on this episode of the angle-of-attack show California dreamin I leave the cold
Alaska winter to do my commercial flight training in California I'd faced just
about every challenge along the way but I also flew in some cool airplanes come
along for the ups and downs of flight training my home
Alaska is also home to some of the last true aviators my mission grow as an
aviator through flying with my neighbors and friends in the backcountry and
beyond at times I'll strike out on my own even
outside the 49th state seeking new experiences growing skills staying sharp
and practicing safety jump aboard and ride along in this another chapter in my
aviation story you could say that training for my commercial license
started years ago maybe perhaps when I first started my private pilot and so
now I would be traveling to California where I knew the weather was much warmer
than here in the snowy and cold Alaska where I could do my training quickly and
get it out of the way and perhaps get it done in one week now I already had about
600 hours of complex high-performance time so I was anticipating that this
whole process was going to be a breeze before I went to California. Chelsea and
I traveled to Las Vegas where we would spend a little bit of time with
over the new year and then we would travel to California.
we made it it's late
After my brother's family met Apollo and we had a great New Year's we went to
California where I would be doing my commercial training.
I'm out here at the Camarillo Airport I just got here a few minutes ago as you
can see it's an IFR day so the first day of commercial training is very much
going to be a ground day where we'll sit down and find out where my head is at in
terms of the oral knowledge and the cross-country knowledge and all of the
stuff that I need to know in terms of that. Camarillo Airport is a great
little Airport there's a lot of character around here just a lot of
great activity and so I enjoy being around here I think it's gonna be an
energetic place to train and while today is just a ground day I'm very much
looking forward to what the entire week will bring now I'd be working with a
friend of mine Michael Phillips and a new friend Ariel who is a CFI candidate
so here we're in Delta airspace. Just dealing with the tower we actually don't
need permission to enter I guess we're exiting but all right guys
which one of you wants you not from around here huh you ain't for around
these parts are you son it's just funny cuz it's like everyone I know flies
around here yeah but it's just probably just a lot different up there yeah
like I was talking about before like I like to use the references and the pts
pretty much they're just referring us to the far aim little Mark's you do need
permission but it's a different type of permission than it would be entering a
class Bravo because in a class Bravo if they you know if you ask for permission
and they just give you your tail number back and say stand by that doesn't give
you permission but okay that makes sense so they acknowledge you with your tail
number then you can yeah so all you have to here is then read back your you know
your end number and that's pretty much your permission into the airspace gotcha
after we were done Michael and I went to see the airplane I'd be flying it's not
that big one it's the tiny one in the corner the Piper Arrow. Okay so I just
got done with my first day of training and it was a mind bender. I feel like my
confidence is shaken. I feel like I'm very deficient in a lot of areas and
just overall I I feel like I'm behind the eight ball and I have a lot of work
to do. It was a very difficult day but I'm very much looking forward to moving
forward and continuing to learn and moving from the plateau I'm on now going
through this uncomfortable growth experience and getting up to that next
plateau where I need to get and that's the whole idea of training and learning
is sometimes it is uncomfortable and you just don't you just don't know
everything. I'm tired I'm fried I need a bit of a break and then I'm going to get
back into it for the rest of the night.
With my luck you can imagine that the weather was still poor but I got the
opportunity to do a repositioning flight of a piper meridian with Michael so we'd
fly from Camarillo down to John Wayne Airport and see some
beautiful IFR sites in between now you think the best part about this flight
for any pilot or athlete was flying in this amazing turbine technologically
advanced fast airplane in IFR and although it was really beautiful the
most amazing part for me was seeing Michael who is a friend and a mentor and
my instructor a master technician of IFR doing this so precisely and smoothly and
it just got me in the right mindset for the next step in my commercial training
in a way washing away what I had gone through the day before so taking a clean
break and just seeing everything in action really helped
so we dropped off the airplane and then we went to the Lyon air museum for a few
minutes which is attached to the FBO right there a beautiful Museum and then
caught an uber back to Camarillo where it so happens that a corporate pilot
friend of mine would be but I'm gonna run down here and say hi to mat so cool
he's here Matt and I know each other from the flight sim days and he's at part 91
corporate pilot. I literally just fell asleep. That's why I'm all...
Floppy drive. No way no way 2.3 million dollars that's what you get you gotta be kidding it's
pretty wild got it we got the subscription but we got a floppy drive
and Wi-Fi it was so serendipitous to see Matt at Camarillo I also met his friend
@jessiflys from Instagram and then I finally got a chance to go flying with
Michael right rudder right rudder don't really right rudder right rudder lie off
you're jerking it off you're pulling it off the runway okay so get that back
pressure on there got dist a little bit of that angle of attack and then let the
airplane fly itself off you're over rotating the part of it maybe the trim
it too you get used to it I think it is yeah that's typically what I do I just
let it fly off and I'll shoot for a speed or anything well then yeah yeah
well that's good now I'm just gonna let most of this play out and you're gonna
get the gist of what's going on so I'd never flown a piper arrow before and I
was just really surprised by the performance and the control
characteristics so I struggled quite a bit in my first flight what you did that
was you just went ahead hand then put power back in because all of a sudden
you found out that you were dirty you were slow and you weren't where you
wanted to be did you recognize that yes okay so think about how you use your
tools power flaps power flaps power you know flaps are just gonna make your life
miserable if you've got a lot of power out there.
the whole point is to use the flaps right to maintain a target speed start
your rotation hold it hold it hold it hold it feet feet feet hold it hold it
feet feet feet feet fly it in You're over rotating still you're not it just kind
of letting it fall onto the runway instead of flying it on I was a little
better need a little more power you're as sending that a direct you've caught
it caught it as I open my mouth right that's a good sign
positive that's growth
whoa whoa cowboy where were you looking hey that's holding some right foot just
hold right foot if they got too much relaxed the right foot relax the right
foot hold that right foot in there that nose comes up you'd need that right foot
good let's try it again I'll pull your nose up let's keep coming down faster
here we go coming down faster coming down faster coming down faster you know
start working it out easy don't pull the nose up any more no pull the nose hold
it right there you got to get to see that picture right
there right that's about all you're gonna want right there and that was with
no flaps so if we've got flaps it's gonna be even lower than that uh-huh
this is no flaps it no flaps okay good I
don't have any power I know all right headed back to the airport yeah don't
dawdle it's a dawdle if I ever saw one
(laughter)
oh no sh#@ goes where did that come from where'd that come from
what'd you do different - ok gear up what'd you do differently on that one I
exerted my authority on the controls yes and you didn't overdo it did you no did
you kept that right foot where it needed to be didn't you and it wasn't no starts
coming up they really wants to go left Ohhhhh yeah
where the hell were you on your private pilot check right
that was better okay better not perfect now it was really interesting looking
back at this footage because I don't consider myself a good pilot or a bad
pilot I just consider myself an average pilot so it was great to have this
humbling growing experience and a big thanks to Michael for showing me things
that I can improve even at this level
okay Here I am the start of day three I feel pretty fantastic this morning I was
up until 3:00 a.m. studying and then I got up at a 6:30 so I'm only on three
hours of sleep I'm feeling pretty wired but excited I
feel much much better about my ground in my oral I had to jump in here in a few
minutes with Ariel and Michael Phillips so here we go day 3 in
Camarillo from my commercial training so I ended up having quite the interesting
day yes I went in and did ground with Ariel
and Michael I also went flying with Michael later and the hydraulic pump on
the arrow actually failed which grounded the airplane for the duration of my time
there but we got the opportunity to go flying with Mark who uses Michael as a
safety pilot to learn how to fly his Epic LT upright fuel pump
good pressure on the left fuel pump
K, flaps are good. G is 90 we're in good shape airspeed is alive heels on the floor
here we go. 64 76 85 you're good K, 90 and off we go. Tapping the brakes.
Gears up. Gears coming up. Hands are on the flaps all right hydraulic fuel pump is
on. Gear's up. Flap's Up. Igniters are off. I've gotta go
autopilot select enter enter internal perfect 93EP contact mugu, have a good flight.
believe me macGruber epic 9 3 epic echo Papa 1200 climbing 4,000 turning 180
November 93EP Magu approach radar contact now mark isn't a
professional pilot but he acts professionally I was really impressed by
how good he was how clean he was as a pilot and it just goes to show that even
though we become pilots we have to get mentors and instructors like Michael or
someone similar to Michael to help us continue to grow and I could tell that
that is something that Mark realized and that's why he brought Michael along for
these trips and I could tell through the way that he was flying that it really
pays off
Minimums. 60. I have the airport. autopilots off good K last flaps going
in push push push push push good
we got a little wind coming right-to-left powers coming down
traffic eleven o´clock same altitude less than one mile powers off into beta
easy easy there we go
epic three echo papa turn left at echo contact ground have a good day
3EP can we go ahead and turn right turn right and contact ground see ya
820UP is ready holding shorted Lima after waiting
briefly for a tower enroute clearance from John Wayne to Camarillo we are in
the air again of course this time at sunset and at night and it was just such
a beautiful flight in this amazing clean fast airplane
okay so it's the morning of day four so yesterday we decided that we were going
to postpone the check ride so no longer we going to be taking my commercial
check ride this week I came into this with the same mentality or at least a
similar mentality that I had two previous check rides where I was
thinking that if I was leaning on my previous skills and I studied enough
then I'd be kind of ready to go right kinda but my instructor Michael he saw
another just another instructor you know this is a top notch to your guy so what
I'm having to do is take a major step up in who I am as a pilot and meet that
standard that's exactly what I want to achieve it's important for me to achieve
but it's an uncomfortable challenging transition you know I can't blame anyone
but myself for not being prepared we don't have to take this check ride
Friday it can be postponed to another time I'm just gonna enjoy the journey
and have fun doing this and we're gonna get there I think that I'm on the right
track it's just going to take a little extra work in the spirit of continuing
on and building upon the things that Michael and I had achieved the prior
days we decided to jump into his red bird simulator and take advantage of the
fact that we had bad weather and a mechanical failure on the airplane but
we were still able to jump into an airplane a simulator and go through a
bunch of scenarios right rudder right rudder easy does it
peaceful peaceful peaceful even when you crank it in -- good, nicely done.
alright you got it
simulators certainly aren't perfect at everything but one thing they are good
at is repetition so I was taking off and landing on this super long runway I
could do multiple takeoffs and landings on this one runway and then Michael
could also dial up the crosswind time after time after time to eventually the
point where I just couldn't control anymore but it helped me get a feel for
all the control movements
nice you want to get up and do a happy dance
I'll do my happy dance in the airplane. it's great to use a simulator to
continue the progress that we had made because this is kind of the mantra from
here on out you know things were not going as planned already the weather
wasn't good in California like I thought it was going to be there was a
mechanical failure with the airplane I wasn't as prepared as I had thought I
was going to be so I had to settle in to this new idea of how I was going to get
my commercial pilot certificate done and that just meant I had to be patient I
had to be patient with the process patient with myself I had to come up
with a good plan I had to execute that plan to the best of my ability I had to
roll with the punches and see what I could do but that meant that I'd be
going beyond California beyond this week that I had planned on getting my reading
and into the next step which would be going to Utah to visit family finding
way to still fly there and then come back to California after the fact and
finish up I'm really looking forward to those days coming where I can finish my
commercial with Michael in California but until then there's more work to do
and new horizons to discover a big thanks to Michael Phillip s for his
mentorship and tutelage also my good friend Mike Rushworth for the fitting
music you dream of being an aviator start your journey today at
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reach out and let's talk thanks for coming along on this adventure and I
hope you'll join us on the next journey until next time
throttle on
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