I love this job

What's the best thing about being a flight instructor? Standing in a freezing hangar at 8:30 p.m. talking flying with somebody who is really starting to “get it.”

Never mind that I haven't eaten in nine hours. Forget about seeing my income drop by 95% last year so I could do this full-time. This year will be better. The string of check rides, frustrations and huge airplane bills it took to get to this point are all a distant memory.

It's a rush helping people learn and somehow it doesn't seem quite as cold when you've returned from a good lesson and watched the person in the left seat fly beautifully.

Pitch and power, knowing the numbers is all it takes to get you in the ballpark.

2,000 RPM, flaps up and half a dot nose-up pitch gets you 90 knots in this particular 172.

2,100 rpm, 10 degrees of flap and about the same pitch gets you 90 knots again.

4 degrees pitch up and about 10 degrees of bank in that configuration gives you a level standard-rate turn and 1,800 RPM with 4 degrees nose down pitch makes for a 500 fpm descent.

If you're clean, the number is 1,900 rpm and about a dot low on the pitch for 500 fpm.

Back in the hangar we're talking about this and my student, having witnessed it since day one, is shaking his head in amazement.

He gets it.

It works and it'll work every time, which means flying the airplane on instruments just got a whole lot easier. It's just a matter of knowing the numbers, trusting the numbers and flying them and you'll be close to your desired performance. Or even spot on.

It's like magic but really it's just knowing the airplane. In an SR-22 full power, clean and 11 degrees nose-up pitch gets you best rate of climb. I forget what that speed is because I don't fly an SR-22 very often but I know the pitch/power combination that'll get me there.

20 inches of manifold pressure in the SR22 gives you about 145 knots level. A good number to know when you're trying to slow it down. At maneuvering speed, the magic number for a steep turn is 2.5 degrees nose up, which is easy to do on the big Primary Flight Display. Keep 2.5 degrees nose-up pitch in the turn and you don't need an altimeter to fly through your own wake.

15 inches in the SR22 is good on downwind and 2 miles before the final approach fix with half flaps. 12 inches of manifold pressure is good for a precision approach, 11 for a non-precision. Or is it 11 and 10?

Again, it's like magic but it isn't.

What is magic is watching an instrument student fly that precisely after only a handful of hours under the hood and realizing I'm not cold even though it's hovering around zero degrees in the hangar.

The Century Mark

I logged my 100^th hour of dual given somewhere near the Gopher VOR today. It's not a lot of time, but I've learned a bunch about instructing, about people and about flying in those 100 hours.

To celebrate I treated myself to a beer and I'm going out to see a movie with my wife. Do I know how to party like a wild man or what?

Instructing is starting to feel natural and I'm getting a feel for what works and what doesn't.

The amazing thing is the variety in each day.

Yesterday I flew four different airplanes with a pre-solo student, a student getting ready to take their private check ride, a brand-new primary student and an instrument student. They're all very different and at different places in terms of their experience, which made each flight more fun.

I think I'd be bored stiff teaching at an academy where every student wanted to be an airline pilot and the lessons were strictly laid out under part 141.

I also celebrated a couple of anniversaries this month: The one-year mark since leaving my 'real job' to concentrate on flying full time and the one-year mark since my instrument check ride. January, it turns out, will also be a personal record for flying: 37 hours this month so far with at least three more flights scheduled early next week.

My goal was to fly 40 hours in January and it looks like that will happen. I could probably fly 60 to 70 hours a month comfortably. Beyond that, well, it would be tough. Four lessons in one day is a lot of instruction and I'm mentally worn out at the end of it.

It's a delicate balance between instructing enough to stay sharp, give good service and make reasonable money and instructing so much that you get burned out and don't do a good job. If I was in it just for the hours I wouldn't care, but I'm not so I keep an eye on things.

It's a difficult process, building a business as an independent instructor, but it's fun and starting to pan out. I'm busy, which is perfect, and I could be busier which I hope to be.

To top it all off I picked up another instrument student, which makes four instrument ratings in progress now, so February is going to be pretty busy as long as the weather cooperates.

Speaking of weather, so far this winter I've only had to scrub two flights due to weather but I'm sure that good luck won't hold.

Here's hoping it does because I can't wait to see what the next 100 hours holds.

The rule of three

Well, maybe not a rule, but at least an observation.

So far, each of my instrument students has struggled on their third lesson. The first lesson has gone relatively well and they each have done a good job under the hood the second time out as well.

Then, on the third lesson they've all had difficulty with basic attitude flying. Nothing major, but they've each flown a little worse than they had the lesson prior.

Granted, three students is a small sample size but still, weird.

On the fourth lesson they fly great and from then on their attitude instrument flying is pretty darn good.

I don't know for certain why the third lesson seems to cause problems since it's basically the same maneuvers as lessons one and two, but so far it has.

The common error is over-controlling and I think the problem is totally between the ears.

On lessons one and two they're getting used to the scan and flying the airplane via instruments. Because it's a new sensation and people have a high-degree of self-preservation built in they all seem to be fairly cautious with their control inputs.

They're doing the same stuff on lesson three but, I think, they're actually seeing and reacting to deviations more quickly and since they're more used to the sensation of flying under the hood they're a little less cautious with their control inputs.

I think they're also concentrating harder on flying perfectly, whereas before they didn't expect they could fly perfectly so weren't as aggressive with their corrections.

The result is they wind up over-controlling, get frustrated and over-control some more.

I don't know how many time's I've said “just make nice, gentle corrections, don't try to get your altitude/heading all back immediately” but it's a lot. I teach half-bar-width corrections on the attitude indicator for altitude deviations less than 100 feet, for example, and small bank angles for small heading deviations.

The odd thing is they've each come down shaking their head and complaining that they were all over the sky. I've pointed out to each of them that they flew within standards (+/- 100 feet, +/-10 degrees) so it wasn't a big deal and that they'll fly even better the next time out, which in each case they have.

I know their brains are doing some rewiring to connect their visual instrument interpretation with their physical control movements so maybe there's a little bit of synaptic rebellion that goes on as well. Sort of like re-calibrating something by going a little beyond the desired parameters then dialing everything back a hair.

If anybody thinks being a flight instructor is about flying airplanes, well, they're about 95% wrong.

From day one I teach instrument students (and primary students) to think in terms of varying control pressures instead of movements and I suppose it takes an hour of over-controlling the airplane for the idea to really sink in. Stressing proper trim and a delicate touch on the controls helps too.

I've started coming up with metaphors to help get the idea across.

My current favorite is “Pretend the boss is in the back and your job is to fly without spilling his drink.”

I'll have to think up some others while I'm banging around the practice area.

An interesting view

I've been flying at night with one of my instrument students, which is great because night is great for instrument training. It's harder for students to cheat, even unknowingly, for starters so it's more realistic. And the view is wonderful, so I get a tiny benefit as well.

Last night we were working on basic instrument maneuvers out to the west of Crystal at 3,500 feet when I spotted two big landing lights headed my way. The tough part about flying on clear, dark nights is judging distances. The lights could have been a mile away or 20 miles and I would have had a hard time telling the difference.

Anyhow, I kept my eye on them and had my student do a few maneuvers. Eventually, it became obvious that the lights were pretty close so I kept my eyes glued to them while I tried to determine his altitude.

Since the floor of the Class B is at 4,000 feet in that area and we were at 3,500 I was pretty certain they belonged to a Mesaba Airlines Saab 340 turboprop that feeds passengers to and from St. Cloud, just up the road, to MSP International.

Sure enough, the lights passed directly overhead and I could make out the twin turboprops and silvery belly of a Saab.

My instrument student never saw it, I hope the other pilots saw us and I wonder what the passengers would think if they knew they'd just passed 500 feet over a little Cessna in the middle of a training flight.

I'd never seen the bottom of an airplane (at least airborne) that close before and 500 feet isn't much but there was never a chance for an incident so it wasn't a big deal. Just one of the weird things you see when you spend most of your time flying.

One of the benefits of flying at night is that traffic is generally much easier to spot. As it turns out, we were dodging traffic all night. There were airplanes everywhere and while my instrument student focused on flying by the gauges I'd keep asking for heading adjustments to avoid a potential collision. We never came close of course, in no small part that it was so easy to spot traffic a long way out and make a heading change to keep us separated.

So far, it's been a good month. My new private student and I are headed out for his second lesson tomorrow, I'm flying with three instrument students at least twice a week each and my other private student is ready to start working in navigation and cross-countries so there's a lot of variety right now, which is great. In a few months I'll have a couple of students ready for their check rides if all goes well which will be a great accomplishment on their part.

I've flown 20 hours in 16 days so it's been busy but not crazy. I could stand to double that and I'd be happy. More than that and I'd be saturated though. Here's hoping I pick up a few more students because teaching is a bunch of fun.

Meat on a stick

A long, tough day, but still a bunch of fun.

I started at 11 with one of my instrument students. We filed IFR and flew up to Princeton for the NDB 15 followed by the GPS 33, then headed back to Crystal for the GPS 14L.

It was 1.9 hours total with all the screwing around, getting clearances, getting the airplane set up, missed approaches, holds, etc... and about 1.0 in actual. It was a weird day, we were just in and out of the clouds the entire time so I was working doubly hard.

Teaching instruments is never easy and it's extra tough in IMC, not because the flying is particularly difficult but because there's so much more going on and since you're on a clearance you can't let a student make too big a mistake.

When I was doing my instrument rating I never, ever thought I'd be comfortable enough to hang out in IMC looking across at the gauges from the right seat but now it's getting to be routine and I love it.

The approaches went reasonably well and I even learned something about the Garmin 430. We were cleared direct to Crystal from Princeton and when we were finally able to make contact with MSP approach they cleared us direct to ONYOP, an intermediate fix on the GPS 14L approach.

I guess my brain wasn't fully functioning, but I had my guy load the approach and select vectors-to-final with the intention of then going in to the FPL page, selecting ONYOP and going directly there.

Well, turns out ONYOP (or any intermediate fix, I'm assuming) only shows up if you select an Initial Approach Fix. If you select vectors the Garmin just draws a line from the final approach fix and doesn't place ONYOP in the flight plan.

Silly me. It took a few seconds while I guesstimated a heading toward ONYOP then re-loaded the approach via an IAF, went into the FPL page and got us headed directly to ONYOP.

Approach sort of piped up and asked if we were actually headed toward ONYOP and, I'm guessing, eventually figured out that we were still trying to figure it out as well and came back with a droll “Well, just report to me when you get established.”

I'm pretty sure after he un-keyed the mike he said “and you all be careful up there now.”

I love ATC.

After that, I had to check out a new club member in our 172s and he was waiting when we landed. So I debriefed the instrument lesson, explained the whole Garmin/ONYOP deal and immediately started the checkout.

We did an hour of ground on club operations, differences between the two 172s and some other procedural stuff then went flying. The guy flew great so after some slow flight, steep turns, a series of stalls and a power-off emergency approach we headed back to the airport, did a couple of landings and he was good to go.

I waved goodbye and walked over to the next hangar where my primary student was preflighting a 172 for his first night lesson.

We did some ground, got the flashlights ready and went flying. It was a beautiful night and my guy was loving it. I gave him time to get used to the perceptual differences at night then we did a bunch of turns, some slow flight with all the cabin lights turned off then headed over to Cambridge for some night landings.

On the ground, I'd briefed my own personal rule to never, ever, land on a runway at night without some sort of glidepath information (VASI, PAPI, ILS, etc...) unless you were totally familiar with the airport and surrounding obstructions. Even then, it's a bad idea.

For some reason, the PAPI for 16 at Cambridge was out so my guy got a first-hand look at how difficult it is to judge an approach at night to a runway without some sort of glidepath information.

On the second approach things were looking ok, then we started getting low and I sat there biting my tongue.

Finally, when the tops of the trees started showing up in our landing light my guy got the picture and started adding power. It was a great illustration of how easy it is to think everything is fine and fly into an obstruction at night.

From there it was over to Princeton for two more takeoffs and landings and we were both much happier to see the PAPI was working just fine.

We bucked a massive headwind back to Crystal and got the dreaded long, straight-in night approach. Personally, I think that's the most difficult visual approach to fly because it's so difficult to judge distances and there are really no good cues about when to start slowing down.

It's easy to think you're a mile to two from the runway when you're really 10 miles out, so slowing to approach speed too soon makes for a looooong final. Anyhow, I showed my guy how to use the GPS to gauge his distance and how to just fly along nice and level until the VASI showed we were on the glidepath.

The landing was a beauty and the flight was a total eye opener for my student. Crystal is a tough airport to find at night. Couple that with the whole tree episode and I think a lot of learning took place.

For the day, it was eight hours of non-stop instruction, 4.7 hours in the air including 1 hour of actual IMC. My back hurts, my brain is mush and all I ate all day was a bowl of granola at 8 a.m. To make matters worse, there's no beer in the fridge and I sure could use one.

Oh, and I ran over a Christmas tree at 65 m.p.h. on I-94 on the way home.

I'm whipped, but it's a good whipped.