Arlo Gilbert’s Blog

So it’s been about 3 months since my last flight. Why is that do you ask? What does the picture on the left have to do with my lack of flying?

Well, basically that is what flying at night is like and about 3 months ago I took my last night flight. It was… how do i say… frightening. Every blinking light looked the same, the night sky made it visually obvious how many planes were around us at all times, and out of these 9 million blinking lights, supposedly one of them was the runway. In addition to the visual difficulties, my ability to judge my altitude was completely thrown for a loop, 200 feet, 20 feet, 5 feet from the runway all felt the same. Basically like trying to fly while taking LSD and covering one eye. Thankfully my instructor knew which one was the runway but until we were about 40 feet away from the runway I still had a very hard time identifying it. I’m not color blind, have good vision, I guess it takes some practice, in the mean time I plan on avoiding night flying like the plague.

If I ever get stuck up in the air at night, my solution is just to circumnavigate the globe until I reach a country with sunlight.

Seriously though, I’ve gone through my usual personal cycle of becoming completely immersed in work for a few months and at the end of these cycle’s I usually start looking for things to buy and things to do…. So I’m really looking forward to getting back to flying but I’m having an instructor with me at all times until I get over my jitters and get comfortable with landings again.

Today I had a wonderful flight. It was my first 25NM solo flight, that means it was the first time that I took off by myself, flew to a destination by myself and then returned by myself.

There isn’t a lot to say about it. It was fun, I was safe, I landed well, I took off well, I used my checklists and I talked to myself as though my instructors were in the plane.

This it the one fun thing… and perhaps I wish it had been explained better to me in the beginning… but the fact is that the goal of flight training is to drill procedures into your head and this is done by constant repetition.

Of course with my luck even though I was flying solo, my instructor “Greg” happened to be in the air also and jumped in and helped me out with a confused tower/approach controller.

Thanks “Greg”!

2 days ago was my birthday and I had a flight scheduled which was supposed to be my first solo flight. If you are reading this and you aren’t familiar with flying lingo, a “first solo” means the first time that a student pilot flies without an instructor in the plane.

Most student pilots from my understanding prize the first solo so much that it fits in well with life events such as:
* Birth
* First tooth
* Graduated college
* Marriage
* Had first child
* Death

The point is that soloing is a big deal… one that i’ve been looking forward to for quite some time now but wasn’t quite ready for it. Soloing really represents not just a personal milestone but also the fact that your instructors now feel confident that your odds of dying from a botched landing are lower than they were when you walked through the door (how much lower i’m not sure, but i like to credit my instructors so i’ll guesstimate that they were giving me at least 50/50 odds).

So back to my birthday, it was literally the worst flying weather i’ve seen ever. 0 miles visibility, below freezing, fog, clouds, rain… pretty much the scariest and worst flying conditions possible. Even instrument rated pilots would be unlikely to fly in these conditions, so my birthday solo was canceled.. Oh well. Then as g-d might enjoy planning, every one of my next scheduled flights was also supposed to be absolutely terrible weather.

Here comes Sunday morning, kids are watching cartoons, wife is making something that only she would like to eat and I’m fiddling around on the computer bored… check the METAR’s and sure enough it’s a spectacular flying day.. I call and as luck would have it, one of the instructors.. lets call him “Greg” had a no-show appointment which meant I could practice some landings.

I honestly had no clue that this would be the day that I would solo, but after a few good landings, some power off stall practice, and some engine failures landings “Greg” decided we needed to do a full stop (i thought he just needed to go to the bathroom)… but no my loyal readers, pee he did not, instead he asked if I wanted to fly by myself (solo).. affirmative, Captain Arlo ready to solo!

In any case I could build this up but it was a lot of fun, I did pretty well on the landings, takeoffs and radio comm. Did 3 landings with full stops and it really was exhilarating. A few interesting things about flying solo that I found was that 1) the plane weighed less so i took off faster, came in faster, and generally had to reevaluate my pattern power settings to have a good pattern… and 2) I was talking to myself the entire time because I am so used to saying “flaps 50%, power 20%” and generally advising my instructor of what I’m doing and what I”m thinking.

Really I don’t think I am able to wipe the smile off of my face… my wife and kids gave me a great big “Mazeltov Daddy!” when I walked in the door and now I get to go out for a post-birthday/post-solo chicken wing extravaganza celebration.

Here’s to you “Greg” and everybody at performance flight… that was fantastic and I can’t wait to do some solo missions!

- Arlo Gilbert

Today I had a perfect landing….

That landing where you flare at the perfect moment and your wheels touch down just moments after the stall warning goes off… that landing where you aren’t sure if your wheels have even touched the ground or if you are just in an extended ground effect…. perfection.

I swear, that sensation is better than any other feeling I have experienced (other than my kids saying “i love you daddy”)… I knew the perfect moment to flare.. I just felt it… 

Anyways, this post makes no sense to non-pilots… but if you’re a pilot and you’ve ever had that moment, then you know exactly how I was feeling. If you are a golfer it’s that rare perfect drive…

In any case, we did that landing followed by 12 more today, it was a lot of fun, it was exciting and I ended up learning a lot.

We spent a lot of time today working on VOR’s and I now know something that many pilot’s don’t know… when you get handed off from new york approach to white plains/westchester tower.. the want to know only two things from you.. Tail number and distance+direction from them… when you call in with those two items it is literally exactly what they want to hear and as a result you get WAY heavy priority over the other planes in the area, even big jets because (jmho) you are giving them respect by not wasting their time.

So I’m up at bat shortly to do my “tests” to determine if I am ready to solo, that involves me doing some tests on major emergencies in the sim (which you can tell i’m great at already by reading previous blogs ).. and then it involves a customary sole crushing by the head of the school, Larry Gottschamer… where he determines whether you are actually capable of flying a plane without an instructor.

Soul crushing is really a bad word though (larry made up the term, i just use it), see I had been a bit misled by some instructors to believe that I was on the verge of soloing when the truth is that I was simply not ready for that.. I now look at my first soul crushing as a “thank g-d that somebody had the insight to NOT let me fly alone” because the truth is that I did not have the skills needed. Now however, I do.

Larry probably saved at least one life and even though I know that he felt terrible for having crushed my soul, the fact is that the experience of failing terribly at something got me to do two things.. 1) take a break for a few weeks and 2) really begin slowing down on my desire to complete training.. I like my instructors, I like my time in the plane with them so why in g-d’s name would I want to rush?

Much like as a child you are in a rush to grow up but as a grown up you get to look back and say “why? childhood was great, people helped and took care of me and looked out for me and gave me great advice!”… now I actually look at the completion of training with a bit of sadness because I will not have the fun times in the cockpit with great guys like Al atPerformance Flight at Westchester County Airport and the mistakes that I make will be made by myself, not with somebody more experienced there to save me.

So Larry & Al.. thanks for not letting me grow up too quickly as a pilot.

Today I crashed. Badly.

At 600 feet in the air after takeoff my engine quit. I switched tanks, turned on my fuel pumps, switched to alternate air intake, tried to get the engine going again.. but no love. So I turned as fast as possible, but I didn’t maintain enough altitude and let my airspeed drop… then I crashed into the ground about 400 feet from the runway I had just taken off from… and I probably died. If it wasnt an amazing full sized simulator at my flight school.

My instructor got a chuckle today out of the following scenarios:

• fire in the airplane
• forgot to disconnnect the parking brake
• total pfd failure followed by total gps and comm failure
• went up above the clouds and then magically within 2 seconds the cloud cover went from scattered to totally overcast
• ice on the wings in a non-certified for known icing plane
• he accidentally turned full flaps on (his fault) and then was suprised that I stalled during my climb.. thanks al for at least botching up ONE thing

Overall the simulator at performance flight is wonderful, it simulates a Cirrus SR-22 which means it is significantly faster and more powerful than the plane I normally fly but it gives you the ability to experience catastrophic emergencies that normally could mean “goodby cruel world!”.

The great thing is that out of all of the above emergency simulations and more, I failed only on one… of course one in real life would be too many, but in a sim with a trigger happy funny guy instructor who is hoping that the tornado that just appeared on takeoff in new york during january might trip you up… I think I did pretty well.

Tomorrow we go up and practice a lot of these emergencies in a real plane, engine outs, failed pfd’s etc..etc.. this will be exciting!

If i’m alive I will blog again

-Arlo