APS Upset Recovery training! Cue Extra 300!

After a few days off recovering from PT4, a few of us went to Gateway Airport (uh oh, my favourite….) to complete the upset recovery module of the course. This was a part I was really excited about; I've always wanted to have a play with an Extra300! I felt pretty confident going into it having experienced aerobatics before with the cadets.

We completed the upset recovery training with an external company called APS and spent the first morning in ground school, mostly watching videos, studying a bit of PoF and learning about their ‘PUSH,ROLL, POWER, STABILISE’ technique for unusual attitude recovery. There were 6 of us in total on the course, two guys were from the American air force and were not with the academy, the rest were members of my course. The lessons were presented by a real life astronaut, which was so cool

In the afternoon we met with our instructors (they were all ex-military fast jet pilots who did this for fun!) and went for the first flight. It was amazing! Although we took off from Gateway, it felt very familiar flying around the same desert and same practice area that we've been used to this whole time. We just went a little bit (a lot) higher and had a bit more power than the Archer gave us. The cockpit was very simplistic in the front seat (the instructor is sat behind in tandem), I had only an artificial horizon indicator and an airspeed indicator, as well as a control stick, not yoke, and throttle. We couldn't take off or land (tail dragger and I'm not about to volunteer to take off and talk to Gateway tower....) but were given control after the instructor upset the aircraft and flew to and from the practice area to get a feel of it. 

During the first lesson I got to have a nice feel of the aircraft and do a few stall recoveries, the Extra stalls fantastically! You’ll go nose high, flying along fine and then all of a sudden it’ll flip a wing and you’ll be falling out of the sky with the ground above your head. It was so cool. The Push, roll, power technique is supposedly applicable to all aircraft and most unusual situations and it worked really well to solve the problem. The moment you gave it a little push on the control stick it relieves the angle of attack on the wings and breaks the stall. It was insane how well that worked; the only think that kept popping into my mind to compare it to was that scene in Avatar where Jake and his Banshee are falling, he tells it to “shut up and fly straight” and it rights itself straight away, know the one? Same deal with the Extra apparently, give it a tiny push and it’ll settle.

I've always prided myself on my iron stomach during flight and loved every second of the lesson, we did a fair few stalls in different situation; pulled some G’s and got some inversions in. Unfortunately not all members of the group faired so well and did have to reach for the sick bag during their flights.

At the end of the day we had to go home and complete an easy test (I think we all got 100%) on what we’d learnt that day, which completes the theoretical portion of the module, leaving just 2 flights left to complete.

Another early start brought us back to Gateway the next morning and it was straight into the air for our final two lessons. It was an amazing experience and I can see the practical use of upset training but mostly it felt like a reward of all our hard work so far and gave us a chance to play with an outstanding little aircraft. As my stomach had been fine the whole time, my instructor agreed to show me some proper aerobatics at the end of the final session.  I’d always wanted to try tumbling which I’d seen at air-shows before but he showed me a fair few and joked with the ground staff that he was going to try and make me ‘black out’. He did not succeed. We did +7G to -2.5G and I felt completely fine (And sort of proud that I did the most out of all the boys).

Mission objectives:

• Stalling
• Usual attitude recovery
• Startle response – He asked me to update the QNH on my attitude indicator, as I reached forward he flipped the aircraft and let go, telling me to recover. The idea being that the recovery should be quick and become second nature as in real life you may not always get a warning e.g. wake turbulence.
• Stuck Primary controls – This was really interesting. It was seeing how you could control the aircraft if one of the three primary controls (aileron, elevator, rudder) was jammed. We tried all three out and I found the hardest to work without was the rudder.

At the end of the sessions we were given a certificate for successful completion presented in a frame with a picture and poem, none other than Cpt. John Magee’s ‘Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds….’ My dad’s favourite poem! We also received a memory stick containing the go-pro footage of our entire flight's which is definitely for learning and refreshing purposes and not to be shared on Facebook to make friends jealous back home, ahem...

After that fun interlude, it’s now on to the Seminole and the home stretch of our time in Arizona!

An introduction to holds. Cross-country qualifier and PT4!

When you get to lesson AP64, you have an ‘introduction to holding’ brief and sim. It’s fair to say I felt completely lost and couldn't recall a thing about the hold entries we learnt in Air Law. Thankfully, Bryan had a few ways to make it simple and enough patience to go through it properly with me. It made a lot more sense actually flying it than it did studying it in ground school (I've found that with quite a few of the topics we learnt now). It did, however, take quite a while to figure out the type of entry I needed to use to get into the hold and I practised a lot of these questions with my house mate. For some reason I always guess ‘direct’, but I've gotten the hang of it now and can figure it out in a second using my house mates method of placing the CDI needle on the hold axis and just looking at where the tail is, as well as Lee’s POD method. Works every time! I also drew little diagrams to stick on my knee-board to use as reference. In Air Law we learnt 3 entries, there are 5 according to Oxford, I can see why but at the moment it just needs more to learn. 

The standards for PT4 are to get the holds within +/- 12 seconds of 3 minutes which is easy in null wind conditions but a little trickier if you have to correct for the wind. Luckily, we had lots of practice flights doing these and in real life it’s rarely calm, especially in the turbulent desert air. There are only two holds we do out here; Stanfield and Buckeye, we practice with them so it’s a bit of a head start for the PT and also gets us used to using the approach plates which, upon first glance, looks like a different language, with practice they do become easier to read though, I promise. The Casa Grande (Stanfield) approach is quite a simple one and the easiest way to do everything correctly is to brief the approach early and set up the cockpit beforehand so you only have to fly the plane (not fuss about setting minimums or frequencies last minute). Again, the RT takes a little getting used to but I'm a lot less nervous speaking now. 

The sims were always good fun and really good at getting used to the theory, briefing and plates with a few surprise emergencies thrown in and ‘moderate turbulence’ given by Bryan grabbing the back of my seat. He was due to take leave so decided he’d squeeze me and Josh in with quite a few flights that week to get us ready to take our test during his time off instead of having a long break. This meant more early starts and double lessons, which does get so tiring after a couple of days.

I also completed my Cross-country qualifier. This is a necessity for gaining a license, and includes a landing at Ryan then Goodyear before arriving back at Falcon, the trip is approximately 420nm and took 5 hours. The navigation is important and it’s important to stick with your due back time, however at this stage I knew the area so well it’s more a case of pointing the nose on my turning points and then relaxing, talking on the practice area frequency with my course mates and tuning in Disney FM on the ADF. I really enjoyed myself, though it was tiring and nearly unbearably hot in the cockpit; I was even starting to feel nostalgic that I didn't have many Archer flights remaining, I love how confident I felt with the plane, feeling I could do anything with it and it’s such a huge jump from how I felt only a few months before. I feel like a real pilot and I'm proud of myself.

PT4 time! I had a few days off  before the test but I felt pretty confident going into it, which was a first. I was with Amanda again and as I’d already flown with her before she gave me the option of Buckeye or Stanfield and said we could have a practice landing at one first before doing the assessed hold. I picked Buckeye for the hold as I preferred the circle-to-land approach and generally it tends to be a bit quieter (less radio for me!) than the Stanfield VOR which is always incredibly busy in the afternoon. I did the hold and approach to Stanfield pretty well, it was one of the best holds I’d ever flown so I was happy. 

We then didn't have time to get all the way over to Buckeye so created a GPS way point over Maricopa Mountain to simulate the Buckeye VOR and did the hold and approach over that instead. Maybe not the best idea as I got an up-draft from the thermal coming off the little mountain on every ‘inbound’ leg of the hold. On the whole it went pretty well; on the way back we did the Chandler arrival which I had to amend slightly to avoid traffic who thought they’d cut a corner on the approach. Not naming any names but I know exactly who it was and of course let them know back on the ground. Amanda was joking about it, saying they thought they could get away with it because there were two women flying.  The test couldn't have gone better, meaning I was finished with the Archer (apart from one last solo navigation) and ready to gain another engine and start my Seminole flying! I was also the first in my class to take PT4 so one up for the girls!

I had another few days off after that which felt so good to chill out and catch up on sleep from all the early mornings. Josh took his test the day after mine so we mostly stayed in, watched Sherlock and played Call of Duty, it’s too hot to even go and stay by the pool for too long and most other people were still in school.

As it was 4^th of July which is a huge deal in America we were doing the most American thing possible and going to a Diamondbacks baseball game. We wore red, white and blue and decided we’d learn the national anthem so we could sing a long at the opening of the game. I’d been to a baseball game before in Chicago but this one was a lot more fun, probably due to the occasion (and the fact that I'm over 21 this time!). Diamondbacks won! After the game the stadium roof opened up and we could see the fireworks display over Phoenix, it was a great night and I was very glad I didn't have to get up early the next morning as Oskar did.

New Instructor and land aways

Once again I apologise for my lack of posting, so much has happened in the past 2 months but as always I've written notes and am more than happy to answer questions about my experiences!

 After PT3, I was assigned a new flying instructor. I was a little disappointed as I got on with Lee so well and it’s always a little intimidating flying with someone new. My new instructor, Brian, turned out to be just as fun and banterous (is that a word?) as Lee so I instantly felt at ease and we got on just fine. Though he did say my approaches to land were more like a space shuttle’s than an Archer! I always prefer to be a bit high with the impression that I can always get it down, it just needed to be a little smoother and a little more stable. My course nickname (call sign because we’re nerds) is now NASA as a result J

This phase was concerned more with procedure flying such as holding patterns and simulated IMC (under-the-hood) flights so it was a little more complicated and we had a few more sims and longer briefings to learn all the theory that didn’t really sink in when studying it during ground school. Actually getting to fly the holds really made me understand them much more than I ever did when studying Air Law. We had quite a few dual flights where there wasn't so much new content to learn, it was more hour building. I had one that was 5 hours long in the cockpit with Brian, you end up feeling tired and so hot the sweat is dripping off you by the time you land. No wonder this place is a desert... We did something called the 'Valley Rally' where we went the scenic route North of Falcon, which is more mountainous terrain so students are not allowed to go here solo. The Valley Rally basically consisted of any airfield we came across, we'd descend, join the circuit, do a touch and go and carry on our merry way. It was great for me to practice my landings and also see some new airfields I hadn't been to before. 

You also have a lot of hours to complete in the form of cross-country solos, the actual navigation isn't a problem any more as you get to know the area really well and pre-flight planning gets really quick and easy (and repetitive). As the weather is getting so hot here, ideal take-off time is about 5:30am which means a really early morning considering you need to check in with dispatch at least an hour before. After completing PT3 you’re also allowed to fly and land at other airports on your cross-country solos.

The first stopover was going to Ryan, which is down South and near Tucson. I had my doubts about going and landing somewhere other than Falcon and was worried about the radio, traffic, taxiing the wrong way, refuelling the plane wrong and generally mucking something up. It’s very comfortable landing at Falcon, but another controlled airport? Scary.

As it turns out I don’t think I had anything to worry about, there’s an ADF at Ryan, which is very reassuring for navigation purposes.  ATC were really friendly and helpful, ground offered me taxiing directions. We have a company credit card for refuelling the planes, the difficult part was parking it. I had to stop in front of the pump, then get the tow bar out and drag the plane forward into the correct position to avoid hitting a pole. Possible, but no easy task in the Arizona sun and I'm not the strongest of people; parking at Falcon someone will normally come over and help me out. I had about half an hour in Ryan to chill, feeling really proud of myself and I got to go in the ‘pilot’s lounge’ and spoke to a lovely couple who’d flown down from Michigan (I've been there!!). It was an awkward moment when I had tried to go to the toilet and saw the door was coded, I needed to go and check my flight log as I’d already forgotten the CTAF which I’d just used.

Taxiing back and taking off again were fine, ATC are very helpful if told you’re a student solo. On the way back I had both Lee and Brian over the radio telling me to be careful and not get lost. They were joking but I really love the friendly atmosphere here and how supportive all of the instructors are.

My second land-away was to fly to Goodyear; this is the airport which Oxford used to be based at out in Arizona, it also has a small air plane graveyard going on along the edge of the incredibly long runway. I felt much more confident this time although the weather was a little dubious on the day, the cloud was pretty low. My MFD also decided it needed an update and was purple instead of green and didn't show traffic any more. I decided to keep going as I had the traffic on an inset on the PFD and listened to the practice frequency carefully.   As I was entering Rainbow Valley, just beyond the Maricopa Mountains, I couldn't see ahead of me through the cloud. Definitely unsafe so I turned around and was going to divert back to Falcon. Upon nearing the town of Maricopa, I could see around the cloud and to the North of the valley, so changed my mind and decided I would go to Goodyear; it took me a little longer to get there because of the diversion so I called Dispatch and asked for an extended due-back time. You get a free sandwich and drink at Goodyear for refuelling and the guy behind the desk even recognised me from the Lee Owens movie. I was chuffed. 

On the ground at Goodyear, the MFD updated itself and functioned perfectly for the rest of the flight.

On the way back, the weather still wasn't amazing, I entered some rain which doesn't affect the flying at all, I then could see heavy rain and just sheets of cloud ahead of me right through my flight path. Another diversion, it’s a good job I'm familiar with the area and the frequencies, we just have to remain in VFR at all times, so I asked an instructor over the frequency if the arrival into Falcon was clear. It was and I got back okay, it felt like a really long day though and it turns out I was the only solo out there in that weather. I feel like a real pilot doing the land-aways.

A special post

I was involved in making a film with our instructor Lee Owens; it was for his foundation with which he's trying to raise money to fly a P51 Mustang around the world! He's doing this in honour of African American Aviators and the Tuskegee airmen missions. This man has changed my life, please give it a watch. I've also added a tab at the top of the blog which will link you to his foundation website :)

Click here to watch the video!

PT3 & Buck's university!

I handed in my PT3 form and had a few days off before the test was scheduled so my house-mate and I went to LA for the weekend; it was fun to see the walk of fame and Hollywood sign and the city in so many movies. Sadly, didn't see any stars whilst I was there though.

PT3 is all about manoeuvres, as in PT1 you do your 3 landings again and there’s a little bit of under the hood work as well as stalls and steep turns. The test went by really quickly, I went over to Coolidge to do my touch-and-goes and was given a PFL* in the circuit, I just managed to glide it over to the runway. It felt easier than the previous PTs, maybe because I felt more confident with the plane after doing so many solos.

We also had a Buck’s university day where we were back in the classroom for lectures and were given an assignment to complete in only a few days. It was a group assignment where we needed to make two presentations about the business model and marketing strategies of a selected airline. We did New Zealand air (I love them after their Hobbit liveries). The first presentation went really well and we were given a first, the second we only got a 50 on which I was kind of disappointed with, as with any group project it’s hard to motivate everyone to pull their own weight and I think my mark would have been better had I presented on my own. There was also a written essay assignment about environmental management systems, which I got a first for. I thought this was my worst essay as I did it pretty last minute (there’s a lot going on with the flying).

One the morning of the assignment I was woken by a phone call from Lee at 6am who wanted his students in to interview for a film he was making. I knew he needed me and I’d spoken to the cameraman the week before and got to sit in the sim with him and show him a little of what we were doing here. I didn’t know Lee wanted us so early! I had to put on a tie and get ready quickly then go and stand out on the ramp as the equipment was set up. It was actually really fun to be involved in the film and I really hope Lee raises all the money he needs to.  

*PFL = Practice forced landing, the instructor would pull the throttle to idle on the engine and as I was in the downwind had to cut my circuit short and land on the runway with a simulated engine failure. When we did this in lessons out in the practice area it was all about choosing the best field for an emergency landing. 

Introducing SPICs

Supervised pilot in command (SPIC) flights are where you do the whole flight yourself but you’re in the cockpit with a different instructor than your own; I found these invaluable as everyone has little methods that are different and I found I learnt a lot from flying with new people. It’s always great to mix up the routine a bit. My first SPIC flight I was asked what I wanted to practice and I said “crosswind landings”. My wind limit was 7 knots crosswind and 10 total, Lee had been saying all along that I could handle more but I didn't want to go ahead and increase it until I felt confident I’d be able to do it by myself on a solo and so wanted more practice. After a SPIC doing touch-and-goes at Coolidge airport (smaller runway than Falcon and uncontrolled) I finally went and got endorsed for 10 knots crosswind and 15 knots total, more than most students at this stage so I was happy J

My second SPIC wasn't looking too good, I was doing manoeuvres like stalls when a cloud descended around us, I wasn't really worried as the rain doesn't affect the plane much and I had an instructor with me just in case. Then we saw lightning in the cloud which is when we decided to go and land ASAP. Chandler is an approved arrival route but was obscured from view and doing the AJ arrival would have taken too long. We decided to make a bee-line straight for Falcon by asking to transit through Gateway’s delta (I am still scared of Gateway after ATC told me off on my second lesson). This was the fastest way to get home but it did cut my lesson short. One of my classmates captured this picture on flight radar with the caption “Who just cut across Gateway’s airspace?”

I finished off the lesson on a different day with yet another instructor and as he was happy with my set up and flying he decided to show me something new. From the SE practice area he said we could go to the NE which is my first time going north of Falcon. We decided to do a Class Bravo transition over Phoenix Sky Harbour International! We got a really great view of the multiple parallel runways and slightly larger aircraft landing below us, it was cool. Phoenix approach were somewhat stricter than previous ATCs I’d spoken to and gave us a squawk* code, track and altitude to follow as well as flight following and traffic advisories. After the Bravo we did touch and goes at Deer Valley airport, it was a tricky one as it’s surrounded by little hills which in the afternoon heat give you thermals which gave a fun up-draft on finals.

I was on my second touch-and-go and was in the crosswind turning downwind when I heard/and felt a loud BANG. My instinct was that the glider tow cable had just been released as that’s kind of what it felt like…however I'm in a PA28 not a glider. The instructor instantly took control and requested landing immediately as we’d just hit a bird. Deer Valley ATC was great and offered assistance and gave priority landing. The worry my instructor had was that the undercarriage would be damaged so he took control to land as gently as possible, I think he also thought I might be worried as he kept asking me if I was okay (though I wasn't really worried). On the ground we inspected the plane and there was no trace of anything having hit us, which was incredibly lucky so off we went again (the instructor still had to file a bird strike report on the ground). We took the scenic route back over the mountainous NE terrain to Falcon Field. It was a good flight.

On Memorial Day everyone was given a day off as it’s a national holiday here, we went tubing down Salt Lake river, which is a really lazy day. You hire a big rubber ring and float down the river, it was nice as rarely do the member of my course actually get a day off together. It was going great until we hit some rapids and I fell out of my tube, some other kid nicked it and I had to swim to shore and wait to be rescued L Two of my lads walked back for me and one of the tubing employees gave me a deflated tube to give back to the hire shop so I wouldn't get charged the ‘lost tube’ fee. All in all it was a fun day and we’d like to do it again where we make it down the whole river.

*A squawk code is the 4 digit number on the transponder so you can be recognised, normally we just 'squawk' VFR which is 1200.

Day and Night mode switched to Night!

One of the highlights of the course so far: night flying! You only get 4 lessons of these, so tempting as it is to just sit back and look at the pretty lights, you’re actually supposed to learn something.  

• The first night dual we went to Chandler and managed to get in about 14 touch and goes. The air is so calm at night (without the thermals from the heat of the day), it felt like I was flying the simulator! The plane stayed where I’d put it, it was also very quiet at Chandler with little other traffic, meaning I got priority clearance and the longest runway. The ATC controller also demonstrated the light display to me on a final. The main difference at night is the perception of where the runway actually is, giving you the illusion of distance (and heavy landings) but I didn't think mine were too bad. Lee also demonstrated what would happen if the instruments didn't work by dimming the avionics and panel lighting. It was really cool.

• The second dual was a cross-country, which is just surreal. I did the normal departure I was used to and had to rely on the VOR to know when I’d got to my turning points as I really couldn't see anything that wasn't lit on the ground. Did you know you can turn on runway lights from the ground? Airports which have lighting but are uncontrolled at night (so lights are off) can state pilot operated lighting meaning you can turn them on by dialling up the radio frequency and pressing the PTT (push-to-talk) button multiple times. This was great, we did this to a few airports in the area and did a touch and go at Coolidge. As with any nav, I was then given a diversion to try and find somewhere off the route, I wasn't so good at this, not that it was any different than during the day but it felt like there was certainly more to concentrate on at night. Nevertheless, it was amazing to see how everything looked in the dark and I snuck in a few back-seats with my house mate so I would have more than 2 lessons in the practice.

Sadly, we’re still not allowed to take cockpit photos; I really wish I could because the view was absolutely incredible. But here’s a picture I took from the ramp of the taxi and runway lights:

SOLO NIGHTS! You get two night solos, both of which are just in the pattern at Falcon practising landings, this was a little scary initially but my departure time was at twilight so I could pick out my ground reference points for turning and then know where they were for the time it was fully dark. It’s easier than it sounds, everything with lights looked so bright and there was a nice cross road on final just in line with the runway. I was the only person in the pattern so the ATC was extra nice and I got about 7 full stop and taxi backs in (no touch and goes due to noise abatement). I also got to hear the tower closing at 9pm which was strange.

The second night solo went as well as the first, though I did get asked to extend my downwind (eek, mountains!) so used the terrain mode on my MFD for the first time; this gives colour indications for the proximity of the terrain, red means less than 100ft away, thankfully tower asked me to perform a 360 so I wouldn't be getting to close to the superstitions.  I felt night flying was a huge achievement, like I could handle that plane in any conditions. It’s also something I’d like to show my dad, everything just looks so different at night.