Safe and Competent

Last weekend I had the pleasure of my second bi-annual flight review (BFR) thanks to the FAA's regulation requiring that I be reviewed by a Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) every two years. This is to ensure that I am unlikely to kill myself or anyone else, or at least unlikely to destroy someone else's property. In normal Wings of Carolina Flying Club fashion, the club's safety regulations are more stringent than the FAA's. To fly a club plane, each member much have the equivalent of a BFR every single year. On years where it is not the FAA mandated review, it's called a Club Annual; they're the same thing. Although the review can be annoying once a year, the club's safety record speaks for itself.

The BFR consists of basic air work, various types of take-offs and landings, controlled field operations, and an oral review of the Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs). My instructor for the day, Sam, and I sat down Sunday afternoon and began by reviewing the answers to the quizzes required by the club. The quizzes cover club rules and specifics about the plane I fly. Again, not required by the FAA, but helpful to the safety of the club members and planes, which keeps costs down for all of us. After grading the quizzes we discussed some airspace rules, required equipment, different things shown on the chart, and even what I can legally do as a Private Pilot in regards to using the plane and my certification for commercial purposes. Pretty interesting stuff.

The flying portion was good. We took off around 5:30pm, so the day's weather was winding down. The air was smooth and cool, which made the air work much easier. We started off with a couple of steep turns and went straight into stalls and slow flight. There's something that feels very unnatural about flying at 50mph. All of these are maneuvers that you don't want to screw up if they happen while you're less than 1000' above the ground in the traffic pattern, so you practice them to ensure that you can recover without losing too much altitude or making things worse.

Once the air work was complete I went under the "hood" to simulate instrument flying. While under the hood I turned us towards Fayetteville Regional and navigated about half of the trip, contacted approach control, and prepared for a visual approach into the airport. Of course I got to take the hood off about 15 miles out so I could land visually, but I was really happy with how the simulated instrument flying went. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to afford the instrument rating.

In Fayetteville we requested a touch and go and were cleared for the option. First I did a soft-field landing, simulating a landing on a grass runway. The main wheels touched and, without letting the nose wheel touch, performed a soft-field takeoff. We were cleared for left traffic and performed a short-field landing and takeoff before heading back to Raleigh Executive.

The last thing we did was a gliding approach and landing. The point here was to simulate landing without an engine. On the downwind leg "abeam" the touchdown point, we pulled the engine back to idle and had to time the descent and turns so we could glide in and land without any power. It was a success.

When we got back in, Sam had to fill out a form reviewing what we did and making any comments. He wrote that I am "safe and competent" along with a few other comments. I had a lot of fun, even though it was a review/test.