No post due to thanksgiving break.

Unfortunately, this week was a reversion from the previous week. I wasn’t able to fly this week. I did, however, begin to review with my instructor for the stage check I have in the next coming weeks. On Tuesday, my flight was cancelled due to weather and instead we had a discussion over important topics of the stage check. We talked about systems on the cirrus (fuel system is the cover), instruments and documents needed to fly, medical rules, types of pilot incapacitation, and much more. Overall it was a much needed study session. Luckily, my previous studying paid off so I knew most of the questions he asked me. It was only when we got into the details of each that I started to slip. At least now I know what I need to study. On Thursday, I had two flight slots scheduled to increase my flight hours. Unfortunately, weather was bad for both flight slots so I had to cancel. On Saturday, weather was also bad so I was forced to cancel that too. I used GlobalAir.com’s weather satellite page to verify my cancellation. Unfortunately, both the lessons on Thursday and Saturday was outside of my instructors availability so I wasn’t able to do anymore ground discussions to study more oral prep material. Hopefully I can make up for the missed hours in the upcoming weeks. Unfortunately, next week is thanksgiving so I won’t be flying at all. This also means that I won’t be updating my blog due to not flying. Don’t worry though, I will be back the week after that. I’ll see you then!

Thanks for reading!

This week was a complete 180 from my previous week posts about having to cancel all of my Cross Country’s and never getting a plane. I was able to fly all 3 times this week (I know right – shocking!). On Tuesday, I did my “short” solo XC to Bloomington, Indiana (KBMI) to Mattoon, Illinois (KMTO). It was around a 2 hour flight and it went really smoothly. Nothing to complain about. On Thursday, I was finally able to do my really long XC to Nashville (KMQY) and then to Owensboro, Kentucky (KOWB). It was a 5 hour flight but it felt like much longer. Waking up at 6 didn’t help but my skittlez and poptarts snack supply helped me get through it. The free popcorn at the FBO in Nashville was also a big plus. I also used GlobalAir.com to verify the fuel prices at each FBO at MQY. https://www.globalair.com/airport/smyrna-mqy.aspx Again, Everything went smoothly and nothing out of the ordinary occurred. I got back an hour before Lafayette became MVFR so my timing was perfect unlike the last couple weeks. On Saturday, I got to do a solo commercial maneuvers flight. I was only able to work on chandelles and steep turns. Both went well. I’m saving the harder maneuvers for closer to my stage check. I didn’t finish the lesson because I still don’t have the minimum solo hours for the course so I still have probably 2 more solo flights and 2 dual flights before my stage check. Overall, a really good week and hopefully my luck with planes and weather carries over into the next few weeks.

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This week was a little more eventful than last week, but the same issues plagued me throughout. Luckily, I was able to fly once this week but none of the 4 cross countries I planned worked out. On Tuesday, my solo XC to South Bend was cancelled due to the wind being out of limits for solo flight. My instructor and I decided to finish a slow flight lesson and add more time under the hood. We also worked on a few commercial maneuvers in preparation for my stage check. We worked on the ones I was good at to save the ones that need work for closer to my stage check. Overall the turns around a point, chandelles, and 1080 spiral all went well. Thursday, I was supposed to have my long solo XC to Nashville (Smyrna, KMQY, to be exact). Unfortunately weather did not cooperate. On Saturday, I planned my solo XC to South Bend again. Using GlobalAir.com, https://www.globalair.com/airport/south-bend-international-sbn.aspx , I was able to gather a lot of information related to my XC planning forms I was completing. Unfortunately, the planes were all taken so I wasn’t able to fly on Saturday. Gotta love Indiana weather and Purdue’s scheduling. I scheduled my MQY long XC on Sunday but the KLAF TAF was calling for a 1900′ ceiling around the time I was supposed to be back. I cancelled due to this, however, the weather ended up being great. I most likely wouldn’t have even got a plane anyways due to the high amount of students also looking to complete the same XC that day. Unfortunately, cancelled XCs was my entire week. Lets hope next week is better!

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Unfortunately, this is gonna be a short blog post. The main reason that I wasn’t able to fly once this week. Luckily, it was due to the weather and not our fleet. On Tuesday, I originally planned a Cross Country from LAF to South Bend (KSBN) and then to Marion, Indiana (KMZZ, ya I’m not sure where it is either). It was VFR at LAF but my entire route was low ceilings and IFR. In addition to that, I have no lessons to do until I’ve done both my last cross countries so I couldn’t fly locally instead. I just had to cancel and try again on Thursday. On Thursday, I planned a flight from LAF to Lacrosse, Wisconsin (KLSE) and then to Chicago Rockford (KRFD). This is my super long XC with at least one leg being more than 250 nm. Since this flight is long enough to warrant refuel, I used GlobalAir.com’s fuel planning page to determine how much fuel would cost at KLSE. https://www.globalair.com/airport/fuelmap.aspx?FacType=airport&av=pu&rad=50&aptcode=KLSE&q=KLSE I was planned to fly at 7:30 in the morning since my entire flight would take around 5-6 hours. I also planned a flight to Nashville (KMQY) and then to Owensboro, KY (KOWB) in case weather to the North was bad but southern weather was good. After waking up at 6 to finish my XC plan, I instantly could tell the bad weather outside wouldn’t get better. Whats worse? I had to stay up until 7:30 to call and cancel before I could go back to bed. I ended up just doing homework and studying for my stage check so it was probably for the better. Saturday was cancelled due to the football TFR and we couldn’t get an extra slot since extra slots aren’t long enough for XCs and we didn’t have any other lesson to complete. Overall a bad week…But there’s always next week!

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This week, flying again remained relatively dull. Continuing the theme of the the last month, the Cirrus’ maintenance needs are gonna be the death of me. Once again, I was only able to fly once this week due to weather and SR-20 maintenance schedule. On Tuesday, the weather, with high winds and low clouds, was out of Purdue limits. I had to cancel and resorted to using my simulator to make up for lost flight time. On Thursday, I was able to get a plane and the weather was really nice. Unheard of, right! I did a solo commercial maneuvers practice. Once again, I still hate doing maneuver lessons alone. The flight and maneuvers went smoothly except for the lazy 8’s. I haven’t practiced maneuvers with my instructor since the initial time so I can’t be sure if my maneuvers are good. I feel confident in most except for the lazy eights. Whether it be changing the pitch, bank, or keeping altitude consistent, I am pretty sure I’m not doing them well enough. Other than that, the flight went well, except for the last 10 minutes or so. My sinuses are still clogged so while doing the 1080 degree spiral around a point from 7,000 to 2,000, my ears started hurting like crazy. Luckily, it wasn’t as bad as the last time and I was still able to focus and fly the plane. I still had to do eights-on-pylons afterward and I probably messed that up too considering I was trying to cope with the pain while still trying to fly precisely. After that I couldn’t hear out of either ear for the rest of the day but its back now so no big deal. I also created a logbook entry online using GlobalAir.com https://www.globalair.com/logbook/newaircraft.aspx?count=0

My Saturday slot was cancelled due to the football game and parents weekend. We re-scheduled for Friday as an extra slot. After waiting for 20 mins, I was told there were no more planes as there were too many XCs and maintenance needs. This gave me time to begin studying for my Commercial stage check. And yes, I’m extremely worried about that.

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This week, flying continued to be strenuous as the planes still remained down for maintenance. Again, I was only able to fly once this week. Tuesday, my flight was cancelled due to IFR conditions in LAF. My instructor and I did our final discussion and longest, the systems discussion. We basically went through a powerpoint detailing the systems of the SR-120 including: the powerplant or engine system and all of its parts for usage (magnetos, batteries, alternators, etc.), the fuel system, the electronic display system, the instrument systems, etc. Overall it was pretty similar to the systems on the 172. One difference was that the SR-20 wasn’t carbureted and my 172 was. The multiple alternators and batteries instead of one was also different. Other than that, the horizontally opposed engine was the same with different locations for items. After the powerpoint was done, we got to walk around a plane without a cowling in the maintenance hangar and actually look at all the systems mentioned in the powerpoint. My Thursday flight was a long XC to Benton Harbor, Michigan (KBEH) https://www.globalair.com/airport/southwest-michigan-regional-beh.aspx and then to South Bend, Indiana (KSBN) and then back to LAF. We flew right along the coast of Lake Michigan on our way to BEH. It was a really beautiful view and we were even able to see the Chicago city skyline directly across the lake! Overall, a very fun flight up until the last 10 minutes. We cruised back to LAF at 8,500 ft. A little bit of context for you: my sinuses have been pretty stuffed up lately. When descending from 8.5, my ears began to hurt really bad. This pain continued and grew stronger until we were out of the plane when the pain ceased. However, the hearing in my left ear was gone until the next day. Other than, a very good flight. Saturday, our flight was cancelled due to not having enough planes up for flying. Since I had just completed our last discussion (systems), I just went back to my dorm. The maintenance on the SR-20s is the one thing that I absolutely hate about them. Lucky for us we get new pipers next year to replace the Cirruses. Overall, a sub-par week but for the actual flight I was able to go on, it was amazing!

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This flying week was very mild and nothing eventful really happened. Unfortunately I was only able to fly once this week due to several factors. My Tuesday flight slot was cancelled due to my previously mentioned trip to New York for Purdue’s fall break. My Thursday flight went according to plan. Originally, I wasn’t supposed to get a plane on Thursday due to the amount of Cross Countries and lack of planes. Fortunately, another student’s cancellation due to distant weather allowed me to get a plane for a local solo flight. My initial plan was to do more commercial maneuver practice. However, my instructor thought I should take a break from the maneuver practice since the last few weeks have only consisted of that. Instead of maneuvers I did a landings lesson. I flew to White County/Monticello (KMCX, shown in the cover picture) and did short field, soft field, and cross wind takeoffs and landings. I looked over GlobalAir.com ‘s page on White County before I flew to make sure I had all the COM and weather frequencies. https://www.globalair.com/airport/white-county-mcx.aspx I also did some accuracy landings. All of them went relatively smooth and I didn’t have many complaints other than a few slip-ups. My short field landings are pretty good but I just have to focus on landing on my proposed spot on the runway. My last short field managed to do this but the first few were a slight bit off. In addition, my accuracy landings still need some work. Judging the wind and when to turn on the first accuracy landing of the day is a difficult task. I misjudged my first accuracy landing and ended up having to go around because I was too high. Despite this, I’m glad I was too high with no power as I constantly think I’m too low in this maneuver. My last accuracy landing was the most perfect one I’ve done or will ever do. I was almost positive that I was gonna land short of my proposed runway spot (1000 footers) but the ground effect floating pushed me to touchdown right on my spot. Overall a good lesson and a great learning experience. My Saturday spot, like normal, was cancelled due to the football game TFR. Normally, we schedule an extra block for Friday night or Sunday. However, this week was especially crowded for the first time with no extra slots for either day. Unfortunately I had my math test Thursday night so we weren’t able to get back to back slots either. I would be worried but my progress is on par for where we are at in the semester but I will still be getting some additional extra slots to compensate in the next coming weeks.

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Due to my unchanging academic schedule and workload, I will begin to omit my academic recap of the week in future blog posts.

This week for flying has had many ups and downs. I was only able to fly once this week due to our screwed fleet and my travel plans. On Tuesday, a lot of airplanes were down for inspections or aircraft maintenance so I was left without a plane. Me and my instructor did a discussion on weight and balance and other VFR flight planning stuff. Although its stuff I’ve already learned and been doing while at Purdue, I still hate VFR XC planning. I’ve lost a fair amount of information on VFR NAV logs and planning since my PPL Check ride but I’ve slowly regained the knowledge through planning at Purdue. This discussion also was a nice refresher. We discussed weight and balance calculations and the effects of aft or forward CG. We also discussed over some Cirrus performance charts which are basically the same as the Cessna ones I first learned. On Thursday, despite the persisting lack of aircraft, I managed to get a plane. However, I didn’t go solo this time. Due to the gusty winds, my instructor and I worked on cross wind landings, takeoffs, and practiced a go around. Fairly simple stuff. Being in Indiana, I’ve already gotten used to gusty cross wind landings so this felt like a normal flight for me. I also took off right before a Sun Country 737 landed. Why it was there, I have no idea. Most likely the football team’s charter aircraft (Penn State is gonna kill us). My Saturday flight was cancelled due to my travel plans. I’m currently at Chicago O’hare waiting to board my 6am flight to NYC to see my girlfriend. Since I got here around 12 hours early for my flight (I know I’m crazy for staying the night at the airport), I’ve had ample time to plane spot and search for the 777 at gates (my favorite plane). Unfortunate I haven’t spotted the evasive giant yet but I still have 6 hours to go. I also had time to look over Cirrus’s website and their aircraft specifications from GlobalAir.com. https://www.globalair.com/directories/Piston-Aircraft-49.html

Anyways, I have more 777 searching to do.

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This week, my classes actually got easier. I’m not sure what the switch was between this week and last week but I have zero homework this weekend. Other than that, like usual, my classes haven’t changed.

Flying was a little cramped due to not only the weather, but the status of Purdue’s aircraft. My first flight on Tuesday was cancelled because only a few planes were flying. This was due to the aligned inspections a lot of the aircraft had. The weather was beautiful that day but at least I was marked as a priority for my next slot. Instead, my instructor gave me a solo cross country test to allow me to go on solo XCs. Luckily I passed but I definitely need to work on my VFR navlog calculations. My next slot on Thursday worked out perfectly. We actually had less aircraft that day (approximately 3 SR20s). However, since I was a “must ride,” or a priority student, I was actually able to get a plane. For this slot, I practiced the commercial maneuvers solo, which I will never get used to. I hate practicing maneuvers solo. Partially due to potentially dangerous maneuvering of the aircraft alone. However, most of my negative sentiment comes from not having a 2nd voice to evaluate my performance. When I finish a maneuver and move on to the next, I’m normally unsure of how I actually did. I think I did it to test standards but I trust my instructor’s opinion more. Despite this, I think I did the maneuvers relatively well other than the lazy 8’s. It doesn’t seem like a difficult maneuver and I don’t think I’m doing them wrong I just can’t honestly tell. I definitely need to hear from my instructor on how I’m doing in regard to lazy 8’s. Since my first slot was un-flyable, I scheduled a make up slot directly after my Thursday slot. Again, for this slot I focused on practicing the commercial maneuvers solo. My 3rd slot was moved to Friday night since it is in conflict with the TFR over Ross-Ade stadium for the Purdue vs. Minnesota game (I don’t want to talk about it) on Saturday. My 3rd slot was also cancelled, but this time due to the thunderstorms that berated campus all night. Overall a great flying week!

I also recently found the aircraft search feature on GlobalAir.com. I was able to search for the tail number of the aircraft I took my PPL in and look at all the relevant information about the plane! https://www.globalair.com/ac-reg/search.aspx

Thanks for reading!