Plan "B"

"It's always Plan B" my lovely wife says. Well, unfortunately, for my flight training that has been the case, and this was no exception. I travelled to Philadelphia this past weekend with hopes of knocking out my 10 hours of complex time and squeezing in a checkride just before hitting the road, but Plan A unfolded almost as quickly as it was enacted. Upon arrival at the FBO Friday morning and meeting the instructor to whom I was assigned, I discovered that he was off on Sunday and they couldn't backfill him with another instructor. Which means that Sunday would be a lost day. Okay, we'll fly 5 hours today and 5 hours tomorrow. Not so fast, this instructor gets off at 3:30 every day. "Well, when would you do the night cross country?" you might ask. Maybe on Monday evening, was the proposed answer. Well I need to be at work on Tuesday, so that won't work. Perhaps next weekend? Perhaps, but I'd rather not. I'm already getting that feeling in the pit of my stomach, so decided to fly as much as possible on Friday and see where we got. When 3:30 rolled around, all of 2 hours is where we got, after spending most of the morning in ground school. I started to get the suspicion that ad-hoc, part 61 training just wasn't going to work for this 141 school, which is fine. Don't get me wrong, my goal is to pass the checkride, and pass it with much room to spare and learn along the way, but I have to balance all this with the fact that my time away from home is limited due to the whole day job thingy. We did get through all of the maneuvers, which was good as I hadn't been exposed to the commercial maneuvers before.

A quick side note: I typically don't nit-pick on my instructors, as they know far more than I, but I couldn't help but notice that during a steep turn demonstration my instructor dujour, while trying to gain altitude for some oddball reason, bled speed off to the point that the plane was buffeting at the edge of a stall. All this while in a 55 degree bank at about 2200' AGL. I wasn't really feeling that, so I discreetly pushed as hard as possible on the yoke with my index finger while saying something to the effect of "watch your airspeed". Something about stalling and spinning into the ground just didn't sit well with me, but I digress.

On Saturday, we managed to get in the day cross country, which was a beautiful severe-clear affair across the PA mountains to Williamsport. Not sure I need to get back there, but it is a gorgeous part of the country, with runway 9/27 nestled right at the base of a good-sized mountain (by eastern US standards, anyway). Upon return to the Philly area, we ran through the maneuvers, and then capped it off with a power off 180 - which I need power to land from - which netted us a whopping 4 hours of flight time, leaving me 60% of the way there, as the title implies After weighing my options, and looking at a Sunday replete of flying, and with a pesky customer issue looming at work, I decided to return to my home and punt.

And thus, Plan B is in effect, and will kick off with a night cross country to an as-yet-undecided location tomorrow evening. More to follow...

Wiggle your big toe

I've decided to make a more concerted effort to post an entry at least once every couple of weeks, or more often if something really interesting goes on (rare).

I've also decided to get off my but and knock out my commercial and multi-engine ratings. I'm heading up to Philadelphia next week for 4 concentrated days of flying, followed immediately by a trip to Connecticut for 2 concentrated days of flying for the multi. "Then what?" you may ask. Then, I'm going to try to take advantage of some of these ridiculously low minimums posted by the bottom feeders of the airline industry. There are only about four that fall into this category - not naming names - so my chances are slim at best. But I'll never know if I don't at least try. Which is the impetus for this whole riduculous endeavor, and my marching chant.

Someone asked me a couple of weeks ago what the end game is. I didn't really have an answer, which I guess I need to change. I've always wanted to fly corporate, but I've talked to a handful of people lately in that sector of the industry that really don't like mixing a little bit of flying with a lot of, sometimes a days worth of, waiting. I don't necessarily want to work all the way up to flying heavies for the majors and staring at the sun for 12 hours on end on the way to Hong Kong (talked to a friend of a 777 captain who does this and he says it's awful, although I'm sure working 10 days a month and making $180K temper it a bit...). If the pay situation improves, a regional captain wouldn't be a bad place to be, but that is a huge "If" right now. The 757 is my favorite plane and we like Louisville, so there's something to shoot for...I guess I'll figure it out as I go along. But first things first:

"Wiggle your big toe"

Once I've got this commercial-multi knocked out then I'll "get these other piggies wiggling".

(That's from Kill Bill Vol. 1 for the uninitiated)