EAA Chapter 46


My Flight Review
	by Jim Cavanaugh I am a participant in the FAA Pilot Proficiency Program (Often simply called the “Wings” Program) and do the “Wings” three hour flight training program in lieu of the required FAA biennial flight review. It had been nearly two years since my last flight review in the Wings program. And, having not had a review for two years, I was looking for a good CFI to really “knock the rust off” my piloting skills. With twenty-six years of flying experience, I have had many flight reviews and aircraft checkouts. I have flown with over three dozen CFI’s during that time. Some were good, and some were downright bad. (Twice, I wondered who should be giving the flight review!) A few of the CFI’s were outstanding. I was looking for a good CFI that could push me and evaluate where I needed work. I did not want someone who was just going to go along for the ride and collect my money. One of our EAA Chapter 46 members is Master CFI, Bob Miller. Bob is gaining a national reputation as the author of the biweekly e-mail newsletter Over the Airways. Bob’s forte is as an expert in aeronautical decision making. He creates real world scenarios on a flight and discusses how pilots should plan for and deal with them. He is a strong proponent for flight training to a level beyond the minimums set by the FAA. I’ve known Bob for a few years but had never flown with him. I have spoken to a number of his students and found many thought he was very good, but sometimes cautioned, “he is really tough!” Well, that was just what I was looking for. I didn’t want someone just providing tacit approval of my basic flying skills. I decided to find out if Bob is “the real deal”. I called Bob to arrange three hours of dual instruction plus the ground review required in the “Wings” program. Since both Bob and I tip the scales somewhere north of 200 pounds, my Cessna 150 would not work unless we only had about 30 minutes of fuel on board. So, we scheduled a Cessna 172 at Akron Airport. I drove out and met Bob at the Airport on a Friday morning with low overcast and scattered rain showers. When I had commented on the less than ideal weather, he said, “all we need now are some howling cross winds for a real review!” We began the ground review and his first question really impressed me. “Tell me about your typical flight?” He wanted to understand my typical mission profile so he could tailor the review to deal with the situations I see on many of my flights. I explained that my airplane was not IFR certified and all of my flights were generally within 250 miles during the day and in good VFR weather. We spent time reviewing FAA regulations, navigational charts and one of Bob’s favorites, weather. We discussed and planned what we would accomplish during the two one-and-a-half hour flights. Even though my Cessna 150 is not a certified IFR airplane, Bob wanted to get some instrument time in to polish up my very rusty instrument rating just in case I ran into inadvertent IFR conditions. With the current weather, we knew we could get some actual IFR time in the C-172. I went out to preflight the airplane in the drizzle. Even with unpleasant conditions, my preflight inspections are pretty methodical and extensive. Bob asked if I was going to fly the airplane or buy it! However, having found an oil pump failure last year on a routine preflight, I am a big fan of comprehensive preflight inspections. Had I not found the oil pump problem on the ground, the engine would likely have seized and quit about 400 feet off the ground! We departed Akron and climbed to the northwest towards the practice area. Our first task was to practice stalls, spin entries and recovery. I applied carburetor heat and reduced the throttle while rolling in some nose up trim to slow the airplane. I pulled back on the yoke and firmly brought the nose up to stall break. The stall horn began wailing and the Cessna began its’ familiar pre-stall buffet. As the nose began to drop, Bob told me “Let go of the yoke and let it fall off where it wants to”. The airplane fell off to the left in a nose down attitude. I went to grab the yoke for recovery and Bob said,” No! Keep your hands on your lap and use only rudder and power for recovery”. I applied right rudder to raise the wing and stop the yaw and added power simultaneously. The wings leveled and the nose began to pitch up briskly. Again I went for the yoke and Bob repeated, “Hands off the yoke!” Rudder only! Let the nose pitch up. You may enter a second stall, but let it go.” As the nose pitched up, I reduced power slightly preventing the second stall. After a few gentle oscillations and removing the nose up trim, the airplane was back in level flight. Bob explained how many stall spin accidents happen when the pilot tries to over control the airplane, especially in instrument conditions. (JFK Jr. crash!) We practiced some additional maneuvers and then headed over to Niagara Falls International Airport to practice some emergency procedures and a few interesting new maneuvers I had never done. We called Niagara Tower and requested a “high break”. Time to practice my F-16 approach! We crossed the numbers of runway 28R at pattern altitude and quickly pulled the throttle to idle. I firmly rolled in 30 degrees of bank and began a 360 degree descending right turn to line up with the runway. I was aiming for a touchdown point 500 feet from the end of the runway. Everything went perfect until we were set up on final for our “dead stick” landing. Bob said, “Now don’t let the wheels touch down. I want you to fly down the runway at minimum controllable airspeed with the wheels two to four feet off the ground!” Down we went the huge runway, holding off by just a few feet. With 500 feet of the eleven thousand feet runway left, we began our “go-around” to the northwest. Bob said now do a 270 degree teardrop turn to the left and line up to land downwind on 10L. After clearance from the tower, I began my turn and set up to repeat the “air taxi” exercise again, now with a 10 knot tailwind. As we sailed down the runway for nearly two miles and began our go around Bob said, “Now let’s do it again. But this time I want you to land and take off nine times in the first 10,000 feet!” What? “Wheels down and then up and then down. Try for nine!” This wasn’t so pretty! I think I may have got five in. Once with the breaks on! “As we began the go around, he said now lets do it the other way, downwind!” Again pretty ugly! We repeated it two more times, each time getting a bit better! Now I was getting beat with sweat running down my back. And I am sure that I had put new groves in the yoke from squeezing so tight. Bob said, “We want to try it again with a new twist.” “What can make this more interesting”, I thought? As we approached the runway, Bob instructed, “Now I want you to touch down only on the left wheel and then lift off and touch down only on the right wheel! Do that and try for nine! I call it the Turkey Trot.” I quickly gained more respect for the “flying farmer” airshow act I had seen many times at the Geneseo Airshow! It wasn’t pretty, but it was great exercise in aircraft control. Once going upwind and once going downwind. We finally headed out back to the east and climbed up into some scattered to broken clouds after requesting an IFR clearance from Buffalo Approach. I quickly had problems holding the aircraft level. A quick check of the gauges showed that the attitude indicator was canted to the left and the suction gauge was reading low. “Great!” Bob said. “Now we can practice some partial panel work.” He quickly pulled covers out of his flight bag for the attitude indicator and directional gyro and covered them up. We did a number of maneuvers using only “needle-ball-airspeed”. The rust started to fall of quickly from my instrument rating of 25 years. After about twenty minutes we descended back to VFR conditions and we cancelled our IFR clearance. Bob asked if I had ever flown approaches with my Garmin 295 GPS. I told him I had not and did not even know how to set it up. He showed me how the GPS loads the approaches and we selected the GPS runway 25 approach to Akron. I donned the instrument hood and we requested a practice approach and reviewed the approach charts for the procedure. We flew two approaches and the remaining rust became apparent. Not bad, but not great. But, good enough to get back on the ground safely after an inadvertent encounter with IFR conditions. On the second missed approach, Bob pulled the power to idle. Time for one more dead stick landing. Since we were on the go around, we needed to execute another teardrop turn and land downwind. Perfect! We pulled off the runway and headed for the pumps. One-and-a-half hours of some very challenging flying. We planned the next flight for the following Tuesday. Tuesday came with clear blue skies and calm winds. Temperatures were already in the high 80’s at 8 am. Density altitude was already at 2600’ at Lancaster. Visibility was good, but not great on this hot, humid and hazy day. I flew my Cessna 150 from Lancaster on a short flight to Akron to meet Bob. Bob had decided that we would do a little more emergency maneuver training along with some more instrument work. The instrument work would need to be done “under the hood” with the good weather. After another detailed preflight, we took of in the Cessna 172 and headed north east climbing to about 3000 feet. After a few minutes, Bob pulled the throttle back to about 1500RPM and said “You’re engine is beginning to fail and you need to get on the ground soon. What are you’re options?” I took a quick look at my sectional chart and pushed the “nearest airport” function on my GPS. Royalton airport was nearby and within gliding distance with a light tailwind. As we headed towards Royalton Bob asked what I would be doing if this was a real emergency. I replied that I would try to analyze the problem; carb heat, fuel, mixture, primer, mags. I would also contact ATC and advise them of the situation. And, most important, fly the airplane! As we neared the airport, I stayed a bit high in case the engine quit. The additional altitude would provide a bit more margin for error. Good plan! About a mile from the airport, Bob pulled the throttle to idle. We were set up but a bit high and had to use a slip to loose altitude. We touched down a bit fast and used most of the narrow runway to come to a complete stop. Pleased with the landing and how I handled the simulated emergency Bob said “now take off down wind and make it a soft field takeoff. I lowered the flaps to 10 degrees, held the nose wheel off and smoothly applied power. The airplane gently lifted off just above stall speed and I lowered the nose in ground effect to build up flying speed. Bob had me turn north and climb back to 3000 feet. When we were established at 3000 and trimmed for cruise flight Bob had another surprise planned. You now have another more serious emergency. “Your control yoke has just failed and you have lost control of your elevator and your ailerons. You only have rudder control and your throttle. Now, go back and land at Royalton!” The scenario was eerily familiar. On a flight last year I had a bushing and bracket on my yoke mount break in heavy turbulence near Binghamton. When I got back to Lancaster Airport and showed my mechanic, Ron Ciura, what had happened, he casually asked “You didn’t fly it like that did you”? When I told him that I did (about four hours) he told me that I could have lost elevator and aileron control if the control chain behind the instrument panel had simply fallen off. One of those sobering moments! So here I am practicing the emergency I nearly had experienced first hand. Bob asked what I would do. I told him that I would turn with the rudder and head back to the southeast of Royalton to set up for a long straight in approach to the runway using the throttle to control altitude. We discussed using the elevator trim but noted that the handling would change each time the trim was changed. We elected to add some nose up trim and reduce throttle to slow the plane up so we would not be to fast on landing. He asked if Royalton was a good choice. I told him emphatically No! I told him that normally I would head to Buffalo because of the long and wide runway. Also it has excellent crash-fire-rescue teams and Mercy Flight is based at the airport. However, with the main runway under construction at Buffalo, I said I would go to Niagara Falls. They have even longer runways and excellent crash-fire-rescue as well. I would also ask that Mercy Flight be dispatched to Niagara for standby. Bob nodded and said “good plan.” “But let’s continue to Royalton for the practice” he said. We headed southeast, slowly descending until the airport was in sight five miles to our west. It was a bit difficult to find in the increasing haze. I turned to line up with the runway adjusting power and “nudging” the trim to stabilize the approach. We would not use any flaps due to the significant pitch change the flaps have on high wing Cessnas. The practice of using rudder only and slow speed control we did on the previous flight all came in to play. As we came down to short final all was going well but we had a bit of drift from a slight crosswind out of the northeast. With the very narrow runway at Royalton, I elected to add power and go around (using all of the controls) once we were over the numbers and at about 10 feet! I flew away with a new level of confidence. We climbed back to 2500 and requested an ILS RW 32 at Buffalo. On came the hood and the covers for the still non functional gyros. Now we would have some fun practicing a few partial panel ILS approaches. Knock off some more of the rust. Buffalo was rushed, but squeezed us in for one full approach. We came down to decision height a bit left of the runway on the first pass, but in good shape to land. We took the option and flew the missed approach. We asked for a second approach and told that it was too busy. We began to head back to Akron when the controller came on and said we may be able to squeeze one more ILS approach in. We took the vectors for the approach. About a mile out, ATC advised that we needed to break off the approach since the Jet behind us was about 80 Knots faster and we were loosing the required separation. We asked for vectors back to Akron. We took a right turn out and a climb back to 2000 feet. We headed back for the quick five minute flight and did a normal pattern and landing. The first on the review! After landing and shutdown, we headed to the office for a post flight review and a couple of cold sodas. The temperature had soared to 92 degrees on this unusually hot early June day. We reviewed the scenarios we had practiced on both flights. We discussed some of our options and where I needed additional work. Bob said “now go out and practice what you have done with me until you do it perfect every time!” Bob finished off my logbook endorsements and signed the FAA Wings card so I could apply for my “Phase 9” wings. I headed out to my little C-150, did a preflight (again!) and headed back on the quick trip to Lancaster. While I was putting the airplane away in my hangar, I spent time reflecting on the flight review. I had done a number of new things. I had new skills to use in challenging situations. I had knocked some rust off some of the old skills. I also had a renewed level of confidence in my flying skills. Certainly well worth the time and money I had invested on my self and on behalf of my passengers! As I said earlier, I have flown with many CFI’s over the last twenty six-years. They ran the gamut from terrible to outstanding. Bob Miller certainly ranks at the top of my list. I found out he IS the real deal. I would encourage other pilots who are looking to “knock the rust off” to contact Bob and book a few hours. I would also encourage you to participate in the FAA Wings program instead of simply looking for a quick BFR. It will make you a better, safer pilot. Fly Safe!