August 23, 2024 • 57 mins
In Episode 74, we join Bill as he finishes up his first "under the hood" instrument training flight. We also include a 'Beyond the Checkride' segment on fueling your airplane which is something many new pilots were never taught before the checkride.
Hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening! Visit the SPC website at https://studentpilotcast.com. Please keep the feedback coming. You can use the contact form on the website or send email to bill at student pilot cast dot com. The theme song for our episodes is "To Be an Angel" by the band, "Uncle Seth".
Legal Notice: Remember, any instruction that you hear in this podcast was meant for me and me alone in the situation that we happened to be in at the time. Please do not try to apply anything you see or hear in this episode or any other episode to your own flying. If you have questions about any aspect of your flying, please consult a qualified CFI.
Copyright 2008-2024, studentpilotcast.com and Bill Williams
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Alright, let's finish my instrumenttraining flight that we started last
week and try to squeeze in anotherbig, fat, beyond the checkride segment,
where we'll dive into fueling ourown airplanes at self service pumps.
Enjoy today's episode of the StudentPilot Cast, Tanks for the Memories,
How Not to Make Fuel ish Mistakes.
(00:35):
Welcome back SBC listeners,and I'm sorry about the puns.
I can't help it.
Anyway, we're back with the conclusionof my first training flight under the
hood in quite a while I'll try to bequick on the commentary and the in
cockpit audio on this one because we'vegot a pretty big Beyond the check ride
segment that I want to make sure thatwe have time for and that we squeeze
(00:57):
in here Before we get going on thatthough, there were a couple of things I
promised to at least touch on this week.
I'll hopefully go into detailat some point in the future.
But I mentioned last week when I wastalking about my son working at APS
that he'd likely be getting a pretty funride in an airplane here pretty soon.
Well I had one recently tooand I mentioned that briefly.
(01:20):
So let me step out of sequencehere a little bit in my
training and get you up to date.
As you may know I'm currentlyworking on my CFI training right now.
Thanks Mostly just waiting on gettinga DPE scheduled, but still learning,
studying, and flying, and trying tobe ready when it does get scheduled.
So if you don't know You have toget a SPIN endorsement to be a
(01:44):
candidate for the CFI checkride,so I decided to do it in style.
I went back to where it all beganfor me, Chandler Air Service, and
did my SPIN training with a greatinstructor there who's been doing crazy
fun stuff in airplanes for decades.
I had never even taken a planeupside down before, so I knew
(02:04):
this was gonna be a treat.
And one of the best parts of thewhole thing was that I did the
flying part of the training in anopen cockpit aerobatic biplane.
What a freaking rush.
We did a fair amount of groundtraining before getting in the
airplane, probably a couple of hoursworth, and then hopped in a Great
(02:25):
Lakes biplane to do the actual spins.
The nature of that cockpit, especiallywith the parachutes we were wearing,
it felt more like we were wearingthe airplane than sitting in it.
But what a great experience.
I got 1.
1 of dual in that biplane that day andprobably did more than a dozen spins of
all kinds, went upside down, did spinreversals, accelerated spins, you name it.
(02:50):
By the end though, I was spent
my stomach was starting to get alittle angry with me as I wasn't
used to those types of movements.
And.
As I recall, I didn't realize thetraining was going to be that long.
We got a little bit of a late startbecause he had another lesson that
he was finishing up beforehand.
And I ended up not eating all morning.
(03:11):
And by the time we were donewith the flight, it was afternoon
and that probably wasn't smart.
I didn't do it on purpose.
I just thought, Oh, I'll bethere for a couple of hours
and then I'll grab some food.
And, anyway, it didn't work.
It didn't work out.
My stomach was getting mad at me.
when we were on our way back infrom the flight, he asked if I
(03:32):
wanted to do some mild aerobatics.
And while my stomach and headwere saying no way, I found myself
saying, well, yeah, of course.
So how do you pass up a chance like that?
Right.
I did fine.
No dog bag needed that day.
But I was still glad I had one therejust in case, you know what I mean?
(03:53):
Anyway, I actually learned agreat deal and had a ton of fun
Despite it being really pretty hot.
The open cockpit helped keep thingsa little cooler Even I think we
were starting most of our maneuversat about 5, 500 MSL The reason I
(04:13):
don't recall for sure is becausewe had set our altimeter for, AGL.
We'd set it to ground level.
So we'd always see how farabove the deck we were.
so I, I think it was somewherearound 5, 500 that we were
starting all the maneuvers.
So it helped a little bitto be up higher like that.
And luckily, luckily it wasslightly cooler than it had been
(04:35):
lately for that particular day.
I flew especially because weweren't flying until You know,
noon, but cooler for Arizona inthe summer is still blasted hot.
Anyway, I just wanted to bring you upto speed a bit on what I'd been doing
and that ride I had, and hopefullyI'll do a more in depth recount
(04:55):
of that training and the flight ina future episode of the podcast.
I did record the flight, but being anopen cockpit and all the audio is not
quite as clean as I normally get, butthat's all right, it's still usable.
And I'll share what I can.
Coming up at some point in the podcast.
So let's get on to the endof my instrument training
(05:17):
flight way back in sequence.
If you remember, I was doinginstrument patterns in the sky
when we left off last week.
So we'll pick it up there again, asusual, I'll edit the audio in the cockpit
for blank space and brevity and justjump in to comment where necessary.
The last half of this flightshould go pretty quickly.
Remember, this is February in the PhoenixValley, so absolutely Beautiful weather.
(05:42):
So I started talking about how Ifelt like I was missing the view
from the cockpit on such a nice day.
And Eddie reminded me that this was justthe beginning and that I'd be itching
to be able to see outside long beforeI finished my instrument training.
South practice, Red Rock 60, 4,500 over the north test track.
(06:07):
It's too bad though, I love theview from the cockpit on nice days.
I don't get to enjoy it.
You honestly, at the end of instrument,you're actually going to be excited
for a commercial because you'regoing to be able to look outside.
Good point.
I was really bummed out after.
It was great, but not being ableto look outside gets annoying.
Alright, 30 seconds to my right 180.
(06:30):
There you go.
Traffic is all no factornow, which is perfect.
Thank you.
Honestly, I'm using this primarily forvague because that's throwing me off.
So this is now your primary instrument,this is now your supporting.
Yeah, might as well make that in op.
So, uh, control, yeah, so that's theother form of instrument flying, is your
(06:53):
primary supporting method of instruments.
All right, here's our oneminute standard rate turn.
Back pressure.
(07:14):
it turned faster than expected.
By 4 or 5 seconds.
That is weird.
It must have been too high at some point.
On the rate of turn I mean.
No, no, a little bit, but you're fine.
You still look pretty good.
I'm trying to find the timer on hereso you don't have to use your phone.
(07:39):
I need another knee board for my phone.
Yeah, for real.
I'm going to figure that outfor us on the next flight.
Watch your altitude.
I got fixated for a second.
Yep, fixation and omission.
It's true.
What kills pilots.
The struggle is real.
The struggle is very, very real.
(07:59):
Alright, so you're headingon this for two minutes.
We're 43 seconds into it.
And Red Rocks 1, 600 feet above us.
What's that?
Ryan and Jaclyn are about1, 600 feet above us.
Oh, got some company traffic, huh?
Yep, they're ripping.
(08:26):
I mean, not like us on thescooters this morning, but.
Oh, no, not like us, no, they could never.
Alright, so let meexplain that for a second.
I think I had mentioned before that therewas work being done on the hangar and
tie down areas for the flight school.
In fact, they were moving locations
and prep was being done on the new place.
So the airplanes were homeless for a bit.
(08:47):
So for a couple of months, or maybeit was only a few weeks, it's hard to
remember, they were being parked out onthe flight line in front of the tower.
About a ten minute walk from the school.
I think in a previous episode you heard acontroller ask about our walk out there.
Well, sometimes instead of hoofing it,we'd get on the golf cart if it was
available, or on some occasions, we'dWe grabbed some electric scooters that
(09:11):
they had in the hangar there, if theywere charged, and if they were available.
And that's what we had done that morning.
And we had some fungetting out to the plane.
That's why the reference to us rippingaround the airport on those scooters.
So, now you know.
Let's continue.
Southeast, Fractionary, Oxford 7119,two miles south of the AGL, headed to
(09:34):
the Phoenix, last call, sorry, headedto Stockfield, last call, southeast.
Southwest Fractionary, Oxford 5821, 2,100 over the I 10 Greenfields Ground rope.
Last call.
That's cool, it just flewright over the top of us.
20 seconds.
Cool, 20 seconds to go.
(09:55):
I'll be doing a right one minute turn.
Yep, perfect.
Here we go.
(10:16):
And on this one, for traffic's sake, I'mgoing to have you climb up to, uh, 4, 700.
4, 700.
Keep that climb coming.
There you go.
There you go.
(10:43):
Twenty four seconds in the turn.
Twenty four seconds in the turn.
Go.
(11:03):
Alright,
that one was perfectly one minute.
And there you are.
Oh, I'm losing it.
(11:24):
Get back to, before you call it,let me get back to my altitude.
Red Rock 60, maintain 4, 700.
Pilot deviation.
4, 700.
And how much more timedo we have on this one?
I think it's over.
Done.
Alright, perfect.
Um, we are it's almost 840, so we uh,probably start, have to head back.
(11:47):
Okay.
Um, but we managed to get atraffic, or we managed to get
a pattern in, which is great.
Next time we'll just rip throughthe ground a little bit faster
so we have some more time in theair, but that was fantastic Bill.
So now what I'm going to have you dois I'm going to have you go direct
Chandler and descend down to 3, 300.
Alright, that's going to be a left turn?
Um, let's do a let's do a left turn.
(12:10):
Left turn heading direct Chandler.
Alright.
Descending to 3, 300.
And my heading, shouldn't it tell me?
Three zero.
Two three.
Yep.
When you come out off, when you'reheading, you can get the weather.
Four.
Dalkin,
Okay, so I'd grabbed the ATIS forFalcon here, but notice the winds.
(12:32):
It was blowing pretty good.
So a funny little conversationhappened between Eddie and me.
Should he be worried?
Maybe.
I'll just let it play allthe way back to the field.
Here you go.
Papa.
1, 4, 5, 4.
Zulu wind 3 0 1 2.
Gus, two zero.
(12:53):
Temperature 1, 2 2 point minus five.
Ultima 3 0 2 5.
Approach east landing.
Enter party runway waist.
Four left and four.
Right.
You not observe effect forfurther information Contact.
All arrivals contact tower 124.
6.
Papa.
I wanted to hear the winds one more time
Sure.
Sounds like it's gusting pretty good.
Yeah, I think it's gusting 20.
(13:14):
Wind 030 at 12, gust 20.
Temperature 12, dew pointminus 5, altimeter 3025.
Uh, I can take the landing ifyou're not comfortable with it.
That's pretty much down the runway.
I think we're okay.
Alright.
You can be on it with mein case you're worried.
Sure.
Okay.
But I could use the practice.
I'm not that worried.
(13:36):
I'm slightly worried, but.
Laughter.
Alright, you got athousand feet to descend.
emergency descent to forestlanding, look out for the southeast.
South Praxis area, Red Rock six east,two miles to the west of Papachula, four
thousand descending, three thousand threehundred north, back to Falcon, southeast.
(14:10):
Okay, so it's like 30, 40 miles.
That's a good deal.
Uh, I hope he's not heading back too.
Alright, you can come right,uh, heading, let's say 0 5 0.
0 5 0.
0
5 0 and keep that descent coming.
(14:32):
Um, we're gonna keep the speed up totry to get ahead of this Oxford so
you can honestly almost go full power.
Okay.
Alright, 130, man.
Alright, good.
Yeah, I just want to get someseparation between this guy,
just for safety, but good job.
Southeast Bracketeria, 2791, 4, 000,Johnson's Ranch going southbound.
He was coming kinda right atus, same altitude, he's also
(14:54):
heading back to Falcon, so.
Alright, you can start, youcan pull that power back now.
You can go down to like2, 300 or fine now.
Standing
way below for some reason.
So maybe he's just going totransition through Chandler or do
some landings there or something.
I don't know.
(15:16):
Help you out a little bit.
There we go.
Just clear of that, Bravoclear of this shelf.
We'll just go right in the middle.
Got it.
I want to look out so bad andlike see where Chandler is.
Yeah, I know.
Take a quick peek for a second.
Right.
(15:46):
Looks like there's some wind pushing itkind of maybe to the left a little bit.
So really just kind of gokind of towards the middle.
You don't even have to follow this line.
Just kind of put us right in the center.
Got it.
You know what I'm saying?
Yep.
Maybe like a zero fourfive heading almost.
Zero four zero.
Zero four five.
Southwest Factory, Oxford 6154,we're about 2 miles northwest of
(16:08):
Meccawood Town, tune in to thetailgate for the first landing.
Come right, 045 for now.
045, got it.
And you're 10 miles, so youcan switch over to tower.
Morning helicopter, MD 8, filtrateramp lights are in position to the
echo ramp for the MD 2 with PAPA.
(16:29):
MD 8, MD 2 approved.
MD 8.
And you can say, uh, Falcon Tower,Red Rock 60 is 10 miles to the
south, inbound, full stop with PAPA.
Falcon Tower, Red Rock 60 is 10 miles tothe south, inbound with PAPA, full stop.
(16:50):
This is 9774 Fall Cherokee on a milefinal runway, 4 left clear to land.
4 left clear to land, number 2, 9774.
Red Rock 60, Fox Tower,straight in runway 4 right.
Straight in for 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Beautiful, Bill.
Nice job.
Alright, we're clear ofthat traffic over there.
(17:11):
Say the call sign one more time.
I don't know what he's talking about.
Talking to someone else in here.
Spreading It's kind of sandwiching.
It's not fun kind of dodging the airspace,but you get used to it after a while.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
(17:32):
I was going to say, it's not reallyideal just threading between airspaces,
but after a while you get used to it.
Alright, so now that we're past Chandler'sairspace, you can descend and maintain
2, 400 traffic pattern altitude.
2, 400.
2, 400.
We want to be, by the time wehit that airspace for Falcon,
(17:55):
we want to be at 2, 400.
So you can continue with yourbefore landing checklist,
because we made that first call.
Alright.
Before landing, fuel pump on.
Got to do a scan between each item.
I know.
Uh, fuel, proper tank, Ithink we're still good.
Yep.
(18:15):
Uh, mixture.
Rich.
We're still rich.
RRP is 10.
Ending light.
That other one.
There you go.
And five miles out.
That's for Unpowered.
They said straight in four, right?
(18:36):
Oh, route one Probably.
Yankee, can you make go below, go 700.
We're gonna kinda, we're gonna turn left.
Heading.
We're ready.
3 6 0 1 Bra Yankee Roger, makethe right turn on Delta four.
Delta Duke.
Okay, Delta 2 holding shortof 4 right, 1 Bravo Yankee.
(18:56):
Red Rock 71, right Delta6, contact ground, see ya.
Delta 6, Delta ground, 10 4, see ya.
Roger, 2781, runway 48 fulllength, line up and wait.
Line up and wait, Delta 421, 2781.
Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee, runway48 at Delta 2, clear for takeoff.
Fly straight out.
Okay, Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee,cleared for takeoff, straight out.
Yeah, it should even out, yeah,for acceleration there, perfect.
(19:21):
Yeah, talking to ROX for 3966, couldwe get a short approach on this one?
Roger, 3966, make short approach,runway 4 left, cleared for option.
Short approach, 4 left, cleared forthe option, thank you, ROX for 3966.
Roger, ROX 60, runway 48,continue traffic in position.
We're continuing Red Rock 60.
Perfect.
(19:42):
Falcon Tower, Oxford 9750, requestingChandler Arrival with information Papa.
Tell me when I can see again.
I know, I was just thinking about that.
Left turn Echo 4, 4 left via Echo 98774.
Cleared for takeoff,runway 4R, Oxford 2781.
(20:04):
You can slowly start yourdescent down at 2, 000.
Start the descent?
Yeah, you can slowly startyour descent down at 2, 000.
Once you hit 2, 000, youcan take your focals off.
Rec 1 Bravo Yankee right turn approved.
Right turn 1 Bravo Yankee, thanks.
(20:31):
Knox 5542, boundary tower, delayapproved, runway 4 4 right,
cleared for takeoff, Knox 5542.
Knox 9750, reduce speed, followingCherokee 12 o'clock, 2 miles,
runway 4 right, cleared to land.
Reduce speed, 4 right,cleared to land, Knox 9750.
Red Rock 60, runway 4right, cleared to land.
(20:51):
Cleared to land, 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Alright, just do a normal landing.
Welcome back.
See ya.
3, 400 eastbound Cherokee.
Alright, I'm gonna go ahead andput, uh, Can you hold that, please?
Thank you.
Alright, one Bravo Yankee, roger.
Break change approved, Stu.
Okay, see you in a while, thanks.
MD a's ready to go.
Yankee two, MDA Yankee two approved.
(21:12):
MD eight.
Hello.
Watch your out.
Dude.
Could
be about 1800, right?
1, 3, 0, 2 Charlie 10miles east Northeast.
3,600 landing.
Popup
90.
November 1, 3 0 2.
Charlie Falcon Tower Makeright traffic runway.
(21:34):
Four, eight.
Right?
Traffic.
Four.
Right.
Columbia is zero two.
Charlie, you don't need to add collapse.
Yeah, if you're a little low,you can always add power.
Oh, I got the one in.
With the gusting, it's probablybetter not to go full flaps.
No, probably not.
So let's just stay at 25.
We're clear to land.
Additional traffic is
(22:00):
12 o'clock, one mile, three thousandsix hundred eastbound Cherokee.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Have them and we're going topass behind them to his right.
Keep the flap settingswhere it's at, right?
You could go flap 25 if youreally need to, but right now it
seems like this is doing us fine.
Yeah.
(22:21):
Because you're still a little low, so youdon't need to add another set of flaps.
That's what I would decide to.
I just wanted to make sure.
3966, roger, left traffic.
Left, 3966, and then, uh, can we trythat, uh, that short approach again?
Alright, I got one, white.
3966, short approach, runwayfour left, clear to option.
Short approach, four left, clearfor the option, OXA 3966, Flaps
(22:46):
set, approach stable,clear to land, 4 right.
Still at 80.
Perfect.
Still got one way,almost two, there's two.
Make sure to not land with brakes.
(23:07):
Get directional control, then add brakes.
Little high.
Oh, he's getting on thecontrols with you lately.
Nice little power.
I'm gonna let that
(23:31):
airspeed bleed off.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
Right on Delta 6
and we'll contact ground, Red Rock 60.
Oh, it says all the plants on the runway.
It's a bunch of crap out here.
(23:54):
AJ Approved, 5542.
Columbia, 02Charlie, runway 4right clear to land, number 1.
Clear on number, uh, clear on4 right, 02Charlie, number 1.
And come to a stopafter that assault line.
Clear, clear.
Near Delta 6.
(24:15):
Talking ground, Red Rock 60is off at 4 right at Delta 6.
Going to parking.
Red Rock 60 talking ground,taxi parking via Delta.
Taxi to parking via Delta, Red Rock 60.
Nicely done.
That's my, uh, fuel timer going on.
I'm glad you didn't switch it, um,when we're that low to the ground
(24:35):
in case something were to go wrong.
Right.
Okay.
We'll just go, yeah, we'lljust go right next to, uh, six.
Six
KY.
Four.
Three.
Three.
Charlie F and grand runway.
Four Delta.
Delta four.
Right.
Uh, three Charlie.
Thank you.
And we'll just line ourselves up withthose wings and we'll do our after
landing checklist, and then we'lldo our parking secure checklist.
(24:58):
Okay.
Yeah.
A thousand's fine
after landing lap.
I already got those.
Fuel pump off, landing lightoff, Carb heat still in.
Pulling that anyway.
(25:22):
Braking brake is on, mixture cut off.
Hold on, wait till it, wait till it.
I will, I will.
Alright, magnetos are Okay.
So pretty good flight.
I was learning, making somemistakes and had a lot of mistakes
to learn from yet to come.
I was able to land okay in the gusts,although it wasn't too far off the runway
(25:44):
heading, so it wasn't too hard, but Iwas happy to be getting experiences that
would continue to make me a better pilot.
I was having a lot of fun withEddie and I was just so happy to
be flying again, even though Icould barely look outside anymore.
So let me know what you think.
Am I going to make it through this?
All right, it's time fortoday's Beyond the Checkride.
(26:05):
Let's bring Kent back into the SPCstudios and see what he has for us today.
All right.
I'm back with Kent Shook foranother Beyond the Checkride.
Kent, how are you doing?
Excellent as usual.
I'm always happy when I get to talk
Awesome.
(26:26):
And what topic do you have for us today?
Well, this one's important because it isone of the top three causes of accidents
that I think have been the top threefor a really, really, really long time.
those three things.
Of course, are into weatheryou're not prepared for.
(26:49):
are the airplane.
Quote, maneuvering flight, whichmeans, you know, buzzing your
buddy's house because you thinkit's cool and then crashing into
power lines or something like that.
Or, you know what the third one is.
What is it?
Fuel problems.
Absolutely.
We S for some silly reason, wecannot stop running out of gas.
(27:15):
It's my opinion, the dumbest reason tocrash an airplane, because, you know,
there are so many ways of being preparedand having lots and lots of fuel.
know, personally, I want anhour minimum, even if it's on
a Clear, beautiful VFR day.
(27:36):
I think I recently told you the storyabout how I was flying an airplane
that had more than a 7 hour enduranceand it had been flown for 45 minutes
before I flew it and I decided tohave it topped off anyway and after
I flew I was really glad I had.
So, yeah, I mean, there's a reason thatthe saying goes, the only time you can
(28:00):
have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
Right.
And one thing that I think would helpthat a lot Is I always wonder, you know,
if someone's flying home from a, uh, G.
A.
vacation, know, and it's gettingkind of late Sunday night, and
all the FBOs are closed, and theirfuel's getting kind of marginal.
(28:22):
How many people have crashed becausethey just went, well, I don't really
know how to fuel my own airplane, andI'm probably going to be okay, and
I just want to get home, I'm tired,and, you know, so they push it.
And then run out of gas.
You know, how much does that happen?
If you look
in the NTSB
Yeah.
there
are so many of these running out offuel accidents that just make you
(28:48):
facepalm what were you thinking?
And I really just think in manycases, it's because people have
never fueled an airplane themselves.
And it's not something
that's taught to
Yeah.
during primary training.
Unless They're at one of the airportsthat maybe doesn't have fuel trucks,
and it's their flight school's that, youknow, they fuel the airplane as soon as
(29:11):
they're done flying, but other than thatone limited circumstance, I think most
people get a private pilot certificateand have no clue how to fuel an airplane.
Um,
agree.
I, I hadn't ever fueled an airplane,uh, when I got my private certificate.
Yeah.
I didn't learn it until I joined theclub of our, or we had to fill all of our
(29:35):
own airplanes, even at our home airport.
there was only self serve there, um,because I, I started flying out of a
small private airport and, you know,it's so wonky to me that you can be a
pilot and I didn't think about it at thetime, but I thought about it afterwards
when I thought, man, I don't know howto fuel my own airplane, but it, it
seems really strange that you can bea pilot and not ever have been taught.
(29:59):
how to fuel, um, an airplane.
But I think, like you said, I thinka lot of people are in that boat.
So I think this is a great topic.
yeah, I would guess it's probably thevast majority of people, until you
get to the point where you're flyinginto little rural places a lot, or,
you know, maybe you get into backcountry flying or something like that.
(30:22):
there's, there's probably a lot ofpeople who make it all the way to the
airlines without ever having fueled an
airplane.
So,
probably true.
Yeah.
anyway, so let's, let's kind
And then they still don't have to.
through the whole process.
I mean, there's, I don't know howmany FBOs there are the world,
but I do know that airports thathave an FBO are in the minority.
(30:45):
There are so many places out therewhere, you know, you stop at Podunk
Municipal, and you can stop andyou can fuel up your own airplane.
so let's talk about how you do that.
First of all, of course, youwant to pull up to the pump.
Um, my preferred method of doing it isto the left wing closer to the pump.
(31:08):
It's just so that I can taxiback out when I go to leave.
Because I fly a really heavy airplane,it's kind of hard to push back.
if you're flying something lighter,it's Like a 152, 172, something like
that, that you can push pretty easily,then it's okay to just go ahead and
pull straight up to the pump.
Yeah.
I've
and this is a scenario where,
(31:29):
always done that too.
okay, yeah, this is a scenariowhere I think using the parking
brake is usually an easy way to go.
That way you don't have to worryabout chocks once you get out.
But yeah, park theairplane in a good spot.
You basically want to be ableto easily pull the fuel hose
out in front of the airplane.
(31:50):
So when I'm in the Mooney, like I said,I kind of point my left wing toward
where the pumps are, but I want thepump to be kind of at a 45 degree angle.
to the front and left ofme out past the wingtip.
And that way, if I pull thefuel hose straight out, I'm
going in front of the nose.
I'm not, you know, getting intothe prop or anything like that.
(32:13):
I'm not trying to pull it around mynose gear or any of that sort of thing.
So park it in a good position like that.
Shut down.
Turn that parking brake on, hop out,and then, of course, you gotta pay.
I think there's, there's only about threeor maybe four different types of payment
(32:35):
terminals at all the airports in the U.
S.
for some reason I can't think of whatany of them are called right now, but
they're all fairly straightforward.
Yeah.
The payment terminal, you should beable to operate, but the fuel pumps
are different than most people are, or
yeah, and we'll get to that.
used to with cars.
So yeah, or,
be aware of is that some airports willhave a timeout in between when you, make
(33:02):
your payment and when you start the pump.
So, one thing that I've seen a lot ofpeople do to pull out the fuel hose.
First, before you do the paymentterminal, and that way, as soon as
you're done with your payment, youcan go straight to the switch that
turns the pump on and turn it righton so that you don't get that timeout.
(33:24):
I will say I often don't do that, butthere have been times where that's
bitten me and I've had to go throughthe whole credit card procedure a second
time because the pump had a reallyshort timeout and I didn't get the hose
out quick enough, so to be aware of.
the other thing is on All of those paymentterminals, they're at some point going
(33:45):
to ask you, is the aircraft grounded?
So, this isn't your car, you're notbuying 10 gallons of fuel most likely.
in fact, bonus to being able to fuelyour own airplane is that you don't have
to buy your fuel from an expensive FBO.
you know, I'm based at a field that hasAtlantic Aviation and they are not cheap.
(34:07):
I can save like a buck fifty, two bucks agallon and my fuel capacity is 90 gallons.
And so sometimes I'm going andbuying 75 or 80 gallons at a time.
and at two bucks agallon, that's real money.
so that.
Flight to the little airport thathas the cheap fuel pays for itself.
If you needed any more incentive to listento the rest of this segment, there it is.
(34:30):
This can save you a whole lot of money.
or better yet, get you a littleextra flying for no more money.
Exactly.
I mean, that's, that's, how I look at it.
Hey, I get to have a nice little flightbasically for free and you know, that's
not to say that you shouldn't supportyour local FBO But I don't think
Atlantic Aviation is gonna miss mymoney when they're fueling Gulfstreams
(34:52):
and Falcons and such In fact, I'm I'mprobably more of an inconvenience to them
if anything at that point
Yeah.
We're, we're a nuisanceto operations like that.
So yeah, you know if you have agreat little mom and pop FBO at your
home airport and you know They'reprobably not charging Atlantic or
Signature kind of money either.
You know, definitely go aheadand support them when you can.
(35:15):
anyway, let's see, where were we?
Grounding your airplane.
You're going to be most likelypumping a fair amount of fuel.
You may have just been flying andboth of those things cause a lot of
static electricity buildup, chancesare, you know, the electrical
potential of the airplane is notgoing to be the same as the pump.
(35:35):
And so that's why there's always thatbonding strap, it's usually a wire
that's on a little retractable spoolthat you just pull out and you want to
attach it to a part of the airplane.
That
Is not painted.
it's got a big alligatorclip basically on the end.
It's clamp.
You just, it's spring loadedand you just clamp it onto.
(35:58):
And it's worth looking in the manualfor your airplane to see if there is a
specified grounding point on the airplane.
Um, you know, kind of conventionalwisdom is just something unpainted.
a lot of, uh, FBOs I know will justattach it to the bolt on the nose gear
that's not painted or something like that.
Or, I generally plug, uh, clamp mineonto the exhaust of the airplane.
(36:20):
Um, But for example, uh, on a lotof composite airplanes, you know,
that airplane is not all conductivethe way a metal airplane would be.
And so, um, I don't know where you do iton a Cirrus to be honest, but on a Diamond
Star, there is a specific groundingpoint on the underside of the wing.
(36:41):
It almost looks like a spark plugcoming out the bottom of the wing.
And that's what you'resupposed to clip it to.
Because if you clip it to the exhauston a Diamond Star, there is no.
electrical path between theexhaust and the tanks at all.
So just be aware of that.
And, um, especially if you'renot on a metal airplane, make
sure that you're grounding theairplane at the specified point.
(37:05):
And that's just to avoid havingany sparks flying in the vicinity
of fuel when you go to fuel up.
the other thing you want to do iswhen you are fueling, keep the, filler
against the filler neck of the airplane.
So you have another path therefor that electricity to go.
(37:26):
but really the final thing in termsof not creating any sparks is when
you're done, don't tap against theairplane to knock that last little drip
off because you know, pulling it offand putting it back on, you're just
creating another opportunity for a spark.
So, Keep it in contact with theairplane until you're done with
(37:47):
that tank and then just pull itright off and don't touch it again.
at this point, you should have yourground strap attached to the, uh,
the proper point on your airplane.
You've got your fuel hose pulled out.
now, It's really pretty simple.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,let's talk about those payment terminals.
(38:08):
Again,
one of the questions it's going to ask youis for the tail number of your airplane.
And I know some people who Iwould bet are not putting the
tail number of their airplane.
They're putting somerandom thing in there.
But the reason you do want to put thetail number of your airplane in there is,
you know, let's say you run out of fuel.
(38:31):
up short, maybe it wasn't even your fault.
Maybe you had plenty of fuel, youknow, maybe a fuel cap was loosed
and you were, you were siphoningsome fuel overboard in flight.
And whatever reason you ran out offuel, that's how you can prove that.
Yes, I really did have more fuel aboard.
(38:51):
is, they're going to be able togo back and say, Oh, yes, November
5, put on 80 gallons at PotomacMunicipal on their way here.
and in the unfortunate event you don'tmake it, that's how the NTSB is going
to be able to piece together, whetherit was some sort of a mechanical thing
(39:15):
where, you know, there was a fuel capfailure or whether they just say, ah,
well, there goes another stupid pilotwho didn't fuel up their airplane.
So please do go ahead and actuallyput your tail number in there so
that Um, you know, the FAA andthe NTSB can say, okay, yeah, that
person fueled up their airplane.
(39:35):
Side note, I bet November 1, is themost commonly fueled airplane out
there, just for those people who don'twant to put their own tail number in.
So, you've paid for your fuel,you've got your plane grounded,
you've got your hose out to theplane, got your fuel pump turned on.
(39:57):
Um,
that can happen in different ways as
Do you yet?
You should.
There you go.
I was going to say,
I was going to say that's probably thenext thing you should cover because
um, people aren't used to turningon the fuel pump after they've paid.
Yeah, one thing people don't realizeis when you're fueling your car, you
know, a lot of the pumps will stillhave the thing where you lift the handle
(40:21):
and you have to flip that little thing
Mm hmm.
what you're doing.
Um, at most airports, I would say thatthe most common variety I see is that
there's a little switch that can rock upand down, um, inside the fuel cabinet.
And it's often next to a light switch.
That's the same style, um, thatwill light up the inside of the
(40:43):
cabinet if you're fueling at night.
Um,
I have
it's usually close to the um, flow meter.
Um, that's going to tellyou how many gallons
right.
that's the way I see it usuallyaround here anyway, is it's somewhere
around, um, you're going to seeusually an analog flow meter.
That's going to, um,there's a reset button.
(41:05):
I don't know if you were going to getto that, but let's you zero that out.
Usually the on off switchis somewhere close to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would agree.
And you just made another great point.
Those, those analog meters, need to bereset before you start pumping fuel.
I would say most commonly there is a onthe right hand side that you just turn.
(41:28):
Uh, so the top is going front to back andthat'll roll all the numbers down to zero
and then you let go and you'll be ableto tell how much fuel you're pumping.
They're, they're still, they're stillcounting how much fuel you're pumping.
So you're going to pay for it either way.
But if you want to know howmuch you're pumping, it'd be
a good idea to zero that out.
(41:49):
Yes, for sure.
It's not going to affectthe payment at all.
Like you
said, um, that's just a tool
Yep.
for you to know how much you put in.
Okay, so, the other thing that I haveseen is there are airports that have
taken old school automotive fuel pumpsand done some hardware hacking to them
(42:12):
to make them into aircraft fuel pumps
so you
I have not run across that.
That is.
It's pretty funny.
you may actually need tolift that little thing that
would have been where the
pump handle used to be.
since aircraft pump handles are not thesame shape, they won't fit in there.
(42:32):
So, um, there's usually some otherplace where the pump handle goes.
yeah, you'll see all kinds of.
Things that have been hackedtogether at small airports.
Um, you know, everybody's making use ofthe resources that they have available.
So, just be aware that, you know, thereis quite a bit of variation out there.
(42:53):
but yeah, I would say by far themost common is that one that's
inside the cabinet real closeto the analog meter numbers.
And that's probably slightly into themajority of, of, uh, small airport
self serve pumps that I've seen.
So, are we ready to pump fuel yet?
try and keep the rest of themechanism and the hose and everything
(43:16):
from touching the airplane.
you know, even if it's your airplaneand you're paying for the next paint
job, there's no reason to rush that.
If you're on a high wing airplane,Now, you're probably up on a ladder,
so the easiest way to handle that isto have the fuel hose coming over your
(43:36):
shoulder, and that way it's not going tomake contact with the airplane at all.
by the way, um, most, I don'tknow about most, many places,
uh, where you get self serve fuelwill have a ladder laying there.
So,
I would say
pretty much everybody does.
(43:58):
have never been
yeah,
that had self serve fuelthat didn't have a ladder.
Or,
I haven't either, but I haven'tbeen to most places, so I
didn't want to overspeak.
yeah, well, I mean, when I was flyingthe 182 around all over the place, you
know, I was fueling that myself, andUm, that is one thing that, I said, I've
never run into a place that didn't havea ladder because they would be excluding
(44:22):
the entire wing segment of the market.
Um, speaking of Cessnas we recentlytalked about securing a Your airplane
post flight and how you need to move thefuel selector off of the both position.
Same thing happens here.
If you leave your fuel selector on both,the fuel will start draining from one
(44:45):
wing into the other almost immediatelywhen you start filling up one side.
And so, gallons can move across.
Um, at least this is what I found in the182 is, you'd have several gallons move
across from one side to the other if youfueled it with the fuel selector in both.
And then you get on the other side andyou fill it up and well then you're
(45:07):
not actually filled up anymore because,some of your fuel, across when you
were fueling the first tank, and soyou got some air in that tank now.
Um, so make sure you put the fuelselector on left or right before you
fuel up, um, on a Cessna or anythingelse that has between tanks like that.
(45:30):
just make sure you know your fuelsystem and make sure you're putting
your fuel in the place you want it.
but yeah, most planes, you're goingto be fueling up one wing and then
moving and fueling up the other one.
I pretty much always fuel up thewing that's farther from the pump
first, just so that I don't have topull more fuel hose out in between.
you know, if you're on a highwing, you're going to need to
(45:51):
move your ladder in between tanksand that sort of thing as well.
But once you're done, you know,if you got that high wing, go
ahead and put the ladder away.
but the next thing you wantto do is turn the pump off.
So go and find that switch whereveryou found it, turn the pump off.
And, you'll hear the pump stop and you'llprobably, if you're close enough to
(46:12):
that payment terminal, you're, you'llhear a receipt start to print, get
everything all buttoned up, make sureyour fuel caps are on securely and.
I actually don't know what the name forthe style of fuel caps I have is, but
it's the, you know, the flush variety.
those
don't have to be too far off of levelwith the top of the wing before they
(46:35):
can start leaking fuel, I would sayit's probably, 10 degrees or less.
and it's fairly easy to do that.
Um,
I know that with the
Yeah.
we always had to double check that line.
People had those back on straightand I know on the Mooney once I have
had the experience of accidentallydoing that and not noticing it myself.
(47:00):
And then shortly after takeoff,I to Well, I don't know.
For whatever reason, I was looking out atthe left wing and I noticed this stream.
It almost looked like smoke,but it was just white.
And I thought, Oh, that's cool.
Except for that's not water vapor.
That's fuel that I'm leaking.
So I had to turn around and go rightback into the airport again, then
(47:22):
get that fuel cap on there straight.
So that's a good thing to double check.
once you've got the plain doll buttonback up, you're going to need to retract
the fuel hose and that grounding strap.
of the time.
I would say you'll have an electricmotor on the fuel hose system.
There are some that are manual andthey're, they're kind of a pain, Yes,
(47:47):
so one trick that I learned that I,you know, I like to leave everything
ready to go for the next pilot.
And if you don't have somebody thereto help you getting that fuel hose
back onto the reel, it could bedifficult to get it evenly wound up
across the full width of the reel.
(48:09):
And so one thing that I generally do is Imy foot, just like the arch of your foot,
up against the fuel pump as you're pushingthe button to retract the fuel hose.
And you can use your foot tokind of push it and right as
it's rolling itself back up.
And make sure that you don't.
(48:30):
Get to the point where the entirefuel hose is all on one side of the
reel and starts getting bound up and
One thing that some airports have onthose fuel hose reels is a clutch that
you may have to engage or disengage Tobe able to pull the fuel hose out Easily
and then you know, you might have to reengage a clutch to get that that motor
(48:54):
to start Uh, to pull on the reel again.
So just be aware of that.
Um, that's usually a, a big black handlethat'll be on the side of the reel.
Um, not super common, butit's not exactly rare either.
So we've got our fuel hose in.
Uh, next thing is that, that groundingcable, with those, if they have the
(49:14):
automatic retraction, you can justgive it a little tug and it'll start
to, to retract that on its own.
Don't
just let go
Spring mechanism.
Yeah.
And don't just let
Yeah.
Yeah.
then they zip in really quick and youmake the airport managers mad because
it only takes a few times of thathappening before A, that, that, that
(49:38):
Alligator clip is just destroyed fromdragging along the, the ground on its
way back in, but then it also hitsthe stop inside the cabinet suddenly
and gets ripped off the cable and, youknow, messes up that spring mechanism.
So, take a hold of thatalligator clip securely, then
give it a tug and walk it in.
(50:00):
You might want to grab your receipt.
Um,
you do want to be sure you sump the newfuel because who knows if there's a leak
in the tank at that little airport orsomething, maybe there's a big rainstorm
and their tank is full of water andyou just pumped it into your airplane.
So definitely, Um, be diligent aboutchecking the fuel and making sure that
(50:24):
there's no water or sediment in it.
Um, especially,
Make sure it's the right color.
yes, all that stuff thatyou do on a pre flight.
Make sure you do
Yep.
you fuel.
In the event that you're done flyingfor the day, and it's gonna be, you
know, you're parking the plane for thenight, make if it is really cold when
(50:46):
you're filling the plane, top it offevery last little bit because morning
the sun comes out it starts to warm upand that fuel is going to expand and
it's going to start draining out allover the ramp and wasting your money.
So, um, leave a little room in there ifit's really cold when you're fueling.
(51:07):
As far as how to find fuel, how do you,how do you decide where you want to fuel,
Bill?
You know, I use, I use ForeFlight.
one of the layers on the mapis allows you to turn on fuel.
I know they get their datafrom other places and they
also allow pilots to update.
(51:28):
those fuel amounts right in ForeFlight.
and there are other places I couldlook for it, but lately I don't,
I don't really do that anymore.
I just look at ForeFlight.
They, ForeFlight even color codes them.
So, you know, if it's green,uh, it means it's one of the,
cheaper fuels in the area.
If it's yellow, it'skind of a mid price fuel.
(51:49):
And if it's red, it's one of themost expensive airports to get fuel.
you could be flying along andjust, check along your route and
just look for the cheapest ones.
So that that's what I do.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
check airnav.
com Because there's enough people stillflying out there that don't use ForeFlight
(52:15):
and usually complain on the internetabout people who do use ForeFlight.
And so they're generally still usingAirNav, which would, I mean, AirNav
has been around for a long time.
I mean, I've been flying formore than 20 years and it was
there right in the beginning.
Um, probably the, I would guess thefirst site that had fuel prices, but
(52:36):
the thing that I use there is whatthey call great deals reports and that
will, it shows you what the criteriaare for getting on that report, but I
think you have to be like the lowestwithin 50 miles or something like that.
And then they have the, theyhave some that are highlighted as
super deals that have to be likethe cheapest within 150 miles.
(52:58):
And so.
There are times where I'll find somethingon there that hasn't been updated in
ForeFlight, but that's pretty rare.
It's just kind of another,another method of looking.
A little farther and a little wider forcheap fuel because, one drawback to using
ForeFlight is if you zoom out too far,you won't be able to see all the prices.
(53:21):
And so you might be hiding a good price,and so I do, you know, when I'm using
ForeFlight, I keep it fairly zoomedin, uh, and if you're going on a 1,
000, 1, 500 mile trip, can go 100 or200 miles off course in the middle of
that trip, and you're only affectingyour total trip distance by like 10
(53:41):
miles.
so
some of those really long trips arewhere those those air nav great deals
reports can you find something thatnot be right on your path, but might be
worth stopping at anyway.
Those are awesome tips Kentfor refueling the airplane.
And I think, you know, like we said atthe beginning, I think there's a lot of
(54:02):
people that have just never had experiencedoing that, so really appreciate you kind
of walking through all those details.
And, uh, um, I hope it helps somebody outthere when they get beyond the check ride.
For sure.
And you know, if nothing else, Ithink the best thing to do is to
go and do this before you have to.
(54:22):
Don't wait until you're on theway home from vacation Sunday
night and have to figure out a newthing because that's where that
get thereitis is going to set in.
Now that you've heard this, go out andtry it for yourself and you'll find out
it really is not that big of a deal.
It's an easy thing to do.
It can save you a ton of money.
So
go out there,
That's a great point.
(54:44):
fly safe and have fun.
Awesome.
Thanks again, Kent.
And until next time, we'll see ya.
See ya.
I hope you enjoyed the flight andthe latest Beyond the Checkride.
I want to thank Kent forhis help on these segments.
He's got a lot of GA experience.
(55:05):
So his insights are really valuable andI hope you're finding them valuable too.
Again, we'd love ideas on what weshould cover in those segments.
We've already thought ofthings that we should have put
in our first one last week.
We'll probably think of some thisweek, and going into the future.
so we'll probably redotopics again at some point.
(55:28):
But in the meantime, like I said,we'd love to hear from you on what
you think we should do, or if youhave ideas about what we should do,
or if we've forgotten anything thatwe should add in or, or correct.
So send your thoughts and feedbackto me at Bill at studentpilotcast.
com.
(55:49):
You can also reach out to meon X with the handle Billwill.
That's Bravo, India, Lima,Lima, Whiskey, India, Lima.
And as usual, we'd love to hear from you.
So keep the suggestionsand the comments coming.
Like I said, I was loving this.
I had a lot of hard work and study aheadof me, which I had already started.
I was preparing for thewritten and eventually would
(56:11):
be preparing for my check ride.
And of course, learning and tryingto understand what this instrument
flying thing was all about.
I had purchased and watched theinstrument course from sporties.
But I was also getting my feet wetwith Shepard Air, which I'll definitely
talk about in a future episode asI got ready to take the written.
(56:32):
Those programs at Shepard Airwould prove invaluable as I've
been progressing in my certs andratings, so I'll cover that soon.
For now, I was flying and I wastrying to get sharper with my skills.
It's a lot, but I knew it'd be worth it.
It seemed far away, but looking back,it would be just a blink of an eye and
(56:56):
I'd be sitting in front of the DPE.
Alright, let's finish my instrumenttraining flight that we started last
week and try to squeeze in anotherbig, fat, beyond the checkride segment,
where we'll dive into fueling ourown airplanes at self service pumps.
Enjoy today's episode of the StudentPilot Cast, Tanks for the Memories,
How Not to Make Fuel ish Mistakes.
(00:35):
Welcome back SBC listeners,and I'm sorry about the puns.
I can't help it.
Anyway, we're back with the conclusionof my first training flight under the
hood in quite a while I'll try to bequick on the commentary and the in
cockpit audio on this one because we'vegot a pretty big Beyond the check ride
segment that I want to make sure thatwe have time for and that we squeeze
(00:57):
in here Before we get going on thatthough, there were a couple of things I
promised to at least touch on this week.
I'll hopefully go into detailat some point in the future.
But I mentioned last week when I wastalking about my son working at APS
that he'd likely be getting a pretty funride in an airplane here pretty soon.
Well I had one recently tooand I mentioned that briefly.
(01:20):
So let me step out of sequencehere a little bit in my
training and get you up to date.
As you may know I'm currentlyworking on my CFI training right now.
Thanks Mostly just waiting on gettinga DPE scheduled, but still learning,
studying, and flying, and trying tobe ready when it does get scheduled.
So if you don't know You have toget a SPIN endorsement to be a
(01:44):
candidate for the CFI checkride,so I decided to do it in style.
I went back to where it all beganfor me, Chandler Air Service, and
did my SPIN training with a greatinstructor there who's been doing crazy
fun stuff in airplanes for decades.
I had never even taken a planeupside down before, so I knew
(02:04):
this was gonna be a treat.
And one of the best parts of thewhole thing was that I did the
flying part of the training in anopen cockpit aerobatic biplane.
What a freaking rush.
We did a fair amount of groundtraining before getting in the
airplane, probably a couple of hoursworth, and then hopped in a Great
(02:25):
Lakes biplane to do the actual spins.
The nature of that cockpit, especiallywith the parachutes we were wearing,
it felt more like we were wearingthe airplane than sitting in it.
But what a great experience.
I got 1.
1 of dual in that biplane that day andprobably did more than a dozen spins of
all kinds, went upside down, did spinreversals, accelerated spins, you name it.
(02:50):
By the end though, I was spent
my stomach was starting to get alittle angry with me as I wasn't
used to those types of movements.
And.
As I recall, I didn't realize thetraining was going to be that long.
We got a little bit of a late startbecause he had another lesson that
he was finishing up beforehand.
And I ended up not eating all morning.
(03:11):
And by the time we were donewith the flight, it was afternoon
and that probably wasn't smart.
I didn't do it on purpose.
I just thought, Oh, I'll bethere for a couple of hours
and then I'll grab some food.
And, anyway, it didn't work.
It didn't work out.
My stomach was getting mad at me.
when we were on our way back infrom the flight, he asked if I
(03:32):
wanted to do some mild aerobatics.
And while my stomach and headwere saying no way, I found myself
saying, well, yeah, of course.
So how do you pass up a chance like that?
Right.
I did fine.
No dog bag needed that day.
But I was still glad I had one therejust in case, you know what I mean?
(03:53):
Anyway, I actually learned agreat deal and had a ton of fun
Despite it being really pretty hot.
The open cockpit helped keep thingsa little cooler Even I think we
were starting most of our maneuversat about 5, 500 MSL The reason I
(04:13):
don't recall for sure is becausewe had set our altimeter for, AGL.
We'd set it to ground level.
So we'd always see how farabove the deck we were.
so I, I think it was somewherearound 5, 500 that we were
starting all the maneuvers.
So it helped a little bitto be up higher like that.
And luckily, luckily it wasslightly cooler than it had been
(04:35):
lately for that particular day.
I flew especially because weweren't flying until You know,
noon, but cooler for Arizona inthe summer is still blasted hot.
Anyway, I just wanted to bring you upto speed a bit on what I'd been doing
and that ride I had, and hopefullyI'll do a more in depth recount
(04:55):
of that training and the flight ina future episode of the podcast.
I did record the flight, but being anopen cockpit and all the audio is not
quite as clean as I normally get, butthat's all right, it's still usable.
And I'll share what I can.
Coming up at some point in the podcast.
So let's get on to the endof my instrument training
(05:17):
flight way back in sequence.
If you remember, I was doinginstrument patterns in the sky
when we left off last week.
So we'll pick it up there again, asusual, I'll edit the audio in the cockpit
for blank space and brevity and justjump in to comment where necessary.
The last half of this flightshould go pretty quickly.
Remember, this is February in the PhoenixValley, so absolutely Beautiful weather.
(05:42):
So I started talking about how Ifelt like I was missing the view
from the cockpit on such a nice day.
And Eddie reminded me that this was justthe beginning and that I'd be itching
to be able to see outside long beforeI finished my instrument training.
South practice, Red Rock 60, 4,500 over the north test track.
(06:07):
It's too bad though, I love theview from the cockpit on nice days.
I don't get to enjoy it.
You honestly, at the end of instrument,you're actually going to be excited
for a commercial because you'regoing to be able to look outside.
Good point.
I was really bummed out after.
It was great, but not being ableto look outside gets annoying.
Alright, 30 seconds to my right 180.
(06:30):
There you go.
Traffic is all no factornow, which is perfect.
Thank you.
Honestly, I'm using this primarily forvague because that's throwing me off.
So this is now your primary instrument,this is now your supporting.
Yeah, might as well make that in op.
So, uh, control, yeah, so that's theother form of instrument flying, is your
(06:53):
primary supporting method of instruments.
All right, here's our oneminute standard rate turn.
Back pressure.
(07:14):
it turned faster than expected.
By 4 or 5 seconds.
That is weird.
It must have been too high at some point.
On the rate of turn I mean.
No, no, a little bit, but you're fine.
You still look pretty good.
I'm trying to find the timer on hereso you don't have to use your phone.
(07:39):
I need another knee board for my phone.
Yeah, for real.
I'm going to figure that outfor us on the next flight.
Watch your altitude.
I got fixated for a second.
Yep, fixation and omission.
It's true.
What kills pilots.
The struggle is real.
The struggle is very, very real.
(07:59):
Alright, so you're headingon this for two minutes.
We're 43 seconds into it.
And Red Rocks 1, 600 feet above us.
What's that?
Ryan and Jaclyn are about1, 600 feet above us.
Oh, got some company traffic, huh?
Yep, they're ripping.
(08:26):
I mean, not like us on thescooters this morning, but.
Oh, no, not like us, no, they could never.
Alright, so let meexplain that for a second.
I think I had mentioned before that therewas work being done on the hangar and
tie down areas for the flight school.
In fact, they were moving locations
and prep was being done on the new place.
So the airplanes were homeless for a bit.
(08:47):
So for a couple of months, or maybeit was only a few weeks, it's hard to
remember, they were being parked out onthe flight line in front of the tower.
About a ten minute walk from the school.
I think in a previous episode you heard acontroller ask about our walk out there.
Well, sometimes instead of hoofing it,we'd get on the golf cart if it was
available, or on some occasions, we'dWe grabbed some electric scooters that
(09:11):
they had in the hangar there, if theywere charged, and if they were available.
And that's what we had done that morning.
And we had some fungetting out to the plane.
That's why the reference to us rippingaround the airport on those scooters.
So, now you know.
Let's continue.
Southeast, Fractionary, Oxford 7119,two miles south of the AGL, headed to
(09:34):
the Phoenix, last call, sorry, headedto Stockfield, last call, southeast.
Southwest Fractionary, Oxford 5821, 2,100 over the I 10 Greenfields Ground rope.
Last call.
That's cool, it just flewright over the top of us.
20 seconds.
Cool, 20 seconds to go.
(09:55):
I'll be doing a right one minute turn.
Yep, perfect.
Here we go.
(10:16):
And on this one, for traffic's sake, I'mgoing to have you climb up to, uh, 4, 700.
4, 700.
Keep that climb coming.
There you go.
There you go.
(10:43):
Twenty four seconds in the turn.
Twenty four seconds in the turn.
Go.
(11:03):
Alright,
that one was perfectly one minute.
And there you are.
Oh, I'm losing it.
(11:24):
Get back to, before you call it,let me get back to my altitude.
Red Rock 60, maintain 4, 700.
Pilot deviation.
4, 700.
And how much more timedo we have on this one?
I think it's over.
Done.
Alright, perfect.
Um, we are it's almost 840, so we uh,probably start, have to head back.
(11:47):
Okay.
Um, but we managed to get atraffic, or we managed to get
a pattern in, which is great.
Next time we'll just rip throughthe ground a little bit faster
so we have some more time in theair, but that was fantastic Bill.
So now what I'm going to have you dois I'm going to have you go direct
Chandler and descend down to 3, 300.
Alright, that's going to be a left turn?
Um, let's do a let's do a left turn.
(12:10):
Left turn heading direct Chandler.
Alright.
Descending to 3, 300.
And my heading, shouldn't it tell me?
Three zero.
Two three.
Yep.
When you come out off, when you'reheading, you can get the weather.
Four.
Dalkin,
Okay, so I'd grabbed the ATIS forFalcon here, but notice the winds.
(12:32):
It was blowing pretty good.
So a funny little conversationhappened between Eddie and me.
Should he be worried?
Maybe.
I'll just let it play allthe way back to the field.
Here you go.
Papa.
1, 4, 5, 4.
Zulu wind 3 0 1 2.
Gus, two zero.
(12:53):
Temperature 1, 2 2 point minus five.
Ultima 3 0 2 5.
Approach east landing.
Enter party runway waist.
Four left and four.
Right.
You not observe effect forfurther information Contact.
All arrivals contact tower 124.
6.
Papa.
I wanted to hear the winds one more time
Sure.
Sounds like it's gusting pretty good.
Yeah, I think it's gusting 20.
(13:14):
Wind 030 at 12, gust 20.
Temperature 12, dew pointminus 5, altimeter 3025.
Uh, I can take the landing ifyou're not comfortable with it.
That's pretty much down the runway.
I think we're okay.
Alright.
You can be on it with mein case you're worried.
Sure.
Okay.
But I could use the practice.
I'm not that worried.
(13:36):
I'm slightly worried, but.
Laughter.
Alright, you got athousand feet to descend.
emergency descent to forestlanding, look out for the southeast.
South Praxis area, Red Rock six east,two miles to the west of Papachula, four
thousand descending, three thousand threehundred north, back to Falcon, southeast.
(14:10):
Okay, so it's like 30, 40 miles.
That's a good deal.
Uh, I hope he's not heading back too.
Alright, you can come right,uh, heading, let's say 0 5 0.
0 5 0.
0
5 0 and keep that descent coming.
(14:32):
Um, we're gonna keep the speed up totry to get ahead of this Oxford so
you can honestly almost go full power.
Okay.
Alright, 130, man.
Alright, good.
Yeah, I just want to get someseparation between this guy,
just for safety, but good job.
Southeast Bracketeria, 2791, 4, 000,Johnson's Ranch going southbound.
He was coming kinda right atus, same altitude, he's also
(14:54):
heading back to Falcon, so.
Alright, you can start, youcan pull that power back now.
You can go down to like2, 300 or fine now.
Standing
way below for some reason.
So maybe he's just going totransition through Chandler or do
some landings there or something.
I don't know.
(15:16):
Help you out a little bit.
There we go.
Just clear of that, Bravoclear of this shelf.
We'll just go right in the middle.
Got it.
I want to look out so bad andlike see where Chandler is.
Yeah, I know.
Take a quick peek for a second.
Right.
(15:46):
Looks like there's some wind pushing itkind of maybe to the left a little bit.
So really just kind of gokind of towards the middle.
You don't even have to follow this line.
Just kind of put us right in the center.
Got it.
You know what I'm saying?
Yep.
Maybe like a zero fourfive heading almost.
Zero four zero.
Zero four five.
Southwest Factory, Oxford 6154,we're about 2 miles northwest of
(16:08):
Meccawood Town, tune in to thetailgate for the first landing.
Come right, 045 for now.
045, got it.
And you're 10 miles, so youcan switch over to tower.
Morning helicopter, MD 8, filtrateramp lights are in position to the
echo ramp for the MD 2 with PAPA.
(16:29):
MD 8, MD 2 approved.
MD 8.
And you can say, uh, Falcon Tower,Red Rock 60 is 10 miles to the
south, inbound, full stop with PAPA.
Falcon Tower, Red Rock 60 is 10 miles tothe south, inbound with PAPA, full stop.
(16:50):
This is 9774 Fall Cherokee on a milefinal runway, 4 left clear to land.
4 left clear to land, number 2, 9774.
Red Rock 60, Fox Tower,straight in runway 4 right.
Straight in for 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Beautiful, Bill.
Nice job.
Alright, we're clear ofthat traffic over there.
(17:11):
Say the call sign one more time.
I don't know what he's talking about.
Talking to someone else in here.
Spreading It's kind of sandwiching.
It's not fun kind of dodging the airspace,but you get used to it after a while.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
(17:32):
I was going to say, it's not reallyideal just threading between airspaces,
but after a while you get used to it.
Alright, so now that we're past Chandler'sairspace, you can descend and maintain
2, 400 traffic pattern altitude.
2, 400.
2, 400.
We want to be, by the time wehit that airspace for Falcon,
(17:55):
we want to be at 2, 400.
So you can continue with yourbefore landing checklist,
because we made that first call.
Alright.
Before landing, fuel pump on.
Got to do a scan between each item.
I know.
Uh, fuel, proper tank, Ithink we're still good.
Yep.
(18:15):
Uh, mixture.
Rich.
We're still rich.
RRP is 10.
Ending light.
That other one.
There you go.
And five miles out.
That's for Unpowered.
They said straight in four, right?
(18:36):
Oh, route one Probably.
Yankee, can you make go below, go 700.
We're gonna kinda, we're gonna turn left.
Heading.
We're ready.
3 6 0 1 Bra Yankee Roger, makethe right turn on Delta four.
Delta Duke.
Okay, Delta 2 holding shortof 4 right, 1 Bravo Yankee.
(18:56):
Red Rock 71, right Delta6, contact ground, see ya.
Delta 6, Delta ground, 10 4, see ya.
Roger, 2781, runway 48 fulllength, line up and wait.
Line up and wait, Delta 421, 2781.
Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee, runway48 at Delta 2, clear for takeoff.
Fly straight out.
Okay, Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee,cleared for takeoff, straight out.
Yeah, it should even out, yeah,for acceleration there, perfect.
(19:21):
Yeah, talking to ROX for 3966, couldwe get a short approach on this one?
Roger, 3966, make short approach,runway 4 left, cleared for option.
Short approach, 4 left, cleared forthe option, thank you, ROX for 3966.
Roger, ROX 60, runway 48,continue traffic in position.
We're continuing Red Rock 60.
Perfect.
(19:42):
Falcon Tower, Oxford 9750, requestingChandler Arrival with information Papa.
Tell me when I can see again.
I know, I was just thinking about that.
Left turn Echo 4, 4 left via Echo 98774.
Cleared for takeoff,runway 4R, Oxford 2781.
(20:04):
You can slowly start yourdescent down at 2, 000.
Start the descent?
Yeah, you can slowly startyour descent down at 2, 000.
Once you hit 2, 000, youcan take your focals off.
Rec 1 Bravo Yankee right turn approved.
Right turn 1 Bravo Yankee, thanks.
(20:31):
Knox 5542, boundary tower, delayapproved, runway 4 4 right,
cleared for takeoff, Knox 5542.
Knox 9750, reduce speed, followingCherokee 12 o'clock, 2 miles,
runway 4 right, cleared to land.
Reduce speed, 4 right,cleared to land, Knox 9750.
Red Rock 60, runway 4right, cleared to land.
(20:51):
Cleared to land, 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Alright, just do a normal landing.
Welcome back.
See ya.
3, 400 eastbound Cherokee.
Alright, I'm gonna go ahead andput, uh, Can you hold that, please?
Thank you.
Alright, one Bravo Yankee, roger.
Break change approved, Stu.
Okay, see you in a while, thanks.
MD a's ready to go.
Yankee two, MDA Yankee two approved.
(21:12):
MD eight.
Hello.
Watch your out.
Dude.
Could
be about 1800, right?
1, 3, 0, 2 Charlie 10miles east Northeast.
3,600 landing.
Popup
90.
November 1, 3 0 2.
Charlie Falcon Tower Makeright traffic runway.
(21:34):
Four, eight.
Right?
Traffic.
Four.
Right.
Columbia is zero two.
Charlie, you don't need to add collapse.
Yeah, if you're a little low,you can always add power.
Oh, I got the one in.
With the gusting, it's probablybetter not to go full flaps.
No, probably not.
So let's just stay at 25.
We're clear to land.
Additional traffic is
(22:00):
12 o'clock, one mile, three thousandsix hundred eastbound Cherokee.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Have them and we're going topass behind them to his right.
Keep the flap settingswhere it's at, right?
You could go flap 25 if youreally need to, but right now it
seems like this is doing us fine.
Yeah.
(22:21):
Because you're still a little low, so youdon't need to add another set of flaps.
That's what I would decide to.
I just wanted to make sure.
3966, roger, left traffic.
Left, 3966, and then, uh, can we trythat, uh, that short approach again?
Alright, I got one, white.
3966, short approach, runwayfour left, clear to option.
Short approach, four left, clearfor the option, OXA 3966, Flaps
(22:46):
set, approach stable,clear to land, 4 right.
Still at 80.
Perfect.
Still got one way,almost two, there's two.
Make sure to not land with brakes.
(23:07):
Get directional control, then add brakes.
Little high.
Oh, he's getting on thecontrols with you lately.
Nice little power.
I'm gonna let that
(23:31):
airspeed bleed off.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
Right on Delta 6
and we'll contact ground, Red Rock 60.
Oh, it says all the plants on the runway.
It's a bunch of crap out here.
(23:54):
AJ Approved, 5542.
Columbia, 02Charlie, runway 4right clear to land, number 1.
Clear on number, uh, clear on4 right, 02Charlie, number 1.
And come to a stopafter that assault line.
Clear, clear.
Near Delta 6.
(24:15):
Talking ground, Red Rock 60is off at 4 right at Delta 6.
Going to parking.
Red Rock 60 talking ground,taxi parking via Delta.
Taxi to parking via Delta, Red Rock 60.
Nicely done.
That's my, uh, fuel timer going on.
I'm glad you didn't switch it, um,when we're that low to the ground
(24:35):
in case something were to go wrong.
Right.
Okay.
We'll just go, yeah, we'lljust go right next to, uh, six.
Six
KY.
Four.
Three.
Three.
Charlie F and grand runway.
Four Delta.
Delta four.
Right.
Uh, three Charlie.
Thank you.
And we'll just line ourselves up withthose wings and we'll do our after
landing checklist, and then we'lldo our parking secure checklist.
(24:58):
Okay.
Yeah.
A thousand's fine
after landing lap.
I already got those.
Fuel pump off, landing lightoff, Carb heat still in.
Pulling that anyway.
(25:22):
Braking brake is on, mixture cut off.
Hold on, wait till it, wait till it.
I will, I will.
Alright, magnetos are Okay.
So pretty good flight.
I was learning, making somemistakes and had a lot of mistakes
to learn from yet to come.
I was able to land okay in the gusts,although it wasn't too far off the runway
(25:44):
heading, so it wasn't too hard, but Iwas happy to be getting experiences that
would continue to make me a better pilot.
I was having a lot of fun withEddie and I was just so happy to
be flying again, even though Icould barely look outside anymore.
So let me know what you think.
Am I going to make it through this?
All right, it's time fortoday's Beyond the Checkride.
(26:05):
Let's bring Kent back into the SPCstudios and see what he has for us today.
All right.
I'm back with Kent Shook foranother Beyond the Checkride.
Kent, how are you doing?
Excellent as usual.
I'm always happy when I get to talk
Awesome.
(26:26):
And what topic do you have for us today?
Well, this one's important because it isone of the top three causes of accidents
that I think have been the top threefor a really, really, really long time.
those three things.
Of course, are into weatheryou're not prepared for.
(26:49):
are the airplane.
Quote, maneuvering flight, whichmeans, you know, buzzing your
buddy's house because you thinkit's cool and then crashing into
power lines or something like that.
Or, you know what the third one is.
What is it?
Fuel problems.
Absolutely.
We S for some silly reason, wecannot stop running out of gas.
(27:15):
It's my opinion, the dumbest reason tocrash an airplane, because, you know,
there are so many ways of being preparedand having lots and lots of fuel.
know, personally, I want anhour minimum, even if it's on
a Clear, beautiful VFR day.
(27:36):
I think I recently told you the storyabout how I was flying an airplane
that had more than a 7 hour enduranceand it had been flown for 45 minutes
before I flew it and I decided tohave it topped off anyway and after
I flew I was really glad I had.
So, yeah, I mean, there's a reason thatthe saying goes, the only time you can
(28:00):
have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
Right.
And one thing that I think would helpthat a lot Is I always wonder, you know,
if someone's flying home from a, uh, G.
A.
vacation, know, and it's gettingkind of late Sunday night, and
all the FBOs are closed, and theirfuel's getting kind of marginal.
(28:22):
How many people have crashed becausethey just went, well, I don't really
know how to fuel my own airplane, andI'm probably going to be okay, and
I just want to get home, I'm tired,and, you know, so they push it.
And then run out of gas.
You know, how much does that happen?
If you look
in the NTSB
Yeah.
there
are so many of these running out offuel accidents that just make you
(28:48):
facepalm what were you thinking?
And I really just think in manycases, it's because people have
never fueled an airplane themselves.
And it's not something
that's taught to
Yeah.
during primary training.
Unless They're at one of the airportsthat maybe doesn't have fuel trucks,
and it's their flight school's that, youknow, they fuel the airplane as soon as
(29:11):
they're done flying, but other than thatone limited circumstance, I think most
people get a private pilot certificateand have no clue how to fuel an airplane.
Um,
agree.
I, I hadn't ever fueled an airplane,uh, when I got my private certificate.
Yeah.
I didn't learn it until I joined theclub of our, or we had to fill all of our
(29:35):
own airplanes, even at our home airport.
there was only self serve there, um,because I, I started flying out of a
small private airport and, you know,it's so wonky to me that you can be a
pilot and I didn't think about it at thetime, but I thought about it afterwards
when I thought, man, I don't know howto fuel my own airplane, but it, it
seems really strange that you can bea pilot and not ever have been taught.
(29:59):
how to fuel, um, an airplane.
But I think, like you said, I thinka lot of people are in that boat.
So I think this is a great topic.
yeah, I would guess it's probably thevast majority of people, until you
get to the point where you're flyinginto little rural places a lot, or,
you know, maybe you get into backcountry flying or something like that.
(30:22):
there's, there's probably a lot ofpeople who make it all the way to the
airlines without ever having fueled an
airplane.
So,
probably true.
Yeah.
anyway, so let's, let's kind
And then they still don't have to.
through the whole process.
I mean, there's, I don't know howmany FBOs there are the world,
but I do know that airports thathave an FBO are in the minority.
(30:45):
There are so many places out therewhere, you know, you stop at Podunk
Municipal, and you can stop andyou can fuel up your own airplane.
so let's talk about how you do that.
First of all, of course, youwant to pull up to the pump.
Um, my preferred method of doing it isto the left wing closer to the pump.
(31:08):
It's just so that I can taxiback out when I go to leave.
Because I fly a really heavy airplane,it's kind of hard to push back.
if you're flying something lighter,it's Like a 152, 172, something like
that, that you can push pretty easily,then it's okay to just go ahead and
pull straight up to the pump.
Yeah.
I've
and this is a scenario where,
(31:29):
always done that too.
okay, yeah, this is a scenariowhere I think using the parking
brake is usually an easy way to go.
That way you don't have to worryabout chocks once you get out.
But yeah, park theairplane in a good spot.
You basically want to be ableto easily pull the fuel hose
out in front of the airplane.
(31:50):
So when I'm in the Mooney, like I said,I kind of point my left wing toward
where the pumps are, but I want thepump to be kind of at a 45 degree angle.
to the front and left ofme out past the wingtip.
And that way, if I pull thefuel hose straight out, I'm
going in front of the nose.
I'm not, you know, getting intothe prop or anything like that.
(32:13):
I'm not trying to pull it around mynose gear or any of that sort of thing.
So park it in a good position like that.
Shut down.
Turn that parking brake on, hop out,and then, of course, you gotta pay.
I think there's, there's only about threeor maybe four different types of payment
(32:35):
terminals at all the airports in the U.
S.
for some reason I can't think of whatany of them are called right now, but
they're all fairly straightforward.
Yeah.
The payment terminal, you should beable to operate, but the fuel pumps
are different than most people are, or
yeah, and we'll get to that.
used to with cars.
So yeah, or,
be aware of is that some airports willhave a timeout in between when you, make
(33:02):
your payment and when you start the pump.
So, one thing that I've seen a lot ofpeople do to pull out the fuel hose.
First, before you do the paymentterminal, and that way, as soon as
you're done with your payment, youcan go straight to the switch that
turns the pump on and turn it righton so that you don't get that timeout.
(33:24):
I will say I often don't do that, butthere have been times where that's
bitten me and I've had to go throughthe whole credit card procedure a second
time because the pump had a reallyshort timeout and I didn't get the hose
out quick enough, so to be aware of.
the other thing is on All of those paymentterminals, they're at some point going
(33:45):
to ask you, is the aircraft grounded?
So, this isn't your car, you're notbuying 10 gallons of fuel most likely.
in fact, bonus to being able to fuelyour own airplane is that you don't have
to buy your fuel from an expensive FBO.
you know, I'm based at a field that hasAtlantic Aviation and they are not cheap.
(34:07):
I can save like a buck fifty, two bucks agallon and my fuel capacity is 90 gallons.
And so sometimes I'm going andbuying 75 or 80 gallons at a time.
and at two bucks agallon, that's real money.
so that.
Flight to the little airport thathas the cheap fuel pays for itself.
If you needed any more incentive to listento the rest of this segment, there it is.
(34:30):
This can save you a whole lot of money.
or better yet, get you a littleextra flying for no more money.
Exactly.
I mean, that's, that's, how I look at it.
Hey, I get to have a nice little flightbasically for free and you know, that's
not to say that you shouldn't supportyour local FBO But I don't think
Atlantic Aviation is gonna miss mymoney when they're fueling Gulfstreams
(34:52):
and Falcons and such In fact, I'm I'mprobably more of an inconvenience to them
if anything at that point
Yeah.
We're, we're a nuisanceto operations like that.
So yeah, you know if you have agreat little mom and pop FBO at your
home airport and you know They'reprobably not charging Atlantic or
Signature kind of money either.
You know, definitely go aheadand support them when you can.
(35:15):
anyway, let's see, where were we?
Grounding your airplane.
You're going to be most likelypumping a fair amount of fuel.
You may have just been flying andboth of those things cause a lot of
static electricity buildup, chancesare, you know, the electrical
potential of the airplane is notgoing to be the same as the pump.
(35:35):
And so that's why there's always thatbonding strap, it's usually a wire
that's on a little retractable spoolthat you just pull out and you want to
attach it to a part of the airplane.
That
Is not painted.
it's got a big alligatorclip basically on the end.
It's clamp.
You just, it's spring loadedand you just clamp it onto.
(35:58):
And it's worth looking in the manualfor your airplane to see if there is a
specified grounding point on the airplane.
Um, you know, kind of conventionalwisdom is just something unpainted.
a lot of, uh, FBOs I know will justattach it to the bolt on the nose gear
that's not painted or something like that.
Or, I generally plug, uh, clamp mineonto the exhaust of the airplane.
(36:20):
Um, But for example, uh, on a lotof composite airplanes, you know,
that airplane is not all conductivethe way a metal airplane would be.
And so, um, I don't know where you do iton a Cirrus to be honest, but on a Diamond
Star, there is a specific groundingpoint on the underside of the wing.
(36:41):
It almost looks like a spark plugcoming out the bottom of the wing.
And that's what you'resupposed to clip it to.
Because if you clip it to the exhauston a Diamond Star, there is no.
electrical path between theexhaust and the tanks at all.
So just be aware of that.
And, um, especially if you'renot on a metal airplane, make
sure that you're grounding theairplane at the specified point.
(37:05):
And that's just to avoid havingany sparks flying in the vicinity
of fuel when you go to fuel up.
the other thing you want to do iswhen you are fueling, keep the, filler
against the filler neck of the airplane.
So you have another path therefor that electricity to go.
(37:26):
but really the final thing in termsof not creating any sparks is when
you're done, don't tap against theairplane to knock that last little drip
off because you know, pulling it offand putting it back on, you're just
creating another opportunity for a spark.
So, Keep it in contact with theairplane until you're done with
(37:47):
that tank and then just pull itright off and don't touch it again.
at this point, you should have yourground strap attached to the, uh,
the proper point on your airplane.
You've got your fuel hose pulled out.
now, It's really pretty simple.
But before I get too far ahead of myself,let's talk about those payment terminals.
(38:08):
Again,
one of the questions it's going to ask youis for the tail number of your airplane.
And I know some people who Iwould bet are not putting the
tail number of their airplane.
They're putting somerandom thing in there.
But the reason you do want to put thetail number of your airplane in there is,
you know, let's say you run out of fuel.
(38:31):
up short, maybe it wasn't even your fault.
Maybe you had plenty of fuel, youknow, maybe a fuel cap was loosed
and you were, you were siphoningsome fuel overboard in flight.
And whatever reason you ran out offuel, that's how you can prove that.
Yes, I really did have more fuel aboard.
(38:51):
is, they're going to be able togo back and say, Oh, yes, November
5, put on 80 gallons at PotomacMunicipal on their way here.
and in the unfortunate event you don'tmake it, that's how the NTSB is going
to be able to piece together, whetherit was some sort of a mechanical thing
(39:15):
where, you know, there was a fuel capfailure or whether they just say, ah,
well, there goes another stupid pilotwho didn't fuel up their airplane.
So please do go ahead and actuallyput your tail number in there so
that Um, you know, the FAA andthe NTSB can say, okay, yeah, that
person fueled up their airplane.
(39:35):
Side note, I bet November 1, is themost commonly fueled airplane out
there, just for those people who don'twant to put their own tail number in.
So, you've paid for your fuel,you've got your plane grounded,
you've got your hose out to theplane, got your fuel pump turned on.
(39:57):
Um,
that can happen in different ways as
Do you yet?
You should.
There you go.
I was going to say,
I was going to say that's probably thenext thing you should cover because
um, people aren't used to turningon the fuel pump after they've paid.
Yeah, one thing people don't realizeis when you're fueling your car, you
know, a lot of the pumps will stillhave the thing where you lift the handle
(40:21):
and you have to flip that little thing
Mm hmm.
what you're doing.
Um, at most airports, I would say thatthe most common variety I see is that
there's a little switch that can rock upand down, um, inside the fuel cabinet.
And it's often next to a light switch.
That's the same style, um, thatwill light up the inside of the
(40:43):
cabinet if you're fueling at night.
Um,
I have
it's usually close to the um, flow meter.
Um, that's going to tellyou how many gallons
right.
that's the way I see it usuallyaround here anyway, is it's somewhere
around, um, you're going to seeusually an analog flow meter.
That's going to, um,there's a reset button.
(41:05):
I don't know if you were going to getto that, but let's you zero that out.
Usually the on off switchis somewhere close to that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I would agree.
And you just made another great point.
Those, those analog meters, need to bereset before you start pumping fuel.
I would say most commonly there is a onthe right hand side that you just turn.
(41:28):
Uh, so the top is going front to back andthat'll roll all the numbers down to zero
and then you let go and you'll be ableto tell how much fuel you're pumping.
They're, they're still, they're stillcounting how much fuel you're pumping.
So you're going to pay for it either way.
But if you want to know howmuch you're pumping, it'd be
a good idea to zero that out.
(41:49):
Yes, for sure.
It's not going to affectthe payment at all.
Like you
said, um, that's just a tool
Yep.
for you to know how much you put in.
Okay, so, the other thing that I haveseen is there are airports that have
taken old school automotive fuel pumpsand done some hardware hacking to them
(42:12):
to make them into aircraft fuel pumps
so you
I have not run across that.
That is.
It's pretty funny.
you may actually need tolift that little thing that
would have been where the
pump handle used to be.
since aircraft pump handles are not thesame shape, they won't fit in there.
(42:32):
So, um, there's usually some otherplace where the pump handle goes.
yeah, you'll see all kinds of.
Things that have been hackedtogether at small airports.
Um, you know, everybody's making use ofthe resources that they have available.
So, just be aware that, you know, thereis quite a bit of variation out there.
(42:53):
but yeah, I would say by far themost common is that one that's
inside the cabinet real closeto the analog meter numbers.
And that's probably slightly into themajority of, of, uh, small airport
self serve pumps that I've seen.
So, are we ready to pump fuel yet?
try and keep the rest of themechanism and the hose and everything
(43:16):
from touching the airplane.
you know, even if it's your airplaneand you're paying for the next paint
job, there's no reason to rush that.
If you're on a high wing airplane,Now, you're probably up on a ladder,
so the easiest way to handle that isto have the fuel hose coming over your
(43:36):
shoulder, and that way it's not going tomake contact with the airplane at all.
by the way, um, most, I don'tknow about most, many places,
uh, where you get self serve fuelwill have a ladder laying there.
So,
I would say
pretty much everybody does.
(43:58):
have never been
yeah,
that had self serve fuelthat didn't have a ladder.
Or,
I haven't either, but I haven'tbeen to most places, so I
didn't want to overspeak.
yeah, well, I mean, when I was flyingthe 182 around all over the place, you
know, I was fueling that myself, andUm, that is one thing that, I said, I've
never run into a place that didn't havea ladder because they would be excluding
(44:22):
the entire wing segment of the market.
Um, speaking of Cessnas we recentlytalked about securing a Your airplane
post flight and how you need to move thefuel selector off of the both position.
Same thing happens here.
If you leave your fuel selector on both,the fuel will start draining from one
(44:45):
wing into the other almost immediatelywhen you start filling up one side.
And so, gallons can move across.
Um, at least this is what I found in the182 is, you'd have several gallons move
across from one side to the other if youfueled it with the fuel selector in both.
And then you get on the other side andyou fill it up and well then you're
(45:07):
not actually filled up anymore because,some of your fuel, across when you
were fueling the first tank, and soyou got some air in that tank now.
Um, so make sure you put the fuelselector on left or right before you
fuel up, um, on a Cessna or anythingelse that has between tanks like that.
(45:30):
just make sure you know your fuelsystem and make sure you're putting
your fuel in the place you want it.
but yeah, most planes, you're goingto be fueling up one wing and then
moving and fueling up the other one.
I pretty much always fuel up thewing that's farther from the pump
first, just so that I don't have topull more fuel hose out in between.
you know, if you're on a highwing, you're going to need to
(45:51):
move your ladder in between tanksand that sort of thing as well.
But once you're done, you know,if you got that high wing, go
ahead and put the ladder away.
but the next thing you wantto do is turn the pump off.
So go and find that switch whereveryou found it, turn the pump off.
And, you'll hear the pump stop and you'llprobably, if you're close enough to
(46:12):
that payment terminal, you're, you'llhear a receipt start to print, get
everything all buttoned up, make sureyour fuel caps are on securely and.
I actually don't know what the name forthe style of fuel caps I have is, but
it's the, you know, the flush variety.
those
don't have to be too far off of levelwith the top of the wing before they
(46:35):
can start leaking fuel, I would sayit's probably, 10 degrees or less.
and it's fairly easy to do that.
Um,
I know that with the
Yeah.
we always had to double check that line.
People had those back on straightand I know on the Mooney once I have
had the experience of accidentallydoing that and not noticing it myself.
(47:00):
And then shortly after takeoff,I to Well, I don't know.
For whatever reason, I was looking out atthe left wing and I noticed this stream.
It almost looked like smoke,but it was just white.
And I thought, Oh, that's cool.
Except for that's not water vapor.
That's fuel that I'm leaking.
So I had to turn around and go rightback into the airport again, then
(47:22):
get that fuel cap on there straight.
So that's a good thing to double check.
once you've got the plain doll buttonback up, you're going to need to retract
the fuel hose and that grounding strap.
of the time.
I would say you'll have an electricmotor on the fuel hose system.
There are some that are manual andthey're, they're kind of a pain, Yes,
(47:47):
so one trick that I learned that I,you know, I like to leave everything
ready to go for the next pilot.
And if you don't have somebody thereto help you getting that fuel hose
back onto the reel, it could bedifficult to get it evenly wound up
across the full width of the reel.
(48:09):
And so one thing that I generally do is Imy foot, just like the arch of your foot,
up against the fuel pump as you're pushingthe button to retract the fuel hose.
And you can use your foot tokind of push it and right as
it's rolling itself back up.
And make sure that you don't.
(48:30):
Get to the point where the entirefuel hose is all on one side of the
reel and starts getting bound up and
One thing that some airports have onthose fuel hose reels is a clutch that
you may have to engage or disengage Tobe able to pull the fuel hose out Easily
and then you know, you might have to reengage a clutch to get that that motor
(48:54):
to start Uh, to pull on the reel again.
So just be aware of that.
Um, that's usually a, a big black handlethat'll be on the side of the reel.
Um, not super common, butit's not exactly rare either.
So we've got our fuel hose in.
Uh, next thing is that, that groundingcable, with those, if they have the
(49:14):
automatic retraction, you can justgive it a little tug and it'll start
to, to retract that on its own.
Don't
just let go
Spring mechanism.
Yeah.
And don't just let
Yeah.
Yeah.
then they zip in really quick and youmake the airport managers mad because
it only takes a few times of thathappening before A, that, that, that
(49:38):
Alligator clip is just destroyed fromdragging along the, the ground on its
way back in, but then it also hitsthe stop inside the cabinet suddenly
and gets ripped off the cable and, youknow, messes up that spring mechanism.
So, take a hold of thatalligator clip securely, then
give it a tug and walk it in.
(50:00):
You might want to grab your receipt.
Um,
you do want to be sure you sump the newfuel because who knows if there's a leak
in the tank at that little airport orsomething, maybe there's a big rainstorm
and their tank is full of water andyou just pumped it into your airplane.
So definitely, Um, be diligent aboutchecking the fuel and making sure that
(50:24):
there's no water or sediment in it.
Um, especially,
Make sure it's the right color.
yes, all that stuff thatyou do on a pre flight.
Make sure you do
Yep.
you fuel.
In the event that you're done flyingfor the day, and it's gonna be, you
know, you're parking the plane for thenight, make if it is really cold when
(50:46):
you're filling the plane, top it offevery last little bit because morning
the sun comes out it starts to warm upand that fuel is going to expand and
it's going to start draining out allover the ramp and wasting your money.
So, um, leave a little room in there ifit's really cold when you're fueling.
(51:07):
As far as how to find fuel, how do you,how do you decide where you want to fuel,
Bill?
You know, I use, I use ForeFlight.
one of the layers on the mapis allows you to turn on fuel.
I know they get their datafrom other places and they
also allow pilots to update.
(51:28):
those fuel amounts right in ForeFlight.
and there are other places I couldlook for it, but lately I don't,
I don't really do that anymore.
I just look at ForeFlight.
They, ForeFlight even color codes them.
So, you know, if it's green,uh, it means it's one of the,
cheaper fuels in the area.
If it's yellow, it'skind of a mid price fuel.
(51:49):
And if it's red, it's one of themost expensive airports to get fuel.
you could be flying along andjust, check along your route and
just look for the cheapest ones.
So that that's what I do.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
check airnav.
com Because there's enough people stillflying out there that don't use ForeFlight
(52:15):
and usually complain on the internetabout people who do use ForeFlight.
And so they're generally still usingAirNav, which would, I mean, AirNav
has been around for a long time.
I mean, I've been flying formore than 20 years and it was
there right in the beginning.
Um, probably the, I would guess thefirst site that had fuel prices, but
(52:36):
the thing that I use there is whatthey call great deals reports and that
will, it shows you what the criteriaare for getting on that report, but I
think you have to be like the lowestwithin 50 miles or something like that.
And then they have the, theyhave some that are highlighted as
super deals that have to be likethe cheapest within 150 miles.
(52:58):
And so.
There are times where I'll find somethingon there that hasn't been updated in
ForeFlight, but that's pretty rare.
It's just kind of another,another method of looking.
A little farther and a little wider forcheap fuel because, one drawback to using
ForeFlight is if you zoom out too far,you won't be able to see all the prices.
(53:21):
And so you might be hiding a good price,and so I do, you know, when I'm using
ForeFlight, I keep it fairly zoomedin, uh, and if you're going on a 1,
000, 1, 500 mile trip, can go 100 or200 miles off course in the middle of
that trip, and you're only affectingyour total trip distance by like 10
(53:41):
miles.
so
some of those really long trips arewhere those those air nav great deals
reports can you find something thatnot be right on your path, but might be
worth stopping at anyway.
Those are awesome tips Kentfor refueling the airplane.
And I think, you know, like we said atthe beginning, I think there's a lot of
(54:02):
people that have just never had experiencedoing that, so really appreciate you kind
of walking through all those details.
And, uh, um, I hope it helps somebody outthere when they get beyond the check ride.
For sure.
And you know, if nothing else, Ithink the best thing to do is to
go and do this before you have to.
(54:22):
Don't wait until you're on theway home from vacation Sunday
night and have to figure out a newthing because that's where that
get thereitis is going to set in.
Now that you've heard this, go out andtry it for yourself and you'll find out
it really is not that big of a deal.
It's an easy thing to do.
It can save you a ton of money.
So
go out there,
That's a great point.
(54:44):
fly safe and have fun.
Awesome.
Thanks again, Kent.
And until next time, we'll see ya.
See ya.
I hope you enjoyed the flight andthe latest Beyond the Checkride.
I want to thank Kent forhis help on these segments.
He's got a lot of GA experience.
(55:05):
So his insights are really valuable andI hope you're finding them valuable too.
Again, we'd love ideas on what weshould cover in those segments.
We've already thought ofthings that we should have put
in our first one last week.
We'll probably think of some thisweek, and going into the future.
so we'll probably redotopics again at some point.
(55:28):
But in the meantime, like I said,we'd love to hear from you on what
you think we should do, or if youhave ideas about what we should do,
or if we've forgotten anything thatwe should add in or, or correct.
So send your thoughts and feedbackto me at Bill at studentpilotcast.
com.
(55:49):
You can also reach out to meon X with the handle Billwill.
That's Bravo, India, Lima,Lima, Whiskey, India, Lima.
And as usual, we'd love to hear from you.
So keep the suggestionsand the comments coming.
Like I said, I was loving this.
I had a lot of hard work and study aheadof me, which I had already started.
I was preparing for thewritten and eventually would
(56:11):
be preparing for my check ride.
And of course, learning and tryingto understand what this instrument
flying thing was all about.
I had purchased and watched theinstrument course from sporties.
But I was also getting my feet wetwith Shepard Air, which I'll definitely
talk about in a future episode asI got ready to take the written.
(56:32):
Those programs at Shepard Airwould prove invaluable as I've
been progressing in my certs andratings, so I'll cover that soon.
For now, I was flying and I wastrying to get sharper with my skills.
It's a lot, but I knew it'd be worth it.
It seemed far away, but looking back,it would be just a blink of an eye and
(56:56):
I'd be sitting in front of the DPE.
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