Break In The Action

They say no man is an island, but flight school can sure make you feel like it. Inhabiting the basement floor often leaves me wondering if indeed the rapture has happened and I've somehow been forgotten. These are dark and quiet days, with few demands on my schedule besides a few hours of flying each day. While it's a nice respite from the grueling pace of the program, the abundant downtime leaves one with a prevailing feeling of guilt. Even tasks once viewed as a productive expenditure of time, like laundry or composing emails, now offer a chance for my conscious to challenge my diligence. You should be studying or getting ahead right now. That's what living each day on flight school autopilot will do. After all, since I first stepped foot on the tarmac way back in July, I've been bludgeoned repeatedly with one assignment, project, or test to prepare for. And now, at least until I leave for instructor school, the exams are finished and ground lessons done, giving me ample time to realize I'm not accustomed to having ample time.

Fortunately, I've combated this by purposefully scheduling early morning flights back in the Cessna and plenty of textbook review. Simply staying on guard against complacency consumes a tremendous amount of energy, especially without an individually assigned instructor for this phase of my program. There are positives and negatives to this, with the major advantage being I get to see and hear several different critiques of my performance in a relatively short period. The major downside, of course, is that I usually end up being tossed around like one of the Kardashian sisters. Since every instructor is different, each has their own idiosyncrasies that can't help but be encountered during a lesson. A checklist flow method that generates applause from one instructor might result in a tongue-lashing from another. Trying to keep them all straight almost requires the use of Microsoft Excel. Today's flight was spent with the most experienced instructor our school has, a guy with nearly 1,700 hours on his resume and enough confidence to salvage a middle school homecoming dance. His penchant for crazy unusual attitude training notwithstanding, the guy knows his stuff and is an excellent instructor. It's hard not to feel intimidated around the more experienced, battle-tested pilots. I look forward to the day when I'm considered a peer, rather than just another student climbing the ladder that seemingly lacks a top step.

A quick glance at my logbook says the 200 hour mark is fast approaching-the minimum benchmark when applying for a commercial pilot's license. Training for the commercial checkride really is a lot less awful than, say, drinking a sewage-flavored smoothie. The new maneuvers aren't all that difficult; it's mostly a refining of the basic skills I learned back in my private pilot days. What's mainly giving me trouble during my training flights is a maneuver responsible for the majority of botched checkrides at this stage, known as a power-off 180. Simply put, it's a simulation of a failed engine while in the traffic pattern of an airport. While parallel to the landing zone, approximately 1,000 feet off the ground, I cut the throttle to idle and begin turning the aircraft back down towards the runway, with the goal to put the wheels of the plane down exactly on a pre-determined spot. Sound easy? The margin for error here is +200 feet, -0 feet. If I land it a foot short, too bad, it's a failure. Also in play: accounting for the wind factor. At no point am I allowed to increase the throttle-my only weapons are adding flaps or performing S-turns while I lose altitude. It is a constant blend of determining position and airspeed while slight adjustments to align the aircraft correctly. To be honest, the few times I've successfully pulled it off so far could be attributed to minor miracle. And even while demonstrating it to me, the instructors repeatedly botch it as well. The moral of the story: hope for a checkride day with zero wind and pray for leniency from the examiner. It's more than that, and with two training flights before the moment of truth I'm sure my proficiency will increase, but it'll be interesting to see how I perform. From this point on, I'm calling it the $400 maneuver. To see it done at a passing level, click here.

There are days I'd love nothing more than to sleep in and lay around, but both of those are incongruent to the ultimate goal and the magnitude of what's at stake here. Seeing the big picture requires loads of discipline, but I'm getting weary. In my downtime I've realized how much I miss family and the structure of normal life. This is the longest I've gone without seeing any of them-4 months. And all the things I miss about my 'normal life', like sleeping in a bed long enough for my 6'4" frame. Morale remains high, and the end is in sight, but man, I am ready for some home cooking. As I finish my final few weeks of training, the sandwiches are rapidly beginning to lose their flavor. Marked on my calendar after this week's checkride: a trip to China World's massive buffet. Motivation for passing never tasted so good.

The other day, a fresh new batch of students came in, all excited and ready to get started with their private pilot program. It strikes me as fascinating that my two classmates and I are now the self-proclaimed big dogs around here, the ones who supposedly know the drill and are viewed as the wise old sages. Let me be the first to say that I feel grossly unprepared for that mantle. What's even more alarming to me is that after Friday of this week, barring a complete disaster up in the air, I will be qualified to begin earning $$$ as a professional pilot. Not that there'll be a Lion King-style stampede of job offers at my door, but still, it's a very exciting and humbling prospect.

PB&J Sandwiches Consumed (to date): 131