Recent content by dautio

I don't know why there seems to be an aversion to taking students into actual. When I got my instrument rating back in 1975 I had never been in the clouds. Looking back I think it was a disservice to me to have never been in actual. Now all of the instructors I fly with take advantage of every...

Our club has had a Sundowner for 10 years and over 2500 hours. We've trained many primary students in it with no issues what so ever. It's a nice stable plane if flown properly. The key to landings is to fly a stabilized approach and cross the fence at 70 Kts slowing to 65 or so as the energy...

I'll give it a try

I agree with the Club approach. Our Club has a $500 by in and dues are $45 a month. We have 5 planes ( Sundowner, Warrior, 172, Citabria and an Arrow) and 85 members. Our rates are all "WET" and are less then the local flight schools. Each plane is self supporting and if not they would be sold...

I had a gear malfunction last summer, there was NO discussion about landing in the grass. We landed safely on the hard surface and walked away unscathed. Once the gear malfunctioned all I was doing was delivering the plane to the insurance company anyway. In hindsight it really was a non-event...

Lets see, back in 1975. No DME, No Rnav, No flip flop radios, No headsets. Everything of of cross radials and bearings off of NDB's. It was a hot windy day winds about 25KTS at altitude. LOC/BC to a miss with a hold. Partial panel VOR to a miss. Various maneuvers steep turns ETC. Then an NDB to...

Once when I was a kid we were on a vacation in South Dakota. I was in the backseat of the car and started acting up. We were out in the middle of no where and my Dad had had enough of me. He pulled over to the side of the road climbed out and looked at me and said "GET OUT" I thought I was dead...

Hang in there, if it's Afib you can work through it. I've been doing that since November and with Dr. Bruce's guidance am now waiting for my medical to come in the mail. Lots of hoops to jump through but it's very doable especially with Dr. Bruce's help Dave

A group of my instructor friends and I sat down with our local DPE to hash this out about 3 weeks ago. We went spent 4 hours going through the ACS line by line to formulate a plan for what she would expect from us. Initially it looked very daunting but as we got further and further into it it...

The scenario we practice is a simulated total electrical failure. You still have your instruments. Just no way to communicate or navigate. It makes them think. If they happen to have a Stratus we let them use that for weather and have them divert accordingly. But some times even with that the...

All of the CFII's that I know have our students fly multiple Ipad only approaches during their training with excellent results. In an emergency the book goes out the window and you do what you have to do. You can talk about legality once you're safe on the ground. We usually do this on a...

I had a gear up in a Cutlass last August due to a landing gear actuator malfunction. The left main was just hanging there. After trying everything we could think of to get it down and locked. I told my student we're heading back to the airport for a gear up landing. Long story short, it was...

We grandfather current students and charge new students the increased rate. Grandfathered students are aware that any new training beyond the one we're working on will be at the higher rate. If we're working with another instructor doing normal things currency etc. we don't charge. If we're...

This summer I had a gear failure in our club's Cutlass the left main gear actuator failed so the gear was just hanging there. I contacted our tower and let them know what was going on. We did the flyby and confirmed the problem. We left the pattern and went north of the airport to work through...

I've got about 700 hours in a Sundowner. They have a bad reputation for porpoising on landing. This is almost always a result of carrying to much speed on touch down and trying to force it down. We've got over 2300 hours of training in our 82 Sundowner and have never had an issue with it...