Learning to Fly

PFC's SMA 182 on AvWeb!

Back in late December, I had the distinct pleasure of flying with Paul Bertorelli of AvWeb/Aviation Consumer in Paramus Flying Club's Jet-A Diesel C182-SMA.  He had come in to do a story on the club's experience with this new technology.  The morning was predictably brisk, though the skies were crystal clear, and the air was calm.

The result of this flight is on the AvWeb page.

[Update: The companion article is now in the February issue of Aviation Consumer.  Subscription required for full article.]

Qualified on the C182RG

After a few weeks of fairly consistent flying---twice a week---am finally qualified to fly PFC's C182RG. Now I can get back to the task of finishing up my commercial training.

But would love to go poke holes in the sky for pleasure at some point.  Perhaps the weather will cooperate next week.  Need to do some night flying, too.  That and remaining current on instrument flying.

Lots to do. So little time.

Incidentally, hit 25 hours total time as of today.  Another 100 hours to go before I get through the "killing zone"---some how, though, it seems like it will take much more than that before I start feeling really confident.

Cessna 182RG

Haven't flown in nearly a month.  Decide to get trained on the one remaining Paramus Flying Club aircraft, a Cessna 182RG (retractable gear).

I've actually been weighing my various options.  The commercial pilot certificate requires that part of the checkride be done in a complex, retractable gear aircraft.  Unfortunately, the plane I was training on---the school's 172RG Cutlass---is no longer available. In fact I was just a few sessions away from being ready for the checkride, so that was a considerable setback. There aren't a whole lot of retractable single engine aircraft around anymore---most aircraft manufacturers have found that given advances in aerodynamics, pulling up the gears gains you little in terms of performance, but adds quite a bit in terms of pilot training and insurance.  The school managed to get access to a Piper Arrow, but that won't come on line for a while, and having flown nothing but Cessnas, I'm not wild about having to spend a lot of (expensive) time getting comfortable with an all new aircraft. Some of the area schools have Cutlasses, but that would require getting checked out, and possibly establishing a working relationship with another instructor. So, I decided that getting checked out on the 182RG was the logical thing to do---I could use it for the commercial checkride, and then have access to the 182RG for use later would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Unfortunately, I discovered that the 182RG is a very different plane from the 172RG.  The controls feel much heavier.  Everything is slightly larger.  The view out the windshield is a bit different. It's much faster, too, topping out at 160 knots cruise.  But I have to go through 10 hours of training to satisfy the club's insurance requirements, so I have plenty of time to get used to the plane.

N4468N: SMA Diesel C182Q

For the most part the Paramus Flying Club flies run of the mill Cessnas---two 172s and one 182RG.  The one unique plane in their hangar is an SMA "aero-diesel" (compression ignition) converted Cessna 182Q. "Diesel" pistons are more common in Europe, but are quite rare in North America, where 100LL fuel prices are much more reasonable.  But there are probably only a handful flying the skies over the U.S. and the club has one of them.  In order to get the most out of my club membership, and to try flying something other than an 172, I decide to get trained on the SMA C182.

Along with the "diesel" conversion comes the FADEC (full authority digital engine control). All modern cars have their engines controlled by a computer.  Not so most piston engine aircraft.  This isn't particularly surprising when you consider that plenty of aircraft still flying use carbureted engines.  (I think carburetors went out of fashion in cars thirty ears ago.)  And even the newer fuel-injected variety are purely mechanical affairs---requiring you to manually adjust the fuel-air mixture.  I suppose this is a time-tested robust system, but given the efficiencies gained by the auto industry through digital control of their engines, it was just a matter of time.

 

So the diesel 182Q has a simple single-lever operation.  No mixture control, no prop-pitch control.  Just set the power and go simplicity.  But it's amazing how much you get used to one way of doing things, so much so that newer "better" ways of doing things seem just down right weird.

My first inclination that this was a different beast was at engine start.  No priming, no fiddling with the throttle or mixture involved, no aux fuel pump, no endless cranking or sputtering.  Just set the power lever to idle, and turn the key---starts up with car-like simplicity.  Weird! At first the engine sounds a tad rough.  I have the urge to advance the throttle a bit to even things out, when Stanley the instructor says "just leave it alone, it will even out".  In a matter of a second or so, the FADEC does its thing and the engine is running smooth as silk.

And the diesel plane sounds distinctly different.  Reminds me of those big diesel Mercedes sedans, and a little quieter than what I would have expected from a C182.

Flying the thing is eerily simple. Taxi to the runway, advance the throttle to full, and rotate at the usual 55 knots or so.  Once airborne, reduce the throttle to 65 inches of manifold pressure.  That's it.  It was so simple that for the entire flight, I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting something.  I kept looking around the gauges and cockpit trying to figure out what I was missing.  At some point, Stanley tells me to just relax.  I haven't forgotten anything.  I don't have to lean, or adjust the prop, or the power.  I could fly this thing full throttle if I wanted to and it wouldn't hurt a thing.  Just set the power and let the FADEC take care of everything else.

Once out in the practice area, the C182 handles like you would expect a Cessna to.  Completely well mannered in flight, utterly predictable.  But each maneuver is a tad easier given the single lever throttle.  I suspect that this small reduction in work load would be pretty useful when shooting approaches to minimums in IMC.

But with a computer controlled engine, what happens when the electrical system dies?  Say what you will about traditional mag driven engines, but once you get the engine running the engine continues to run independent of the electrical system.  In a FADEC plane, once the electrical system dies, the FADEC goes down with it.  But that's the beauty of mating a FADEC to a "diesel" engine---ignition is not dependent on spark.  So the SMA has a backup "mechanical" mode that keeps the engine running even in the event of a FADEC failure.  Neat.

The other cool thing about this plane is its range.  With 88 gallon tanks, C182s have long legs to begin with, but with a diesel engine consuming just 9.5 gal/hour at full power, 88 gallons represents nearly 10 hours of endurance or something like a 1200NM range with IFR reserves.  Dial the power back to cruise, and you are burning 7 gal/hour.  This incredible endurance gives you all sorts of loading options trading some endurance for payload.  And all the while the FADEC is managing the fuel flow, so all you have to do is set the throttle to the target manifold pressure and just go.

This is a pretty neat airplane.  I can get used to flying like this.

Paramus Flying Club

Thanks to Malcolm Gladwell, the meme that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to become an expert at anything is popping up all over the place. Suppose, it takes just 1/10th that to become “fluent” at something---to be able to execute a task with a high level of competence with consistency---and we are still talking about 1,000 hours. The last two years, I averaged about 100 hours a year---and that’s with intensive training as I worked towards the private certificate and instrument rating. I suspect that my hours would be significantly less once the training objective is done. But even at 100 hours a year, that means it would take 10 years of consistent flying to achieve something like “fluency,” and a mind bending 100 years to achieve expert level skills. Clearly, I am just going to have to accept the fact that I’m going to be a pretty mediocre pilot for a while.

I suppose that the best thing one could do, short of actual practice, is to try to learn from the experience and expertise of other pilots. I’ve found that I learn a great deal from even relatively short encounters with highly accomplished pilots---whether it’s with the chief instructor at the school who did the stage checks, or the woman who did both my private and instrument check rides. So, getting to know a broad group of pilots with varying levels of experience and objectives would be useful. (And I suspect that others can learn from even low time pilots like myself, if only from our mistakes...)

On the practice end of things, one thing that stands in the way is the ever present budget constraint. Flying is never cheap, and particularly not when you are contributing to the bottom line of a flight school. In addition, renting from flight schools come with its hassles---primary among them is lack of availability, especially for long trips. After all, flight schools make their money by flying their planes as much as they can with instructors on board, not renting them out to former students for a weekend trip. This reduces the utility of having a pilot’s license in the first place, and reduces the number of hours I might ultimately fly in a year.

So, for both these reasons---enlarging the network of pilots I have access to, and having access to less expensive planes with greater scheduling flexibility---I decided to apply for membership to the Paramus Flying Club.

Among other things, membership requires a check ride with the Club’s chief instructor. The club flies an odd assortment of planes---two Cessna 172Ns (with carbuerated engines), an Cessna 182RG, and an Cessna 182 with a Jet-A powered diesel engine. The check ride was in the C172s, so first order of business was to schedule a refresher with Tom (the CFI). I hadn’t flown a carbuerated 172 in over 18 months, so there was a lot I had forgotten---including how to start the engine!

The check ride itself was very similar to the Private Pilot check ride, so nothing too problematic there. The flight originated out of Liden (KLDJ)---just a few miles south of the busy Newark International Airport. The “conga line” into Newark passes almost directly over head, and the pattern altitude is just 800 feet, with the restricted Class-B airspace starting at 801 feet. It was an airport that I had stayed well clear of over the last two years, mostly because of the fairly complex surrounding airspace, and my nervousness about busting the Class-B. Today’s check ride eased some of that anxiety.

We took off from Linden, headed west to do some maneuvers (the usual slow flight, stalls, steep turns, etc.), then to Caldwell for a few touch-and-gos. On the return flight, we crossed through Newark’s airspace, talking to Newark Tower. Perhaps because it was early Saturday AM, the tower did not seem too busy. (The instructor, Phil, assured me that the folks in the Newark tower were always professional and helpful, no matter how busy they got.)

The check ride was relatively short, and went off without incident. But I ended up learning a great deal from Phil (who I’m told is a Judge by day). For one, he helped me to clean up my pattern flying quite a bit, and gave me some useful tips about landings as well. He also noted that my scanning outside the plane was lacking---perhaps a side effect of my recent instrument training. He reminded me to look over my shoulder behind me towards the inside of the turn when initiating a bank---the plane that you are going to hit is the one that is behind and to the inside---something that no one had pointed out to me in my two years of training. He gave me a bunch of other advice---so for a relatively short flight (maybe 1.5 hours), I ended up learning a great deal.

Now all that remains is to be voted in by the broader membership.  But certainly looks promising.