The longest day

I never thought I'd have to worry about running up against the 8-hour limit for instructing in a 24-hour period. I was wrong.

Yesterday, my alarm clock went off at 5:30 a.m., I stumbled into the shower, grabbed a bowl of cereal then checked the weather. I was on the road by 6:30 and at the airport by 7 to fly the required long IFR cross-country with one of my instrument students.

We went over his planning and finally got the engine running at 7:55 a.m. The winds were howling out of the north but it still took us longer than expected to get to La Crosse. Center gave us the ILS-18 via the DME Arc and my guy did a nice job flying the approach. We picked up a new clearance and battled the headwinds up to Eau Claire for the Loc/DME back course 04, again via an arc.

From there, it was a fairly simple clearance back to Crystal, we got vectors for the VOR-A and circled to land.

All total, the engine was running for 4 hours.

After that it was a quick lunch then an IFR currency flight in the 182RG with another pilot in my club. We flew six approaches and a hold, had a lot of fun and had the engine turning for 2.5 hours.

My next flight wasn't scheduled until 7:30 p.m. I grabbed a cup of coffee, hung out at the FBO for a bit and finally met my private student to go over his planning for his dual night cross-country.

As luck would have it, the last person who flew the airplane didn't fuel it, so we had to taxi over to the pumps and top it off.

That meant we weren't wheels up until 9 p.m. We picked up flight following and headed up to Little Falls. My student did a fine job, it was a beautiful night and we could spot the airport beacon from 30-miles out.

I'd figured it wouldn't take more than 90 minutes to get up to KLXL and back to Crystal so I'd be right at the 8-hour limit. Well, turns out it took a bit longer (everything takes longer with student pilots, which isn't a bad thing) and by the time we finished up we'd been burning avgas for 2.3 hours.

That meant 8.8 hours of flying yesterday, none of it particularly easy, and a 17-hour “duty day.”

I staggered into my truck and tried to stay awake on the drive home. At midnight I parked in front of the house, stumbled upstairs and tried to fall asleep with my ears ringing and the oddest sensation that I was turning left. I guess nearly 9 hours of bouncing around in an airplane had messed with my inner ear because even though I was on a nice solid bed I kept feeling like I was in light turbulence. Weird.

Anybody who thinks flight instructing is a cake job or an easy way to build hours is clueless. It's a great job and incredibly satisfying, but it's also hard work and long days. Fueling an airplane in the freezing, windy dark after you've been up for 15 hours and already flown for almost 7 just isn't my idea of glamor.

I have no flying scheduled for the next couple of days and that's just fine with me.