This week for the Genius Hour project was relatively useless. I have already gotten to my goal of having the private pilot checkride scheduled, and I am very excited for it. This week, I started working with my new instructor, Paul. Before he left, My old instructor said it would be a good idea for me to fly with one of the older instructors at the school because I tend to get distracted a lot. Apparently, flying with older people would help me stay in line because we can not goof around as much.
The only time I got to go to the airport this week was on wednesday when we were out of school. The weather was really bad that day, so we just did an extensive ground lesson where I got the full plan for the rest of my training. I only need about three or four more flights until I am ready for the checkride. These flights are all going to be “mock” checkrides where the instructor will be acting like the examiner. I think that my flying skills are good enough as they are. I just need to work really hard on my knowledge. I have been really lazy throughout my training on getting the knowledge portion ready. Once I get my license, I am not going to do any more training at this flight school. They are a good flight school, but my parents have complained to them all throughout my training that there was not enough structure. I think it is just them because it did not really bother me. I also get benefits if I wait until college to finish my training. If I go to a big aviation college, the FAA reduces the number of hours to get to the airlines by 500 hours. That is a ton of time and money. The average number of hours to get a Private Pilot license is 60. 60 hours usually costs 10 thousand dollars.
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This week for for the Genius Hour project was fairly good. I got to fly and I got to study a little bit for the knowledge portion. Unfortunately, I was not at school during class on wednesday because I had an orthodontist appointment so I did not have the chance to study for the test then.
When I flew on Monday, I started out pretty well, but then my instructor started throwing curve balls, such as the gps just died, tell me where we are. I know this is a bad excuse but some of the things my instructor failed me on last monday was stuff that no one had ever taught me and none of the other tools I have used to help said anything about this. My instructor was not too happy that I did not know about this stuff, but I know it now. My instructor got a new job flying the border out in Arizona so my last flight with him was Monday. We were supposed to fly Friday too, but there was a thunderstorm in Winston. Now that my instructor is gone, I do not know exactly who I will be flying with. I have taken a few lessons with one guy, but I do not know if he is the one I want to finish my training. There is a new guy coming in to replace some of the younger instructors that have left, but I do not know what happened to him as the schedule no longer has him on there. For this coming week, I am planning on doing a lot more in the way of studying. I feel like my actual flight skills are good enough to pass the exam. Before I left, my instructor said he is going to go ahead and get my checkride scheduled with the examiner so my goal for the project has pretty much been met. This week for the Genius Hour project was another really unproductive week. This week, my instructor was gone the whole time so I could not get any kind of lesson in. The only thing that I got to do this week was study the checkride guide book. For that, I did study a little bit of the systems and operating those systems. Other than that, I did just about nothing.
For this coming week, I have a couple of lessons scheduled. One will be on Monday and I am planning on flying as well as I can. I am going to be really rusty though because I have not flown in a few weeks. At least for me, I have to keep myself flying at least once a week or else I get rusty and have to redo a few lessons. I am also planning on studying a lot more for the checkride because I am getting closer every time I go to fly, and I have to get my knowledge portion ready. I have had a lot of trouble getting both portions, the flight and the ground, to the point where I am ready at the same time. At at least one point, I have been ready for the flight portion, and at another, I have been ready for the ground. Never at the same time though. So in short, I have had two really bad weeks in a row. I have not used the flight simulator in a long time as the only thing that it really helps with is radio calling, and I have started to do much better with that. I kind of lost my other flight books so ya know, I gotta find those if I want to study other stuff than what is in the guide, but the guide book should get me through the checkride. This week for the Genius Hour project was not productive at all. I had a couple of lessons scheduled, but my instructor had to cancel all of them because he did not get to talk to the other instructor who gave me the stage check. I feel like the project that I have chosen is really hard to do because it is so dependent on the weather.
During the class time provided, I actually studied a lot for the ground portion of the checkride. I got Addison to quiz me on questions out of the book. From the ground lessons that I have had in the past couple of weeks, I learned that I need to study a ton on weather theory. I have always been fascinated by weather. When I was at soccer games as a little kid, I was always afraid of thunderstorms so I learned how to tell what clouds cause what kind of precipitation without learning the names. I can tell you the weather that is coming in like the next five to ten minutes just by looking outside, but all this stuff about low pressure systems go down and counterclockwise is just over my head right now. I wish I could have flown this week and gotten more practice in on the maneuvers, but I did not get to and I will probably be very rusty because my instructor is taking all of next week off. Since flying was not going to happen this week, I wish I could have studied more, but I was really busy with math homework and the research paper outline. Next week I hope to set aside some time every night to study out of my exam guide book. I have to wait another week to fly so I am kinda sad. This week was week 8 of the Genius Hour project. Overall, it was a pretty productive week because I flew two or three times and also had a ground lesson. This week was full of flying with different instructors as a way to check my progress. The first time I flew this week was on friday. I flew with the newest instructor and we went up and practiced all the maneuvers. That was the day that learned S-turns will be on the checkride. I had not done S-turns since the beginning of my training so I just thought it was something to do for fun. I was really tired that day because I stayed up really late doing homework, but I got a few hours of flying and I am not dead yet. I did not fly well at all on friday, but luckily it was really windy and the instructor blamed most of my problems on the wind. I got to fly today as well with a new instructor. I did much better today than on friday because I am well rested, and it was not as windy. Today, we only had time to fly over to mount airy airport, do a couple of landings, fly around Pilot Mountain and do maneuvers, and go back to the airport. We did not have much time to do anything because there was a Beechcraft Baron that had declared an emergency at Winston. He said he had a problem with the landing gear not coming down. The tower controller held all traffic on the ground so we sat on the ramp with our engine running for 30 minutes. We had to leave our airport because the tower was still working with the crew to see if the runway was clear of debris. Of the few things we did get done in the air today, I did very well, and I am getting a good score on.
This week for Genius Hour was a very productive one. On monday, I flew with my instructor and did so well that he scheduled a stage check for me. A stage check is when you go fly with another instructor to check on your progress and proficiency. When I flew on monday though, we went up and did a couple of maneuvers like turns around a point and power off stalls. After that we practiced really hard on emergencies like engine failure during cruise. I knew the checklist for it, but I was struggling on getting the airplane in the right spot to land in the field. Then, we went back to the airport and practiced special landings and takeoffs. Special landings are landings on a grass strip or a short field. There are two different checklists that you need to follow for those. For short field landings, you need full flaps and come in slow. For soft field landings, you just need to make it as smooth as possible to protect the landing gear. I did very well on the special landings and that is what made my instructor think that I was ready for the stage check. The short field landing was almost too perfect. There are certain limitations you have to meet for each maneuver and for short field landings the landing point should be minus 0 feet plus 200 feet of the target.
I was going to have the stage check on Wednesday, but the instructor that I was supposed to fly with was not available. I went to the airport and just had a ground lesson with my instructor. He just simulated what the ground portion of the checkride would be. I learned that I need to know a lot more of the ground portion before I am ready, but my flying is getting really close. This week was a lot more productive than the last few weeks we have had. I had 2 flight lessons scheduled this week. It was not a good week for the flight school’s airplanes. Out of the 10 planes, 5 of them broke. The weather was not the greatest to fly on either day, but we were still going to fly. Sadly, on thursday’s lesson, the left wheel brake broke. It was leaking brake fluid, and it made the left toe brake have no pressure on the pedals so the pedal was tilted all the way to the floor. I did not get to fly that day, but we did do an extensive ground lesson on what the examiner will ask on the actual exam.
It is a good thing the flight school has more than one plane because we still got to fly even though one of the planes broke. I flew on friday at around 5. We went up and practiced maneuvers again. I am getting much better at them, and I have started to be much more independent on what to do. The past few flights have been I need clarification from my instructor to know what to do in each maneuver, but I have started to just do it. The only maneuver that I really struggled with was turns around a point. Last time, I did not even do it, but this time, I did and found that I need a lot of practice. During slow flight, I did not do well at keeping my altitude because the wind was bouncing me up and down too much. My instructor brought a pilot along on friday who sat in the back and and took notes on how I did. He said that I did pretty well overall. This week of the Genuis Hour hour project was a little bit more productive than last week. I finally got to fly this week. I did really well for not having flown in like a month so I am pretty happy. There is just a few things that I am still struggling with such as, remembering to do clearing turns before maneuvers or how to enter the maneuver.
I also sat down with my instructor today and got an estimate on how long it will take for the rest of my training. He said I need about 5 more flight lessons and to get my knowledge portion ready, then I will be able to take the checkride. 5 lessons is around 5 hours of time so I am not too far from being ready for the test. When I sat down with my instructor today, he gave me a plan on how many flights that I should schedule in one week. I think I will have 2 flight lessons scheduled per week, but weather will get in the way of most of the lessons. Because of this, I am right on track for the project. I might even be finishing up a little early too. Although I am getting close to getting my license, there is still a lot of stuff that I need to work on. I need to work on making every phase of flight smoother. Right now I can fly just fine, but some things are not very smooth. Other things I could work on include, paying attention to what I am doing because sometimes when I fly, I get distracted and lose focus. For right now though, my next flight is scheduled to be on thursday and if the weather does not work out, then we will just do a ground lesson. This week for genius hour was not a very productive one. I have not flown since the project started, and that is kind of making me frustrated. Now that the time has changed, I hope I can fly more on weekdays. I have soccer on weekends so during the week is now one of my only options. Being able to fly on weekdays is a great thing because now I can fly multiple times in a week. I do not have to wait a week to fly again because it stays light outside long enough to fly now.
My parents and I have created a plan on how to structure the rest of my training. I will set aside some time every night to study the things that I do not know in the Oral Exam Guide or another Private Pilot book. I will try to set at least 30 minutes aside, but if I can do more, I will do more than 30 minutes. On rainy days, I will try to set up ground lessons with my flight instructor who will go over the written test with me. I need to go over the written test soon so that I know what I missed on the test and what I need to work on. I can not wait until I get to start training for my instrument rating. When I get that rating, I can fly when it rains or when it is cloudy. It is really convenient to be an instrument certified pilot, but that is going to be in the future for I do not even have my private pilot’s license yet. In short, even though I did get some stuff done, it was not very productive because I just did not have time to fly and I just got lazy on the studying part. I have been struggling with the weather from the beginning of the project. Every weekend, the weather has been cloudy or windy. This weekend was windy and I could not get in the air. When the time changes in a couple of weeks, I can start to fly on weekdays. Even though I could not fly this week, I did study a lot and practice on the simulator. During the time we had in class on wednesday, I studied a lot and got a bunch of tips on how to pass the exam. Some of the tips were to talk yourself through the exam and do not say anything without thinking first. One thing I need to do by wednesday is go stop by the airport and get the questions that I missed on the written test that I took this summer so I can study that stuff.
Flight simulators are a gift from God himself. Even though I was not able to fly, I practiced a bunch of stuff on the flight simulator. We have a plugin for x plane that connects us to people that act as air traffic controllers so I can practice the radio calls that I would have to say in a real flight. Radio calls are the hardest thing for me to do because I do not like to talk to people that much. That plugin really helps me though because when I get in the plane I feel much more comfortable using the radio. I would say that I did not have the most productive week on this project. While I did get some stuff done, I have not flown in a couple of weeks and that makes me sad. I am going to work on weather stuff this coming week and getting my personal weather limit set. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2018
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