http://natey.com/avgas Trying not to kill myself in SF Bay Area airspace. Wed, 27 Sep 2006 22:58:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Much flying has happened over the last two months, and many things have been accomplished. However, today was the day to prove that the last 1.3 years of flight training have been leading somewhere. My FAA check pilot (Mike Shiflett for the SF Bay folks) showed up about 20 minutes ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=41 Things have been very busy in the last week, with two solo cross country flights totalling 6.7 hours of Hobbs time. Solo Cross Country #1: KSQL-KMOD-KSQL This was a relatively easy cross country flight, and my route took me by way of SUNOL and TRACY intersections. Flight planning was easy, and ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=40 We started out around 2100 (yesterday, 6/22/06): Steep/Slow/Stalls (power off & power on) northeast of KLVK plus 4 landings on 25R Over to a smaller airport (KPAO) for 3 more Back to KSQL Total: 8 night landings and 2.0 hours of night time logged. It was a lot of fun...and I felt very ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=34 It was a fairly grueling day today spent in preparation for my WVFC cross country phase check (it was supposed to be yesterday, but the scheduled aircraft was grounded for maintenance).  The idea of the phase check is for an instructor other than your primary to evaluate you before "major" ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=33 It has been exactly one year of flight training, and although I had originally hoped that I would have my private pilot certificate by now, I have come a long way and learned an enormous amount. Here are the stats for this past year: Flights: 51 Total Time: 58.6 PIC: 6.9 Day landings: ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=32 9.6 hours. I have flown 9.6 hours in the past month (May 11, 2006 - June 10, 2006).  While this may not sound like much (and certainly isn't for many pilots), it is a lot for me.  From January 1, 2006 - May 10, 2006 I had logged a total of ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=31 I have a WVFC cross country phase check coming up on Thursday, and am finding that I really have to brush up on things like airspace, opening/closing flight plans with FSS, emergency procedures, etc.  While the flying portion is going very well, I have been extremely lazy in preparing for ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=30 I am finally back into the cross country phase of training (last dual XC was in December 2005). It has taken a number of months to get past the weather, vacation(s), and switching instructors (and having to spend a bit of time getting signed off (again) for solo flight).So, ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=4 I knew it was going to be a challenging flight when I got up this morning...as the wind was really blowing (usually the wind is fairly calm in the SF Bay Area in the mornings). I got to SQL at 0730 and was surprised at how strong the wind was. ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=5 Twice in one week...wow...two more times next week and I have myself a 2006 flying frequency record! My friend Chris came along today...with three 200lb+ guys and 34 gallons of gas we were pretty much at max gross weight...which made for two things I had never done before (passenger & ... http://natey.com/avgas/?p=6