Sunday, February 5, 2012

More instrument training and written tests.

Saturday, Feb 4th 2012
So the plan was to fly 2 hours practicing approaches. I was scheduled to arrive at 9:00 am. The weather was very close to minimums so it was very likely that no flight was going to be held today. So my instructor and I decided that we should do some sim work and practice the approaches for our next long XC flight which will be KPDK-KCRG-KSGJ-KDAB and back.. I am so looking forward to that flight, It is a requirement for the Commercial License

61.139(b)(4)(i)
One cross country flight of not less than 300nm total distance with landings at a minimum of 3 points, 1 of which is a straight line distance of at least 250nm from the original departure point.

 On the sim we did a VOR, RNAV and ILS approach to these airports..  after we were done I went into the study room at ATP to study for the written.
Another new is that my instructor got the job at Expressjet! I am very happy for him, he starts in mid March, I'm not sure If I'll be able to finish up my instrument rating before he leaves, I hope I do.  
After 2 hours of studying I went outside to take a break, the clouds were breaking up so we decided to fly. While I preflight N23PE the instructor was deciding on what we were going to do.. we departed at 2:00 pm towards Greensboro, GA (3J7)for a GPS approach to runway 7. This time I managed most of the radio communications. PDK is a beehive airport, with a lot of traffic and a complex diagrams with 4 runways and a bunch of taxiways and different procedures than a normal towered airport. It gets confusing but I was able to get my clearance, taxi instructions and takeoff clearance without any problems.
This flight had some parts with clouds, It is awesome to fly under IMC. I did the approach without any problems and then we went back to PDK for an ILS to 20L. Instructor shut off the engine and I managed it very well.
Sunday Feb 5th
Super Bowl Sunday. Patriots VS Giants.
I stopped by Dunkin Donuts today to get some treats to the people at school. I was not sure If I was ready to take the instrument written test today.  I did a mock test on my Ipad and got a 92% so I decided to take the test so I could get that out of the way.
It took me a little bit more than 2 hours. It wasn't easy. I got an 87 which I feel pretty happy with. Then I took the CFII written also; it is pretty much the same question bank so I decided to do it as well and scored an 84. I feel relaxed now that those are out of the way now. On Tuesday we have scheduled our almost 7 hour flight to Daytona and back. That is going to be awesome!
For now, we are going to our Colombian friend's house to watch the Super Bowl and celebrate!!


 The Propeller Brand

Thank you for reading.

2 comments:

A. Pilot said...

Congratulations on passing the test!

How long did it take you to get to KDAB (one way?) How was it? Did you just land, taxi back and took off again, or stayed there for a bit.

Any suggestions you have about the written tests you took?

Happy flying! :-)

abeshangar said...

Thanks man!! We didn't go to KDAB :( but I'm pretty sure I'll go there several times after I get my instrument rating on the cross country phase.

Did you already take your Private written? I did the King School for the instrument and lots of practicing on the ASA Prepware. Now I just started studying the Jeppesen Instrument big book for my oral test.

Cheers!