Cleared direct Gateway.

It’s that time again. Checkride panic time! My instrument was scheduled for October 30th but it looks like it will now be the following day. I picked up a nice head cold while I was in Vegas which is making it pretty difficult to focus. I imagine I will be sick until after the ride and the stress to be gone.
I was also able to take a peek at my schedule for the rest of the ACPP. Looks like I should be done with my cross-countries right around Thanksgiving putting me in North Vegas for CFI school over the first two weeks of December.

After taking a look at ticket prices it appears I will be hanging around Phoenix for the 3 days we have off. I may try and non-rev home but loads are always full.

I got back Monday night from NetworkJC. What a great experience. I’m so grateful for people like Doug and Kristie Taylor. They have made it so much easier to navigate the pathway to becoming a pilot.

It was very beneficial to meet other career-minded pilots as well as having a total blast in Vegas. I took pictures and video and will post them over the next few days.

This week has been quiet. My instructor had a third student start so he asked us to sim and then hit the books on our own and that he would make up ground over the next few days. Wednesday night we had Simulator Slumber Party. We got there at about 8pm, ordered pizza and soda and took turns in the sim until the wee hours of the morning. We got to use the good Frasca and work undisturbed. Now I am sitting at home and ready to go back to bed. I am going to fly today and shoot approaches around the Phoenix area which should be fun. It will be nice to get back into the airplane (the real thing).

And now back to racing to get things done since I am leaving for NJC on Sunday morning.

Tonight (8th) we flew out to Yuma, AZ for a VFR cross-country. I have only driven through Yuma so it was cool to fly close to the Mexican border. Not to mention the airport is half international airport/Marine Corps Air Station. Right off the runway threshold were about 2 dozen F/A 18s parked for the night it was great to see.

Other than that this week was boring. Sim, sim, and more sim with about 4 hours of ground school afterwards. I have to hand it to my instructor, a big chunk of this program is self-study. A small number of instructors come in; hit the sim with their student; assign homework and send them home to study. But RB has been awesome about going through everything with us and then sending us home to study.

It makes the days longer. We start around 7am and don’t finish up until 6pm or so. But I think it is well worth it.

On Saturday we flew out to Long Beach, CA. I had such a good trip. We shot approaches at Coolidge and Casa Grande then aimed LGB. The flight out was uneventful. RB and I grabbed the keys to the crew car and went in search of food (and Amp for him). We ended up at this Philly Cheesesteak place on Long Beach Blvd. It was pretty interesting because it was a combination Cheesteak, Deli, and Mexican place. Yet they had this really loud indian DVD playing with Indian music on it. The two of us looked at each other and knew we would regret eating here in a few hours but we were so hungry it didn’t matter.

After dinner, we fueled and filed. At about 800AGL we started getting a vibration in the #1 engine. That vibration turned into an issue with the prop governor no holding an RPM setting. So it would spool up about 200RPM, then down, then back up. Which causes the airplane to yaw back and forth (very annoying). I mentioned that maybe we had carb ice. As my instructor pulled out the POH I worked on the cruise checklist. When I got to the #2 electric fuel pump, it went past the red line indicating no fuel pressure. I never flipped a switch back so fast in my entire life. At this point it was clear something was up. So we threw on the carb heat and sure enough, fuel pressure started coming back and the #1 stopped vibrating.

The whole situation made me a bit nervous. And I would be lying if I said I hadn’t introduced the idea of diverting to Riverside for the night. But I am so glad it happened since I know what to do in carb icing conditions.

I took some pictures and will try to post them soon.

Note: I apologize for the delay in posting. My laptop went TU and posting on here from my BlackBerry is a pain. I wrote the posts out and now am typing them up and adding them to the blog.

This week has been pretty interesting. Monday I passed my multi-engine checkride. My pairing partner had his on Wednesday. We dove right into the instrument stuff without wasting anytime. The whole drinking water from a firehose metaphor applies here.

Nevertheless, I have a great instructor and my pairing partner is pretty cool too. We went through the private program together.

Well until next week…

I passed my multi ride today.  I am very happy.  I made a couple of minor boo-boos up there but nothing out of tolerance.  The DE said I was an awesome pilot and will do well through my training which made me feel better.

My instructor, pairing buddy and I went out to Joe’s Farm Grill for lunch to celebrate.  Now onto the instrument phase.