Sunday, August 2, 2009

Long Days


Any "real" pilot loves to just hang around the airport, talk to other pilots, be around airplanes, and just have a good time at the airport. As a flight instructor it is your job to be at the airport when you are needed. This is your job, this is what you get payed for.

Before we go any further let me explain how we charge students for our time. Usually the majority of what you pay your instructor is going to be for time actually spent in the aircraft. This is also the time that you can log. At UND we use a hobbs meter(timer) that starts ticking when you turn the master switch on. We also charge for what we call Pre/Post time. This is the time that before and after your flight when the instructor is actually teaching you.

Some instructors will charge for every minute they are at the airport in their Pre/Post time. Me on the other hand I really only count the time that I'm actually discussing flying or teaching with the student. So after the first few flights does this include the interior and exterior preflight that the student is conducting? Not unless I'm teaching something new or important.

What does this all mean to anyone who is interested in being a flight instructor? Your going to spend a lot more time at the airport than your actually getting payed for. Lets look at an example of a recent flight I had with a student.

The flight was a 10:00 AM flight so we met at the airport around 9. Here is the time breakdown for our flight...

9-9:15 student gets weather briefing and does performance
9:15 - 9:30 student and I will discuss the flight and talk about what we are going to do
9:30 - 10:00 student does preflight checks as I help out and make sure everything is OK.
10:00 - 11:30 Flight time
11:30 - 11:45 Student does the post flight check and turns in the aircraft book
11:45 - 12:00 Student and I discuss the flight. What went well and what we need to work on

Now that you have the break down let me tell you what I charged the student for. 1.5 hours of flight time and .5 Pre/Post(I usually only charge .3 for Pre/Post but for argument sake I'll use .5 here). I got payed for 2.0 hours of instruction.

That's pretty good right? Well not really, I've been at the airport since 9 and it is now after noon, 3 hours. So I've lost an hour of payed time. Not a huge deal if you only do one flight a day but now lets assume I do 3 or 4 flights a day.

If I do 4 flights a day that turns out to me getting payed for roughly 8 hours a day, almost an average work day. But lets think back, I lost 1 hour during for that one flight so multiply that by 4 and now I've lost 4 hours. I've been at the airport for roughly 12 hours and only got payed for 8.

Granted if you enjoy being a flight instructor you don't mind being at the airport. Just be prepared for long long days!

Power-Off 180s

Energy management. That's what Power-Off 180s are all about. For those of you who don't know a Power-Off 180 is a simulated engine failure to landing. On downwind abeam your touchdown point you pull the power to idle and try to land with in a certain distance from your touchdown point. While many people do this maneuver for their Private Pilot training it isn't actually required for you to pass a check ride.

To pass your Commercial check ride you need to do a Power-Off 180 Accuracy approach and landing. The key word here is accuracy. What does accuracy mean? From the PTS "touches down in a normal landing attitude, at or within 200 feet beyond a specified touchdown point."

Why is this so difficult for students? Again I'm going to say energy management. Thinking back to your long days studying physics you obviously remember that there are two types of energy, Potential and Kinetic.

The bare bones description of potential energy is energy that is stored within an object, energy that can be converted to other forms of energy. Kinetic energy is the energy that an object has due to its motion. A good way to think about this is altitude above the ground is stored energy, potential, which can be traded for airspeed, kinetic.

Back to the maneuver at hand. Depending on the airplane you need to time your turn to base depending on your sink rate. I'll use the C172 and Piper arrow as my two examples. Both of these aircraft start the same way, pull the power abeam your touchdown point and start pitching for your best glide speed. When you pull the power on the C172 you need to keep going on your downwind leg for a bit, however on the Piper Arrow you need to almost always start your turn to base right away.

Base leg is the most important part of this maneuver. This is where you determine if you have the right amount of energy. If you are going be high you square off your base turn to final turn, if your low you are going need to turn towards the runway and shorten your pattern.

So why is this difficult? Well most students don't understand that you aren't judging whether you are high or low but rather judging your sink rate. Do you have enough energy to make it to the runway? Do I have enough potential energy, altitude, that I can trade for airspeed to make it to my landing point?

If you are too high there are a few things you can do, slip the airplane, square off your base turn, or add flaps. However the one that not a lot of people know about is slowing the aircraft up to below best glide speed. If you pitch down to loose altitude you are going to gain airspeed, kinetic energy, and float past your landing point. However, if you pitch back, you increase your induced drag(drag due to lift and AOA) . Because of this increase in drag you will now be able to descend faster.

This is a very difficult maneuver to perfect but a very important one. In a real engine failure emergency you don't want to miss your only landing area by floating long or coming up short.
Link to a youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nCDyL3toEg&feature=related

Garmin G1000 what???


Recently the University of North Dakota made the decision to switch its fleet from piper warriors to Cessna C172S equipped with Garmin G1000 glass cockpits. For those of you not already familiar with the G1000 it is a great tool for pilots. It consists of two 10" displays that are split up into a PFD(primary flight display) and an MFD(multi function display). These two displays are powered by multiple different devices. There is an AHRS(attitude and heading Reference system) which controls the attitude indicator, and heading indicator. The ADC(air data computer) is for all the pitot static instruments, airspeed, VSI, altimeter, wind vector, and TAS. Other pieces of equipment are the engine instruments, magnetometer(for heading information) and GPS and Comms.

The PFD shows all your flight instruments; airspeed, attitude indicator, altimeter, VSI, heading indicator, HSI, turn coordinator, and a small map if you want it. The MFD can do multiple things, as the name says. Usually is will show the engine instruments on the left side of the screen and a map covering the rest of the screen. There are also small steam standby steam gauges in case you loose your PFD and MFD.

The G1000 is amazingly simple and effective and dramatically improves situational awareness. However, for a private pilot who should be focusing on the outside references to fly the aircraft I have noticed that they are becoming more and more focused on whats happening inside the aircraft and not outside.

Because of this one of my favorite things to do to a private pilot student is to turn the contrast on the PFD all the way down so that it is basically a black screen. This forces the pilot to look outside and fly the aircraft with outside references and by feel.

You would be surprised how much students rely on the PFD to keep the aircraft level. Initially it takes a little bit for a student to keep the airplane level and on a heading but very quickly they pick it up. I've also noticed that because of this when you do turn the screen back on the students aren't looking inside as much. It improves their piloting abilities and makes everything they do better.

The G1000 is a great tool but we need to be able to fly an aircraft without it. To feel the aircraft, to hear the aircraft and understand what it is doing.