Solos, checkrides, sleep deprivation

It was a beautiful morning for flying so one of my primary students and I hopped in a 172 to work on some takeoffs and landings.

We hadn't flown together in nearly two weeks but you wouldn't have known it. His patterns were perfect and his landings were decent.

After the third trip around the patch without having to say a word I asked him if he'd brought his medical with him. Turns out he had.

Me: “Good, take me back to the hanger. Leave the engine running when we get there.”

He: “Um, ok.”

I pointed out that he'd done three fine trips around the pattern and seeing as how I wasn't bringing much to the party this particular morning I might as well get out and let him do it on his own so he could see how the airplane flew without 240 pounds of dead weight in the right seat.

I signed his medical/student pilot certificate, put the required endorsements in his logbook and handed it back to him.

It's just a total thrill to stand there at the door with the prop idling away, look over and say “Go out and give me three then bring it back to the barn. Have fun.”

I watched the first trip with the typical nerves but he greased it on so I relaxed, sat back and enjoyed the next two.

Sadly, I'd forgotten to bring any scissors since I hadn't planned on soloing him today, which meant I didn't get to cut his shirt tail and give him a souvenir. I snapped a photo instead, shook his hand and we had a good laugh reviewing the morning.

He was thrilled, of course, as was I.

Seeing a student solo for the first time is a reminder that I have one of the best jobs in the world.

With that drama out of the way, I met another primary student at a nearby hangar to review his planning for his long solo cross-country. The weather looked good, he'd planned it well and had plenty of gas so I sent him on his way.

The past couple of nights have been devoted to doing some brush up with with an instrument student to get him ready for a re-take checkride. He made a bit of a mess of the partial panel non-precision approach on his first try, which carried over into a poor ILS and subsequent pink slip from the examiner.

We went up, worked on the partial panel approaches which he flew just fine and did some ILS practice as well.

It's odd, but his ILS approaches have been consistently good and the last one before his checkride was perfect, easily within ATP standards. He flew another beauty that was just as pretty afterward, so it was a mystery to both of us why he botched it so badly on the checkride.

Anyhow, I'm fairly certain it was nerves after screwing up the non-precision approach earlier on the ride.

So, he's all signed off for his re-test and hopefully that will be that.

I figure this past week I've averaged about five hours of sleep per night, which is a few hours shy of what I'd like. The typical routine involved getting up at 5:30 for a 7 a.m. lesson, flying once or twice more during the day then flying again at 7 or so, which means I don't get back on the ground until 9.

By the time the airplane gets put away, we debrief, I drive home, eat dinner and power down enough to go to bed it's midnight.

It's fun, but it's also difficult because my work day wind up stretching out over 12 or 14 hours, longer if you factor in drive time.

Which I guess is a long way of saying I need some sleep. My next day off isn't until Monday, so hopefully I can sleep in a bit then.

Missing man

I don't get to do much flying on my own, but the opportunity presented itself Tuesday and I jumped at the chance.

It wasn't the happiest of occasions as I headed up to the Fargo Air Museum to attend the memorial service for Gerry Beck, who was killed when his Mustang collided with another P-51 while landing at Oshkosh.

I'm sad to say I never got to know Beck very well. I'd met him a few times and it was always an interesting experience and he was a class act all the way. The fact that the ramp near the museum was packed and there had to be 700-800 people there was a testament to Beck and what he meant to people.

The service was touching, funny, moving, sad and inspirational in all the right places and proportions and I was glad I made the trip.

The flight home was a good chance to just sit back and enjoy the fact that I'm lucky enough to fly airplanes when I wish.

I'd filed IFR even though the forecast was good, just to get some time in the system. Besides, it's easier than flying VFR. It turned out to be a good thing. It was hot and hazy and when the sun set a few minutes after I lifted off it was downright murky, even at 7,000 feet.

I gave up flying visually and went on the gauges. The weather was still technically VFR but in the dark and haze there wasn't anything that resembled a horizon and there aren't many lights on the ground in that part of the country for reference.

To relieve the boredom I concentrated on keeping the cross track error on the Garmin 430 as close to zero as I could. It's absurd to try and fix an error of a few hundredths of a mile but there wasn't much else to do so I made a little game of trying.

After a while I caught something out of the corner of my eye, looked up and just stared ahead totally confused by what I was seeing.

It took probably a minute, maybe two, before I realized the bright red object on the horizon was the moon, rising through the haze.

It was truly spectacular and I just stared in awe at one of the most beautiful moonrises I've seen. I had to chuckle and for a minute I wondered if Gerry had arranged a special treat for everyone who was flying home that evening.

It's incredible, the special sights we see from the front seats of our tiny airplanes and how flying can make you feel so privileged and yet so insignificant at the same time.