Category: Blog

Today I took the adventerous trip to Winter Haven Florida. About a two hour drive from Vero beach, Winter Haven is located in central Florida. Located right next to the Winter Haven airfield, is Jack Brown's Seaplane Base. Here they operate a small seaplane flight school. The claim to have trained the most seaplane pilots in the world.

Leaving early this morning, we arrived around 8:30 am. After filling out some paperwork, we started with some ground instruction. They provided us with a packet of general information about the airplane, and seaplane operations. After about an hour discussion, we headed out to the aircraft.

We were given a guided walk-around of the airplane. What to look for in pre flight inspections, and more information about the plane itself. Once we completed the pre flight inspections, we were ready to hit the skies.

We climbed in, and started to taxi out onto the middle of the lake. After getting the basics of taxi, and the different methods used, we lined up for take off. Take is fairly straightforward in the Cub. Full aft stick, untill you get up on the floats. You release a little of the pressure, but hold most, untill the plane climbs off the water. You don't really 'rotate', as much as, you let the plane fly by itself.

Once we got up to altitude, we started with some basic Private pilot maneuvers. Steep turns and stalls was all we attemted today. We then started in with some touch and goes.

Landing the seaplane is fairly simple. There aren't a lot of checklists to worry about, or power settings that are complicated. Everything about this airplane is very simple. The plane flies extrememly well, but requires a lot of attention to wind correction. Due to it being extremely light, it is affected heavily by wind.



It was fun to fly around low all day, and land on some different lakes.

Tomorrow we return again, early in the morning. Tomorrow we have another lesson to finish up on some more items. Then if all is well, we have the checkride. We're hoping the weather stays nice enough for us to finish tomorrow. I should have more pictures from today, as well as from tomorrow.

Untill then…

Today I logged the first multi-engine time in my logbook. A historic day, that will live in INFAMY! Or perhaps not…

Well it was a lot of fun. The whole flight went really well. The plane flies amazingly well, and for the most part, without my help. From the first take off, I knew I would love flying this plane. It's faster, smoother, easier to fly. Everything you could want from a light twin airplane.

We went up and did the basics again. Slow flight, steep turns, and power on and off stalls. Everything I did to standards, so I felt really good about that. There are some things to polish of course, but for the most part are pretty good.

The hardest part is yet to come. Engine inoperative operations. That is a whole mess of memory items, and checklists. Which haven't been going too great for me. I'm having a hard time memorizing some of the required memory items. With time I'm sure it will be no problem, but it's frustrating right now.

We did some touch and goes at Sebastian airport. That was fun. The plane is incredibly smooth, and my landings were damn near perfect! 🙂 It will take some time to get the finesse of the approach down, but landing is landing.

Now it's back to the simulator for a few more sessions to work on single engine operations. After two simulator sessions, it's back to the airplane to do it for real. This phase is short, so I should be plenty busy with all the memorization, and studying.

It has begun.

I finished my single engine training last week, and I have started my multi-engine training. Today was the first lesson in what is called step three. This phase of training is focused on getting my multi-engine add on to my current private pilot license.

I have a few flight training lessons, before I begin my flying.

Progress is being made.

Well I have officially completed all of my flying for step two. This step was mostly time building, and solo cross countries.

In this step I did 13 cross countries, for a total of 40 hours XC time.
I flew a total of 72.4 hours in the Cherokee.
A total of 139 landings.

Which brings my total time to:
Single-engine land: 151.6
Landings: 355 day / 32 night
Night: 15
Simulated Instrument: 7.2
Cross Country: 43
Dual Received: 86.2
Pilot in Command: 82.2
Total Time: 151.6

It's been a long drawn out time. It felt like this phase would never end! However, in roughly three and a half months, I nearly doubled my total time, and built 40 hours of cross country time.

All in all, it's been a lot of fun. I tried very hard not to repeat any trips. I visited the same airport very rarely. It presented a great challenge to go to a different airport each time. For the most part, Florida is a great place to go flying! When the weather is on your side, you can go anywhere in this state.

What's next? Well I have a step two stage check now. This isn't a FAA check ride, just a FlightSafety progress check. They want to make sure I've used my time in this step wisely. They are looking for maneuver proficiency, and up to standards. After I finish that, I'm flying the Seminole! I will finally be flying the twin. I am super excited. The plane is faster, cooler, sweeter, faster.

It’s been a long time coming, but I finally started my upset recovery training. That sounds highly advanced, and technical, but basically, we just go up and throw the plane around for an hour.

Today was my first of 4(maybe 5) flights that I will do. We do the flights in a Zlin 242 aerobatic plane. I don’t know much other than- 200hp, fuel injected, constant speed prop. Glass canopy top, with visibility like you could never dream of. It’s truly an amazing machine, and I’m dreading going back to my put-put training Warrior!

So we got up to about seven thousand feet, and started with some chandelles and lazy eights. Which are basic commercial maneuvers, and we start with them to get a feel for how the airplane flies. It has a stick, as opposed to a conventional yoke, so it’s a little different, but it’s very intuitive. Makes you wonder why the yoke was ever invented. You want to go a direction? Push the stick there, and there you go.

So after getting familiar with the airplane, we start with wing overs. Basically a wing over is a recover from a nose high attitude, and low airspeed. In light aircraft, you can just push the stick forward, and nose down to level flight. However- in larger, faster airplanes, if you do that, you can subject the airframe, and it’s occupants to negative G’s. Which could damage the airframe, or harm your occupants. In this example you’re trying to recover from nose high with low airspeed. You simply bank over and the loss of vertical lift will cause the nose to lower, and airspeed to rise.

In this case though, we did it a little exaggerated. Basically we pitched for straight up, banked over, and leveled off. Pretty straight forward, and basic.

After that, we did a loop. Now you may be asking yourself. What good is doing a loop for my training? Who cares, it was FUN. Ok, but really. It is an example of how to recover from inverted flight, or pitch down dives. We just wrap it all up in a loop, and do both at once.

We then moved into spins. The mother of all maneuvers. Well, at least for me. I’m not really scared of the idea of spinning. At least until today I wasn’t.

Basically, a spin is when a stalled, un-coordinated airplane enters an auto rotation. The concept of a spin is very heavy in aerodynamic theory. For the easiest explanation- the airplane stops generating lift, and due to un-coordination, will begin to auto rotate. It just starts spiraling. Most specifically, to the ground.

We started the maneuver at or below 85 KIAS. Full back pressure on the elevator, and full rudder in any direction. Almost instantly, the plane jumps up, and rolls onto it’s ‘back’. At this point if you look straight out, you see the ground spinning by you. What is the hardest part? To get out of this pickle, you have to push forward! That’s right. You’re spinning towards the ground, the last thing you want to do is get there faster right? Well, wrong. To get the wings to start generating lift again, you have to put forward pressure on the stick. This will get airflow over the rudder again, at which point you apply full opposite rudder to stop the spin. Then level the airplane.

The first one the instructor completed, while I followed on the controls. The second one I did, while he followed. So my first spin ever. How did it go? Bad.

I pulled back, put in full rudder, and the plane did its thing. Rolled over, and started spinning. I looked down at the ground, and I think I heard him say ‘Rudder’. I kicked the rudder. We stopped spinning. I didn’t stop putting in the rudder. He took over, and leveled us off. I was freaked just a little!

What just happened? Then he spoke some Chinese for a minute, and I gather I did something wrong. Holding the rudder too long will just aggravate the spin, and sometimes will spin the airplane in the opposite direction. Oh, ok. I think my problem was I was staring at the ground, and wasn’t too comfortable with that feeling.

We did a few more, and I got more comfortable with it. It seemed just as soon as we had taken off, we were on the ground and chocking the plane.

I’m excited for more of these flights, and I have already learned so much. Today I learned what could possibly save my life someday, or the lives of my passengers. That’s training worth paying for!