Vicki Danhof, Bozeman, Mont., sent in this pilot tip: I am blessed by flying with my “flying buddy” every Wednesday, barring inclement weather, since 1990. We begin with slow flight, steep turns and impromptu holds.
We both are instrument rated, so we continue our “fly day” by the PIC donning a hood and shooting approaches to our field or to another airport nearby.
As we are flying along, we quiz each other on relevent FARs or call out, “Oh your engine just quit! Where are you going to land?” We pick a good landing spot and fly to about 100 feet AGL before, miraculously, the engine comes alive, and we fly off to the next fun task.
We kindly critique each other’s approaches and flying decisions.Every season, we are out at the airport, preflighting planes. We alternate who gets to fly first…smoothest air, you know. It can be really cold in January in Montana, so we are bundled up at 0900. Actually any time after Halloween is brisk!
I am so blessed to stay current and have fun flying with my “flying friend.” He nails the crosshairs every time. His preciseness encourages me to keep the ball centered and fly a precision approaches with ease.
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As a CFI I hope that flying a simulated engine out down to 100 FT AGL is a typo… Cus that is just asking for trouble, all it takes is one time for the engine to stumble and your in a bad situation without time to rectify… A little carb ice is all it takes.