So I’m about to head off to bed when I hear Matt come into the house. I open the door, still brushing my teeth and he says, “Come take a ride with me!” I’m like, alright…something is up. Knowing me, I’m always down for anything. It’s 2:17AM EDT! I hop into the truck, we drive north on Belle Terre and low and behold, there is an alligator in the middle of the road. Check it! Yeah it looks like I’m FOB in slippers and all. Hey, it even actaully looks like I’m in the Philippines! =) But no, I’m just in Florida! Believe it!

And my instrument approaches are looking pretty good. I did two GPS approaches and a VOR-A into x47. Good stuff. Tomorrow, we start partial panel as well as Precision Approaches. Should be fun.

I passed and so did Manoj. There were some maneuvers that were combined during the test that kind of caught me off guard, but I was still able to fly just as well. It was a nice checkride in that I got some night time in and a night landing. The best thing about the flight was that I flew with a damn great pilot. I mean, the confidence level and the way that he handled the plane, it was almost as if the plane was just another part of his body. Amazing aviator!

Tonight at 1830EDT, I will be in the Diamond Star DA-40 with Manoj (my flight partner) and a Mr. Mike Schrier showing him that I can fly under the hood safely. I think I also have to demonstrate a DME Arc or some sorts. That should be fun. I’ll post later on tonight on how it went. But tomorrow, if everything goes well, Manoj and I will be flying some instrument approaches all around Florida. Who knows, maybe this time we’ll hit up the Keys!

Having a bonfire at Cameron's house.

So, Manoj and I opted to fly two lessons each in the FRASCA simulator. It was long and arduous, but damn worth it just to stay with the schedule. The very first 20 minutes of my first flight went smooth with almost perfect (98%) 45 degree steep turns to the right and then to the left. After that, Partial Panel work came alive (I love two instruments, specifically, the heading indicator and the attitude indicator) and my sim session just went to…umm…hell? I don’t know what else to call it really. I had to take a step back and breathe, then correlate the interpret the instruments that were left working. I was heading westbound but then when the instruments failed, I turned around for some reason instead of maintaining my heading with the compass.

Finally, I got squared away and the instruments came back online, and I shot the VOR approach alpha into Gainesville (KGNV). I also did a 12 DME Arc which I have to say I was rather impressed with. Things went well. Got the simulator to work for me and trimmed that bad boy out. Of course, on the second lesson, which was just a continuation from the first, I saw the two instruments fail on me again. This time though, I was invincible! Bring it on!!! I wanted to keep going, it was sad.

Tonight, I’m just sitting here bored to death in Palm Coast, wanting to go out with some of my friends from back home. I miss everyone. Come visit guys!

So, doing a DME arc with an HSI is a little different than using an OBS. Being that it may, we have an HSI in the FRASCA simulator (and I’m familiar with one from the other DA-40 in San Diego) I thought that I could have it pegged down. I ended up turning 90 degrees the opposite direction and just messing up entirely. It has to be jotted down as one of my worse flights at CAPT. Then Jenn (my instructor) failed the HSI and the Attitude Indicator, and I was just all over the place for a bit.

Finally, I squared things up and got the aircraft simulator into straight and level flight. I did another DME arc and got it down, and just flew the plane with correct timing and compass turns pretty close enough. Tonight is going to be a fun night on MS Flight Simulator.

Can u see the rain? It is the misty stuff that is kind of dark “falling” from the cloud above! Crazy eh? Just popped out of no where really.