Best Job So Far - CFI

It's been a while since my last post. Its been a busy time since June. Busy instructing, busy dealing with life... but I wanted to share a little bit of life as a CFI.

New Commercial Pilot

New Commercial Pilot Haoyuan Wen (right)
DPE Scott Rohlfing (left)

The first person I presented for a commercial certificate passed his check ride at the end of September. Hao is a great story. He came to me for his complex endorsement and then commercial certificate. I hadn't trained him before but I knew him from around the club.

He did his private training with another CFI that was trained by the same CFI that trained me. He comes from the same aviation "lineage" as I. As a result I found him very easy to fly with and train. On top of that he has a great personality and was just fun to be around. That's always a bonus when you're going to have to spend many, many hours in a close, hot, noisy environment like the cockpit of a small aircraft.

His training was relatively quick. Not as quick as we wanted it to be, it never is, but we met his main goal which was to finish his commercial before his father came home from China. When I put him up for his ride I knew he had the knowledge he needed and could apply it. In spite of the fact that he'd occasionally come up with a new word that didn't exist - words like "decompressurization" passed through his lips the day before his check ride. I knew he could fly very well and do all of the required maneuvers. However, as always, you never know how its going to go.

He finished the oral portion of the ride quickly... in a little over two hours. That was a good sign. Then I was waiting for him to finish the flight portion. That seemed to be taking longer. So I logged into FlightAware to see where the plane was. They were still flying at 3:30 and it looked like they hadn't done any take offs or landings. I went to the terminal building to stay cool and wait. Then I heard them call in to land. That got me worried. They were coming back before doing the take offs and landings! Oh no! I watched Hao land the plane in what looked like a perfect soft field landing. I willed them to taxi back to take off again but instead they taxied back to the flying club. I walked slowly back to the flight club, trying to guess where the flight went wrong and preparing myself to hear the debrief of my candidate and find out what happened. Maybe I'd be able to do a quick "retraining" and sign him off for a retest that day?

I walked into the club and the examiner came in to the building, talking to another pilot he'd trained. I let them finish their conversation and followed him into his office. Then he smiled and shook his head. "Hao did good. He did really good!" I waited for the "but...." There was no "but". Hao passed on his first attempt! I told him how I was watching on FlightAware and was sure something went wrong. He told me to never do that. It wouldn't show you everything that happened so it just makes the waiting worse. I wish I knew that one before hand!

So my first Commercial Pilot Candidate passed on his first attempt. He said when he did his power off 180 the whole time he was just trying to make sure he wouldn't disappoint me and once he landed that maneuver he knew he was good. He made me very proud!

New Mistakes

I was flying with one of my favorite students today. He owns a very nice Cherokee 180C. He'd been through a host of flight instructors and we'd been working together on and off for almost a year between aircraft maintenance spells. He's on the verge of soloing in his plane and today he told me he wanted to prove that his excellent performance the last time we flew together wasn't a fluke. The last time we flew together he did some great landings unassisted with word or deed from me.

Sadly, as often happens, when we want to prove something, we try too hard and have a bad day instead. Today was not his day. In his focus on being great, he came up with a new mistake. One one of his landings I noticed we were barely on the ground when his feet jumped up to the brakes. That was unusual but the plane was safe. On the next time around his feet jumped up to the brakes before we touched down! That was bad. Fortunately he landed straight and he didn't put a ton of pressure on the brakes (which would have blown his tires quickly). I explained to him that wasn't a good idea. And I'm sure he'll not do that again.

His patterns and checklist usage were getting worse, not better. I offered him the decision to continue or stop. He chose to stop. When we were done flying I shared with him how I spent 20 hours trying to be perfect when my CFI told me I was almost ready to solo and I suggested he don't make the same mistake. I think he "gets it". But I also know how hard it can be to accomplish that. In any case, I am sure he will solo soon. He has the ability.

Beautiful Landings

Looking out the window of my apartment
at the smoke from the fires up north.

Northern California is having the worse fires in history with the worst air quality ever recorded in the Bay Area from the smoke. Visibility has been very poor. So poor that I couldn't send my student pilot on his first solo cross country.

Instead we flew together and I had him practice lost procedures and VOR triangulation while under the hood. Then I introduced him to an old method to estimate time and distance to a VOR.

We headed back in to land. I got to observe as he flew a beautiful straight in approach. He did all of his checklists, radio work, and managed the approach perfectly. He added flaps one notch at a time in response to his glide slope, then he put in a forward slip to get down. He took out the slip at just the right time and touched down, light on the mains, on the centerline in plenty of time to get off on Charlie. It was wonderful to behold. Wow! I asked him after we cleared the runway if he always landed like that. His grin was huge and priceless.

These moments, a successful check ride, a beautiful landing, or even a tough day when I can offer some advice. These are the moments that make being a CFI the best "job" I've had so far!

Stuck Between Airspace and a Hard Place

I am learning, the longer one flies, the more opportunities are created for failures, and experience, to happen. Today's failure... a stuck switch made what should have been a routine flight into a mentally exhausting trip. Un-forecast constant light to moderate chop made the flight physically exhausting also.

I was flying to McClellan Airport, 82NM from my home field, to pick up my daughter. I checked the weather in the morning and strong surface winds were forecast for the afternoon but no AIRMETS or SIGMETS were active.  I was flying the club's Bonanza and expected about 45 minutes to get to McClellan once I was in the air. 

I got VFR flight following so I wouldn't need to dodge the Delta and Charlie airspace of three of the four airports in the immediate vicinity of McClellan. I wanted a simple flight after a long week. Immediately after take off I got turbulence instead. It wasn't bad... and I was planning on climbing above the scattered cloud layer where I expected the turbulence would be less. 

I was handed off to NorCal Approach and contacted them. As expected I was told to remain below 4,500 feet. With the clouds where they were I leveled off at 3000 feet and continued over Calaveras Reservoir and the hills north east of Reid-Hillview. The turbulence got worse and I was cruising over the hills in light to moderate chop. As the turbulence was not forecast and if I was feeling the roughness in a Bonanza I thought it would be good to report for the other planes that might be flying that day. 

I keyed the PTT and asked Approach if they had time for a PIREP. When I released the PTT I immediately realized that I was still transmitting. Ugh! This was not a frequency I wanted to block. Commercial traffic flying into Oakland used this frequency to sequence. I tried physically pulling the PTT button out but it seemed stuck. I tried resetting the radios turning them both off and on, no change. However, suddenly the transmission stopped. 

I was instructed to change frequencies to the next controller and was able to do my initial call. Then I was told to climb to avoid traffic. I attempted to respond and was unable to transmit. So I initiated an immediate climb and hit IDENT on the transponder to show I heard. I was given another instruction and when I tried to respond the PTT stuck in transmit mode again. This time I told the controller I was having problems with my radios, asked to cancel flight following and change frequencies. There was relief in the controllers voice when he told me to squawk VFR and frequency change approved. 

I switched the radio to 122.75 (an air to air frequency) so the transmissions would go to a rarely used frequency. I tried some of the same things I did previously that seemed to stop the transmissions. Restarting radios, switching frequencies, switching between radios. Nothing seemed to work but eventually the constant transmission stopped on its own. A quick review of IFR lost com procedures wandered through my mind along with the thought that, just that morning, I had told my husband I would be willing to take the Bonanza into IMC. Not any more - at least not for a while. *sigh*

McClellan is in the center of this picture, surrounded by airspace.

At the same time as this was going on I was being kicked around by turbulence and planning a route to get to McClellan (KMCC) without the benefit of radios. MCC is a non-towered airport and I wouldn't need a radio to land there. However, it was under the Class Charlie shelf of Sacramento International and right next to two other Class Delta airports, Sacramento Executive and Mather. The thought hit me... I'm stuck between airspace and a hard place (the ground). I'd have to blog this one!

I knew the thing I needed most right then was time, time to plan my route. So I slowed the bonanza down by dropping the gear ... slow enough that I was flying 172 ground speeds while I made my plan. I dropped down low because I knew the Charlie shelf was down to 1600 feet. Then I found some GPS waypoints for precise navigation between the Charlie and Deltas while I approached McClellan. I still couldn't transmit but I could receive so I got the weather and monitored McClellan's CTAF for other planes as I approached and landed. 

I taxied over to McClellan Jet Center and took an open spot. They weren't there to guide me in because no one heard me coming! My daughter was there and I spent a couple minutes planning my return trip to avoid airspace and hopefully some of the constant turbulence by climbing higher and flying south of RHV and cross into the Santa Clara Valley near Los Banos instead of over Calaveras. I turned on the bluetooth on my headset and called my husband after we started the engine to test it out. It worked, barely. I figured I would call RHV Tower from near San Martin airport and let them know I was coming in NORDO (no radio). 

We took off, still unable to transmit but able to receive. I used my handheld radio to make position reports at MCC but I doubt anyone could hear me. No one responded but it still felt better to try to say where I was. I climbed up to 5500 feet to cruise once out from under the Charlie shelf and hoped for smooth air. It was still constant chop but not as rough as it was before. Fortunately, my daughter is not at all bothered by turbulence. Eventually we encountered scattered clouds at 5500 feet. I chose not to climb further and descended again to 3500 feet. I had the power pulled back to 18 inches but the plane was still cruising at 150 knot ground speed with a powerful tailwind. 

As we neared Stockton Airport I noticed the PTT was transmitting again. I still had MCC's frequency dialed in and I was hoping I wasn't blocking transmissions there. The thought occurred to me to switch the "mic" to intercom instead of COM1 or COM2. When I did that my daughter could finally hear what I said over the radio instead of just by yelling. Score! I thought. I had her look up the ATIS for Stockton airport, dialed it in to COM2 and monitored COM2. I had found a way to monitor radio frequencies and not block them. I modified my plan for RHV. I'd call them on my phone and let them know I could receive but not transmit. That made me feel better. 

As we approached Los Banos and the turn across the hills between the central and Santa Clara valleys the turbulence increased. For the first time in my life I was starting to feel a tickle of nausea from the constant bumping and jolting, it was probably a response to the stress of the radio situation as well. It would not be good for me to throw up. I distracted myself by asking my poor daughter what her favorite song was. I slowed the plane down again and extended the gear as we went over the hills, just to stabilize the plane. We were almost clear of the hills and we decided it wasn't that bad. Gear up and bang - more turbulence. Oh well. I decided the quicker I got out of this the better and left the gear up until it was time to approach to land. 

When we were abeam San Martin and I tried to make my call to the tower with my cell phone. I don't know if it was lack of reception, something wrong with my head set or what but the call failed many times. I found myself getting closer to terrain than I normally do in my distraction and decided to discard that option. Fly the airplane, damnit! 

Then I tried my hand held radio multiple times ... we were within line of sight of RHV and I was hoping it would work. It didn't. I started to resign myself to the lost comm procedure and dialed 7600 into the transponder. I was annoyed. I could hear RHV clearly but the moment I switched to tower frequency we'd block that frequency. Then it hit me. Switch the mic to tower frequency when I want to talk, switch back to intercom to listen! So that's what I did. I switched the mic to tower frequency, made my call and immediately switched back to intercom. They responded with my tail number and I was in! Communications problem solved. I used that method for all other coms needed and it worked flawlessly. 

That wasn't the end of the adventure however. Remember the surface winds I talked about at the beginning? RHV was reporting winds 320@14G22 when we got the ATIS. I had the plane in a stabilized, if bumpy, approach to land when, over the airport fence, we got hit with the strongest gust I'd ever experienced on final. The plane jumped left about 40 feet and suddenly dropped. I had anticipated this and had some extra airspeed ready. I moved the plane back over the runway and rounded out, ready to go around if necessary. After some fighting we were in ground effect and able to land smoothly. On my landing rollout I heard the tower tell another plane winds were 350@20. Yeah, I'd agree with that. 

That flight was one of those "learning experiences" ... I experienced first hand how powerful distractions of troubleshooting problems can be. And I have a new trick in my tool bag to handle com issues in flight :) 

Evolution of a Pilot

Yesterday my CFII and I were flying together again. The first time in a very long time. We've been working on preparing me for the CFI-Instrument rating for the last few months. After covering all of the Instrument ACS and the CFI-I PTS it was time to get flying again. To see if I can teach at the same time as I fly instrument.

After the first approach he said, "The good news is, it can only get better from here!" Yeah, it was a cluster f*ck. I put that behind me, flew and "taught" the missed and holding procedure. Then flew the same approach a second time and did better both teaching and flying.

It was our first time up with me teaching instrument and it was an eye opening experience to say the least. To really teach instrument flying you have to be waaaayyyy ahead of the airplane, the controllers and the student. I'm at the point where I'm ahead of the plane and the controllers 99% of the time when I fly instrument. However, adding teaching to the process adds a whole new level of difficulty. It means I have to know what's going to happen, what has to happen, how to make it happen, diagnose why it doesn't happen when the student screws it up ... and ... be able articulate all of that at the same time in complete sentences a human can understand. Hey, if I can learn enough to be a decent CFI, I will be able to do this. Just takes practice.

But that's not why I'm posting about this... yesterday's flight brought to mind my own evolution as a pilot. Yesterday highlighted to me some other areas of progress that I hadn't considered recently.

• Take off and climb out. On take off both he and I noticed the poor climb performance of the plane given the Vy airspeed. We both immediately figured the air speed indicator was off and when I adjusted the pitch for what looked like the proper Vy pitch. I got the right climb rate. I never thought I'd be able to do that when I started training... and now I tell my students that they need to do that!
• Over the mountains - we flew directly out over the hills and were in some turbulence. Turbulence that, when I started flying, would have had me very nervous. I barely noticed it aside from how it made it difficult to hold altitude. 
• I was muttering at myself whenever I didn't hold a heading or airspeed the way I was planning on it  - my standards for myself are going up significantly in what I consider good flying. At the same time I didn't let it bother me. 
• His comment about how it can only get better didn't bother me either. Years ago that sort of comment would have been immediate dark cloud over my head for at least a couple days. This time I just agreed and resolved to make it better quickly, which I actually did. 

On the return to RHV I was thinking of a flight we he and I did a couple years ago. When we went out to the valley for some instrument work and came back in just before they shut down the airport. It was an incredible entrance. Then he said how he was reminded of that same flight. Knowing what I know now about how flights (and students) tend to merge together in the CFI brain I was surprised but pleased that he remembered that entrance too.

Yesterday was a nice way to start the a new phase of my own evolution as an instructor pilot.

A New Pilot is Born

What is the ultimate accomplishment in aviation? Is it earning your own certificates and ratings? or is it giving the gift of flight to someone else? I really don't know. However, I can tell you this... going through a check ride from the CFI's seat is much more stressful to me than doing a check ride myself!

On Wednesday, April 5th, 2017, I presented my first ever candidate for a Private Pilot Certificate to an FAA Designated Pilot Examiner. Ty, my student, found me in Squadron 2 one day shortly after I earned my CFI certificate and asked me to train him. I didn't know him and he didn't know me. However, I think the experience was very beneficial to us both. He turned out to be a real pleasure to train and fly with. And, according to him, I was a great CFI. While we got along great and I was confident in his abilities, I was not prepared for the extreme stress of presenting a candidate for a check ride. Especially when my instructor told me many months ago that, statistically speaking, the first person a CFI puts up for a check ride will fail.

Examiner, New Private Pilot, CFI (aka me!)

My instructor was also the DPE for this check ride. Some would assume that would give me a special advantage and perhaps leniency from the DPE for my student. I knew better. I've seen him fail candidates from other CFI's he's trained. He'd already warned me that my candidate was likely to fail.  And I know, no matter how much it would sadden him, he would absolutely fail my candidate if he could not demonstrate he will be a safe pilot and fly to standards. So, no, I expected no handouts from this particular DPE. However, I couldn't think of a better examiner to validate (or invalidate) that my student was ready to operate as a Private Pilot.

Because I do know this DPE I was comfortable enough with him to validate that my student was, indeed, eligible before the check ride (he would do that for any CFI) and ask if I could be there for at least the start of the exam. His response was funny to me. He said, "Yes! Absolutely! Present your candidate!". I had this bizarre vision of putting a bow around my student and handing him over to the examiner as a present! 

The big day arrived and I was up early to let my student, Ty, into my office so he could prepare his flight plan. I told him from this point forward I couldn't help him unless he specifically asked for it. He was on his own. I worked on lesson plans for my CFI-I training while he did his flight planning. Then the examiner arrived at 9AM. Right on schedule.

He went through the paperwork and pre-amble explaining the ride and the potential outcomes. He re-validated that all of the endorsements and time were correct in my student's log book and verified the airworthiness of the aircraft. Then I was politely told to leave the room so the test could begin. 

Now I knew I had, if things went well, at least 5 hours to wait before the outcome of the test was known. Fortunately I had two students to fly with to distract me from waiting anxiously. Around noon I got a text from my student saying he would lock up my office when they were done there. But he didn't say if he'd passed the oral or not. When I taxied back to the club after my first lesson I saw Ty. He gave me a grin and a thumbs up. So that meant he had passed the oral. 

Time for my next student. I met up with him in my office and then we taxied out to the run-up. There I saw Ty was in the plane in the run-up with the examiner. My thought was "he made it to the run-up!". Then I saw them take off, "he made it to the take off!" Then I had to focus on the flight at hand. I had a great flight and was back at the club a little after 3PM. Then I had to wait. 

As I waited I got more and more stressed. My husband was there with his camera to capture the moments and tease me. At one point I told him and another friend that I would much rather be taking the check ride than waiting! Finally we saw Ty's plane taxi up to it's parking spot. I knew it was possible to fail even now and I sat so I couldn't see Ty or the examiner. I just couldn't take it. 

Finally they were done securing the plane and walking towards us. Ty looked grim and shook his head. The examiner looked stern. As they walked up to us, the examiner said, "You know, statistically, the first candidate a CFI puts forward fails.... but you never were one to stay in line with statistics!" Then he grinned broadly. Ty gave me a huge grin and a thumbs up! "You Passed!?!" I said. "Yep!" 

My first student passed his check ride. First try! I had given the gift of flight. It was amazing! 

Engine Roughness after Take Off

The only real emergency is a situation you haven't been trained to handle. 

My CFI told my daughter that many years ago when she interviewed him for a school project. The only real emergency is a situation you haven't been trained to handle. That phrase has stuck in my head for many years. Especially now that I'm training other pilots and future pilots. As I train them I try to make sure my pilots don't have a real emergency.

One of the situations I commonly train people to troubleshoot and handle is a rough running engine with some power loss. This is much more common than complete power loss. Once I'd experienced a engine that seemed to be running a bit rough with no power loss. However, I'd never experienced a severely rough running engine and major power loss. Fortunately, my training, and the training I've been providing, did prepare me for the situation when it happened today.

This afternoon I was in a Piper Arrow with a commercial student. We were planning on doing Chandelles and Emergency Descents, maneuvers Commercial Pilot candidates must master. We taxied out to the run-up area and he did the run-up checks. Everything, including all magneto and propeller checks, seemed fine. He requested take off and off we went.

On the take off roll my student commented he needed more right rudder than he expected. I thought the engine seemed to be running strong but the climb out performance wasn't as good as expected. He brought up the landing gear and it seemed to take forever to get to 500ft AGL. I kept checking my student's airspeed but he was climbing at Vy, which should have given us at least 800fpm climb rate. Just as we gained enough altitude to turn crosswind the engine started running rough, rougher than I'd ever felt before.

"The engine's running rough!" the young man said. I told him to turn downwind and not change anything until we got over 1000 AGL. Our climb rate was down to 100fpm, with occasional increases to 500 fpm in an updraft. My initial thought was the propeller was somehow out of balance because I felt vibrations throughout the plane. I told him to keep climbing and then turn off the fuel pump and pull back on  MP and throttle to "25 squared" after we were abeam the numbers. This was deliberate because I knew I could do a power off approach from that location and altitude without issue. He did and the roughness seemed slightly better, though the climb rate was still pathetic. Time to troubleshoot.

We continued downwind, climbing slowly away from the airport. We both checked the oil pressure and temperature, fuel pressure, everything looked good. I was thinking now this was a magneto issue. The magneto check on the ground, just minutes before, was good, but I couldn't think of anything else it could be. With our climb performance so poor I didn't know what else would happen and I didn't want to climb away from the airport any further to attempt an airborne mag check. At about 2000ft MSL, I told the student to request a return to the airport to land.

We were cleared immediately to make a 180 degree turn and come back in to land on 31L. I told him not to change any other power settings until we knew we could make the runway if we lost complete power on our return to the airport. Once we were sure he slowly reduced the throttle and pitched for lower airspeed so we could slow down, get the gear down, and land. 30 degrees of flaps and a loooooong forward slip later we were back on the ground at RHV. The tower asked us if we wanted to stay in the pattern. We requested to taxi to transient to see if we could figure out the problem (perhaps a suddenly fouled plug?)

In transient we did a magneto check again and this time there was a major difference between left and right mags. Left mag ran smooth, right mag dropped 500 RPM and ran extremely rough. Just in case the spark plugs were fouled we ran up bit longer at high RPM and leaned aggressively. No difference. This was something we couldn't fix. We taxied back to parking and shut down the plane.

The problem could be a bad magneto, plug wires or a spark plug I think. In any case, it wasn't an emergency, even though it was quite disturbing for my student. For my own part I didn't feel nervous at all. It was a situation I'd been trained to handle.

As we debriefed on the event I told my student what my daughter was told that day, "The only emergency is a situation you haven't been trained to handle." That gave him pause as he realized even with his private pilot training he was trained to handle that situation. At the same time, he said, he was really glad I was there with him.

Pet Peeves

I did a flight review for a friend of my husband, Jeff, yesterday and Jeff said the friend asked if I have any pet peeves. When I first thought about it I didn't think I have any... but then, when I thought more, I realized I do.

1. Centerline, centerline, centerline. Taxi, take off and land on the centerline!! Why? because if you can't stay on the centerline how will you stay in the middle of a narrow runway when there's a strong crosswind. Not to mention you just look much more professional. Our airport had a plane crash at night one night, he landed ok but, as far as I can tell, he failed to maintain directional control, let one wheel drop off the runway and ended up cartwheeling down the runway. Fortunately the pilot and passengers survived. But if he had landed on the centerline, there's a much lower chance of that happening.
2. Taxi speed. Taxiing is not a race. There's no reason to taxi at 20 knots or with full power while dragging the breaks. Seriously people. Take it easy, these planes aren't designed to handle well on the ground.
3. Coordinated flight. I'm sorry, I don't care how much right rudder it takes that you aren't used to using. Fly coordinated. For one thing it feels almost sickening when you fly uncoordinated. Who wants to feel like they're slipping or skidding sideways all the time? More import if you want to kill yourself, fly uncoordinated and stall a plane. Instant spin. And I'll bet money if you're a pilot who routinely flies uncoordinated you will not be able to recover from a spin quickly. 
4. "Pinching the runway" a very common issue, the pilot is flying a distance from the runway and reduces power to start the landing process. Immediately the plane starts veering towards the runway... after which the pilot turns base and overshoots final. 
5. Don't call in over a waypoint when you are nowhere near it. This happened to me today. My student and I were directly over a waypoint at an altitude. Another plane called in over the same waypoint and at the same altitude. In this case I knew that plane was well behind us because I knew where it took off from, when, and we were flying a much faster plane. Fortunately the tower realized there was a faster and slower plane and which was which. 
6. Probably my biggest pet peeve. For Christ's sake, fly a heading! Pick one. I don't care what it is... just pick a heading and fly that way. It drives me nuts when private pilots just cannot maintain a heading. They flop all over the sky!

Yeah, I have my pet peeves. I'm sure every pilot and CFI does. What are yours?

Pilots do/say the funniest things

I've decided to keep my blog going and share more of the funny / amusing things my students do. These are private pilots, student pilots and more experienced pilots. Our funnier moments prove we are all, always, learning. Here are some recent funny moments.

Turnabout is Fair Play

I was working with a pilot on his complex endorsement. Complex endorsements are needed for aircraft with retractable gear. A large part of complex training is designed to imbue the pilot with a healthy paranoia about landing gear. There are many ways for Arrow landing gear to fail, or appear to fail. I use them all when training people for complex to make sure they are consciously and constantly checking the gear before landing.

On this particular flight the gear was "failing" often for my student. And he was, indeed, getting paranoid. During the flight I also demonstrated some specialty take offs and landings for him. After we finished the flight he said he had a confession to make.... he had "failed" one of the landing gear on me by pulling out the gear light bulb, but it didn't work because I was also paranoid about the gear (where do you think I got the idea to make my students paranoid?), so I pushed the bulb in as a matter of course on final. We both had a good laugh on that one. And I was very glad that I practice what I preach!

Flashlights at 5500 Feet

Flying with a student on a night cross country. I pointed out an airport and the airport beacon for him to know he was getting close to his waypoint. He took his handheld flashlight and pointed it out the windscreen so he could better see the airport. After a second he looked at the flashlight and said, "That won't work. Will it?" "Nope," I said. We laughed hard about that one.

Where's the Door?

Working with a pilot on his complex endorsement. He's spent his whole flying career flying Cessnas which are blessed with pilot and co-pilot doors. The complex aircraft we were flying was a Piper Arrow. Pipers only have one door on the co-pilot side. This was his first flight in the Arrow. After our flight we shut down and I got out of the plane. There was a sudden laugh from inside the aircraft. The pilot said, "I was trying to figure out how to open *my* door!"