39.8h IR – I Follow Roads

“Cessna 43L, cleared into Class Bravo airspace at 7’500, follow interstate I-25 to Centennial”, Denver Center told me while flying in simulated instrument conditions. The sky was blue but I had to wear foggles, glasses which restrict the view outside. While trying to fly IFR, with vectors from my instructor, I had to follow a…

37.3h IR – Partial Panel

Today we had another standard session of ILS, localizer and GPS approaches at Front Range and Centennial. This time only the ILS with full panel and during the latter two approaches I had a simulated vacuum pump failure. Or to make it sound less dramatic, my instructor put sticky-notes on some important instruments. On the…

0.9h IR – Let’s get started

The instrument ground school will soon come to an end, so I thought it might be time to start flight training. I had a lesson in the Redbird FMX full motion simulator which will be the training device for my first ten hours in instrument meteorological conditions. We called it an introductory flight but there…

111.2h – Validation Complete

You come home from flying with a big grin on your face. You take off your shoes and – damn, what’s that smell?! – you probably had your first solo. In my case, I completed the validation process from FAA to EASA by a first solo in EASA-land. Yay! Party time! Three landings were required…

108.3h – No Pain No Gain

If a passenger would glance at my logbook she or he would never fly with me. I just filled another page and there is only one flight where I did not have an emergency. Although it was all simulated – I had no normal flights. I am longing for the day when I take off…