FLIGHT LAB
Getting Current - Maybe?
I got my CFII back in 1992. Harry Bradley, an instructor at Hanscom Field, in Bedford, Massachusetts, took me through it. Harry is a venerated institution at Hanscom, having gotten a lot of people through the ratings. He’d probably be interested to know that, despite my undying admiration for him as an educator and a man, I have absolutely no specific memory of the instruction he gave me in preparation for the CFII ride—all I have is the recollection that I was supposed to be able to talk and fly, more or less simultaneously. Evidently, I could fake this ability enough to satisfy the requirements, and therefore Harry anointed and blessed me and sent me up to Charlie Cashin, at Manchester, New Hampshire, for the CFII check ride. I do remember holding at an NDB with Charlie, while giving a halting explanation of what I was doing, and then flying an ILS back to Manchester. I remember that shortly after I intercepted the glide slope, Charlie decided he needed to demonstrate how an ILS should actually be flown. I was beginning to over-control in my usual way, and was more than happy to hand over the job. Charlie took the yoke and put the needles smack where they belonged. After that, they never twitched. I passed the test. (From which experience we derive a fundamental principle: Always let the examiner show off.)
The first ironic thing about my CFII flight test was that the trip up from Hanscom to Manchester was also my first solo flight in actual IFR conditions. At the time, it struck me as pretty lame that someone with my dubious experience could be permitted to teach others. But that’s what the regulations allowed. The second ironic thing about my CFII flight test is that the trip up remains my only solo flight in actual IFR. I’ve never done it since, unless some other pilot was with me in the soup, prepared to save my butt. Part of the reason for this is that I got into aerobatics and ended up mostly flying airplanes that don’t belong in clouds. My instrument flights have been few and far between. I’m long out of currency, my instrument scan is shot, and approach charts now look like something they buried with King Tut. I think I might well be the least qualified instrument instructor in New England, and maybe one of the ten least qualified nationally, just to put a number on it!
I’m trying to rectify my long lapse by becoming instrument current again. It’s not the first time this particular New Year’s resolution has hit the list, but maybe now will be different. I’ve been flying the simulator at Alpha One, at Plymouth, with Jimmy Abdalla as instructor. Jimmy is a senior in the aviation program at Bridgewater State College, in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. He looks a bit like a young Shriner. You want to stick a fez on the boy and buy him a tiny motorcycle. He’s got a deft teaching style, consisting mostly of gentle nudges and well-voiced reminders. So far, he hasn’t seen fit to humiliate me big-time, although I have a sense that he may now be gearing up.
The simulator, however, is trying to humiliate me. It’s one of those “if you can fly me you can fly anything” jobs. I’m having a miserable time holding altitude, among other issues. Part of the problem, frankly, is that at this point in my life the ability to hold altitude no longer has the deeply satisfying mystical significance it once commanded. That inner, fundamentally obsessed, nagging voice has fallen silent. The desire to hold altitude is simply gone. So screw it. I don’t see why ATC can’t just accept the fact, make an exception, and allow me free range, at least in the vertical plane—especially if they start applying user fees. But knock a few dollars off and I’ll hold all the altitude you want.
The other part of the problem is that the yoke mechanism in the simulator consists of a collection of springs that brilliantly simulate a really crappy airplane. I usually fly aircraft with nice control feel. If you trim the aircraft and then push or pull, flying respectively faster or slower than trim, you feel a coherent force building through the stick. The farther you go from trim the higher the force you need to hold. But the simulator requires a high initial force just to move the yoke, and then the required force falls off. It really feels wrong. The solution, I’m beginning to remember, lies in not trying to trim off forces but to use the trim for fine pitch control. Fly it with the trim? Yuck, on so many levels! Maybe I should quit.
Bill Crawford, CFII, teaches aerobatics, spins, and unusual-attitude recovery at Flightlab, at Plymouth Airport (KPYM), Plymouth, MA. Visit www.flightlab.net or reach him at crawford.we@gmail.com, or at 617 680-8581.