Inheritance

Taking over a student who has been working with a different instructor presents an additional set of challenges that aren't there when you're lucky enough to start with them from scratch.

Each instructor teaches things in their own way and the challenge as the new instructor is to understand that just because a student was taught to do something differently doesn't automatically mean it's a bad thing.

I've inherited three such students recently that represent, I hope, the full spectrum of how good, or bad, a flight instructor can be.

On the “good” end of the spectrum, I picked up an instrument student from an instructor who was leaving for the airlines. The student was almost ready to take his check ride when I took him on and my job was easy.

We flew once and I was impressed. My only advice was “get your written done and I'll sign you off for the ride.” We flew a few more times, I signed him off and he passed easily. His previous instructor had done a fantastic job, which made my job easy enough that I even felt a bit guilty about being able to credit the successful check ride.

Toward the middle was another instrument student who came to me after doing the bulk of his training with another instructor. I don't know the details but apparently the instructor wasn't totally up to speed with the current IFR environment, and I suppose the Practical Test Standards, and didn't feel comfortable signing the student off for a check ride.

I had mixed emotions about that case. On one hand, good for the instructor knowing his limitations. On the other, it's inexcusable to teach a student without being fully competent on the subject or at the very least being willing to put in the effort to get competent.

I teach instrument flying, if not every day, at least every other day and there's still plenty that I don't know and I study it obsessively.

I really don't know how a part-time instructor, who maybe takes on one or two students a year can do a proper job teaching instrument flying. There are exceptions, for certain, but unless they've spent 40 years flying IFR daily as an airline pilot or something I just don't get it.

Anyway, the student was actually in reasonably good shape when it came to basic instrument flying and it was just a matter of doing some polishing, filling some knowledge gaps and hammering on approaches.

I was a little disappointed that when the weather on our first flight dictated picking up a local IFR clearance my inherited student had never done so, much less flown inside of a cloud.

But, we got through it and long story short, he passed his check ride this week without difficulty.

Finally, on the “this guy shouldn't be teaching” end of the spectrum is one of my private students, who came from another flight school.

We spent some time talking when she first arrived and I was shocked by what I heard.

My student's previous instructor had, over the course of 20 or 25 hours, not taught my student how to land the airplane, spent a fair amount of time yelling at her and damaged her confidence to the point that she was thinking of quitting.

Fundamentally, her instructor had also allowed her to develop some bad habits so we spent the first 10 hours or so fixing those along with setting a relaxed, safe atmosphere in the cockpit.

Essentially, she was a good pilot despite her previous instructor and now just needed to believe that was so. It was tough going, but slowly we managed to get there.

There was no single turning point, but one of the more defining moments came when we went flying on an extremely windy day.

I'm loath to cancel lessons because of high winds. I hated flying on windy days as a student, but my instructor forced me to and as a result I was able to develop a decent crosswind landing technique. I thank him for it to this day.

Anyway, the winds were in the 25 knot range with gusts up to 40. Normally, even I would have stayed on the ground but it was too good a learning opportunity.

After a few wild landings at the nearby Anoka County Airport we headed back to our St. Paul base. The winds were still 25 knots but at least they were more or less in line with the runway.

At about a hundred feet my student looked over and said “I'm going to need some help.”

I looked back, smiled and crossed my arms. “Nope. I know you can do this.”

It wasn't the prettiest landing ever, but it was good enough and better than most pilots would have managed under the circumstances.

When she soloed for the first time this week it was a pretty emotional event all around.

Spring has sprung

The dog days of winter are over, replaced by the spring flying frenzy and soon to be replaced by the more traditional dog days of summer.

After four solid months of truly awful weather it has stopped snowing, the slow moving low pressure systems that hung over Minnesota for what seemed like weeks on end bringing with them days of rain, snow, low clouds and general malaise have, for the most part, been replaced by a string of steady highs and fine flying weather.

It never ceases to amaze me how long winter lingers in Minnesota and how quickly spring comes. It seems that over the course of only a few days the state goes from brown and dead to green and lush.

The flying energy that has built up over the long winter has been released in synchronization with the plants that have shot back to life.

This is all reflected on my flying schedule, which has been packed. Last week saw 26 hours added to my woefully out of date logbook. This week will bring less flying but still enough that 12-hour duty days are typical.

The accelerated pace will keep up until July, when vacations draw people away from airplanes and flight instructors. July and August are slow times. The pilots looking to brush off the rust of a winter with little flying have done so by midsummer, students working on ratings pack their bags and families into the car and head for parts unknown.

Perversely, I'm looking forward to the summer slowdown, even though it comes with a slowdown in my income as well.

Leading up to the Memorial Day weekend I'd flown 19-days in a row and was pretty much a walking bag of goo.

On Wednesday I left the house at 7:30 in the morning and didn't pull back into the driveway until after midnight. I wish I could say I flew the entire time, but the reality is an absurd amount of my day is spent waiting around between lessons, driving to different airports or repositioning airplanes. Then there is ground with students before and after lessons, paperwork and, if I'm lucky, a break to eat.

It might sound too good to be true, flying every day is a dream for most folks and I am admittedly fortunate. But with it comes an aching back, ears that ring after a long day in the cockpit, dinners sourced from vending machines and an overall hourly wage that can best be described as laughable.

And behind it all looms the reality that my career, not to mention my life, could be over given a moment's inattention at the wrong time.

On Tuesday, I set the altimeter incorrectly and flew a customer who had dropped his airplane off for maintenance back to his home airport with the altimeter reading nearly 1,000 feet low.

Luckily, I was also reading the altimeter incorrectly so I flew along 1,000 feet lower than I thought I was. All of which turned out to be a good thing, as another 1,000 feet of altitude would have placed me squarely in the middle of Minneapolis' Class B airspace and led to an almost certain violation.

Stupid things happen when you fly exhausted.

Threading the needle

We have just passed Ft. Wayne, Indiana and the wind is starting to shift to the left and increase in velocity. The temperature has dropped a few degrees and we are eyeing the datalink weather.

We are burning $90 worth of 100 octane, low-lead aviation gasoline every 60 minutes as 74% of 310 horsepower pulls us through the air.

Outside, it is fine VFR. The ride is smooth and we've enjoyed a brisk tailwind since departing Pittsburgh a little over an hour ago.

We are racing the weather, aiming for a slot between a massive line of storms and Chicago's Class B airspace. Both are places we do not want to go.

The weather is a no-go zone because we want to live to be old. Chicago's airspace is a no-go because we want to get home before we're old and who knows what vectors they'll give us.

Once we hit Joliet, Illinois, we'll shoot north toward Madison, where it is good VFR, and get gas. Then, if we're lucky, we'll continue on home.

Or we'll head for Chicago where my student has business interests. It is St. Patrick's day and a night on the town in Chicago is nearly as irresistible a lure as a night in our own beds.

Or, we'll spend a night in Madison and drink beer on State Street since we know we won't be going anywhere in the morning. The weather is coming.

Our options in all cases are good ones.

There is snow over Lake Michigan and the water is cold, so a more direct route is out and we're aiming for the hole in the needle.

To our right it's beautiful, until you hit the snow over the lake, so our options are good.

Technology makes a trip like this less stressful. With our datalink weather, which brings us radar, current conditions at airports along our route, forecasts and the winds aloft, we can make strategic decisions based on what's happening hundreds of miles in front of us.

The trick is to make good strategic decisions that ensure a safe flight so you aren't forced to make tactical ones.

We make it to the hole in the needle, but just barely. Ten minutes from Joliet the visibilities drop. We've been getting VFR flight following from Chicago approach control but VFR is no longer an option, so we pick up an IFR clearance to Madison.

Chicago approach is the best and we're immediately cleared to Madison. We climb back to 3,000 feet and there is no rain, just mist, haze and light turbulence as we brush against the front edge of the storms.

As we make the turn northward at Joliet the winds that have been continuing to shift from the South rocket us at 196 knots towards Madison, where there is no cloud cover but it is still hazy.

At Madison we can't believe our luck. Somehow the weather Gods who rarely grin are smiling on us. There is a break in the snow and crud that had hit the Twin Cities for much of the day.

We launch on our IFR flight plan and cruise along under an overcast with unrestricted visibilities. Below us it is misty and hazy but there are few clouds. Above is an overcast and it is cold.

A Mesaba airliner reports light icing at 9,000 feet so we immediately file that bit of information away and determine not to climb into the clouds.

We can see La Crosse, Wisconsin and Winona, Minnesota so those become our points of retreat. The datalink shows us that Owatonna, Minnesota is also VFR and Eau Claire is decent. Options abound and we are fat with fuel, thanks to the quick ride up from Madison.

Options are everything and while we are not wealthy given today's weather neither are we paupers. Our options account is merely full enough that continuing is prudent.

The temperatures are still positive as Minneapolis drops us down to 4,000 feet and into the clouds that start to appear near Red Wing, Minnesota.

Our home base had been reporting 1,700 foot broken clouds and five miles visibility and for the first time all day we are truly optimistic about sleeping in our own beds.

As we get closer the weather we have been racing starts catching up and it is snowing lightly when we land while the visibility has dropped to two miles.

Five minutes later it is snowing heavily, but we are warm and dry and drinking coffee in the office no longer caring what the weather is doing.

We've made it through the hole in the second needle.

More milestones

The flying lull continues but there have been some bright spots.

One of my students passed his commercial check ride, the other his private. It's a great feeling on both counts to see dreams come true.

On a more mundane level, my logbook now reads four figures.

Passing 1,000 hours was a surprisingly low-key event. For years I looked at 1,000 hours as an unreachable goal, now it's just another in the long string of numbers that dictate my life.

Numbers are everywhere -- and in many cases everything -- in aviation.

1,000 hours, in fact, means nothing.

1,200 hours, on the other hand, means you're qualified to be pilot-in-command under Part 135 IFR operations. That's provided you also have 500 hours of cross-country flying, 100 hours of night and 75 hours of instrument time.

1,200 is the next number that actually matters to me, and even then only a tiny bit.

10 hours of multi-engine time, despite whatever your big number adds up to, means you don't have enough to get hired by the airlines. 50 hours means you do. Maybe. 25 means you might. And 100 is better.

So 100 is also the next number that matters, although by the time I get there I may or may not have a desire to fly the line, and the line may or may not have a desire for pilots.

The 600 hours of dual given in my logbook, also, means little. It is certainly a crude accounting of experience, but the fact is one person could learn quite a bit about their craft in 600 hours while another could learn very little indeed.

The only milestone left as an instructor dictated directly by the numbers is the ability to train first-time flight instructors, which requires two years as an instructor but only a few hundred hours of instruction given.

So, an instructor who has worked part-time for two years and given 201 hours of dual can train new flight instructors, but an instructor who has worked full-time for 18 months and given more than 600 hours of dual can't.

That makes no sense to me, but that's how it goes in a professional life that is measured in six-minute intervals.

So 2, or 24 if you prefer to count in months, is also the next number that matters. It is also the only number that matters that, outside of continuing to breathe in and out, I can't do anything about.

15 matters too, as you need 15 hours of multi-engine PIC to qualify for a multi-engine instructor's rating, although in my case the exact number to get to the magic 15 is 11.6.

So there you have it. When it comes to the numbers, 11.6, 100, 1,200 and 2 matter right now.

Well, those and tonight's lotto numbers.

I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about the numbers, although it's hard not to when nearly every question, opportunity and paycheck relies on them.

I figure if I keep having fun the numbers will take care of themselves.

The Dog Days of Winter

There hasn't been much to write about because there just hasn't been a lot of flying lately.

The past six weeks here in Minnesota has been one long string of lousy weather. Ceilings and visibilities have been low and on the rare occasions when it's been clear the temperatures have been below zero, which isn't much fun to fly in.

The weather has led to a score of canceled lessons, frantic reschedules and more cancellations.

I've managed to get a few flights in, including a trip down to Chicago and back, but for the most part the routine has been: Wake up, check the forecast, cancel, reschedule, repeat.

Last winter I only scrubbed four or five flights because of weather. This winter I'm scrubbing four or five flights a week. Amazing.

The Chicago trip was mostly routine: Take a Cirrus down to pick up an instrument student and give him a lesson on the way back. It's a great way to learn instrument flying, since it's a real trip, with real weather, real decisions to make along the way and the chance to see the inside of some clouds.

Departing STP the ceilings were overcast at 800 feet with 2 miles visibility and although I could see the sun poking through the clouds, there were no airmets for icing and all the pilot reports indicated no icing I kept a careful eye for any signs of build-up. As expected, there was none and after maybe a minute in the clouds I was on top, squinting in the bright sunlight.

Down in Chicago the conditions were similar, although the tops were a little higher, necessitating an ILS into PWK. I wasn't expecting any icing but I was still wary as I descended into the soup. Once again there was no ice to be found. The approach lights oozed into view and eventually the runway showed up right where it was supposed to be.

We refueled, I ran to the bathroom and we blasted off back into the crud, this time with my student flying. He did a fine job once he settled down a bit and relaxed. Chicago departure was unusually quiet, with only a few airplanes on the frequency.

Coming back into STP I was reminded again at how good and dedicated air traffic controllers are.

STP was reporting clear skies with 4 miles visibility in mist, so the ILS 14 was in use. The Minneapolis approach controller started vectoring us for the ILS then came on and said “I'm going to take you low and right past the airport to see if you can get in on a visual.”

Sure enough, he vectored us beautifully into a left downwind for 14 at 2,500 feet and even though the setting sun made it difficult to see we were able to pick up the airport and fly an easy visual approach.

The visual saved us a bunch of time compared to flying the full ILS and it's actually a maneuver that seems to generate some confusion in new instrument pilots, mainly because it's hardly ever practiced during training.

We fly low-circling approaches, albeit in good conditions, straight-in approaches, again usually in good conditions, but it's rare to practice a simple visual approach in poor conditions.

The biggest source of confusion seems to stem from the word "visual" in "visual approach" and people seem to think they're suddenly operating VFR, which isn't the case. You're still under IFR, you're just flying a visual approach and landing. Maybe it's the sheer simplicity of the thing that throws folks.

There are plenty of pilots out there who have never seen how miserable and dangerous 4-miles of visibility is. Even though it's above basic VFR minimums, 4 miles isn't much at all, especially in a 150-knot airplane.

I make it a point to get all of my students, private or instrument, some exposure to that environment. To date not a single one has said "cool, I'll do this all the time" and the standard response seems to be "This is awful, let's go home."

Reading about 4-mile visibility in a weather report is one thing, seeing it for yourself is something else entirely.

I reminded my student to make sure he knew where downtown St. Paul was so we didn't fly into a building on the approach and he did a good job maneuvering in the haze.

I would have preferred a simple ILS were the conditions any poorer, but as a teaching opportunity there's good value in having a student see what it's like to fly the airplane visually in poor conditions.

There's also good value in taking the opportunity to remind the student that they can always decide to fly an ILS, which in many cases is more prudent.

It's that judgment required for safe instrument flight that I love, which is why I enjoy teaching instrument flying so much.

For non-instrument rated pilots things are usually pretty simple: If the weather is marginal, stay on the ground and fly a better day.

For instrument pilots, even the seemingly simple act of getting to the airport mean a host of choices, any one of which can go horribly wrong: Fly a full approach or fly the visual? Which approach to fly? Is there a concern about icing, in which case it may make sense to stay out of the clouds for as long as possible and deal with a “slam-dunk” approach, which has it's own set of risks and challenges.

Couple that with the technology available in airplanes like the Cirrus and even a routine trip down to Chicago and back winds up being a lot of work, but also a pretty satisfying way to spend 4.9 hours on a Sunday.