So yesterday I broke 300 hours. 303.1 officially. I did 4 back to back cross country flights to Charlottesville, VA and that was pretty damn tiring. At least now I know I have an interview at Colgan if I want it. But for right now, I dont plan to take.
No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...
Last week my other 2 student finally got some good weather and where able to solo. The first one was completely uneventful. The second one was a little bit more tense.
The weather in the morning was complete crap. 200 overcast and about 1/4 vis. Fog was thick and NOTHING was leaving or coming in. But by about 12 it had burned off. So we go up and I do 3 turns in the pattern with him and then bring the plane back to the ramp, engine still running and ask him “So you think your ready to solo?” and of course he said “Yes!” So I gave him the whole speech about how the plane is going to climb much faster because my fat 215 pounds are gone, that he is to do 3 landings to a full stop with a taxi back, and that he is to tell the ground controller that he is a student pilot and this is his first solo. So I hop out and let him go.
I then run inside and grab my walkie-talkie so I can listen in on him talking to ground and tower. By the time I run back out to the ramp he is already taxiing to the run up area. He gets out there, does a run up and then lines up behind another Cessna, and he is #3 in line. He finally gets cleared for take-off and comes around with a nice landing. He then taxis back to the runway and is about #4 in line, and the planes lined up keep building. There are about 8 planes lined up. Manassas has parallel runways though and the other runway is not getting much use.
So my student is finally #1 in line and the tower tells him to taxi over the runway, and taxi to and hold short of the parallel runway. I start to freak out. He has only used the parallel runway once. All of his visual cues change, the runway is much longer, and has IFR traffic coming in on approach. I couldn’t believe the tower had a student pilot on his first solo change runways. We where all a little worried that he would make left traffic like the other runway and forget that the other runway was right traffic. Well he figured it out and did extremely well and I was pretty impressed on how he handled it all.
Afterwards I realized that the tower probably put him on the other runway with less traffic because of that fact, that it was less busy and they could keep tabs on him much easier.
No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...
Well today I was able to do a little bit of work. I managed to get 1.1 hours with a student who is ready to solo, but cant beacause of the weather. We stayed in the pattern and did 6 landings. I admit I was pushing it slightly. Visibility was about 4sm, and although they where saying sky clear below 12,000, it wasnt true. I had my student do some extremely tight patterns but they worked out well. He has had some of his best landings yet.
After the first student I decided to take up the other guy, the weather was looking like it was getting better. So we take off and I notice as we climb that its actually getting worse. We get to about 800′ (600′ agl) and I see a nice cloud about 200′ in front of us and I quickly call for the controls and level the plane out. Normaly pattern at Manassas is at 1200′. Lets not forget the tower was still reporting sky clear below 12,000. So I do a normal pattern at 800′, and let the student take over. I then quickly notified the tower that visibility had decreased well below 3sm, and that at traffic pattern altitude we would have needed a flight plan. So obviously we landed and ended it for the day.
It just sucks because both of my students are ready to solo, last week they werent able to fly ANY day due to weather and this week isnt looking any better. Here is the TAF for tomorrow:
KIAD 110301Z 110324 32004KT 2SM BR VCSH BKN010 OVC025
FM0500 00000KT 1SM BR VCSH BKN005 OVC010
FM0800 00000KT 1/2SM DZ FG BKN003 OVC010
FM1400 00000KT 4SM BR BKN007 OVC010
FM1600 16005KT 5SM BR SCT007 OVC010
No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...
So today is my 4th day off. The first 2 days where planned, however the second 2 were not. Its been extremely windy the past 2 days. While I dont mind sitting at home all day, sleeping in till 11, and just doing nothing. It also means I dont get paid, which sucks…
No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...