Logbook Memories

Let’s just say things happened. I attended SnF’22 and had a marvelous time. However, I had this small wound on my leg that got worse during the event. Mostly because I was dusty and dirty from camping for 2 weeks straight. And I wasn’t taking care of it the way I needed to. When I came home, I had to go through 5 weeks of wound therapy to get it finally heal. However, during that time, they did a sonogram on my legs to make sure they were good. Well, that led to another issue. Without going into a lot of detail, it was basically a the beginnings of Thrombosis. That is being worked on presently. I had surgery on one leg, and my other one is being done in a couple weeks. Along with potentially losing my job and dealing with a lot of other issues…..I haven’t cracked a book, or video in the weeks since SnF.

This changed this week, along with some good news…First, I did not lose my job, but simply transitioned to another group, and all is well there. I am feeling better with my legs and I have lost 28 pounds in the past 2 months. Most importantly, I mentioned owning an airplane to my wife for the ten thousandth time, and this was the first time she did not flat out say “Nope! Not happening”. She is asking questions about it now. I restarted my IFR training this week. I am following along with some other videos and tutorials I found online and planning to dive head first into IFR training, and treat it like a class I have to complete this summer. So that’s where we are now. Things got bad, went from bad to worse, and now things are looking up and on the right track. The journey begins NOW! Again. for the 3rd time. 🙂

Part 1, 13 sections, 8 quizzes and about 1 hour and 40 minutes of video down, and what seems like hundreds more to go.

I am not sure I really got a lot out of this. I went through most of the videos at least twice. Sometimes three times. It mostly touches on what we will be covering in more depth. The Scan, flight sims, certain weather flying conditions, EFB’s, partial panel, steam gauges, glass cockpit, etc. Just enough to keep it moving, but hardly enough to start taking practice tests. I definitely do not feel like I learned much of anything at this point. I wish I could talk a little more about it, but that was just it, it was…meh.

The next section is ATC & IFR, which should be much more interesting. Anything having to do with communication with ATC always seems like more fun than discussing, let’s say, steep turns. I’m not sure how far I will get in this section in the next couple weeks, as I will be at SnF ’22 (I leave this afternoon!!). I will definitely post some updates while I’m there, but probably not about studying for the IFR written.

Look us up! We would love to see you! I’ll post a map of where we are in a few days.

Thanks,

Mike

I’m heading there this weekend! We will be camping in (most likely) the main campground, on the west side of the lake. If that is full when I get there, we will be in the pasture. Look for the RV with a pirate flag. We should have about 4 RV’s and a handful of tents around us. I’ll post an update once camp is established. We usually have a campfire and some adult beverages most nights, if we aren’t at Coconut Flyers. And if you haven’t been to Coconut Flyers, you are truly missing out. Make it a point to stop by there and give them a donation for some free drinks.

But everyone is more than welcome to stop by our camp site, have a few drinks, and tell a bunch of lies. We all love talking about aviation, and hearing about everyones’ Logbook Memories. We hope to see you there!

Whelp…. Once again, work gets in the way. To explain, I am a Technical Sales Advisor for a software company. What this means is when a sales person is trying to sell a software product, our small team will architect and build a Proof of Concept (PoC) for the prospective customer.

I got called into a project for an already paying customer, who needed to replicate his environment. We had to cram 4 weeks of work into 2 weeks. BUT….we got it done. Presentation was completed this week with flying colors.

What does that mean? It means 14 hour work days doesn’t leave a lot of time to study for the IFR Written. I am back on it this weekend. I’ll obviously keep you all posted. And I promise I’ll try not to fall asleep from the instrument videos. 😉

Laters!

One thing I can say for certain….I got a lot of rest the other night, my first night of watching the IFR instructional videos. You see….It’s very easy to fall asleep when you are done watching the videos. “Why??”, you ask? Mostly because you may have already fallen asleep while it was playing. Whew. I need to find some way to stay awake for these. I got through the first series the second day, but it wasn’t much better.

I am hoping it gets better, as more information…useful information… gets the ‘ol grey matter chugging and I’ll want to stay awake. And stay interested. And stay intrigued. But so far, for now, it hasn’t grabbed me like a Marvel movie.

But one thing that DID grab my attention last night was an FAA Notice regarding the IFR cross country approaches requirement. It seems two previous, legal, interpretations inaccurately concluded that an applicant for an Instrument Rating must use three different approaches using three different navigation systems to meet the requirements.

However, the FAA concluded that the plain language requirement of § 61.65(d)(2)(ii)(C) “requires three different types of approaches, not three different navigation systems.” So they want all CFI’s and DPE’s to know that “the requirements for an instrument rating may be met by performing three different approaches, regardless of the source of navigation. “. WHEW! Good news.

There’s 3 pages of information in the memorandum, so if you would like to read more detail about these conclusions it is located here: https://www.faasafety.gov/files/notices/2022/Mar/61.65_Recission_memo.pdf

Starting this morning, I have begun my IFR training for the written exam. I am setting aside 2 evenings per week and one day on the weekend towards studying and reviewing. I have a dedicated section in my office to study. My hope is to be able to get the written complete by late spring and then begin flying for my practical. I am hoping to have everything done by OSH’22.

I still have an IFR video series that I bought about 10 years ago, which is still valid and has been updated over the years, through Sporty’s. That will be my primary source of training. I also have the flash cards I mentioned in the previous post. I am also finding other tools online, like MZeroA’s IFR training, Airplane Academy, The Finer Points, among others.

Follow me on this journey. My next post will be what I was focusing on today, and if I have any questions. Feel free to chime in with your comments on how you studied for the IFR Written.

Laters!

Mike

Everyone has their preference for IFR ground school training, be it King Schools, Sporty’s, ASA, etc… But what ELSE did you use to reinforce the material from the videos or books?

I stumbled across a few things that I know will help me. First, is a series of IFR workshop videos hosted by Pilotedge.net. No membership or subscription is required. Visit https://www.pilotedge.net/workshops and the IFR videos start about 5 or 6 entries down.

Second, thing I found are flash cards and tabs for the FAR/AIM that I found at https://flashaviation.shop. I actually came across these from a great aviation YouTuber, Charlie from https://airplaneacademy.com. If you haven’t watched his videos yet, I highly recommend it. He has a lot of neat ideas and tips for flight training and proficiency.

What other tools did you find that were helpful for your IFR training? By all means, please leave them in the comments to share with all of us.

Almost there… We’ve been upgrading and looking forward to wrapping it up soon. Hopefully we’ll have all new posts, and eventually some Logbook Memories, from all of you, and even from some of us here at LBM. Mike is planning on obtaining his IFR rating soon, and will be documenting his steps towards completing this new rating.

First we will be documenting his studies for the IFR Written exam. After that, we’ll go through his flight training for the IFR certification. After that, we’re mounting cameras and flying all over the place.