Robert Stogsdill’s Flyblog

Broke 500 hours today. 500.9 to be exact when the day was done.

2 Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

My last post said that I had scheduled my AE interview for 9 April, well I then had it changed to April 16th. Now its changed again, its this Saturday. At least the Technical and Human Resources portion. AE is having a job fair in LaGuardia and myself and another CFI are headed up there to see if we can hack it. If we do well enough on this portion, they will invite us to Dallas for the sim portion of the interview.

My student who ralphed a few times has turned out to be a pretty good pilot. He went to the flight surgeon and they gave him some drugs. He used them for a few flights and as far as I know he has been off of them for the past 4 or 5 flights and is doing fine. I only have 3 more flights left with him until he finishes the IFS program and is on to Pensacola, FL.

I was also given a raise at work! I wont say how much, but I was pretty impressed. I make more an hour now than a Colgan First Officer :D. I felt bad because after I was notified of the raise, I told my boss that I was going to the AE interview.

After this weekend I will update with how the interview went…

473/129

No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Airline Interview(s) and Being a CFI...

Well this week I broke 400 hours. Im sitting on 403.7 hours right now. Im averaging about 50 hours per month. If you want to check out my logbook online this is the link:

http://www.logshare.com/log.jsp?email=robertstogsdill@gmail.com

2 Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

Well my student who couldn’t hold his insides in puked again today on his second flight. Im afraid that if after tomorrow he does it, Im going to have to shatter the beginning of his career with the Marines. But if you cant hold it in, then the Marines wont let you fly one of their much more expensive toys. Im not so hopeful about tomorrow since we did not even get into stalls or anything too “crazy,” all we did was straight and level flight and pattern work. This kind of sucks because he may be the first one that will be one of mine that doesnt make it.

On another note, after logging todays flights I am at 399.7 hours, after tomorrow I will break 400!!!!

2 Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

Well today was pretty interesting. Im scheduled with my 4 students every day this week in an aircraft that just got back from the shop with a brand new engine. In the past 6 months the plane has been in the shop, and some how the push to talk function on both sides of the plane has crapped out. I can hear my student, my student can hear me, but when talking over the radio, nothing. The only way to talk on the radio is to use the microphone that comes in the aircraft. I felt like a trucker all day long. Its pretty annoying and actually takes away my focus on my students because I have to hold a microphone in my hand. Hopefully it will be fixed by tomorrow.

I also had my first puking student today. I got 2 brand new students today. All we planned to do was fly out of Manassas and out to a local airport and back. The flights where about 30 minutes each, with maybe 20 minutes in the air. I had both students come along, with one in the back watching. The first student went fine. We took off, flew out, came back and he said it was great and loved it. The next student gets in and takes off and does fairly well for a zero hour student pilot. We turn around to head back to Manassas and we hit a tiny bump, he mentions that its bumpy. I told him that what we felt was really nothing in comparison to what we get sometimes. About 5 minutes from landing the student mentions he is getting a little motion sick. I tell him to keep flying and look outside the front of the plane. He then asks if I have a bag, which is when I realized what was about to happen. I told him I had the controls and that the window was able to open in flight. So he opens the window and all I hear over the microphone is the sound of puke, and not one heave, but non stop heaving until we land. I swear I was doing almost 100 knots on final and just chopped the throttle and dumped all the flaps in and landed it. Needless to say I wanted to get down.

We taxiied off of the runway and we where told to contact ground. I called ground and told them we needed to go back to park, but I was laughing hysterically at the situation. Im positive my read back on the radio sounded completely garbled in the microphone, but oh well. I felt bad for the student, but it is a common occurrence.  Just one that has not happened to me until today.

No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

I have finally found the magic formula for being a CFI. It goes like this Students + Working Planes + Good Weather = Working!!! Last week I was missing students. This week Im missing planes. 2 of the 4 planes we are allowed to fly the marines in are down. They went in for 100 hour inspections, which can take anywhere from 1 day to 3 days to complete. However if they find something out of the unordinary that is broken, this inspection can take much longer, which is the case with 2 of the planes.

This is all kind of funny because I have a feeling those 2 planes will be up within a few days, but whats the weather calling for? Snow……

No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

If you don’t make enough money, the federal government doesn’t take out any taxes! Sorry, Im just trying to find something positive in being so broke

2 Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

Unfortunatly for my wallet, we have been on a drought of students in the past few weeks. I have flown just under 10 hours in the past 3 weeks. I have realized in this business that you need to save your cash, because there can be no work real quick and without warning. However next week new marines are able to fly, and Im hoping to grab 3 of them.

No Comments » Posted by v1valarob / Being a CFI...

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...