Making Money in Aviation

In my last post, I referred to having a long way to go to catch Milen with respect to FAA certificates. Why? Because in the time it took me to get my commercial single-engine license, Milen got his: commercial multi-engine, commercial single-engine, CFI, MEI, and AGI certificates. Congratulations!!!

I'm proud to say that I was Milen's first dual instruction "victim" -- and hence the title of the post: Milen is now making money as a CFI! The opportunity for dual instruction came because I was out of currency in the G1000 Cessna 182, and I wanted to get current before I forgot too much about the G1000 avionics suite. I ended up learning a bit from that flight -- more so than from my other checkout or recurrency flights. We did slow flight descents (which I've never done before), and Milen failed the PFD and MFD on me and made me land with backup instruments only. This was not so much of a challenge -- but it did make for some stick-and-rudder practice, especially with regard to power settings: if you lose the PFD and the MFD on a G1000 equipped airplane, you typically have no tachometer or manifold pressure gauge to refer to for power settings. And, while you do not need these to land, it sure does give extra peace of mind to glance over at the engine gauges to verify that the power you have set is the power you're supposed to have for descent and/or landing. Milen also caught me on some sloppy checklist usage... Yikes! It's amazing what you can observe from the right seat.

I flew the high-wing Cessna surprisingly well -- during the day, at night, and under simulated instrument conditions. It turns out that I did not really forget all that much... If I could point out one difference, however, between the Cessna 182 and the Piper Arrow II, it would be glide characteristics. The Arrow II, with its Hershey-bar wing, does not glide well at all. It's a very forgiving airplane: if you're 5 knots too fast, it doesn't really matter that much. On the other hand, you can't try the same in a Cessna: you'll end up floating in flare as the runway disappears from under you.

In the end, I'm again current in the Cessna 182, and by extension, in Cessna 172's -- just in time for the summer flying season!