Stage 37 Part 2 Take 1

Ive been flying for some time in preparation for the flight portion of stage 37.  My new Colombian instructor has me jumping through hoops and truly challenging me when we do fly.  Every time we go up though I always forget one thing, or don't do one thing correctly.  It got to the point where we decided to talk to the head instructor to get his take on what we should do.  Personally I just wanted to be submitted for the stage check, and whatever I do right wouldn't be on the second attempt.  This sounded good to everyone.  I also requested from him to have a time later in the day.  I admitted that I'm weak with creating navigation logs, and that this stage check required 6 of them.  3 to the east and 3 to the south and depending on weather only 3 would be used.  If I had my flight later in the day I could get free help in the Learning Center (LRC) He agreed to tell scheduling for me.

Friday evening I got my schedule.  11 o clock on Monday morning.  Hmm... not an ideal time but it could work.  The LRC with free tutors opens at 9, so I could in theory get it done in time. Monday morning I was in the LRC first thing.  I was the only one there.  OK this isn't panning out the way I was hoping.  I found our FAA written test examiner who is in charge of the LRC and the tutors that are scheduled, in the FAA test room.  She looked at the schedule and said the tutor who was supposed to be in there now had his schedule changed and was on a flight. Ok... not good.  Lets call my instructor.  He was on his way and said he'd be there in 5 minutes. 20 minutes later he wasn't there still.  By now an hour had gone by and I had to put my ticket in. I also headed for the head instructors office to see what he suggested.  My instructions were to see if I could have the flight rescheduled to later in the day or worse case scenario have it rescheduled.  I found the examiner and explained. He was sympathetic and said he was booked all day...  So to make a long story short the flight was canceled due to a "scheduling error" and I was resubmitted the next day for 3pm.

Next morning I went back to the LRC to finish up my Nav Logs.  I had the headings in or what we call a skeleton log ready to input the weather and winds.  The tutor walked me through how to calculate the top of climb and the rest of the log I knew how to finish.  I was ready to rock.  I put the ticket in for the plane, and met with the new examiner.  We walked over to our weather computers and saw a nasty storm front coming our way.  I was his last student for the day and no one else had the plane, so it looked pretty good that we would fly until the examiner said he wasn't night current meaning he could not instruct at night due to his lack of currency.  Oh for the love of....  We kept watching the weather and ultimately decided to cancel the flight due to weather.

I got the call that I would fly Wednesday at 4pm.  Back to the LRC and another student I knew was in there and said he would help me out.  I showed him my logs and pulled out clean sheets to fill out.  He said I didn't have to redo them, just adjust what I had.  He said instructors never look too closely at them and we more than likely I wouldn't use them anyways.  So the nav logs were quickly "tweaked" and I was done.

Come flight time I was ready.  The new examiner who I did not know came to me, and asked for my I.D., medical card, Standards manual, Plane Operators Handbook, Charts, approach plates, and flashlight.  I basically had my entire flight bag emptied out on the desk.  Everything was current and I even had 2 extra flashlights and two sets of extra batteries.  You cant tell me all the flashlights will fail especially when I have extra batteries.  I passed the first step.

As we walked out to the plane for the walk around of the plane, I found out this examiner used to live near my home in Las Vegas, as well as having lived in South Michigan on the border of Indiana near where I have many friends in South Bend.  He knew all the hangouts I had been to with my friends, as well as Klinger lake where one of my best friends family has a lake house near White Pigeon.  

With my instructor we had flown the flight path of what I would be doing today...  Sanford to Melbourne to Titusville... go missed at Titusville and fly the holding pattern at the MALET fix.  Well... my examiner through a curve ball at me...  apparently the way the stage check scenario is written we are to fly to our first destination VFR but due to "bad weather" fly to our alternate and hold there.  We were then going to pick up an IFR plan while in the air to fly to Titusville then to Sanford.  BUT... he didn't want to do that either.  Instead we were going to fly VFR  to Melbourne, then change to our alternate airport Merrit Island while in flight, then head back to Sanford but do a hold first, then do two approaches.  Uh boy.... I got a bit nervous since I wasn't familiar with Merrit Island, but that's okay...  a runway is a runway right?

As we flew out towards Melbourne, we did steep turns where I only lost about 50 feet...  and when he had me close my eyes for unusual attitudes, he had us in a nose down attitude... I pulled out the power smoothly and adjusted the plane.  He told me next time to pull the power out to idle but smoothly as not to lose the engine.  I'm going to be honest here.  After these victories I felt my flight was terrible afterward.  It was certainly not my best day flying.  I couldn't hold my altitude, my approaches were slow, but my landings were so so.  My hold started out terribly, but got better with every turn.

Back on the ground during the debrief he asked me how I thought I did.  I told him I did not meet my personal standards, that I knew I could do better.  However I felt that even though my radio calls suck, I did better than usual repeating my instructions.  This is when I got a big surprise.  He said nothing was perfect but that this lesson he didn't expect anything to be perfect.  He said I'm right where I should be, and my landings were a bit better than he expected.  I just needed to pay more attention to my speed on the approaches.  Ok... so that's good right?  So... why the hell did I have to wait so long to take this exam?!?  I'm not sure if I should be upset for the extra money Ive spent on extra flights, or if I should be happy I passed.  I guess the way I'm going to look at it is I'm a bit more prepared for stage 47.  

I'm hoping to go to 2 events a day to speed things up a little bit.  However with the few instructors we have and the amount of students we have from the recently started Chinese students I may not get the chance for that.  We'll see.  In the mean time... I'm going to relish this moment of victory no matter how ugly it was.  I win is a win right?

A Week of Review and a Getaway to St. Augustine

The the oral exam behind me, the flight check is next.  I still have a temp flight instructor, but at this point I really wouldnt care if I stayed with him.  Even if I get the last guy back, great, if I dont and keep the temp, equally as great.  I finally feel like I'm learning something, and have the structure I need.

On our flight, I did pretty well.  However, because I have a different instructor, he feels I am still flying behind the plane, and not organized enough to fly ahead of the plane.  Yet again, another instructor wants to rewire my thinking of when I do procedures and checklists.  First we do groundwork then we went flying again.  Still doesnt like what he sees.  He then gave me a checklist that he created that breaks down the flight into more parts and if used correctly will free up my time to enjoy the flight until its time to come in for the landing or shoot the approach.  He actually uses this custom made checklist on his kneeboard.  He says he has given it to many students who were having troubles like I am and it has filled in the gaps.  The plan now is to fly a sim with my new found knowledge and decide if I'm ready to implement them into a flight before going on my check ride.

Thursday night Jessica and I drove up to Jacksonville.  She works for Massey Lawn and Pest Control Services in the corporate offices as an accountant.  Every year Massey has a sales blitz where they send corporate people out to the service centers and ride along with the sales guys.  The goal is for them to sell at least two new services with either new clients or with current customers.  They turn it into a game and a scavenger hunt.  Jessica road along with the head sales manager at the Jacksonville center and she came back to our hotel room with a piece of wood, infested with subterranean termites.  When I inquired why the hell she had this, she stated it was an item on her scavenger hunt list.  She and her partner met their goals on day one, so we had some fun at Dave & Buster's that night with her colleagues.  Saturday morning Jessica went in to the office again to train the officer manager on some new accounting procedures.  The GM of the office had a hot dog and burger cookout for us all to end the sales blitz.  

After the cookout we drove to St. Augustine, which is the oldest continuously inhabited European established settlement in the continental United States.  It is also the home of the oldest wooden built school house, and the oldest existing masonry fort in the United States; the Castillo de San Marcos.  I still have quite a few points with Marriott, and decided to use some of them for a night at the Renaissance Resort at World Golf Village.  I knew it was in a golf community but did NOT know it was next to the Golf Hall of Fame.  We couldnt help but laugh at the overloading of golf in the area.  Jessica joked that she forgot her plaid pants at home.  We thought we would be the youngest people staying at the hotel.  Which was not the case.  There were grandkids running around and a wedding.  As far as the hotel went, it was very nice.  My only complaint is the noise.  The Renaissance is built as an atrium hotel.  Without floors in the center of the building the noise travels from the floor to the top.  At night you could hear the bar noise and the drunkards yelling at friends and family on different floors.  On top of the wedding, March Madness was on the plasma screens in the bar... in the middle of the atrium.  At about 1 am a drunk woman was screaming down at her friends on the lobby floor right infront of our room.  We were on the 8th floor.  I wont go into 1. how loud she was. and 2. how many times she elevated her voice to be heard by her friends on the ground floor.  According to the front desk they are looking into building some kind of partition for the bar to reduce the noise.  Until then, I dont think I will go back.  Plus it was a little bit of a drive to the Historic part of St. Augustine.  On the way to the historic area I noticed a Courtyard by Marriott was under construction.  At least they will have free wifi when they are opened.  

Jessica and I decided to celebrate our birthdays a month early since we were on a short weekend getaway.  Our birthdays are in May and we were born only one day apart of the same year.  We made reservations at The Columbia, a Spanish cusine restaurant. The original Columbia is in Tampa Bay and is the oldest Restaurant in Florida, established in 1905.  The Columbia is owned and operated by the Gonzmart family, now on their 5th generation of owner/operators.  I was very impressed.  The menu had 3 different filet mignon's on the menu.  Jessica had snapper and it was perfectly cooked.  We shared a pitcher of mojitos which I must admit was the best mojito I have ever had. I have never been a fan of the drink, but I would certainly go back for the minty beverage.  For dessert we decided to get two, but to share one and take the second one home for a midnight sweet at the hotel.  A short walk around the historic area of St. Augustine was a great way to walk off some calories and gave us an idea of what we wanted to see the next day on Sunday.

The next morning we got up and drove straight to the Castillo de San Marcos.  We got VERY lucky and found a parking space in their very small lot.  I really enjoyed the Castillo.  Walking around the ramparts and learning a bit of the history was quite fun.  My favorite story occured in January, 1861. Florida seceded from the United States in the opening months of the American Civil War. Union troops had withdrawn from the fort, leaving only one man behind as caretaker of the fort. In January 1861, Confederate troops marched on the fort. The Union soldier manning the fort refused to surrender it unless he was given a receipt for it from the Confederacy. He was given the receipt and the fort was taken by the Confederacy without a shot.  

    

We got there in time to watch a flint lock rifle demonstration.  Which was quite amusing.  The visitors are asked to stand behind a white line painted on the ground.  This gave room for the reenactors to march from the inside courtyard up the rampart stairs and into the demonstration area.  We could still hear the men talking to each other.  It was quite apparent these guys dont practice, as they started arguing over what should be done next.  Finally one guy said to the "commanding officer,"  "Why dont you speak to the folks and we'll do our jobs."  INSUBORDINATION!!!  HAHA! I LOVE IT!!! 

Afterwards we drove a short distance to the St. Augustine Lighthouse.    It was a good climb to the top for a breeze that was much welcomed.  $9.00 for the pirvilege of climbing to the top and walk through the museum I thought was a bit high.  But if its a good photograph you want, then dont hesitate to pay for admission.

Driving back to the historic old city of St. Aug as the locals call it, we again got very lucky and found a lone parking spot in a lot right next to the Columbia restaurant where we had eaten the night before.  We paid for about 4 hours of parking at the automated ticket booth which we found out later isnt needed on Sundays.  When I looked at the ticket machine later that day, in very small print in a place you wouldnt look was written, "Parking fees enforced Monday through Saturday. Not enforced on Sundays and major holidays." So of COURSE they dont turn the machines OFF on Sundays!

Walking around town I couldnt help but feel like I was in a Disney type atmosphere.  Lots of shops, and small diner type eateries lined the European style road named St. George.  Only a few buildings really had an old feel to them.  Most of them had been restored.  One that has not been touched is the oldest wooden school house, which upon closer inspection was leaning way over.

 

Around 5:00pm we were tired and our feet hurt.  We decided to call it a day.  From what I could tell we hardly visited the city at all.  Even though the historic downtown area in my opinion is more about gift shops than history, I would really like to go back and see the other parts we didnt have time for. Particularly the winery, and the Old St. Augustine Village.  Until then... its back to flying.