Month: June 2018

  • Pilot’s Logbook

    Every pilot logs the flight time and needs a logbook for that. There is no any problem with the paper one, but it is not very convenient when you need to filter the flight time for some task. For example, sometimes it’s good to know the complex time, or the time in a multi-engine airplane,…

  • Bartow

    Today I finally succeeded in my efforts of trying to wake up early at the weekend. Actually it was a good reason to do it: much more chances to fly cross-country wherever you want before thunderstorm activity. Today I was going to Bartow. It is an airport in about 70 miles to the South-East. Close…

  • Lake-City

    At the weekends I used to fly from the early morning, but this Saturday I decided to sleep some more: it is not a good idea to fly if you’re tired. Today the weather was good, so it was possible to fly to Lake-City. So, why that place? First of all, the weather is much…

  • High-Performance Airplane

    Commercial pilot license requirements contain 10 hours of complex airplane flight time (at least it was so in 2018 – as far as I know, now only technically advanced aircraft time is required). Complex airplane means the one with a retractable gear, flaps and constant-speed prop. But from the April 2018 it is not required…

  • Spin Training

    Spin Training is a part of the flight instructor course, but I suppose that this training is useful for all pilots. Of course it’s better to recognize approaching spin in advance, but sometimes shit happens anyway, and it’s good to know what to do in that case. In theory the process is not very hard:…

  • Fly-in Breakfast

    Today we had a fly-in breakfast at one of the airports nearby, in about 1h of flight. This airport does not have a communication frequency, so in these cases in Florida we should use either 122.9 or 122.75. In our case it was 122.9. In spite of arriving rather early, we heard a lot of…

  • Commercial Maneuvers

    Currently I am flying complex airplane hours, and I decided to do that in a multiengine airplane. The basic principles in flying the maneuvers in a multiengine airplane are the same as in a single-engine one, but there are some more procedures, and the speed range is wider. The main difference for me is even…

  • IFR Gainesville

    I failed to fly IFR with the school’s black N4642J due to oil temperature problem, but the weather was still OK to fly, and one more airplane became available. At 2:30 pm it was still possible to fly to Gainesville and back. The weather forecast was FM1900Z VCTS и BKN40CB, which means that there would…

  • Florida Summertime

    The summer in Florida is much worse than the winter. It is generally correct that it’s possible to fly all year long, but in winter we have almost all day, and in summer we can have only about 2-3 hours or nothing at all. I used to thunderstorms after about 2-3pm almost every day: they…

  • Multi-engine

    I am starting my multi-engine flights. FAA CPL requires 10 hours in a complex airplane (with retractable gear, variable pitch prop, flaps). Now it changed, but it was a requirement in 2018. I am going to obtain ME rating anyway, so I decided to fly my complex hours in a multi-engine airplane. Usually our school…