Flight 2 - I AM CURRENT!!!

June 15th, 2008


Woke up bright and early this morning, and met my instructor at the airport at 8AM. We did our pre-flight and taxied out to the runway, all the while my instructor was quizzing me on required equipment and emergency procedures.

We took off, got out of the pattern, and climbed up to 5,000FT. Once in the practice area, my instructor said, "Ok we have an engine fire, what do you do?" I ran thru the procedures and the check-lists and once we were at 3,000FT (one of the procedures for an engine fire is throttle to idle and dive to about 120 knots to try to extinguish the flames) once at 3,000FT, my instructor said, "Ok the fire is out, now your engine is dead, what do you do now?" So we went thru all the procedures and check-lists for that (and this time I remembered to Squawk 7700 and to tune to 121.5 and declare an emergency) and then we glided to about 1,000FT and once my instructor saw that I would make the field I had picked out to make my emergency landing, we climbed back up to altitude and headed back home.

Once back at at our home field and on short final, my instructor said, "Ok, there is a plane on the runway, what do you do?" So right away, we did the go-around procedure... full power, 10 degrees flaps up, positive rate climb, another 10 degrees of flaps up, verify positive rate of climb, and then the final 10 degree of flaps up and maintain runway heading until we turn crosswind. We came back around and landed, taxied back to parking, and shutdown.

Once we were back inside, he signed my logbook, and there you go. I AM CURRENT!!!!

Now I will go out and practice by myself for a while until I can fly the airplane like it is second nature, then I will start my instrument training. There is so much to learn and do with the instrument training that flying the airplane really needs to be second nature.

I can't describe how good flying makes me feel, it is so much fun. For me it really is an emotional high.

Happy landings

D.