It’s been a good while since I’ve done a Learning to Fly post. Since the last time, I’ve completed my first biennial flight review, which is a mandatory mini-checkride done every two years with a flight instructor, that’s designed to verify that a pilot has properly maintained both their flying skills and regulatory knowledge.
I’ve been doing a ton of local flying around Puget Sound, plus a few flights over the mountains to central Washington state, all via rented aircraft from Galvin Flying.
Because of the Pacific Northwest’s consistently lousy winter weather, with very low clouds, rain, and low visibility, it had been a couple months since my last flight. So I booked some time with a trusted CFI and got lucky with a nice weather window, and off we went to do some practice.
I honestly miss the structure of flight training. You could expect to be constantly challenged, and asked to randomly perform flight maneuvers or emergency procedures. There are still plenty of challenges when flying on your own, but you soon settle into comfortable routines.
Our flight track from Flightradar24 – the first one is our pattern work, the second is the entire flight
Our training flight first consisted of three laps around the traffic pattern at Seattle’s Boeing Field doing touch-and-go landings, then we exited the pattern and flew to one of our local practice areas, the one we refer to as northeast practice, as it lies to the northeast of BFI. We also have west practice, which is across Puget Sound and east of the Bremerton airport, and southeast practice, which is, perhaps unsurprisingly, southeast of BFI and east of Auburn airport.
A lot of my own flying has been to the southwest over to Tacoma Narrows Airport, or northwest along the Olympic Peninsula to Jefferson County Airport in Port Townsend, so we went northeast for something of a change, plus the transit time is the shortest of the three training areas.
Traffic is always a concern when flying in congested airspace; going out on the first good afternoon following a spell of bad weather always means there is plenty of traffic to keep an eye on
The Cessna 172 we flew that day was equipped with a Garmin G1000 instrumentation and navigation system, which includes traffic. The arrows on the screen above represent aircraft in the area as we were leaving the practice area and descending to stay well beneath SEA’s overhead Bravo airspace when we were returning to BFI. The extended line from each arrow shows direction of travel, and the numbers indicate the altitude above or below your own; super handy info to augment what you’re seeing out the windshield.
Sitting at the hold-short line, waiting for takeoff clearance. Photo by Adam KephartDowntown Seattle and Puget Sound. Photo by Adam KephartMount Rainier makes an excellent reference point for doing maneuvers over the northeast practice area
There was nothing crazy or groundbreaking about the flight. We did some touch-and-go landings, then went out to the practice area and did a couple of stalls (one power-off approach to landing stall, and one power-on departure stall), and then headed back.
Adam the CFI took the controls so I could grab a few photos
It’s focused practice flights such as these that keeps you safe as a pilot, and keeps your basic proficiency levels up to standard. I’ll go out again with Adam this spring to do some simulated emergencies to keep those skills sharp, too.
And I’ll leave you with one more photo of one of my favorite views ever. More soon — summer is coming.
Just about to touch down on 14L at the end of the flight. Photo by Adam Kephart.
On final for runway 14R at BFI in a Diamond DA-40 – this wasn’t from our mountain-flying day, but it’s too pretty of a photo to leave out of the article
The lousy Pacific Northwest early spring weather notwithstanding, I’ve made good progress towards learning both the Garmin G1000 instrumentation and the Diamond DA-40 aircraft. We recently got a decent break in the weather that allowed a flight from Seattle across the Cascade Mountains to Ellensburg for some basic mountain flying training.
Cruising westbound at 6,500′ over Snoqualmie Pass was an amazing experience – Photo: Katie Bailey
I’ve got about 10 hours in the DA-40 now, all but one of them with Carl, my ever-patient CFI. I finally felt comfortable enough with the plane to take it out on my own last week, even though Carl had deemed me ready to do that about five flight hours previously. I just wanted a bit more time with the plane, as it’s quite a bit different than the Cessna 172, especially in that it’s a lot faster and a bit fussier when it comes to controls, and it’s got a constant-speed propeller (also sometimes referred to as a variable-pitch propeller) that needs tending to via a dedicated control lever.
After a year and a half of concerted effort, I’ve finally completed my initial training and earned my private pilot certificate in early November. It’s a great feeling!
For those who’ve been following along on my adventures at Galvin Flying, it’s been a long process of successes and setbacks, many of which were weather related because I live in the Pacific Northwest, where the local joke says that it only rains once a year it starts raining in late October and stops raining on July 5 (it always seems to rain on July 4).
In case you ever wondered what the track of a checkride looks like, here you go. Screen capture courtesy FlightRadar24
Anyway, I did several mock checkrides in the weeks leading up to the actual FAA one, and had to complete Galvin’s end-of-course checkride before that. The end-of-course checks are designed to be more difficult than the actual checkride to ensure that pilot candidates are as prepared as possible.
The FAA examiner, also known as a designated pilot examiner or DPE, selects from a long list of information and flight maneuvers for the actual checkride known as the Airman Certification Standards. The check airman who oversees the end-of-course checks runs through the entire list to be sure you’re ready.
I did it! I flew an airplane totally by myself over the Labor Day weekend. It was, in absolutely equal parts, terrifying and exhilarating.
Doing this was the culmination of a lifelong dream. Unlike a lot of airplane nerds, I don’t have any close family with ties to aviation. Instead, all of this started for me as a boy – my grandmother would take my brother and me to our little local general aviation (GA) airport in western Massachusetts, where we’d lie on the hood of her ’69 Beetle and watch skydivers while eating ice cream. My interest in planes waxed and waned over the years, but never really went away. There was a time when *gasp* I was afraid of flying – my first-ever flight experience was a very turbulent series of flights down the Atlantic Coast in the height of summer that put me off flying for a long time.
Fast forward to about a decade ago, when my wife got us a helicopter tour of Seattle for my birthday. The desire to fly returned with a vengeance. And the fear had long faded.
That’s me, working through preflight checklists on the Galvin ramp – Photo: Chuyi Chuang
Anyway, at a flight school like Galvin, periodic stage checks ensure students are properly prepared to advance to the next segment of training by having them work with different instructors, who both confirm the students’ competency and verify that the primary instructor has done their work properly. Some find the process cumbersome; for me the rigor is comforting.
A JetSuiteX ERJ135 getting a water cannon salute at Boeing Field – Mount Rainier provided a dramatic backdrop
Simple, fast, efficient, comfortable, and reasonably-priced air travel. What’s not to like?
JetSuiteX kicked off scheduled service between Seattle and Oakland, Calif., on July 1, with three flights per day between the two cities.
This means that the metro Seattle area now has three airports offering scheduled passenger service: Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA); Paine Field (PAE) in Everett; and Boeing Field (officially King County International Airport, BFI).
The airline euphemistically referred to the route as the “nerd bird” in a press release, no doubt calling out their hoped-for clientele: business travelers between the two tech hubs.
No fuss here – you just walk out of the terminal building and onto your plane (for the curious, that’s a GOL B-737 MAX 8 on a test flight in the background)
We’ll soon have a separate story offering background on the airline and more on their plans for routes, so I’m going to focus primarily on the flying experience here. And what an experience it was.
Arguably, one of the best parts of flying with JetSuiteX isn’t the flight itself so much as the removal of pre- and post-flight hassles. Lines? Not really. There are only a maximum of 30 people on your flight, and you’re either flying out of a relatively quiet secondary airport or an executive-style FBO (fixed base operator) at a major airport.
