• A Chronicle on Learning to Fly, by Aviation Photographer Max Haynes • Sponsored by Full Motion Flight Training and Twin Cities Aviation •
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• 1 - And So Begins A Journey
• 2 - First Things First
• 3 - I'm 'Fliming!'
• 4 - In The Air Junior Birdman!
• 5 - From The Ground School Up
• 6 - The Hang Of It
14th
Day of Training
- Current Anxiety Gauge Reading -
"We notice those things that matter to us: the same goes for the dumb student flier-- show him what the signs are and why they are important, and he won't be so dumb. And that is all the so-called 'flying instinct' consists of: small clues, understood correctly and reacted to automatically."
Wolfgang Langewiesche
Stick and Rudder
1. Review all of the instruction books and prioritize. Separate the wheat from the rice, barley, oats, corn and all of the other information that isn't specifically germaine to the task at hand.
If you have a comment about my quest, or a memory of learning to fly, send it in via email. I may post it here, subject to editing.

• Max, You might need a photographer to document your new adventure and I am volunteering to trade places for a while. You fly and I will shoot pictures- uh, from the
ground.  Scott’s ground-to-air adventure series with riveting stories documenting Max Haynes as the star pilot!
 
I recently started the Always Current IMC flying program with the Chief pilot Will Outlaw at FMFT and it was an absolute pleasure to work with an enthusiastic instructor who is meticulously detailed in all training aspects. FMFT offered additional custom training for me to take advantage of dual pilot CRM with the full glass cockpit exactly the same as our business Cirrus. Coincidently, Cirrus N368CD pictured on your FLOG is our company plane and this is the first SR22 with full glass I logged time in. The FMFT Avidyne/Garmin full glass cockpit flight simulator can create faults & failures encountered during an air emergency providing opportunities to practice responding to various scenarios. It is extremely helpful to encounter emergencies in the simulator and responding to the problem in the training environment instead of having to work through the emergency for the first time with a real failure in the air.
  Best Regards,
- Scott Romuld

• I was delighted to hear that you were learning to fly! I hope all is going well and that it is as much fun as it should be. Now you’ll be like me: Photography and flying.
- Richard S. Fields

• For my training, I planned on spending a year, because in the little East Texas town where we were living they had only two working CFI's. My first one, was exactly 1/2 my age when we started and when he got a fulltime job flying right-seat in a Beech Starship (I actually got to sit in it and take a few photos!), my lessons became so infrequent as to virtually stopping.  I was lucky that my next CFI, a guy who'd retired from both the USAF and the airlines, taught me for a while.  He hadn't had a primary flight student for years (he was busy running his aircraft repair shop at his private airport), but because I'd taken such good care of his folks (as their Pharmacist), that he "came out of retirement" to instruct me until a surprise job came along for him...too long of a story to tell you to stick with your schedule to finish this summer. 
Good luck!
- Tom Griffith

• I, on the other hand, did have to worry about cows when I was learning on a grass field owned by a farmer/pilot south of Waterloo. “Just make sure you get off the ground before you go over the hill”, I was told on my first solo takeoff. I remember my first landing on the concrete at the Waterloo airport – I just about panicked when I heard the screech of the tires. “What the hell was that?”, I said to my instructor. “The runway”, he said.
Have fun and don’t forget about that gravity thing, it still applies.
- David Haynes

• Nice landing ( FMFT simulator)!
Good to see you get this off the ground. Great photo temperatures and angles, its really poppin!
 Best,
- Charlie Duda

• Ha, yesterday I also have my annual medical here in China, which is very scary they are very though here about the medical and they ground pilots very fast for almost anything and groound means like 3 months without flyiing with no salary.....so you really shake when you are doing the medical here until you get the doctors signature!!! the only big old bird I flew besides pipers is the Steerman a beautifull airplane to fly and very easy you will love to fly it when you get your licence! the rudder pedals are so apart that must be what girls feel on their medical checks jajaja....fly safe,
- Capt. Leo Corea Luna

• I firmly believe that you will make a great sky driver.  You've been exposed to the experience for quite some time now, and it's your turn as PIC.
- Mike West

• Hi Max, great photos and captions as always! Congratulations on learning to fly in a Cirrus! 
- Gary Black
Jet Sales Director
Cirrus Aircraft

• Blue skies back at ya Max! This (blog) looks like it will be loads of fun for all of us.
On a different note, I spent last weekend giving Tango etiquette lessons.........
My guess is You'll be flying before she'll be bowing!
- David Lyles

• Don't forget to say "Here we go!" when pushing the throttle forward for take off -  It adds to the fun.
- Dean Lindberg

More comments below--
• Home
• 1 - And So Begins A Journey
Entry #2 January 14th, 2010 • First Things First
Flight Sturgeon--
In order to go through pilot training, you need to be checked out by an Aviation Medical Examiner. They make sure your ticker is working, your eyes can see and you aren't doing drugs.
Update: Dr. Schmidt is now flying and fishing full-time. Good for him!
I chose Dr. William Schmidt. He's a long, long, long time pilot and fisherman who happens to be a doctor in his spare time. His office is part of his hangar. It reminds me of what Doctors' offices looked like when I was a kid. He's seen a lot of pilots come and go. His advice-- don't over-estimate your skill level.
This week's fortune cookie. Hmm...you can "make a name for yourself" in good ways and bad ways. Note to self-- remember the Doctor's orders.
Simulated Success-- I had my first experience in FMFT's simulator. It was cool! It wasn't a lesson, really; more like-- let's take this baby for a spin and see what she can do!
The simulator is in every way like a Cirrus cockpit, except for the scrambling-up-on-the-wing-to-get-in part. At first glance, all of the dials and gauges, buttons, levers, doohickys and thingamajigs are pretty dazzling. I'm going to enjoy using the simulator to get myself familiar with all this stuff. You can pre-occupy yourself with learning something in the simulator, without worrying about telephone poles
and cows and other stuff that shouldn't be in your field of view. On my first try, I flew around with the flaps still down...oops. But when it came time to land-- even though I landed nose-wheel first, and porpoised a bit, I got her under control and landed safely! Chris said it was only the 2nd time he had seen a non-pilot do it. Huzzah!
What God Meant--
(Don't worry, this isn't a theological discussion.) There's that old saying, "If God had meant for us to fly, he would have given us wings." And, as I embark on this idea of being a pilot, I do have a small voice inside that says, "Heavy things floating in air? The Gods must be crazy!"
Yes, I know intellectually, how an airplane creates lift, and that air has mass, and all that. But, it still seems like magic. I think the Wright boys would probably share my sense, if they could see what we have flying through the air these days.
The Pilot Dream - Update--
I expressed to John Sinclair my fondest pilot dream-- to fly a Stearman. Here was his response--
"When it is time to slay the tail dragon, let me know. I would be happy to bring you over to the dark side. All kidding aside, it would be a lot of fun to get you up to speed in an airplane with the little wheel in back." And then in a later email-- We will have to talk to John Bormes when the time comes. I'm sure he would let us use his Stearman to get you checked out. Maybe a little Champ work beforehand, and you will be all set. At that point you will have the airmanship to tackle a T-6 and then any Warbird you can get your hands on. It's a fun progression." All I could do was chuckle at the thought of flying a T-6.
Not because it's so preposterous. I am blessed to know many T-6 pilots who might give me the chance, someday, after years of experience, to fly their planes. I laughed, because it's such a glorious idea to dream about.
Back On The Ground--
Instructor Chris Dunn and I have gone over the basic outline of what we will be doing for my training. One thing I know about pilots, (I thought at first it was just a military thing), they love acronyms. They have acronyms for everything! He gave me a TCO and a PTS for Airplane (SEL,MEL,SES,MES) that the FAA puts out. I'll need a FAR/AIM 2010 Book as well as a PHAK to go with my VFR plotter. Hey, I am NOT making this up! Here is the required reading--
Okay, I am making this part up. But, the books on learning to fly could easily take up this much shelf space, I'm convinced of this. This is why the Anxiety Gauge is flopping from "Huh" to Yikes!"-- I am starting to learn how much I don't know.

This is going to be like going back to college, except without the co-eds. I will have to take tests; lots of them! My brain will have to get off its duff, and start lifting the ol' mental barbells.
The Son Also Rises--
My son Riley is also very interested in learning how to fly. We enlisted Riley and his sweetie, Remi, to pose for a Valentine's Day promotion for FMFT. Now, not only does Riley have time flying a Cessna 172, a Howard DGA-15, an Air Van, an AT-6 and a Piaggio 136 Royal Gull, he now has more time in the simulator than I do! I best not falter in getting my license or he may get his first. Remi and Riley had a great time flying the sim and Riley even got to land on a carrier, (with a bit of help).
In addition to his skills as a flight instructor, Chris Dunn manages the day-to-day operations at FMFT, and he can operate the sim. Here, he shows the younguns what they need to do to fly the sim. It's not a toy, and all the procedures of the actual aircraft have to be adherred to.

Chris is so deeply involved in aviation, that the icon in his car's Garmin is an airplane, not an automobile.
Eyes On The Prize--
While we were finishing up the sim shoot, FMFT's president, Tim Barzen, stopped in with a couple of cronies. I photographed Tim's Cirrus SR22, as it sat outside the beautiful terminal building of Key Air. The sim is great, but this is the real deal. I can't wait to head across the ramp to Twin Cities Aviation and start flying!
• Hello Max -
 I'm sure your instructor Chris has mentioned to you that the entire FAA private pilot "course" is contained in two books published by the FAA & ASA, and they are:
 
FAA H-8083-25a  Fundamentals of Aviation. The entire FAA written test question bank is derived from this book.
www.faa.gov/.../pilot_handbook/.../PHAK%20-%20Cover-Preface.pdf
 
FAA H-8083-3a  Airplane Flying Handbook. Every element of the FAA's flying syllabus comes from here. 
www.faa.gov/library/.../airplane_handbook/.../faa-h-8083-3a-1of7.pdf  
 
I'm sure Chris has his own syllabus, so I'm not trying to barge in on that, but you might want to reference these two books in your blog as they are the foundation blocks of the private pilot rating as far as the FAA is concerned.
 
I'd recommend have them in my library and your son should have them too. They can be printed from the FAA web sight at the links listed above, but you'll burn through $100 of ink cartridges per book. Sporty's has them, Amazon, the FAA and maybe they are even available at your airport's local pilot shop too.
 
The pictures of the Cirrus look great - typical winter sky to go with it. Looks bone chilling cold. Makes preflighting go a little faster than in July I'm sure !
 
Keep up the good work and have fun.
All the best
- Dave Fogerty, CFI
• One comment - don't be afraid to turn it into a, what did you call it, a "theological discussion"? Anyone who asks me about the scariest thing that ever happened to me in an airplane with me and ONLY me inside to make a successful or unsuccesful landing, will hear at the end of my story, when I FINALLY got the Cessna 150 down in one piece, with nothing broken, and to a full stop on the runway, that I paused for a second, before doing a 180 and back-taxiing, and  I said "thank you Jesus!".  Now one can be of some other religious persuasion, so Jesus' name wouldn't come into the phrase with everyone, but you know what I mean.

It's ironic that an act of God - a weather-front passing through that involved downdrafts, and the resulting windshear, with the wind changing 90, then 180, then who knows HOW many degrees of direction while I was in the pattern trying to land on one of my very first solo flights - resulted in my thanking Him to be alive at the end.   I mean HE threw it at me didn't he?  I think that it was a test to see if I could handle a potential disaster.
...just some stuff off the top of my mind!
Anyway, friend, keep this thing going.  Also, when you DO get into the cockpit and are landing for the first time that the CFI has his/her hands in his/her lap and his/her feet on the floor, REMEMBER TO BREATHE!   And, don't grip the stick like you're trying to leave your handprints in it for all to see later!  I've been there a time or two or a hundred myself!
- Tom Griffith

• Thanks for the update..... I can imagine the butterflies you must feel being the center of attention.
 Third class medical procedures: "OK, turn your head and cough"... "Cover BOTH eyes and read the 6th line down from the top..." and then he gingerly raps on your funny bone with that little rubber tomahawk shapped hammer of his....
Blood draw? 1/2 pint coming up, steamy warm, too!!! Piss in the cup? But I 'went' before coming over here...!!
So you did kinda OK in the simulator. Good to go!
I bet you'll be in a P-51 in less than 2 years... In the front, that is.....
 Bests,
 - Don 'Fragmentum' Smith
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