Progress Test 4 Done. Next, Multi Engine and CPL!

You all be extremely pleased to know that yesterday, I passed my fourth and final progress test before the almighty CPL Skills Test. 

PT4 is an assessment on holding procedures and non-precision approaches. At first, this phase of training to me was quite a challenge to grasp. The majority of the content on the ground made sense, but applying it in the air whilst flying was a different story entirely. The first major thing you are taught are the holds. For every approach into an airfield, you have a holding pattern, which would be the start of an approach. This is where aircraft queue up before they are cleared to shoot their final approach into the airfield. The hold is commonly a right pattern, which means you make right turns in the hold. 

Right Holding Pattern With Different Types of Entry

As well as the holding pattern, there are specific ways that an aircraft has to enter a holding pattern. If you take a look at the image above, you will see that the inbound course an aircraft enters a hold from determines the type of entry. For example, if the aircraft approaches from area 1, it would be a Direct Entry, which is usually within 30 degrees either side of the inbound leg of the hold. All of it is covered in great depth during ground school and during the F2 stage of foundation flying.

The other significant learning objective for this part of instrument flying are the approach procedures. The two main approaches that we practice at OAA are the VOR DME C into Buckeye Municipal Airport and the VOR into Runway 5 at Casa Grande Airport.  

My wonderful kneeboard

The photo above shows the approach plate for Buckeye on the left and my hold planning sheet on the right. The plate lists everything that the pilot needs to know about the approach such as the VOR and airfield frequencies, MSA, MDA, etc. In other words, it specifies exactly how the approach must be done.

The image above shows exactly how the hold and approach should be flown for the Buckeye approach. 

For my PT, my examiner let me choose where to go, so I picked Buckeye. He gave me the route in the brief which was 190 in and outbound over Chandler Airport's NDB, then intercept Gila Bend VOR at 240, then intercept 350 to BXK. It was taking a long time to intercept the 350 at Buckeye so I just asked if I could go direct to the beacon, ended up being a direct entry into the hold so that was simple enough. We did two holds which went pretty well apart from a slightly incorrect drift correction. I verbalised my error but he told me to disregard and just shoot the approach. After going missed, my examiner vectored me back East, just south of Goodyear and put me to the north-east of Estrella Mountains to do General Handling and Stalls. After that, he removed the hood and I flew back to Falcon via Chandler. 

Overall the test went quite well, just a couple of notes on the holds which I was already expecting and on my use of throttle during unusual attitudes, which I put down to the APS training! I'm pretty happy with how it went, and felt quite well prepared. For this PT in particular I found chair flying quite useful, especially for the checklists that have to be memorised for the different stages of the approach. 

So that's it, 120 hours later and I have just completed my last dual at Oxford in a single engine aircraft. It felt like yesterday when I first started learning how to fly the Archer TX, and it's rather astonishing to think of how much I've learned is such a short space of time. Very soon it will be time for me to take on a twin engine aircraft, which of course I am pretty excited about. I'll be back soon to report on how that goes! In the mean time, stay safe, and hope that you are all having an amazing 2014.

Progress Test 3

Since PT2, I have been predominantly doing IFR flying and solo landaways. My original flight home was actually supposed to be December 6th, now my return flight has been moved to February 9th 2014. I did plan on spending Christmas back at home with the family, however I opted to stay to try and get some more flying done, and delays in training is something that's to be expected, especially considering that we are the first Oxford class out here in Falcon Field, and being a double class of over 40 students also doesn't help things. So far there's about a month spread between the students in my class (AP344) with the expected due back dates ranging from early January to mid February.

Despite the logistical problems, the quality of training is still incredible, after my second progress test I was assigned a new instructor who I got on with very well. He is not as strict as my last instructor, however teaches a lot more professionalism in terms of check lists and CRM, so I really enjoyed my time with him.

Progress Test 3 focuses on Navigation and Diversions. Not a particularly difficult one, however a lot of steps to think about. For my test, the examiner gave me my route one day in advance so I could plan it all on our charts and fill out our navlogs. What you are expected to do is fly out the departure procedure, start the navigation properly with the appropriate HAAT and FEFL checks, and when given the instruction, divert to the given alternative destination. 

My ground brief started at 11:00 on the 23rd December 2013, but I made sure that I got to the academy three hours before hand so that I was fully prepared with the weather en-route, performance, mass and balance and also the pre-flight. In the brief, my examiner told me that I would do a Chandler Departure, which involves departing to the south-west, transitioning over Chandler Airport at 3200ft and the departure ending once Chandler's D Airspace has been cleared. Afterwards I was expected to track south towards a point called the Donnelly Truck Stop, then turn eastbound to a place called Picacho Stagefield, which is a heliport. At some point along the route I was told that I would be diverted to a random destination. After that I would be expected to perform a Practice Forced Landing (PFL), then once successful do a Chandler Arrival back to Falcon Field.

After a rather quick brief, we went out to the aircraft. Weather on that day was calm with no adverse conditions, with easterly winds forecast at my cruising altitude. The initial stage of the flight went very smoothly, after spotting the final destination, I was diverted to a private airstrip called U of A, which was north-west of Picacho Stagefield. I circled just east of the Stagefield to do all of my diversion planning, taking me about 3-4 minutes. In the diversions you are expected to plan out your new heading (corrected for magnetic variation), altitude, ground speed, ETA and fuel burn. All pretty simple, but care needs to be taken since the priority is that the aircraft is flown first.

My diversion didn't at first go to plan, I made the mistake of planning a wrong heading, which I spotted since my first significant visual point on route was the wrong city. After verbalising my mistake to the examiner, I used my drift lines to correct my track and rejoin my originally planned route. Upon reaching my diversion, it took me about three attempts to actually spot it since I had never seen it before. Very promptly after, the examiner cut the throttle and I went straight into a failed engine emergency procedure. Everything worked out well, apart from the fact that I didn't pick the private airstrip that I was already over! Don't ask me why I did it, I think it was just a bad day at the office and I am pretty disappointed with myself for doing that. 

After arriving safely back to Falcon Field, I was given a very good debrief from the examiner. The main points that he mentioned were that instead of circling to plan the diversion, it should always be planned when approaching the next destination or turning point. His point was that it wastes time and money when circling, which is a big deal to airlines, and if there is not enough time left to calculate everything, plan just the heading and altitude first, then do speed, time, fuel burn and ETA when actually en-route to the diversion. He also mentioned about the attempts I took to spot the diversion, which is my fault since I at first I was looking at completely the wrong side of a highway and that visual clue alone would have probably helped me spot the diversion first time round. The last comment he had was of my PFL. Although my field was reasonable, it doesn't really compare to the 5000ft private airstrip which I was already over! 

You'll be glad to know that I passed, but I don't feel that I passed with flying colours. I am happy that I can progress, but there are a few things that I need to take a bit more care on. I know that I need to be a lot more disciplined and methodical in my planning whilst I am flying. My advice to people when doing navigation and diversion is to take your time, have a set structure when doing everything. For instance, pre/post HAAT checklists, FEFL checks. In the diversion, simply do a HAAT checklist, so get the heading and altitude, see if you have enough time to plan the rest before you need to start your turn, if so then carry on, if not then concentrate on aviating, then take care in planning the rest of the diversion after the turn. It's very easy to be drawn into doing things quickly, however the examiner is looking more closely at how methodical you do things, with good PIC decision making, rather than speed.

The next stage from here is IFR, concentrating on Holds and Approaches. I am looking quite forward to it since I have enjoyed all the IFR flying to date, and plus it is much more applicable to what we will all be doing once we start working for an airline. 

Upset Recovery Training

Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year. Once again, apologies for the huge break in blogging as it has been rather busy for me over the past month or so.

On December 19th 2013 I took part in the APS Upset Recovery Training, which takes place at Phoenix Mesa Gateway Airport. There are a variety of options for the course, depending on the ratings that you have. The basic package for VFR pilots (Which OAA gave me) lasts two days. There is also a three day package which adds on spin recovery and recovery in IMC.

A group of BA Future Pilot cadets were kind enough to offer me ride to the course over the two day duration of my course. Upon entering the APS center on day one, we were greeted by a lot of friendly staff. The APS building only really consists of a waiting room, several classrooms and offices for the instructors. After a few minutes of filling out paper work we got started with a two and a half hour introduction to the course and a briefing of our first flight (URT 1). We had an instructor named Clarke 'Otter' McNeace. All of the instructors there have an immense amount of experience on them, and because they are all ex-US Navy fighter pilots, they all still go by their call signs. The coolest instructor there had to be William 'BORNEO' Gregory, if you don't recognise the name then I suggest you copy and paste it into google, he's only an ex-Space Shuttle pilot!

Otter began the class by talking about the history of the programme, and also talked about why it came about. He brought up some accident statistics for General and Commercial Aviation, with the number one cause being loss of control in flight. What the statistics and several case studies show in both General and Commercial Aviation is that due to lack of appropriate training, pilots were using incorrect inputs to the flight controls when their aircraft was upset, putting themselves into an even worse situation and making the aircraft unrecoverable.

Otter in his commercial piloting days

After the introduction, Otter went on to talk about theory of flight. It was quite possibly one of the best ground lessons I'd ever sat through. In that hour and a half he explained everything about Lift, and how G loading affects stall speed. All of this was illustrated with a drag versus angle of a attack curve, and a V-G Diagram. After the brief on the theory of flight, he then went on to talk about the aircraft and our first flight (URT-1). The most important five words of the course is: Push, Power, Rudder, Roll and Climb. These are the steps in this order that are taught here for any of the upset situations that we would encounter. For example if you're stalling, you would push to unload the Gs, which in turn reduces the stall speed so that controls can be regained. Power as appropriate, which would need to be increased in a nose-up stall on a prop. Rudder if the aircraft is yawing. Roll if the aircraft has suffered a wing drop, or even worse inverted. Then finally once the aircraft is wings level, climb to safety. It's a "Say and Do" command so everyone is expected to verbalise then initiate the recovery action.

Before we upset the aircraft

The course is done in an Extra 300L, which is a German built, two seat, aerobatic aircraft. It has a 300HP engine, capable of +/-10Gs and a climb rate of 3200 fpm, so as you can see, I was really looking forward to having a go on this thing!

The first flight involved basic general handling and familarisation with the aircraft. After our ground brief, me and two others were called up to go first. After tightly fastening the parachute (which I was hoping I wouldn't have to resort to) I stepped into the front seat of the Extra 300L, with Otter sat behind me. The first thing you notice is the complete lack of instruments, all that I had was an ASI and Altimeter. The reason being here is so that pilots who do undergo this course, learn how to spot and fix upsets visually and through seat-of-the-pants feel.

After an initial brief and being told to give a thumbs up for the Go-Pro, we were rolling on the taxi way towards the active runway. Once cleared for take off we were rolling on runway 12C, the sheer power of that engine was evident when we hit rotation speed in what must have been five seconds. Very soon after take off, Otter handed over the controls to me and vectored me towards the South East practice area to begin the maneuvers. The first thing to get used to is the sensitivity of the controls, only very small inputs are required since the aircraft has a potential roll rate of 400 degrees per second! The aircraft also uses a stick which wasn't actually too difficult to get used to.

The flight started off with a steep turns, then went into slow flight and stalls. As mentioned earlier, the Push, Power, Rudder, Roll and Climb criteria were used to recover. We then went onto an exercise called the Falling Leaf where the aircraft loses lateral stability. He starts by stalling and says to me "Now it's your chance to try and be the first person to keep the wings level using the rudder", so naturally I stepped up to the challenge. As the aircraft stalled, the left wing dropped and with my right rudder input to correct it, the aircraft immediately rolled violently to the right and I was upside down before I knew it. The aircraft was basically in free fall and even with the airspeed increasing to over 120kts, it was still stalled and buffeting. Otter then appropriately pushed and as soon as that was done, the buffeting stopped and the aircraft was now controllable. After the recovery it became clear how someone without experience would have simply kept trying to pull back with the ground racing towards them, especially with the adrenaline running.

We then went into a Zoom Maneuvre, which is a flight below 1G. This is to emphasise the controllability of the aircraft below Vs, which helps to further understand why you would push in a stalled situation, even if the aircraft is invert and diving towards the ground. To finish off, we did an Aileron Roll, Loop and flew Inverted for a few minutes which was so much fun.

The Extra 300L fleet

Once back on the ground, some of us had a long break before our next ground brief so I went to the Gateway Cafe to grab a pretty huge sandwich. Once back in the classroom, Otter briefed us on the next two lessons (URT-2 and 3) Both of which were looking even more exciting, especially URT-3 which has an optional full deflection Roll, Loop, Cuban-8 and Hammerhead!

Day two was again an early start. Once again I was up first but this time with another instructor named Schlimmer, very nice guy. We promptly started URT-2 which consisted of Wings Level Accelerated Stalls, Steep Turns to Accelerated stalls, Slipping Techniques, Skidding Turn Stalls and Prevention, and some all attitude maneuvering. We progressed quite quickly so Schlimmer offered to bring some of the stuff in from URT-3 so that we would have more time left over at the end for "fun stuff", and of course I was very happy to agree with it.

URT-3 got very interesting, particularly with the rudder, aileron and elevator jams. The reason they teach this is due to several cases of where controls have jammed and caused fatal accidents, particularly in the case of USAir Flight 427 where a 737-3B7 that was 6 miles away on approach to Pittsburgh, suddenly spiraled and nose dived into the ground. Both pilots were extremely experienced, however none had experienced a problem like that before where the rudder servo unit suddenly became jammed below a speed that would allow aileron authority. Otter mentioned in the brief that the first and most important thing to do in this situation is to gain airspeed as quickly as possible so that enough airflow can pass over the ailerons to give them enough authority to counter the roll, which is the secondary effect from the rudder This is known as the "crossover speed". In my flight, Schlimmer taught me how to keep the aircraft straight and level in such an event, which is to pitch down, increase power, and correct with ailerons to essentially regain control and fly in a slip.

The last 20 minutes of URT-3 is something that I will always remember. In essence it was an air show experience! I mentioned that the last part of this lesson is entirely optional, and since I'm a bit of a thrill seeker I opted to see what Schlimmer could do with this aircraft. The first thing he demonstrated was the Hammerhead. The maneuvre begins by first entering a descent at full power to gain maximum airspeed, then climbing vertically. The airspeed rapidly decays and just before the upward motion of the aircraft stops, full rudder is applied so that the aircraft yaws 180 degrees and enters an immediate vertical nosedive. After the first demonstration, I was allowed to have a go! I managed to do it pretty well since it isn't a very difficult maneuvre to grasp, however the timing needs to be quite accurate. I also asked to put the smoke on which makes it look even more spectacular! After that he showed me a Knife Edge Spin, which is a forward flipping motion of the plane with one wing facing towards the ground. Then I was shown a Lomcevak, which is like a tumbling spiral front flip (if any of those descriptions make sense). Being in those two maneuvres is something that I will never forget, made even cooler by the fact that the smoke was on so it felt like I was in an air show. I have to give my respect to these instructors too for knowing how to recover the aircraft immediately, because you just have no sense of orientation.

Inverted

The two day upset programme went so quickly, and when I landed at the end of that last flight I felt quite saddened to know that I would probably never experience anything quite like that again. However despite the fun and joy of experiencing what it was like to be in an air show, I feel that Upset Recovery Training has been the most important part of my training so far. Why? Because I believe it will save lives. Upset Recovery Training is vital for any pilot at any level of experience, particularly so nowadays in an age where aviation is becoming evermore automated. Aircraft are becoming more sophisticated, yet at the same time being designed in such a way where pilots are now having less to do. Good in terms of decreasing the workload, however it all comes at a price, which is that pilots are losing the aviation skills that are so desperately required when these automated systems fail. In one of the briefs, Otters advises all of us to take manual control whenever we have the chance in ALL phases of flight. In the case of Air France Flight 447, all of the flight crew had thousands of hours of experience, yet none of them had ever manually flown an aircraft at cruising altitude, so when the autopilot disengaged, none of them were prepared to fly it. That is just one case of many, and given the accident statistics, it is clear that with loss of control in flight still being the number one cause, the aviation industry needs to collectively agree on training programmes that will prepare all pilots for potential emergencies that can happen in all phases of flight. I'm very fortunate to have gained the knowledge and expertise in Upset Recovery from these very experienced instructors, and I hope that anyone else who has the opportunity to take up this programme will take it just as seriously as I did.