New Adventures

September 24, 2011

It's been a pretty interesting week. As you know, I work at the front desk as a Dispatcher for my flight school a couple nights a week as a side job. On Monday the 19th it was pretty slow. There was only one student on the schedule. I decided to ask the boss if I could tag along with the traffic watch crew, then close down dispatch  when we got back. He gave me permission, so I went along with Nick (who is also an instructor) in Airborne 2. We flew out to St. Louis Downtown Airport (formerly known as Parks) and picked up the KMOX radio broadcaster. We were told it was going to be a short night because there was a sports game downtown and he couldn't broadcast over it. Airborne 1 flies the northern half of St. Louis, and Airborne 2 flies the southern half. We went straight to a car accident by Hwy 270 and 44, then circled it a couple times. Afterward, we flew west to monitor other traffic on the main highways. It was really interesting to listen to Nick speak to ATC to get clearances, etc. and to watch his flying technique. After about an hour and a half, we were told to head back to the airport to drop off the radio broadcaster. We followed the highway into downtown, flew directly over the Arch, then made our landing. It was a very interesting flight and it certainly helped me learned St. Louis better from the air.

This week I also got to experience what pulling zero-g (no g-forces) feels like. We gained some altitude, then the person that I flew with put us in a decent to gain some airspeed. Once at an adequate speed, he quickly pulls up into a climb and now I'm feeling like I weigh twice as much than I really do because of the positive gees (probably around 2 g) pushing me into the seat. Before getting too close to the stalling speed, he quickly lowers the nose and I go from feeling heavy to weightless as we experience zero-g. It was such a rapid change that everything in the plane, including us went flying off the seats. It felt as if we were on the space shuttle with no gravity; just floating in air (although we were buckled). It was incredibly fun and I ended up making him do it a second time. This is going to be something that I definitely want to learn. Passengers would really get a thrill out of experiencing this.

I also had another lesson using the PCATD (simulator). I was scheduled to work with my normal CFI, however something came up and I had to work with Dave, the Chief Flight Instructor. He's basically the boss of all the instructors. We started off just discussing instruments and what to do in case of a failure. Then we turned on the simulator and flew that for an hour. Like last time, I learned a lot. Working with Dave was a slight challenge, for the good. He made sure that I knew my stuff and that I didn't relax on anything. We practiced turns, climbs, descents, and then practiced how to fly without certain instruments. I did alright, Dave was pleased and I considered it a great lesson.

As far as today's lesson, I flew with Eric. It was pretty uneventful, just more practice doing what we've been doing since day one. This time he threw in one extra thing, tracking a localizer. A localizer is basically a very specific course that takes you directly into a certain runway. There is very little margin to work with, so you must fly it with precision. I quickly learned just how quick you can easily get off course if you're not careful. That was basically all that we did today.

Lastly, there is big change coming up for me. I learned that my instructor Eric got hired on to fly for GoJet. He has two more weeks left of teaching before he leaves. It has been arranged that I will be working with Dave when Eric leaves. Although I am a little frustrated that this will be my fourth instructor in eleven months, I'm very happy to see my instructors work their way up the chain towards their dream career. I also feel very fortunate to have the opportunity of continuing my instrument training with Dave.