Finding a new instructor was 100 times harder than I expected it to be. After my old one went to Republic I started searching for a new one. Unfortunately, recently 4 of the best instructors (and of course all instrument instructors) left for the airlines leaving a huge shortage. I tried to get one before I left for a two week vacation but my many phone calls and visits had no return. So after a month, a lot of calls, and a few canceled lessons, I finally found an instructor, sort of. He is a Skywest pilot teaching at the school a couple days a week. The other day we hit the sim and reviewed DME arcs and holds to refresh myself after a month. The problem with this instructor is he is leaving for training in a few weeks (moving up from the turbo prob to the jet at Skywest) and he will be gone for a month or so. The good part is he will have a month off between training and IOE and offered to fly 4 times a week during that period. The challenge is finding another instructor for that month period he will be gone. Till then we are trying to fly twice a week to progress as fast as possible.

Today another one of my instructors left for the airlines. The guy I’d been flying with the last few weeks got hired at Republic and today was our last flight. We took the 172 up and tried holds and DME arcs in the air. It was pretty bumpy today, especially over the hills, and made for a fun ride! All in all, it wasn’t much different from the sim and was pretty easy stuff. The only surprise on the flight was the little knob on the throttle fell off when I reached to adjust the power a little. Shot the ILS for 25R at LVK and said our goodbyes. He commented on how well I was doing, and chatted a bit about his hours (something like 2.5k and 180 ME total) and said I was pretty close to meeting the minimums myself! Realistically, that’s a few years off, but it was nice to hear for the first time someone mention I was closer rather than farther from the ultimate goal. Now I need to find a new instructor. I met one of my old instructors at the flight school last week, he is flying the CRJ for Skywest now and is instructing at the school a couple days a week. I’m hoping I can work into his schedule and fly with him again, and hopefully hear a few stories about airline flying! I’ll have to wait at least a week until he’s back from a vacation, darn.

 Till next time..

So I haven’t updated in awhile but here’s a recap of the events over the last few weeks. I started flying a Cessna 172P which is a little nicer than the other plane I was flying. The major difference is it has a GPS!? I didn’t fool around with it much but it was cool looking over and seeing where I was on a map. The best part was it told me which radial I was on for a certain VOR, which was nice because we were practicing VOR navigation. But really, who needs it when ya got steam gauges? Anyways, the instructor gave me the OK to bring the camera aboard next time we go up, which hasn’t happened yet, more on that later..

Next time around we hit the simulator. Instructor walks in, “Ah, holds… Fun!” After about 45 minutes of drawing holds on a whiteboard with various scenarios we moved over to the flight simulator (which is basically a yoke, a communications panel, and a couple monitors). I tooled around the area entering holds in various ways and trying to maintain altitude, sorta, because the yoke is either too sensitive or unresponsive. The same input could put you in a 1000 FPM decent or have no effect at all. Go Figure.

Next round in the simulator will include more holds and some DME arcs. It was supposed to be Tuesday, then today, now who knows. My instructor got an interview somewhere, and now he’s stuck in Chicago. So I’m waiting to see when I can get back in and continue.

More soon (hopefully)!

Ah it felt good to finally get back in the air. Earlier I was a bit anxious to see how much skill I’ve lost over the last 6 months, but it turned out better than I thought. Flying, I guess, is like riding a bike: you don’t really lose much after taking time off. My flight instructor seems like a cool guy, real relaxed, and he knows his stuff! Plus, we’re both heading for the airlines, so we can relate. Once we took off I was put under the hood (a view limiting device that simulates IFR conditions) and spent the whole time under there doing constant rate turns, descents, climbs, etc. right until I was 600′ AGL (above ground level) on final. Needless to say, getting pictures while training for IFR is going to be a challenge. But, I’ll try. Didn’t take any today, so below I’ve added a “vintage” one of me pre-flighting N6165M, the old Cessna 152 I used to fly before I switched to the 172. The biggest challenge today: avoiding the 20 mile radius TFR (temporary flight restriction) for a bunch of whales that decided to swim in to the Delta and up the Sacramento River. Darwin’s theory anyone?

Chasing the dream. Everyone’s dream starts somewhere. Mine started at SFO. Sometime before my memory decided to kick in my grandfather and father took me to watch the planes takeoff and land at SFO. Growing up this became my favorite spot to visit. The noise, size, and power of the jets roaing down runway 1R amazed me. At the ripe age of five I decided what I wanted to do with my life: become a pilot. Since that moment there has never been a doubt about what I wanted to do. My dream was to become an airline pilot.

I started flying airplanes when I was 14. For awhile I took it slow, after all, you can’t get a student license until 16. I was landing planes before I drove a car, and loved every moment of it. At the age of 17 I earned my private pilot license. To this date it was the greatest moment of my life. I wish my grandfather was alive to see it. After enjoying my license for awhile, I took a break from flying. Six months to be exact. Now I’m starting up again. I just finished IFR ground school, got a 97% on the written test, and tomorrow I’ll be back in the air.

I created this blog to document my journey from now until I reach the airlines. I hope I can keep this going for the next several years while I finish college and my flying lessons. I’m going to be taking some pictures like the ones above to make this more interesting and, hopefully, some people will actually read this! (haha) But if not, it will still be cool to look back several years from now and see where I’ve been and what I’ve done while chasing my deam.