3rd Day at ATP

Well today I was supposed to be at the school at 11:30 am to work on the sim a little bit; however, I got a text from my instructor telling me that his other student was sick and If I wanted to come over earlier, so I did. I arrived at 9:20 am but on my way to school I noticed there was a low overcast layer of clouds so I thought we were going to do just sim stuff.
When I got there he actually sent me to pre-flight the Seminole, ceilings at Winder were at 3,400 so he filed an IFR plan so we could do pattern work at Winder. When we were ready to taxi, my instructor noticed in his foreflight app that the weather was getting worse and was about to get to minimums, you really don't want to fly when the weather is below minimums so we parked the airplane again and we decided to wait and see what happened.
I went to the back of the room and just went through all the flows, and studied the short field takeoff and landing procedures.. after about 45 minutes, the instructor came back.- "let's go, it is still IFR but it got better" so off we went.
We departed from runway 20L and he let me had the controls while we went through the clouds, it was amazing. I remember having about half hour of real instrument flying during my private lessons and it is beautiful. That view made me remember why I love to fly.
I think I did pretty good maintaining altitude and heading, I got more comfortable on my second day of flying today. We arrived at Winder and practiced short field take off and landings, engine shutoff while taking off, and simulated engine failure while in the pattern. Everything went good, I just MUST remember to retract the landing gear just after getting a positive rate of climb on a short field takeoff.
On our way back we were flying above the clouds, I was able to get a couple of pictures of that.
Approach had us on hold for a while because there were fast flying airplanes on approach until he was able to squeeze us in.
My instructor did an ILS to 20L and that was it for today. Oh! I already have scheduled my multi-engine check ride for Tuesday! Tomorrow we are not going to fly but I'll stop over and learn my flows on the sim. Thanks for reading.

ATP 2nd Day

So, today I was scheduled to be at the airport at 11:30 am. I left early and arrived at 10 am. There's a section at PDK where you can sit and watch pretty much everything that is going on at the airport, it has a playground for the kids and they have a speaker where you can usually hear ATC. So I arrived early and I sat there for a while, watching the airplanes and studying my Seminole supplement. It is really motivating to watch different kinds of airplanes:  a lady practicing touch and goes in a 172, 2 King Airs, tons of Lears, different aircrafts from Netjets, a Piaggio Avanti, etc.. you really get to see a lot of movement at PDK.
I did my private pilot training at an airport in Kennesaw, GA (KRYY) and I just landed a couple of times at PDK, I got intimidated by this airport.
At 11:00 am I went to the school and my instructor was there, he told me that his previous student cancelled on him so we were able to start a little earlier. He had me jump into the FTD (simulator) just to get a little familiar with the checklists, flows and maneuvers. After that he asked me If I thought I could do the preflight by myself and I agreed; after all, I had a checklist and I've watched the seminole preflight video around 5 times, so I went outside to the airplane and started going through the checklist and trying to find each of the items listed. The instructor came out and I noticed it needed some oil, so we did put some on, refueled the tanks and we were ready to go!
After 115 hours of flying in a 172, this really felt funny. The airplane is about the same size but with the twin engines I felt like an airline pilot already. Most of the procedures are totally different than from the 172 and when we took of.. man.. it was beautiful. This is one of the oldest airplanes of the school's fleet; now I wonder what the 2000 models are like.
Up we were and the instructor introduced me into some maneuvers.. steep turns, slow flight, power off stall, power on stall, Vmc demostration, engine shutdown. The maneuvers are easy, the hard part is learning the flows. I was not familiar with the Prop Lever since this was my first time in a complex airplane as well, so It took me a while to get used to retarding the throttle to adjust MP and the Prop for RPM. Above that, there are different settings after climb, cruise, and descent.

We did one landing at Gainesville, but I asked the instructor that we should go back to PDK since I started feeling a little bit dizzy after all the maneuvers. So we went back, I logged my first 2.1 hours in a Multi Engine, and tomorrow we are not really sure what are we going to do. My instructor is trying to get in touch with the examiner so I can have my checkride on tuesday, if he is available, then we will do more flying tomorrow.

1st day at ATP

I have been waiting for this day for a while. This would practically be my second step to become an airline pilot,  if we consider that getting my private pilot's license was my first step.
So today I woke up at 5:45 am. I was scheduled to be at the school at 8:00 am and I was planning to leave at 6:30 just to get a feeling of the commute.. according to Google maps it would take me around 45-55 minutes, and you need to add Atlanta's morning rush traffic to that number.
So today was a cold morning with clear skies, I was looking forward to fly on my first day at ATP. I took a shower and when I went downstairs my lovely girlfriend already had set my lunchbox just like if I was her little boy on his first day of school. It was funny, but I love it.
I left at 6:30 am and got to PDK at 7:20 am. I was 40 minutes easrly and the school was closed. I went outside to check out the airplanes and there they were: 2 ATP Cessna 172s and a 1979 Piper Seminole PA-44 parked outside. I went around it identifying all the parts that I've been studying in the ATP videos: the double COM antennas on top, the scupper drain, the vent drain, the battery drain, alternator vents, the light in front of the airplane, the single GPS unit. (2000 models have 2).  It looks like I will be learning in this old airplane but oh well, I hope to try the 2000 model in the near future.
I went back inside and another guy was waiting outside ATP's office, I talked to him and told me that he was there to get his ATP license. Currently a F.O. for the Embraer170 for Republic Air. I asked him a lot of questions about the industry, pros, cons.. I'm pretty sure I will be meeting a lot of pilots and I will be able to look at their point of view about their jobs.
Instructors arrived at 8:00 am. The PDK location has only two instructors. Very cool guys. I recognized one of them since he is the one who gave me the tour a couple of months ago, and apparently he is the one that is going to be assigned to me. Then, another student arrived, I'm pretty sure he was the same guy who was receiving his first day of ground school when I arrived for the tour. He was working now into his commercial license and told me about all the cross country flights he has done so far.
Basically the first day is just paperwork. I was thinking it was going to be like when you close a mortgage that you pretty much have a looooot of stuff to sign, but no; It was only 3 pages with legal stuff, a look at my logbook hours, they got copies of my license, FAA certificate, medical, and passport.
I also had a small 50 question test, multiple choice, which was mostly Private Pilot stuff. It is hard to remember if you hadn't been through it for a while, but fortunately I had my BFR recently, so it wasn't that hard.
I also got a binder, big binder, that includes my whole syllabus and a lot of extra stuff. I haven't been through it yet but I will today.
Then I had some ground school, multi-engine stuff from the Seminole Supplement. I have been studying so hard for the past days that I was very familiar with I was getting from ground school. I had questions about P-factor and the instructor explained it to me in a very easy way. I also didn't know that the most unfavorable weight when determining Vmc is a "lighter weight" because the heavier the mass, the more lift it is capable of creating so I learned something new today.
I have to memorize COLD the first pages of the supplement and go through the binder and be ready for my second lesson tomorrow. I didn't get to fly today, but I will for sure tomorrow. The forecast for this rest of the week is clear skies, so If everything goes according to my plan, I should be getting my multi-engine rating on Monday or Tuesday.  I'm going to try to post as many pictures as I can. 

13 days for my first day

I am 13 days away to start at ATP. I am really excited. I am planning on going to the local library this Saturday and get more studying done. I'll concentrate on the seminole supplement and I'll try to be able to answer all the questions in the back of the supplement this weekend. If I do, I'll continue with the IFR course so I can be ready for the IFR written.
I was contacted by ATP this week and they just wanted to go over the things I have and see If I got everything ready for my first day, i think that was pretty cool. So far I am just missing an Ipad kneeboard which I am hoping that I will get for Christmas,  some ASA apps and my ForeFlight App which they recommend to get when I get closer to the Instrument part.

I also bought a huge poster with the seminole instrument panel from UND to get familiar with flows and stuff, I still don't know if I'm going to use it but well, it is on my wall now.

The dream is alive..

So this year I haven't flown since July 13th. The flying bug has been bugging me throughout 2011 and I decided to take steps and finish up my training. I am 30 years old now and I have no time to waste, it is now or never.
I got my private pilot license in June 2009 and since then, I have flown several cross country flights on a Cessna 172 just taking friends along. I have tried to focus on my IFR training, but I have no road map. I don't know how much is it going to cost me at a local FBO, what exactly do I need to study first, a Syllabus, or something. Besides that, I can't find any schools with a MultiEngine airplane closeby (either KRYY or KPUJ) so I need to expand my search.
Basically I have been looking at three potential schools: Falcon Aviation Academy, American Flyers and ATP.  What I need is all my ratings including ME, financing, and advise from other pilots.
All 3 of them look pretty good and apparently they have a good reputation overall, however, American Flyers do not have a multiengine airplane at their PDK location so I have to discard that one.. that is sad, because their programs look really appealing and I was seriously considering this one.
Falcon Aviation.. I contacted them and told them I was visiting their school at PDK, we set a time and nobody showed up; my first e-mails were answered rapidly but after a while, when I had more questions, they look kinda annoyed.. I guess that leaves me with one more choice.
You really can't tell if ATP is a good or a bad school by reading all the aviation forums on the web. You will read a ton of bad reviews and a ton of good reviews. My experience on the phone was good. When I visited the school at PDK, the instructor exceeded my expectations. He was working and stopped what he was doing to take care of me.  He gave me a complete tour, he showed me the PA44, and let me in. He showed me the simulator and even bothered to turn it on so I can see how it really looks like, answered all my questions. It was great.
Still I understand why people give it a lot of thought, It is not cheap. My program will cost me US$54,995 plus i must buy an Ipad 2 (US$770), I need to purchase Apps for the school, plus I need to come up with more money for the DPE on each check ride (I believe there are 7 or 8).
I had the opportunity of meeting a Colombian pilot for ASA, he went to ATP at age 38 and he did the Fast 90 days Program. He told me three things that took any doubts away.
First: ATP will charge you a fixed amount of money and It guarantees that you will get a certain amount of time and those ratings. If you go to a regular flight school, you never know how much you are going to end up paying for training.
Second: ATP has a road map to accomplish your goal. It will be a lot, a LOT of self study, but they will tell you WHAT to study and WHEN.
Three: Be prepared. The first two or three years after graduation life will be TENAZ (really tough) you need to be very careful on your financial planning but you will survive.
Those three thing plus one of my motto: I rather try and fail than never try and wonder what if are the ones that pushed me to make the call and schedule my first day of class.
On December 28th I will start my 10 month self paced program at ATP (http://www.allatps.com) at the PDK location. I am doing the self paced because I can't afford to not to work. I will be documenting my progress throughout this journey to help other future pilots make a decision.
Three days after scheduling, I received a package with some books and e-books for my Ipad. I also got my IFR course on my Ipad and it is really cool. Ont he package, there was also a welcome letter from ATP's VP and recommending that I study the Seminole Manuals, and be ready for my IFR written.
The IFR course is very complete, I am in the second lesson. Basically on each lesson I have to watch a video, then read a chapter from the Instrument Pilot Handbook and then answer a quiz. It is really motivating and I am working on that right now.
Also, every day I review the seminole videos from the ATP page, the  Manuals, and the Flash courses about this airplane. I am now becoming more familiar with it.  And getting more excited to start.