High-Performance Airplane Endorsement

Part One

Flight 1: Sun, Jan 19, 1997. (1 hr today)

I'm currently a little over halfway through my instrument training. I have no experience in high-performance or multi-engine airplanes, except for a few minutes in a Piper Seneca.

I'm doing the training at St. Pete/Clearwater Int'l Airport (PIE), because the planes I'll be using are about one-third cheaper there. Today I got an intro to the Piper Arrow, which has retractable landing gear and a constant-speed propeller. We did a few touch & goes, and then flew out over the Gulf for some steep turns, slow flight, and stalls. The Arrow is essentially a Warrior on steroids and flies like it. The lesson went pretty well for the first one. The main problem I had was flaring too high since the view from the cockpit is different than I'm used to.

Sat, Feb 1.

I took my commercial written today; I got a 94. The test is mostly a rehash of the private and instrument exams, with some added sections covering Federal Aviation Regulations and advanced systems. (It seemed like a fourth of the hundred questions were FAR-related.) Almost all of the questions were the type that doesn't require calculations, so the test only took me about 45 minutes although it has more questions than the other tests. Note: I had intended to get my commercial rating, but later dropped that idea.

Flight 2: Sat, Feb 8. (.4 / 1.4)

The Arrow was out of service for a while, or we would have done a couple more lessons by now. Today we were just going to do touch and goes, but were denied due to traffic. We headed for the nearby Clearwater Airpark (CLW) to do them. The ceiling was lower than advertised (where are those clouds when I'm doing instrument training?). If I had more time in the airplane, we could have done some instrument approaches. We ended up heading back after just one landing.

For now, the second number in the header is my total high-performance time to date.

Flight 3: Sat-Sun, Feb 15-16. (5.5 / 6.9)

This weekend we took the Arrow to Key West (EYW). At first it looked like we might not be able to go, but after a delay, we left Clearwater into clouds at about 1000 feet. My only other flight in clouds was the last Key West trip a few months ago, so I was happy how well I did. My IFR training must have paid off, because being in the clouds didn't bother me like it did before. (It didn't hurt that the Arrow provides a smoother ride than my 172, so I wasn't fighting rough air.) With four of us, we couldn't carry enough fuel to go nonstop with a reserve, so we stopped at Fort Myers (RSW) on the way down. We got about half an hour of IMC on that leg, then it was clear most of the way to Key West.

For some reason we were told to descend to 1500 feet while still 40 miles away, over open water. We hit more clouds with a few miles to go, then were cleared for a visual approach while still in IMC. (The weather was allegedly "clear below 12,000", but the big, white, puffy thing we were in looked like a cloud to me. We were not asked if we had the airport in sight before being cleared. Interesting.) We broke out a bit close to the Naval Air Station and weaved our way back to Key West.

The weather was nice in Key West. Sunday afternoon it started worsening, so we left earlier than planned. It looked fairly clear on the ground, but we hit clouds by 1000 feet and were in IMC all the way to our fuel stop at Naples (APF). There I experienced my first approach in IMC, when we broke out below 800 feet, a couple hundred above the minimum. (I can't take any credit for the approach; it wasn't the time for me to attempt an IMC approach with a full airplane. A missed approach would have been tricky; we could only climb at about 400 feet/minute.)

To make it more interesting, during the descent, we lost radio contact with Approach. We could hear them try to call us, but couldn't make out much more than our call sign. We must have been at an altitude or distance that made for poor radio signals, because it didn't seem like they could hear us at all. At one point they told everyone else on the frequency to be quiet. We were just about to squawk 7600 when the airport came into view and we were able to contact the tower. It was almost time for a change of underwear by then.

Naples was a poor choice for a fuel stop, since they seem to be going for the Slowest Service award. I noticed this when I stopped there a year ago as a student, when it took over an hour to get fueled, but hoped that was a fluke. If you arrive by jet, they'll be right out, but we piston airplane pilots might as well rot. I counted three jets that arrived after we ordered fuel that were serviced before us. With the airport close to minimums and getting worse, and darkness approaching, we didn't appreciate it. Fort Myers is a busy airport, but they've always refueled us quickly. I guess Naples doesn't want the business.

We took off into clouds again, and I got my first night IMC. Total IMC for the weekend was 1.5 hours. The trip was intended to get some hours in the Arrow, but it ended up being the best IFR experience I've had. (I had planned to get more than 1.4 hours in the Arrow before the trip, but the schedule didn't cooperate.)

Glossary