A Man and His Airplane

There haven't been any developments in the story of my airplane's engine. I'm still waiting for the shop to pull it in and take the engine off. While I'm waiting, I've decided that, if I can't fly my plane, I'll fly someone else's and get some training. Several weeks ago, I went up with an instructor to refresh my night flying knowledge and skill. Today I went up in a Cessna 182 and got my high performance endorsement. The main differences between a 182 and a plane like mine or a 172 are that it's a bit larger and heavier, it has a considerably more powerful engine, and it has a constant-speed propeller. I've long known the basic operating principles of a constant-speed prop, but this is the first real practical experience with one. Well, I did go up with a former coworker in his 182 back around 2004 but that doesn't really count. It was a lot of fun! It's definitely a different experience. And even though he signed off on my endorsement,...

One of the things I've wanted to do since I got current is to go up at night with an instructor for a refresher flight. While I can't do that in my airplane, I can still do it on one of the flight school's planes so I made a reservation for this evening to spend some time with an instructor in a 172. While the weather looked a bit iffy, it was good enough to go flying. I met my instructor at the appointed time, 7:00pm local time. The first thing we did was go out and perform the preflight inspection on the plane while there was sufficient daylight. After that, we spent about half an hour or so in his office going over the things to be aware of when flying at night. Once that was done, we walked out to the plane, got in, started it up, and headed out. We headed north for a while as we discussed the unique aspects of piloting and navigating at night. For example, using the horizon as an attitude reference, and recognizing the presence of poor weather conditions. The weather i...