Last night I did a three leg cross country from Prescott to Lake Havasu, then from Havasu to Bullhead, then back to Prescott.  The flight to Lake Havasu took about 45 minutes and burned only 9 gallons of fuel.  For a light twin, that is excellent speeds, even with the power pulled back to 70%, and the fuel burn is also amazing.  Lake Havasu is at an elevation of about 800 feet, and coming from the east means you have to do a quick descent into the airport.  As we were descending through about 5000 feet, I noticed that my right ear had popped and felt fine, but my left ear was starting to feel uncomfortable.  At about 4000 feet, my left ear started to hurt, and at 3000 feet, I had to level off for a couple minutes to work on getting my ear equalized.  It felt like someone had set off several hundred firecrackers inside my skull. I managed to get it where it didn’t hurt, but it was uncomfortable for the rest of the descent.  Once on the ground, I noticed I could hardly hear out of my left ear.  We stayed in Havasu for a little more than an hour and got some dinner while we waited for the sun to set.  By that time my ear felt a lot better, but it seemed like the volume was still turned down a little bit.

The flight up to Bullhead only took about 20 minutes.  It is always fun to cruise at an altitude that is below the Prescott airport. We did a stop and go in Bullhead, then climbed on a downwind departure over the city.  Once up about 3000 feet, we turned back towards Prescott.  On the way back, I spent most of the time under the IFR hood to get some basic instrument practice.  We did a simulated diversion towards Flagstaff, then got back onto our course for Prescott.  This flight took just under an hour and we still had some time to do a few laps around the pattern.

This flight puts me at about 12 hours of flight time in the Diamond.  I’m still enjoying this plane a lot.  It really excels at going cross country since it has the high speeds and low fuel burn.  It looks like I have a night pattern flight and then I start review flights for the checkride.  I hope I can finish this course in the next month or so, then get started in the instrument course.

Took me a couple days to get around to posting this.  On friday morning, I did a flight in the pattern working on one-engine-inoperative.  My flight instructor did a demonstration on the first lap.  I had a general idea of how to control the plane in the pattern during OEI since I had observed a few flights in the Piper Seminole when the school still had those.  We failed the engine at different points in the pattern.  The first time was when we had turned to downwind, the second was during the turn from crosswind to downwind, and the last time was still during the climb on upwind. During our second lap through the pattern, another twin engine plane arrived from somewhere else.  They were in a twin cessna, probably a 310, and they were also working on OEI stuff.  The interesting thing was that we followed them through a couple laps in the pattern, but when they failed an engine, they didn’t have the positive performance that we did.  They would be descending throughout the pattern while we had no trouble holding altitude.  It gave me things to think about if I am going to ever fly a light twin that isn’t turbocharged.  

I think I have a few more flights in the pattern working on OEI, then I’ll do a couple of cross country flights, and I’ll be ready for the checkride.  This course hasn’t been too bad since it is mostly the same as private pilot with the addition of OEI and moving faster.  As soon as I finish this up, I’m going to jump right into instrument training.

Today was my first flight working on emergencies in the twinstar.  First, I did a bit of practice flying on just one engine and seeing how different configurations with drag affected the flight characteristics.  At about 10500 feet, single engine, and at Vyse, this plane still gets about a 300 fpm climb rate.  When adding gear and flaps, the plane then has about a 600 fpm descent.  Quite a big difference for performance.  

Next, we did a simulated engine failure, and after doing a troubleshoot checklist, my instructor had me completely shut down the engine.  If an engine is completely shut down, it must be restarted within 2 minutes, so I didn’t get too much maneuvering time to see how it performed with one engine completely off.  Restarting isn’t difficult in this aircraft.  

Once we got both engines going again, we did a simulated electrical fire and an emergency descent.  Flaps up, gear down, 120 knots, and a banked descent can get more than a 4000 fpm descent.  We dropped from about 11000 feet down to 6000 in just over a minute, then got set up as if we were going to do an off-field landing.  

Once we finished up those emergencies, we headed back to Prescott.  I did a couple of short field landings for practice.  Next on the agenda is a simulator working on engine failures in the traffic pattern.

I went up for my second flight today in the diamond twinstar.  That is a really sweet plane to fly.  I am very impressed.  My first flight in the plane was about a week ago. It was mostly a flight to get me used to the controls, how the plane reacted, and how it performs versus a single engine plane.  I almost immediately forgot my checklist memorization once I got into the plane the first time, probably because I just felt overwhelmed with everything inside the aircraft, but that’s why we have a paper copy of the checklists.  Taking off, the plane uses about 1800 feet of runway, then climbs around 1200 feet per minute.  It scoots along really well.  Cruising in the practice area, we go around 60 to 65%  power.  (As a side note, this plane operates on power settings, like a turbine.)  This puts us around 135 knots indicated.  Controls are very responsive and the plane feels like it will do whatever you think.  Steep turns are easy to do, as are stalls.  During the recover of stalls, you can either dip the nose to increase airspeed, or just give it full power and it will climb out.  The engines just drag the whole plane along, even at the stall buffet. Coming back in to land, I got to play with the autopilot.  This plane has a Garmin GFC 700 autopilot system that does everything except for auto-throttle.  I like that I’m able to set up the autopilot to descend me to the airport while I do my in-range checklists and prepare for the landing.  The main gear is a trailing link setup, meaning that the strut comes straight down from the wing, then hinges backwards to the wheel.  This helps the plane do extremely smooth landings.

Today was another flight in the practice area.  I played with the autopilot again on the way out to the practice area. Did some practice with stalls and had some fun just hanging on the stall buffet while the plane climbed from 10000 feet up to 11500 without a problem.  Slow flight isn’t a problem in this plane either.  While it does have very pronounced left turning tendencies, the rudder trim is very nice to use.  Lastly, I did some steep turns.  Coming back to Prescott, I set up the autopilot to descend me to TPA while I went through in-range checks.  The indicated airspeed was around 150 in the descent, but the groundspeed was 194 knots at one point.  I like the speed of this thing.  We were a bit high up entering the Prescott Delta airspace, but when you need to descend, this plane will drop like a brick.  Did one touch and go at first.  This plane does use a lot of runway when you do that.  It wouldn’t be smart to try a touch and go on a runway shorter than 4000 feet.  Both landings today felt great.

I’ll keep posting how my training is going.  This is an amazing plane to fly and I feel that this experience will help me a lot down the road when I’m flying something big.

cufktishsips:

deliri0:

BLACK MARCH
Thursday, March 1st 2012 to Saturday 31st March 2012

With the continuing campaigns for Internet-censoring litigation such as SOPA and PIPA, and the closure of sites such as Megaupload under allegations of ‘piracy’ and ‘conspiracy’ the time has come to take a stand against music, film and media companies’ lobbyists.

The only way is to hit them where it truly hurts.
Their profit margins.

March 2012 is the end of the 1st quarter in economic reports worldwide.

Do not buy a single record. Do not download a single song, legally or illegally. Do not go to see a single film in cinemas, or download a copy, Do not buy a DVD in the stores. Do not buy a videogame. Do not buy a single book or magazine.

Wait the 4 weeks to buy them in April: see the film later, etc. Holding out for just 4 weeks, maximum, will leave a gaping hole in media and entertainment companies’ profits for the 1st quarter, an economic hit which will in turn be observed by governments worldwide as stocks and shares will blip from a large enough loss of incomes.
This action can give a statement of intent:

 ”We will not tolerate the Media Industries’ lobbying for legistation which will censor the internet.”

Yes!

I’m doing this. Pass it around.

On Jan 24th, Congress will vote to pass internet censorship in the Senate, even though the vast majority of Americans are opposed. We need to kill the bill - PIPA in the Senate and SOPA in the House - to protect our rights to free speech, privacy, and prosperity. We need internet companies to follow Reddit’s lead and stand up for the web, as we internet users are doing every day.

I will be blacking out my tumblr for the protest and I hope everyone else will too.