacefully flew back home with Whidbey Approach (East) flight following. Landing was in direct crosswind with 9 knots velocity. I was too high on final again, had to forward slip like crazy to loose all that altitude, but did a good job in maintaining speed and landed firm and safe.

The bottom line: I have completed all requirements for FAR Part 141 training. From now on, I'm on final approach to my goal - becoming certified private pilot.

Photo report is here.

FAA written passed

Paul Petrov — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:24:00 GMT

I've passed written FAA exam and ready to fly long solo cross-country. I will try to make it tomorrow if weather permits and the route would be one of these two:

Everett, WA (PAE) - Port Angeles (CLM) - Olympia (OLM) - Everett, WA (PAE)
Everett, WA (PAE) - Port Angeles (CLM) - Bellingham (BLI) - Everett, WA (PAE).

Those VFR Weather Minimums

Paul Petrov — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 21:17:00 GMT

Pilots’ world is full of acronyms and sayings to help memorizing critical facts, procedures and flows. Some of them are neutral and even make sense in the usage context like IMSAFE self check:

Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, External Pressure

Some lack much sense, like pre landing check list:

Brakes off
Undercarriage (down and locked)
Mixture rich

Propeller pitch
Fuel pump on and sufficient
Instruments (D.I, altimeter)
Switches (carb heat, landing light, etc.)
Harnesses and hatches secure

Some are just funny, like TOMATO FLAMES (required VFR equipment list):

   Tachometer for each engine
   Oil Temperature for each air-cooled engine
   Magnetic Compass with Deviation Card
   Airspeed Indicator
   Temperature gauge
           Oil Pressure gauge
           Fuel gauge for each fuel tank
   Landing gear position indicator
   Altimeter
   Manifold pressure gauge
           ELT, if required
   Safety belts and harnesses

While preparing for the FAA written exam I found it’s difficult to remember VFR weather minimums. See yourself, this table is not memory friendly http://www.faa.gov/ATPubs/AIM/Chap3/aim0301.html#tbB190ROBE. So I decided to come up with the way to memorize all those numbers by classifying and creating a smaller table.

First, we have three levels of visibility and three levels of clouds clearance.

Visibility (odd numbers):

- Low: 1 mile

- Medium: 3 miles (Low + 2)

- High: 5 miles (Medium + 2)

Clouds clearance:

- Low: Clear of Clouds

- Medium: 500, 1000, 2000 (progression: 500, 500*2, 500*2*2)

- High: 1000, 1000, 1 mile (three ones)

There are total 5 different combinations of these requirements:

Level	Visibility	Cloud Clearance	Airspace
Weak	Low	Low	Low G (0-1,200AGL) day
Relaxed 1	Low	Medium	Middle G (1,200AGL-10,000MSL) day
Relaxed 2	Medium	Low	B
Medium	Medium	Medium	C, D, low E(<10,000MSL), G night
Strict	High	High	High E (>10,000MSL), high G(>10,000MSL)

Essentially, we have four levels of weather minimums with two variations of Relaxed. To avoid confusion with “Relaxed” levels think that it’s important to see the traffic and ground in Bravo airspace (medium visibility over the low cloud clearance) as it is more congested than Golf (low visibility and medium cloud clearance).

Although it does not look as simple as GUMPS after making this table I remembered those numbers well. I guess working on your own mnemonic system (even a lousy one) is the best way to memorize things. J

First Solo Flight

Paul Petrov — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 02:07:00 GMT

I finally did my first solo flight. I could have done it earlier but was delayed for a couple weeks by lack of medical certificate and weather. After getting certificate I scheduled flight on Saturday, August 12 praying for the weather to cooperate. When met by instructor at the airport I was told that wind is pretty strong (12knots) and is not a good for the first solo. That put me down a bit. Anyways, we went up and flew to practice area to do some ground reference maneuvers hoping for the winds to calm down when we return. On the way back I checked ATIS weather and it was still at 12 knots and air was a bit bumpy. We did 4 touch and go's and all of them were good, in fact much better than last time. The wind was almost along the runway with little crosswind component so I handled it easily. After landing I observed struggle on my instructor's face. He certainly did not want to let me solo in winds exceeding 8 knots, on the other hand he saw that I handled it well and did 4 consistently good landings in a row (one of them involved distraction and changing pattern - traffic on final approach). Also we felt pressure of waiting too long on this day, so while taxiing he contacted ground control to double check wind again and ask for the last hours trends. :) The answer was the wind stays the same for the last three hours. Ouch! We parked the plane and went inside to talk about scheduling our next attempt on Monday. Feeling a bit sad I got outside heading to my car and immediately felt that wind was less than 12kts, heck I smelled it. I turn around and go inside passing by instructor and mumbling "...hmm...lemmy double check..." going straight to the computer and pulling aviationweather.com. Yes, METAR shows 8kts variable wind. While I'm staring at the screen he comes by, looks over my shoulder and asks "So-o, you think you can handle that?". The answer was: " Well, I don't want to pressure you but I think so." (while thinking: "Hell, yes! You saw that." :) ) I turn around and see him smiling and holding my logbook. "You know the drill, I'll see you back after you do three take-offs/landings." - and handed the logbook and keys over to me.

I did a quick fuel and oil check and jump in the plane, it was still warm after our flight. Yes, it does feel much roomier inside C-152 without instructor on board :). Started engine, checked weather and contacted ground for taxi clearance. Funny, first time in my practice they asked me not to use taxiway but go through the airport near fueling station. So there I went hiding behind hangars in route to runway 34R. At the run-up check I found that engine was running rough on right magneto so had to clean it up by leaning mixture and running at 2000rpm for 30 seconds. After that pretake-off check went smooth and all gauges were in green. I tuned to the tower and made that dreaded call: "Paine tower, Cessna 67991 at 34R ready for take-off for closed traffic." And mind you, they did clear me for take-off. So, taxi in position, full power, roll along and lift-off. Once in the air, I thought I'd ask myself the same classic question first-timers ask: "What the heck are you doing here alone?" But I didn't. Well, I couldn't because I was smiling to much and everytime I started thinking like that the answer hardwired in my brain popped out right away: "I'm here to fly the damn airplane!" :) Three landings were pretty consistent, one better one worse but all good so this part was sort of uneventful. The only thing I noticed it ended too fast, I wanted more. When I exited the runway and contacted tower they congratulated me and I thanked them back. I really feel thankful to controllers for their job, to my instructor, and to my wife for her support of my endeavor. I have some work to do to get the license but something changed tonight. I can fly, I can go up there and can safely go down, my dream has come true. Awesome feeling.