It's a beautiful Sunday morning, and I'm up early preparing for my cross country trip to Iowa. I've never been to Iowa before, that I can remember. I'm excited!
I get to the airport and preflight the plane. It's a little cool outside but sunny and clear with low winds. I wait for Devin to finish up with another student, then we will fly together for the first time. He's not a new CFI, but is our airport's newest CFI/MEI.
His plane pulls up and they get out. Now it's our turn to fly. I taxi us out to the short runway and do a soft field takeoff from runway 9. We head north and turn onto the course heading. No need for foggles today because this is time building for commercial. I call up St. Louis Approach and get flight following. After reaching the desired altitude, we level off, sit back, and relax. Ok not exactly... Devin reached over and tunes the GPS to something completely random and says, "uh oh, the GPS failed! Now what?" He warned me that he was going to do this. I start using another chart that doesn't show my current location and start compared landmarks to what I see outside. I confirm where we are. This is called "Pilotage." Devin continues with the navigation quizzes for at least 60NM until we reach Quincy airport. We're not stopping but it makes for a perfect checkpoint.
We eventually get passed onto Kansas City Center, and they keep us on radar until we reach our destination of Keokuk, Iowa. We see the Mississippi River straight ahead, and just on the other side appears to be a fairly large city. We made it!
We tell the controller that we will be doing the NDB approach for runway 14 on our own and no longer need flight following. Since Devin is an instructor, he helps me practice doing the approach. We fly directly over the runway and once we cross the NDB on the field, we continue flying outbound for one minute. The approach plate then tells us that we need to make a procedure turn to the left for one minute, then turn right to start heading inbound. I'm not looking outside the plane so that I can practice simulated instrument flying. Devin is now my safety pilot. Even though we followed the approach plate instructions, he can visually see the runway and tells me that we are about to blow right through the approach course (due to winds aloft). I just continue making my turn inbound and line up with the runway. I descend down to the altitude published. Once close enough, Devin says I can go visual again because we can safely make the landing. I bring the plane down and make a nice landing. Half of the airport's runways and taxiways are closed, so we have to stop and assess our position on the field and figure out a way to taxi back to the runway for takeoff.
After takeoff, Devin tells me not to use the GPS yet because he can teach me how to use the NDB to get us on course for home. After a series of calculations and turns, he proves to know what he's talking about. I can use the GPS now. I call up approach again for flight following and head towards Quincy, our checkpoint. Now that I've shown Devin that I can navigate without GPS, he decides to test me in other ways. What does this mean? What does that stand for? Are you legally able to do that? What can you do? List all of the left turning tendencies. For nearly and hour and a half, he quizzed me on random aviation knowledge.
We finally make it home and enter the pattern. On downwind, he cuts the engine out to idle and instructs me to do a power off 180. So now I have no power and have to accurately glide my way to the runway. In addition, he wants me to land on a specific spot +/- 100ft. This is a maneuver that's required of commercial pilots. I kept my airspeed a little too high which caused us to come in fast and high. I drop all flaps and wait patiently as the plane sinks down and slows down. It was in all a nice landing.
This was a nice flight and a great way to ring in my two year anniversary of my first flight lesson.
My current status of my hours logged are as follows:
- Total time: 163.2 hours
- PIC (pilot-in-command) time: 111.4 hours
- Cross country time: 35.1 hours
- Simulated instrument time: 50.1 hours
- Actual instrument time: 1.6 hours
I'm getting there..!
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