One of the things about being a pilot is maintaining your currency. To be allowed to carry passengers as a private pilot you must have made three take offs and landings in the previous 90 days, so basically if you fly once a month you’re “current”. There are no requirements about being PROFICIENT however. If those takeoffs and landings were done during the day, you are current for daytime flight. In other words you have to be back down on the ground within 1 hour of official sunset. You may remember this post from my flight training days where I did my long cross country and had to add in a few landings at a tower controlled airport? I made it back with about 20 minutes to spare before it was officially dark. As a student pilot you are not allowed to fly at night solo. You have to wait … Read More
4.7 Hours Of Flying Logged today! Epic!
Wow! What an amazing day I had today flying! I’ve been waiting to do my long Cross Country flight for a couple of weeks now due to weather. Today the weather gods smiled upon me and I got an amazing amount of flying in. The plan for the day was to take off out of Puyallup (KPLU) Thun Field, cross over McChord AFB, hang a left at Anderson Island, overfly Olympia (KOLM), overfly Centralia/Chehalis (KCLS), hang a right over Kelso (KKLS) and follow the Columbia River to Astoria, Oregon (KAST). After landing at Astoria, I would stretch my legs, then hop back in the plane for a trip to Hoquiam, land there, stretch my legs and finally head back to Pierce County, Thun Field skirting around the Rainier Military Operations Area (MOA) to the South, overflying Eatonville airport on the way. My flight was scheduled for 12:00PM and I had … Read More
The Finish Line Draweth Near!
I’m so excited!! The weather around here (Washington) has turned to our typical fall gray, rainy days. The opportunities to fly have been few and far between. But I just checked the weather forecast for the rest of the week and Friday and Saturday are looking stellar! I think between the two days, I’ll be able to get two big chunks of my license requirements done. According to FAR 61.109: 61.109 Aeronautical Experience. (a) For an airplane single-engine rating. Except as provided in paragraph (k) of this section, a person who applies for a private pilot certificate with an airplane category and single-engine class rating must log at least 40 hours of flight time (DONE!!) that includes at least 20 hours of flight training from an authorized instructor (DONE!!) and 10 hours of solo flight training (ALMOST Done!) in the areas of operation listed in §61.107(b)(1) of this part, and the training … Read More
Workin’ On Our Night Moves…
Tryin’ to make some front page flyin’ news… Some of you will get that, all the rest of you Google “Bob Seger, Night Moves”. I got to fly at night tonight! That makes four days in a row flying! I think it’s time to take a couple days off. As I’m headed to Vegas this weekend, it may not be until next week that I get to fly again, but the last week has been an absolute blast! I flew 5 of 7 days, I only wish I could keep this pace up! But most of what I have left to do are cross country flights, which take a significant amount of time, both to plan and execute. So I don’t think my pace will be nearly as frenzied going forward. All day today I was looking forward to tonight. Nervous anticipation to be sure! My instructor was teaching ground … Read More