BenZwebner
Pre-takeoff checklist
I was asked to write about my PPL for the VATSIM Israel (www.vatil.org.il) monthly newsletter that they have. So I did and figured to share it with u guys as well.
My PPL
There I was, sitting in my seat, sweating from the heat of the early October sun beating down on the roof of the Cessna 172. Trying to figure out what could be going through the mind of the examiner to my right. She was sitting there, not sweating even a little bit. She hadn't said a word since we landed and her face didn’t give away any clues. I just sat there and thought about everything that I had been through that had brought me to that very moment.
A little more than two years earlier, August 20th of 2004 when I walked into a small building in Herzelia airport, Israel. I had a meeting with Osi, the manager of a flight school called "Avia". I was just out of the army and Osi told me that I can use my financial benifits from the army for flight training. I filled out all of the paperwork; got my medical and a four months later (because that’s how long it takes for a background check with Israeli security) I came in for my first lesson.
There is nothing like the feeling you get when you fly for the first time. You are rolling down the runway, the wheels bumping on the pavement and then, all of a sudden, the ride is smooth and you start to feel things. You can feel the forces of the climb in your seat, you can feel the plane sway in the wind and the way the yoke handles as you enter a turn. But the most amazing thing was the view. Once you fly you will never look at the world in the same way again. You see a world without boundaries and painted borders. You see a world where our differences become irrelevant because we are so small and insignificant when compared to the planet that we inhabit.
I started by flying twice a week and my instructor taught me everything from taking off to handling fires on the wing. He was a former army pilot and he loved G-forces. I remember how I almost lost my lunch during the first lessons of steep turns and how impressed I was that the aircraft can glide for so long after it loses an engine. After 14 hours my instructor and I were doing pattern work. We practiced a few short field take offs and landings. After the 5th landing he told me to clear the runway and taxi to the parking ramp. I was about to turn into the ramp when he stood on the brakes. He leaned over to me.
"How do you feel, Boy?" He always called me "Boy".
"Pretty good." I replied.
"Good, here is what you are going to do. I am getting off. I want you to taxi back and take off. Fly one pattern and then bring her back and shut her down right here." He had a huge grin on his face. I however had only one thing on my mind.
"Are you serious?"
He just smiled and closed the door. I sat there for a few moments to take it what he just said to me and then I taxied to the hold short line of runway 29 at Herzelia.
So many things rush through your mind. "Perform the checklists. Is there traffic on final? Did I forget anything? Does he really think that I am ready for this? Did I call the tower? What about that checklist? That’s right, I just did it…"
I took a deep breath and asked the tower for take off clearance. I then lined up on the runway and applied full throttle. The plane jumped forward and lifted into the sky. I screamed. Not the scream of a scared student pilot but the scream of pure enjoyment, the scream of a man who for the first time in his life felt a freedom which anyone who has soloed before can relate to. After the initial excitement I returned to the task at hand. Now that I was up there I needed to get myself back on the ground. I was reaching for my checklist when a funny thing happened. In my head I hear my Instructors voice.
"Carburetor Heat, Ten degrees flaps. Ok, turn to base. How does it look…"
Just as if he was sitting next to me. I landed the aircraft and cleared the runway.
As I parked the plane my instructor came up to me and congratulated me. He then gave me a swift kick in the butt with a huge smile on his face. I will never forget that day.
I did a few more flights at Avia until they declared bankruptcy and I was forced to find other places to fly. During my search for another school I turned my eyes towards the USA because I am a US citizen and I heard that the prices there were lower. I checked around and chose a school. I saved up enough money to complete my training and I bought a ticket to Washington DC.
About a year later in the summer I boarded a Lufthansa A340-600 and took off on my journey that led me through Frankfurt where I connected to a United Airlines 767-300ER (with personal video screens) and finally to my destination, Washington Dulles International. I waited in line, got my luggage and was met by two guys. One was in his twenties, Tal and the other, a little over 17, Yonatan. They told me that they were there to pick me up to take me to the dorms of the flight school. They started walking and of course I followed. Yonatan picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. Then I heard him say: "Yes, we need a pick up please at the arrivals terminal…"
To me that seemed a bit odd, but when we exited the terminal, there was a van there with the word "Signature" on the side. We got in and it drove us to the other side of the airport and I followed Tal and Yonatan into what looked like another terminal building, but this one was nicer. It looked like the lobby of a 5 star hotel, it had leather couches, complimentary coffee, a reception desk, free internet and the back wall was just windows facing out to the tarmac where there were a handful of private planes parked. Tal and Yonatan signaled for me to follow them and I found myself outside, carrying my suitcase between the lines of airplanes up to a red and white Cessna. We loaded my bags and I got in the back seat, after all, I was only a student pilot, and Tal and Yonatan taxied and flew me from Dulles, to the airport at which I did my training, Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg. I spent the evening unpacking in my room and meeting the many other people who also flew from Israel to Washington to learn to fly. The next morning I met my Instructor, Bat-el. Bat-el was a bit older than me, very sweet and tiny but she knew her stuff.
My first lesson was traffic patterns because that’s where I left off in Israel.
It was almost a year since I flew last but everything came back to me pretty quickly, just like riding a bicycle. I made a few hard landings but after that, it went pretty smooth. According to the FAA (or so I was told at the time) the 23 hours of flight instruction that I received in Israel could not be counted towards my PPL and I had to start the course from "scratch". Of course there was no point in covering the basics again so Bat-el and I just spent more time on fun stuff like cross countries.
All in all the training went by fairly routinely. There was nothing too remarkable about the course itself. Oh don’t get me wrong, it was very fun and challenging. I loved navigation, I always felt a little proud of myself that I actually managed to get to where I planned to go. On one cross country flight, we stopped at Frederick Municipal Airport where I could take my FAA written exam. I was very nervous about it because I felt, like most students do I believe, that I was much better at the practical than at the theory. I signed in and was walked into the room in the back where there were three little cubicles. I chose the middle cubicle (which would become my "Lucky Cubicle" where I would do all of my written exams in the future) and sat down. The administrator explained how to use the software and I started the exam. It felt like I was there for at least 2 hours but when I was finished with the 70 questions, and I reviewed them, I went to get the test graded and I noticed that only 45 minutes had passed since the beginning of the exam! I don’t remember the exact grade that I got, but I remember that it was in the low 90's.
On the 3rd of October 2006 I returned to Frederick, but this time it was for my Private Pilot Check ride. Once we landed I spent a good 20 minutes going over the airplane, making sure that the windshield was clean and that the interior was spic and span (lets face it, the plane was an old trainer who had seen better days). At 9:30AM the examiner, Annabelle, invited Bat-el and I into her office. She was (and still very much is) an older woman, short and a little plump but very pleasant. She carries herself as the woman she is. A woman whose whole life was spent in aviation education and her eyes are those of one who has seen it all many times over. She spoke with authority but in a way that made you feel comfortable to hold a conversation with her.
Her office was small, just big enough for a mostly empty bookcase on the back wall, a small computer and a wrap around desk. On the left of the desk there was a blue electronic typewriter, otherwise the desk was fairly empty besides for a telephone. The walls were sparsely decorated with a few pictures of a USAir A320 (later she would explain that her son was a captain with USAir), there were multiple awards and certificates and a joke instrument approach plate called the "Annabelle 1 Arrival". She welcomed us and asked to see my logbooks.
That’s how my check ride started, going over paperwork. We must have spent a good 30 minutes just going over my logbooks and my application form (87-10). She then asked Bat-el to leave and she turned to me and began the oral examination. First she just spoke with me, I assume she was getting to know me and then in the course of the conversation, she flawlessly transitioned into questions. She asked all that you would expect, she asked me about airspaces, cloud and visibility limitations in various airspaces and altitudes. I got caught a few times on some questions and she tried to help me to the answer. For the most part after a little thinking I managed to answer but even on the few questions that I was stumped on, she didn’t just move on. She stopped the questions and taught me the answer and explained it. The only question that I can remember to give you an example of is this:
"You are flying in class G airspace. You are doing NOTHING wrong. All of a sudden you see an F-16 off of your left wing and he is signaling you to land. What do you do?"
I answered that I do nothing because I am not doing anything wrong. Now I know it was a silly answer but then I thought she might be asking me a trick question. She cracked a smile and said:
"You do exactly as he wants you to. Don’t forget, he is the man with the gun."
We both laughed and she told me to go preflight the airplane, she would be out shortly.
I have done that preflight many times before during my course and it normally takes around 5 minutes but I must have spent a good 20 minutes going over every little nut, bolt and screw. I even held the door open for Annabelle as she climbed into the right seat. It was a hot day and I was wearing a black shirt, what a mistake, I was sweating like crazy and we didn’t even start the flight yet! I climbed in to the plane and strapped myself in. She explained what we were going to do and what I needed to do to pass. I took out my checklist, started the engine, taxied to the run-up area and did everything by the book. After take off we set out on the cross country navigation that I planned before the exam. She wanted to make sure that I could navigate properly. Once we reached the first waypoint she asked me to divert to another airport so I started making plans and pointed out to her that in order to divert I would have to fly through restricted airspace. She nodded and instructed me to climb. Once at altitude we did a few stalls and then we went into some steep turns and then slow flight. After that we did some unusual attitudes and a few other maneuvers that I can't quite remember (after all this was 3 years ago). After all that she instructed me to fly back towards the airport and to come over the field at 3,000'. Once over the airport she brought my engine to idle and I performed a simulated engine out to runway 23. I was high and I was considering going a little further out when she asked me to do a slip. I only practiced that once before but I gave it a shot. I think it went well because she looked a little impressed. On short final she told me to go around and enter the pattern. On the downwind she asked me to make a short field landing but as if it were a soft field too. It’s a weird request because on a short field landing you want to plant the plane on the runway and use as much braking you can to stop the plane, where as on a soft field landing, you want to make a feather light touch down and use the brakes as little as possible.
"How the heck am I supposed to pull this off? One landing contradicts the other!"
I set the plane up for a short field landing and I figured that I will touch down softly, but then apply brakes as if for short field. I turned to base, lowered 20 degrees of flap and I started to ask myself if I was high or low, I looked alright. I screwed up the turn for final; I made an excessive over turn. I wanted to make sure that she knew that I was aware of it, so I declared out loud "Ok, I over turned, so I will correct for it now."
She didn’t seem too happy about it.
The runway was getting closer. I had never practiced a "Short kind of Soft landing" before. I got to the point of flaring. I tried to flare as little as possible but to touch down and soft as possible. It didn’t work. I thudded into the ground, kind of like you're supposed to for a short field landing. So I turned it into a soft field landing by holding the nose up and not applying brakes. I was making it up as I went along and I cleared on the first taxiway to the right. I did the after landing checklist and then looked at Annabelle. She wasn’t smiling; in fact her face was totally neutral. She has a poker face that could rival the best in Vegas. In a very soft voice she asked me to taxi us back to our parking spot. I did. I kept replaying that last landing in my mind. Did I do it correctly? That over turn was horrible, well no use crying over that now.
I parked the plane, shut down the engine and waited.
So here I was, sitting in my seat, sweating from the heat of the early October sun beating down on the roof of the Cessna 172. Trying to figure out what could be going through the mind of the examiner to my right. She was sitting there, not sweating even a little bit. She hadn't said a word since we landed and her face didn’t give away any clues. Then she turned to me, gave a little smile and she shook my hand.
"Well done," She said. "You're a pilot"
And like that, with those 5 words, I felt the weight of 2 years of work and preparation lift off my shoulders. Since then I have continued my training. I got my Instrument rating in December of 2007, my Commercial License in March of 2008 and finally, my Flight Instructor License in September of 2008, but nothing really compared to the feeling I had after hearing those 5 simple words; "Well done, you're a pilot."
Authors Note:
There are so many people that need to be thanked who helped me along my way to my Private Pilot License but two stand out most of all. First and foremost I want to thank Tomer Zadok, my flight instructor from Herzelia in Israel. He taught me how to fly a plane and even today, when I teach my students I find myself incorporating the techniques that he used with me.
Second, Bat-el for emphasizing the safety of flight, teaching me to and insisting that I navigate without using a GPS (even though at the time I really wanted to) and for preparing me for the final exam as best as possible.
I have had many good instructors on my road to Flight Instructor but it's true what they say. You never forget your instructor from your Private Pilot Course. I have the privilege of having two such instructors who I still look to for guidance and advice even 3-4 years later.
My PPL
There I was, sitting in my seat, sweating from the heat of the early October sun beating down on the roof of the Cessna 172. Trying to figure out what could be going through the mind of the examiner to my right. She was sitting there, not sweating even a little bit. She hadn't said a word since we landed and her face didn’t give away any clues. I just sat there and thought about everything that I had been through that had brought me to that very moment.
A little more than two years earlier, August 20th of 2004 when I walked into a small building in Herzelia airport, Israel. I had a meeting with Osi, the manager of a flight school called "Avia". I was just out of the army and Osi told me that I can use my financial benifits from the army for flight training. I filled out all of the paperwork; got my medical and a four months later (because that’s how long it takes for a background check with Israeli security) I came in for my first lesson.
There is nothing like the feeling you get when you fly for the first time. You are rolling down the runway, the wheels bumping on the pavement and then, all of a sudden, the ride is smooth and you start to feel things. You can feel the forces of the climb in your seat, you can feel the plane sway in the wind and the way the yoke handles as you enter a turn. But the most amazing thing was the view. Once you fly you will never look at the world in the same way again. You see a world without boundaries and painted borders. You see a world where our differences become irrelevant because we are so small and insignificant when compared to the planet that we inhabit.
I started by flying twice a week and my instructor taught me everything from taking off to handling fires on the wing. He was a former army pilot and he loved G-forces. I remember how I almost lost my lunch during the first lessons of steep turns and how impressed I was that the aircraft can glide for so long after it loses an engine. After 14 hours my instructor and I were doing pattern work. We practiced a few short field take offs and landings. After the 5th landing he told me to clear the runway and taxi to the parking ramp. I was about to turn into the ramp when he stood on the brakes. He leaned over to me.
"How do you feel, Boy?" He always called me "Boy".
"Pretty good." I replied.
"Good, here is what you are going to do. I am getting off. I want you to taxi back and take off. Fly one pattern and then bring her back and shut her down right here." He had a huge grin on his face. I however had only one thing on my mind.
"Are you serious?"
He just smiled and closed the door. I sat there for a few moments to take it what he just said to me and then I taxied to the hold short line of runway 29 at Herzelia.
So many things rush through your mind. "Perform the checklists. Is there traffic on final? Did I forget anything? Does he really think that I am ready for this? Did I call the tower? What about that checklist? That’s right, I just did it…"
I took a deep breath and asked the tower for take off clearance. I then lined up on the runway and applied full throttle. The plane jumped forward and lifted into the sky. I screamed. Not the scream of a scared student pilot but the scream of pure enjoyment, the scream of a man who for the first time in his life felt a freedom which anyone who has soloed before can relate to. After the initial excitement I returned to the task at hand. Now that I was up there I needed to get myself back on the ground. I was reaching for my checklist when a funny thing happened. In my head I hear my Instructors voice.
"Carburetor Heat, Ten degrees flaps. Ok, turn to base. How does it look…"
Just as if he was sitting next to me. I landed the aircraft and cleared the runway.
As I parked the plane my instructor came up to me and congratulated me. He then gave me a swift kick in the butt with a huge smile on his face. I will never forget that day.
I did a few more flights at Avia until they declared bankruptcy and I was forced to find other places to fly. During my search for another school I turned my eyes towards the USA because I am a US citizen and I heard that the prices there were lower. I checked around and chose a school. I saved up enough money to complete my training and I bought a ticket to Washington DC.
About a year later in the summer I boarded a Lufthansa A340-600 and took off on my journey that led me through Frankfurt where I connected to a United Airlines 767-300ER (with personal video screens) and finally to my destination, Washington Dulles International. I waited in line, got my luggage and was met by two guys. One was in his twenties, Tal and the other, a little over 17, Yonatan. They told me that they were there to pick me up to take me to the dorms of the flight school. They started walking and of course I followed. Yonatan picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. Then I heard him say: "Yes, we need a pick up please at the arrivals terminal…"
To me that seemed a bit odd, but when we exited the terminal, there was a van there with the word "Signature" on the side. We got in and it drove us to the other side of the airport and I followed Tal and Yonatan into what looked like another terminal building, but this one was nicer. It looked like the lobby of a 5 star hotel, it had leather couches, complimentary coffee, a reception desk, free internet and the back wall was just windows facing out to the tarmac where there were a handful of private planes parked. Tal and Yonatan signaled for me to follow them and I found myself outside, carrying my suitcase between the lines of airplanes up to a red and white Cessna. We loaded my bags and I got in the back seat, after all, I was only a student pilot, and Tal and Yonatan taxied and flew me from Dulles, to the airport at which I did my training, Montgomery County Airpark in Gaithersburg. I spent the evening unpacking in my room and meeting the many other people who also flew from Israel to Washington to learn to fly. The next morning I met my Instructor, Bat-el. Bat-el was a bit older than me, very sweet and tiny but she knew her stuff.
My first lesson was traffic patterns because that’s where I left off in Israel.
It was almost a year since I flew last but everything came back to me pretty quickly, just like riding a bicycle. I made a few hard landings but after that, it went pretty smooth. According to the FAA (or so I was told at the time) the 23 hours of flight instruction that I received in Israel could not be counted towards my PPL and I had to start the course from "scratch". Of course there was no point in covering the basics again so Bat-el and I just spent more time on fun stuff like cross countries.
All in all the training went by fairly routinely. There was nothing too remarkable about the course itself. Oh don’t get me wrong, it was very fun and challenging. I loved navigation, I always felt a little proud of myself that I actually managed to get to where I planned to go. On one cross country flight, we stopped at Frederick Municipal Airport where I could take my FAA written exam. I was very nervous about it because I felt, like most students do I believe, that I was much better at the practical than at the theory. I signed in and was walked into the room in the back where there were three little cubicles. I chose the middle cubicle (which would become my "Lucky Cubicle" where I would do all of my written exams in the future) and sat down. The administrator explained how to use the software and I started the exam. It felt like I was there for at least 2 hours but when I was finished with the 70 questions, and I reviewed them, I went to get the test graded and I noticed that only 45 minutes had passed since the beginning of the exam! I don’t remember the exact grade that I got, but I remember that it was in the low 90's.
On the 3rd of October 2006 I returned to Frederick, but this time it was for my Private Pilot Check ride. Once we landed I spent a good 20 minutes going over the airplane, making sure that the windshield was clean and that the interior was spic and span (lets face it, the plane was an old trainer who had seen better days). At 9:30AM the examiner, Annabelle, invited Bat-el and I into her office. She was (and still very much is) an older woman, short and a little plump but very pleasant. She carries herself as the woman she is. A woman whose whole life was spent in aviation education and her eyes are those of one who has seen it all many times over. She spoke with authority but in a way that made you feel comfortable to hold a conversation with her.
Her office was small, just big enough for a mostly empty bookcase on the back wall, a small computer and a wrap around desk. On the left of the desk there was a blue electronic typewriter, otherwise the desk was fairly empty besides for a telephone. The walls were sparsely decorated with a few pictures of a USAir A320 (later she would explain that her son was a captain with USAir), there were multiple awards and certificates and a joke instrument approach plate called the "Annabelle 1 Arrival". She welcomed us and asked to see my logbooks.
That’s how my check ride started, going over paperwork. We must have spent a good 30 minutes just going over my logbooks and my application form (87-10). She then asked Bat-el to leave and she turned to me and began the oral examination. First she just spoke with me, I assume she was getting to know me and then in the course of the conversation, she flawlessly transitioned into questions. She asked all that you would expect, she asked me about airspaces, cloud and visibility limitations in various airspaces and altitudes. I got caught a few times on some questions and she tried to help me to the answer. For the most part after a little thinking I managed to answer but even on the few questions that I was stumped on, she didn’t just move on. She stopped the questions and taught me the answer and explained it. The only question that I can remember to give you an example of is this:
"You are flying in class G airspace. You are doing NOTHING wrong. All of a sudden you see an F-16 off of your left wing and he is signaling you to land. What do you do?"
I answered that I do nothing because I am not doing anything wrong. Now I know it was a silly answer but then I thought she might be asking me a trick question. She cracked a smile and said:
"You do exactly as he wants you to. Don’t forget, he is the man with the gun."
We both laughed and she told me to go preflight the airplane, she would be out shortly.
I have done that preflight many times before during my course and it normally takes around 5 minutes but I must have spent a good 20 minutes going over every little nut, bolt and screw. I even held the door open for Annabelle as she climbed into the right seat. It was a hot day and I was wearing a black shirt, what a mistake, I was sweating like crazy and we didn’t even start the flight yet! I climbed in to the plane and strapped myself in. She explained what we were going to do and what I needed to do to pass. I took out my checklist, started the engine, taxied to the run-up area and did everything by the book. After take off we set out on the cross country navigation that I planned before the exam. She wanted to make sure that I could navigate properly. Once we reached the first waypoint she asked me to divert to another airport so I started making plans and pointed out to her that in order to divert I would have to fly through restricted airspace. She nodded and instructed me to climb. Once at altitude we did a few stalls and then we went into some steep turns and then slow flight. After that we did some unusual attitudes and a few other maneuvers that I can't quite remember (after all this was 3 years ago). After all that she instructed me to fly back towards the airport and to come over the field at 3,000'. Once over the airport she brought my engine to idle and I performed a simulated engine out to runway 23. I was high and I was considering going a little further out when she asked me to do a slip. I only practiced that once before but I gave it a shot. I think it went well because she looked a little impressed. On short final she told me to go around and enter the pattern. On the downwind she asked me to make a short field landing but as if it were a soft field too. It’s a weird request because on a short field landing you want to plant the plane on the runway and use as much braking you can to stop the plane, where as on a soft field landing, you want to make a feather light touch down and use the brakes as little as possible.
"How the heck am I supposed to pull this off? One landing contradicts the other!"
I set the plane up for a short field landing and I figured that I will touch down softly, but then apply brakes as if for short field. I turned to base, lowered 20 degrees of flap and I started to ask myself if I was high or low, I looked alright. I screwed up the turn for final; I made an excessive over turn. I wanted to make sure that she knew that I was aware of it, so I declared out loud "Ok, I over turned, so I will correct for it now."
She didn’t seem too happy about it.
The runway was getting closer. I had never practiced a "Short kind of Soft landing" before. I got to the point of flaring. I tried to flare as little as possible but to touch down and soft as possible. It didn’t work. I thudded into the ground, kind of like you're supposed to for a short field landing. So I turned it into a soft field landing by holding the nose up and not applying brakes. I was making it up as I went along and I cleared on the first taxiway to the right. I did the after landing checklist and then looked at Annabelle. She wasn’t smiling; in fact her face was totally neutral. She has a poker face that could rival the best in Vegas. In a very soft voice she asked me to taxi us back to our parking spot. I did. I kept replaying that last landing in my mind. Did I do it correctly? That over turn was horrible, well no use crying over that now.
I parked the plane, shut down the engine and waited.
So here I was, sitting in my seat, sweating from the heat of the early October sun beating down on the roof of the Cessna 172. Trying to figure out what could be going through the mind of the examiner to my right. She was sitting there, not sweating even a little bit. She hadn't said a word since we landed and her face didn’t give away any clues. Then she turned to me, gave a little smile and she shook my hand.
"Well done," She said. "You're a pilot"
And like that, with those 5 words, I felt the weight of 2 years of work and preparation lift off my shoulders. Since then I have continued my training. I got my Instrument rating in December of 2007, my Commercial License in March of 2008 and finally, my Flight Instructor License in September of 2008, but nothing really compared to the feeling I had after hearing those 5 simple words; "Well done, you're a pilot."
Authors Note:
There are so many people that need to be thanked who helped me along my way to my Private Pilot License but two stand out most of all. First and foremost I want to thank Tomer Zadok, my flight instructor from Herzelia in Israel. He taught me how to fly a plane and even today, when I teach my students I find myself incorporating the techniques that he used with me.
Second, Bat-el for emphasizing the safety of flight, teaching me to and insisting that I navigate without using a GPS (even though at the time I really wanted to) and for preparing me for the final exam as best as possible.
I have had many good instructors on my road to Flight Instructor but it's true what they say. You never forget your instructor from your Private Pilot Course. I have the privilege of having two such instructors who I still look to for guidance and advice even 3-4 years later.
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