Cloud Card !

(Thanks to Phillip R for "cloud card" which I had not heard before...)

I finally got my instrument rating. Whew. It took around 55 hours, 5 months and 14 grand. But it's an accomplishment I'm proud of. It was a long hard road :-) And my aircraft handling skills are much more precise than ever - I'm actually aware of my altitude and heading (instead of my usual VFR "high enough" and "headed toward Homer", lol). I will even subconsciously set up a stabilized descent, imagine that! :-)


After the first ride/failure debacle, I got some more dual and thought about the re-ride a lot. I had really lost my confidence. My instructor said "I know you can do it, we just need to convince YOU". So I flew about 10 more hours, focusing on just what I'd need to do for the ride. I got tired of it and could tell I was over training so I left to go to work for 2 weeks and didn't think about it at all.

When I got back, I rode twice with my instructor just to get my "stick" back and took the ride the next day.

I had really thought a lot about how the first ride went. I DID blow it, but the DPE stressed me, I was under a lot of self induced pressure to make it and not fully confident. I decided to just ignore him and fly the ride. Try to enjoy it and know that it's NOT the end of the world to blow it again, but there will be another opportunity to finish up elsewhere. And, like my instructor kept telling me to do, I brought my "A" game.

I didn't firm up the backup plan - I wanted to go in confident and not have planned to fail. I think generally it involved somewhere sunny, warm and a young nymphomaniac instructor but it never came to THAT, darn :-)

The ride was almost perfect, in fact it went better than any of my training rides. The only thing I did was blow the timing in a hold a little, but when I realized I didn't know how long it had been (accidentally reset the timer) I just turned back, so maybe it was a short leg or maybe it was long or whatever... not by much so it was fine. And he did take it fairly easy on me - he invented a hold which threw me for a minute, but I had a lot of time to figure it out on the way to the fix and it was on the radial we were already using to get to the fix so no big deal. He didn't make me enter the hold partial panel, and let me get headed outbound to intercept before he failed the instruments for the partial panel VOR approach. The circle to land missed went fine too - just a go around basically, and full panel... I think. The ILS was no sweat - I'm very good at them. My instructor says I am "one with the localizer and the glideslope, too." lol

Of course after the ride he cited my landing "Three feet left of the centerline" and my casual attitude towards communication with ATC as further evidence of my lack of professionalism. Got that last dig in AGAIN! You know what? I DO talk to ATC casually. I try to be brief, but sometimes I read back slow (which I think is my only fault) and sometimes I start out with "Hey Anchorage, 022, can I.." and I almost always thank them. And I'm not going to stop. I think the conversation he really didn't like was this one:

"Anchorage, 022, Sorry but I spaced out - will you repeat my entire... uh, clearance?"
"Maintain VFR"
"At what altitude?"
"2000"
"And what heading?"
"150"
"OK, VFR, 2000, 150, thanks man, 022"
"No problem" :-)

It's funny I guess, how there has to be something negative to say. OK, you're Hotel fuckin' Sierra, I get it. I tremble in the aura of your superior airmanship. But I just internally rolled my eyes and thought "Sign my ticket dipshit and we can part ways for all eternity, thank God".... because I had decided he could start spouting Sanskrit for all I cared and I was not going to let him get to me again, lol

But, but you know what? I thought about it later... I can land a taildragger on a sloped, curved beach while dodging obstacles or a C180 with big tires on pavement in a crosswind... So I think I can put it where I want when I need to. And, chasing the centerline on pavement in a taildragger is just plain stupid and I am not in the habit. So do not denigrate my airplane handling skills. He can bitch about the centerline on my ATP ride... except he will NOT be there, lol.

OK. Deep breath. All better now :-)

I'm glad it's over. Now for the next steps...

Blew the Ride :-(

I blew my first instrument checkride at about 45 instrument hours. I thought I could do it, but I went into it with a lot of trepidation. And I was putting a lot of pressure on myself - I've been staying home to fly while my family is in the lower 48 in our motorhome for almost 3 months. And I had some further training plans that I had tentatively scheduled on the heels of this with my family meeting me in AZ. And I had to go back to work out of town right away... so I REALLY thought I HAD to get this ride right and done that week.

The Examiner (DPE) intimidated me (and I let him, lol). He told me that I barely passed the oral and that he thought an Engineer (I don't know how he knew that because I didn't tell him) would take more pride in doing a complete professional job and not just "try to get by". I wanted to tell him: "Buddy, I have 2 college degrees, am licensed to practice Engineering in two countries and I think I f-ing know what I need to know. " Which I do.

Anyway, he had me so rattled and distracted that when we went to fly the first approach, I looked at the chart and just went blank. Uh.... turn and then turn again and something else... uh... :-) Really locked up. It was an NDB approach and I managed to get headed back inbound OK (not great) but flew through the inbound bearing, thought I had turned the wrong way to intercept (inbound to a NDB - can you imagine? The damn needle points the way and I STILL second guessed myself!), corrected the WRONG way because I was right to begin with and by the time I figured it out I was blowing by the missed fix about 40 degrees off. There was no ambiguity or subjective ruling by the DPE - I clearly blew it. In the real world, I would have gone to the hold and thought it through for a couple laps and made it fine on the second try. But the ride is one chance...

The deal is, you can repeat what you miss at a reduced examiner cost one time within 60 days. Otherwise you have to do the entire thing over. So I decided to try and get some more of the ride out of the way so I didn't have to redo the whole thing.

We went partial panel; unusual attitudes went fine, then headed for Big Lake for a partial panel VOR approach. BUT... it was getting dark and the compass light didn't work. You need the compass partial panel because the gyro heading indicator is covered up. Anyway, after some gyrations wandering about, trying to find a flashlight in my backpack (which I turned out not to have anyway) I said "Forget it - this isn't happening tonight". I maybe should have flown the ILS... I could have gotten ATC to give me my heading, set the heading indicator by that and the ILS would be easy without the compass, but I'd had enough so I didn't ask him if he'd want to try it.

Now.... as soon as I'd called it off the guy became all supportive and conciliatory. Told me I should get my commercial since I had so much time and how easy it would be for me since I was a good pilot.... I'm thinking "WTF? you just got through telling me I'm a slacker that lacks professionalism and I blew this ride but now you want me to fly for money?" Whatever. How about I give you the commercial DPE fee and you just get the hell out of my life? lol.

I was pretty disappointed when we got back on the ground. He told me he knew I could do it, explained how we'd retest and committed to working with my schedule (I'm out of town a lot) to make it happen in the time frame. Like he decided he'd pet the puppy after booting it across the room, lol. Although he did tell me that taking off 6 feet to the left of the centerline was further evidence of my lack of professionalism. Got that last dig in!

So, what I got out of the way was the oral and the unusual attitudes. I need to re-ride and demonstrate 3 different approaches, one partial panel, and a hold. No problem :-)

This will have a happy ending, one way or another. I'll pass the re-ride or I'll take a couple months off and do the whole thing again... with a different DPE.

But for now I have more dual scheduled so I can convince my Instructor that I'll pass on the 2nd try, and I'll be back in town in a month to do just that.

Cross Countries (Country's ?, Countrys' ?)

I'm required to fly a few XC's for the inst rating. A couple short ones and a 'long' one.

My instructor had never been to either Kenai OR Talkeetna which was good, because those were obvious choices for the 'short' ones. We went to Kenai one day and I showed her the restaurant in the terminal. It's a real nice little 'diner' kind of place, and the Kenai terminal is fun to stop at. Alaska decorated, nice bathroom and I usually see someone I know passing through. It's also unsecured - imagine! You can park in transient and walk right into the terminal. Pretty unusual in this paranoid day and age. And there is a C-47, DC6s, Beech 18s and sometimes DC-3s around, too.

Flying the short cross country was a lot of fun. It was my first real experience "in the system" and I was surprised how well I was treated. They sure go out of their way to accommodate you when you're IFR... as opposed, for example, to when you call up on the edge of the airspace and ask for a low pass over the international airport :-)

The trip was pretty much uneventful other than, even at only 50 miles, it's pretty fatiguing to hand fly on the gauges all the way.

Next we went to Talkeetna. No terminal but we went into the FSS and talked to the guy.... "lower 48ers" eat your hearts out. Say what you will about Senator Ted Stevens, but thanks to him we still have a lot of Flight Services Stations active in Alaska. Compared to what? About 13 in the entire contiguous US and going down to 6 soon? We didn't have time to walk around town but the FSS had a map that showed the town and my instructor took one... I think she plans to have future students buy her lunch in town, lol. Nothing wrong with THAT! Talkeetna is a popular destination for my family and flying friends - a short walk to decent food and a very cool little town.

For the "long" XC we went to Homer. Merrill/Homer/Kenai/Big Lake/Merrill. This one was quite a bit of fun, flew the DME back course into 03 and had some actual on the way down and on the way out. We even picked up some ice which was interesting to see. Neither of us was at all worried - it was just a bit of both rime and clear (OK, I know it's called 'mixed') and we had seen the tops 1000 above and knew we had above freezing with a high ceiling below, but still, a lot of guys get their rating without even seeing actual, let alone ice.

It was a REALLY long day - 4.5 hrs in the air, approaches everywhere we went and refuel in Kenai.

Next.... the checkride!

Short Flights by Necessity

The only flights I have been able to do in my own plane lately are to and from Merrill field. I quit taking my plane to my instrument lessons for a while because I would occasionally be nauseous afterwards and not too enthused about flying mine home. And I got chewed out for a perfectly acceptable parking/tiedown job I did on my plane when all their tiedowns were full. But, I've gotten over the nausea and decided that after 25 years of Alaskan plane ownership they can kiss my ass if they think I don't know how to protect it from the wind, lol.

Lots of GPS tracks to and from Anchorage...


This day started out nice enough... Looking toward the Knik.


Heading up toward Birchwood.

But got a little worrisome at Eagle River...

My Instructor was on the radio talking to Approach and recognized me when I was telling them I was coming in from the East... so she said "Approach, it's wide open to the West we just came in that that way", which was cool of her. But I didn't want to go the long way around if I didn't HAVE to. And it would have made me late. :-)

I had to jog about a bit and drop through a hole, but came out lined up nicely in the rain if a bit low...

Heading home it had tightened up even more going East, so I headed over to Point MacKenzie and went home over the Susitna flats...


And it opened right up before I got home :-)

Some Complex and a New Instructor

"You're very good at quite a few things, unfortunately flying straight and level isn't one of them..." not so encouraging words from my new instructor, :-)

When I've thrown this quote back at her, she correctly points out that she was joking and that it's taken out of context... :-)

My 'old' instructor took some vacation time and, since I'm on a schedule, I carried on with a new one. She's very capable and as good a 'stick'; as myself which you often don't find in young instructors because they don't have the time or sometimes the interest - a lot of them are just looking to get an airline job. A few of them really have very little interest in general aviation which is a shame.

She is a very good pilot (owns part of her own taildragger) and is really fun to fly with. Also she's game - when I wanted to try a gusty 20kt X-wind landing she said "why not"... On short final I asked for help and she did a great job of it. The tower said 'nice job' so I let them think I did all the work, lol.

We did a couple flights in a retractable 172 so I could double up on some complex time for my commercial. It flies like a 172 with retractable gear (duh!) and also has cowl flaps and a controllable pitch prop like my 180 does. I was surprised that I had a little trouble configuring it correctly - I have become so accustomed to the prop and cowl flap control locations in my 180 that I automatically deal with them.... but in this plane, I found myself having to think what to do with the prop before I moved the throttle. And the cowl flap control is so different that I completely forgot about it.

Plus they do the "25 squared in the air" thing where they want you to pull the power back to 25 inches and prop back to 2500 RPM when you lift off. Neither this plane or mine have any time restriction on the use of full power, so I have always used it - I figure the engine's job is to get me as high as possible as fast as possible so I can do MY job which is to find a suitable spot to crash when it quits, lol. And it rubs me the wrong way to make any sort of power change that isn't completely necessary when you're in a vulnerable position.... like just broke ground. In fact, if I'm going high enough that I won't be able to pull 75% power (like 6000 or more), I'll just leave the throttle wide open until I descend for landing. But it's their plane, so "25 squared in the air" it is.

Regardless, it was GREAT fun to say "positive rate, gear up" :-)

Approaches and Stage Check Dos

Lots and lots of approaches. They use a custom approach to a radio tower for the NDB approach so I've been flying that along with ILS's into Elmendorf and Anchorage and the Big Lake VOR approach.

The Big Lake VOR approach is usually timed. This means the vacuum driven instruments that show your heading and attitude (the plane has an electric turn coordinator) are covered up. So all turns are made by making a standard rate (3 degrees per second) turn and timing it. Which means you have to do the math pretty fast in your head on how many degrees, and then how long, you have to turn. Just watching the compass won't work because it goes crazy when you're turning, so you time, turn, stop.... wait for the compass to settle down and then do it AGAIN, because it won't be perfect, and at the end it comes down to counting "one, two" in your head to get the last few degrees fixed, lol. I like timing the approaches but it's easy to get off course and it's easy to take too long getting on course and blow past the fix if you're close to it when you start. Any deviation from the standard rate turn (like not even 1/2 a needle width) will make a huge error in a big turn, so you have to really have the bank angle nailed. Hard to do in turbulence.

The ILS approaches can be tough because the localizer (horizontal guidance) is twice as sensitive as a VOR, so you have to really stay on top of it. It's almost like landing a taildragger - if you can tell it's starting to drift it may be too late :-) The ILS gives you vertical guidance also, and I've found staying on the glide slope has been pretty easy, really.

The NDB approach to the radio tower isn't all that hard, but it confuses me sometimes which way to turn to correct the course. Particularly outbound if the wind is blowing and you have to trial and error the heading correction. I do like the 'old school' aspect of it. They are phasing the NDBs out in favor of GPS approaches, which is too bad because there are a lot of them in AK and I can't afford a GPS, lol. This particular approach has an interesting hold - outbound from the NDB to a radial off the Big Lake VOR. Not hard but it's at a NDB/VOR fix and not a single navaid.

Then I had to take my 2nd stage check which went OK. I had a couple altitude issues but would have made all the approaches, if not to the checkride standards quite yet, at least without killing anyone :-)

Next we fly some cross countries and try to get my accuracy up for the check ride.

Holding

Today we did a VOR approach to Big Lake and some holds... (picture gets big if you click on it...)

Holding isn't "hard", but figuring out how to get into the hold (depends on which way you're coming from) can be. And you're fully engaged - you have to turn and time every minute so there's not really time to divert your attention.

One thing it took me a while to understand is when they tell you: "Hold Southwest of the VOR", they mean that the inbound course is SW of the VOR. I was confused for quite a while trying to keep the entire hold circuit on that side of the VOR (which in this case it is because I'm turning left, if I was making standard right turns it wouldn't be). Confused? Welcome to the club!



I didn't turn the GPS on until inbound on the procedure turn, so you see from the top left I was on course to the VOR and then flew the missed when about a mile from the airport. I got a little wonky flying back to the VOR... My instructor wants me to go direct to the VOR (as published) and I always want to intercept the outbound radial on the way, which is wrong but that's where we're going in the end anyway... lol. You can see where I was set up for the intercept when she said; "Where are you going?" so I turned right a bit and missed the fix. :-(

Then the holds mostly look pretty good. The last one we were looking for traffic and deciding what to do next while I wandered about, so it doesn't count, :-)

What I'm glad to see here is that I'm really not too far off - even the sloppy missed route back to the VOR is only off by 1/2 mile. So with a little more practice I should be able to stay on track.

Stage Check Uno and Some Actual!

I had my first of three stage checks a couple days ago. The basic idea is to ride with a check instructor to ensure your regular instructor has you on the right track. I was a little apprehensive and, when given the option, asked my instructor if we could delay it. Later I realized she'd sounded disappointed and figured that she had already set it up, so I called her back and said "look, it's your call... I really don't know what he'll want from me and it's impossible to embarrass ME, but I don't want to embarrass you..." She said she thought I was ready so we went ahead and did it. It's really supposed to be a learning experience and not a test anyway.

The guy was fine to fly with. He's very old but not frail either physically or mentally. I remember him from somewhere that I can't put my finger on when I used to be based at Merrill - in the mid 80's I think. I asked my instructor if I should brush up on my CPR skills before the check ride but she didn't think I was as funny as I thought I was and told me to be nice.

He was enthusiastic about unusual attitudes... really confusing me and then handing it back to me on the edge. I laughingly told him "Whoa man, if I tear the wings off this thing you're not going to like it..." but I did fine. Somehow along the way I learned to automatically NOT pull up from a dive and level the wings at the same time, which is good since I think that's pretty much the only way to get killed in a high altitude recovery. He told me the next day that he'd had a good time, so I obviously hadn't scared him too bad.

He also told me that I had to make procedure turns away from the fix, which I'm not so sure of. Clearly they have to be on the 'safe' side indicated, but somewhere I got the idea that you can turn either way. You have to stay within the distance limit... but why would you have to turn only one way? I mean they don't tell you where to start the turn, right? So as long as you're on the safe side and within the distance limit, who cares? What if there's a strong tailwind or you accidentally flew a long outbound leg? Turning inbound might make sense. If you completely space out and find yourself at the distance limit, you BETTER turn inbound... lol. I have to try to look this up.

The guy made me go through everything I'd done to date and I did better that I expected... we had more crosswind than I'd experienced so it was good tracking to the NBD - I hadn't ever had to put in any serious x-wind correction and occasionally turn to the heading to see how we were doing. It was educational. My steep turns elicited a bump on rollout (well, one went a bit awry...) pretty much the only thing I did wrong was blow a couple altitudes a little bit. I'm not flying to the checkride standards yet, but am sure a lot more aware and accurate than when I started.

If I was an instructor, it would be hard for me to not nag the student to do things MY way (the ONLY correct way of course!) but neither he or my regular instructor is like that so they're pretty easy to fly with. I can take any sort of criticism as long as it's preceded by the phrase "I might have done that bit differently..." lol.

Then, on my next lesson, we filed a pop up and I flew a little (VERY little, lol) actual. It was great fun looking out the window and not seeing anything but clouds. Too bad it didn't last longer and too bad it was mostly enroute and not on the approach. But it was still a lot of fun. When I could sort of see the ground and was in and out of the clouds... I can see where that might bite you. Better to just not look out. Hopefully we can get some longer actual on my cross-countries.

NDB Practice

The NDB was killing me for a while. I was getting really confused with "turn to this inbound bearing", "turn to this outbound bearing"... but I had a couple epiphanies. If I can just visualize my route relative to the navaid, like a moving map in my head, it all makes sense. The only thing I still can find a bit confusing is which way to turn to intercept outbound sometimes... but as soon as I blow through it I realize what I need to do and if I turn to the heading and think for a second I can usually get it without wandering all about.

It's weird, but with a moving card ADF, I don't really see any reason to adjust it. In fact, it would work just fine without any numbers on the face wouldn't it? I've read a bunch of detailed explanations, but it really comes down to just mentally superimposing the DG on the ADF and seeing how far off you are. And remembering that the head will always fall, which I do by thinking that I'm always flying past the NDB - that is it will go by on one side or the other.

One thing that was a real "Aha" moment and a little embarrassing really, was during the procedure turn inbound it suddenly dawned on me why the procedure turn angles were always so.... uh, odd. I mean why not turn to some easy to remember number? Like 45 degrees instead 43? So I'm turning inbound to the intercept and talking... "OK we're turning to 213 to intercept the 168..." and I suddenly realize that the inbound course is under the 45 degree mark on the ADF.... duh. So I point at the ADF and blurt out "Hey, THAT's why the numbers are like that!"

My Instructor was polite enough NOT to laugh :-) Probably because she was so shocked at how dense I was... lol.

I can't see outside so my Instructor does all the traffic avoidance. While we were doing the NDB's Center kept telling us about fighters inbound to Elmendorf and C-130s that were just flying around trying to ram us, I think. So I told my Instructor, "Don't worry too much about all this traffic, if they get too close we'll hear crunching sounds." But I really don't like not being able to look when they're close. One C-130 was close, at our altitude and headed towards us when shortly after we flew under a cloud... I braced for the bump and said "OK, what the HELL was that!". :-)

The simulator is real handy for NDB practice, particularly figuring out intercepts. And I was on FS2004 flying the NDB into Venice, FL (near my 'winter home') and learned another good thing: I've been flying outbound 2 minutes to the procedure turn at 90-100 mph which is working pretty good. But, if the NDB is the missed approach point and is on or very near the field you have to get down fast to make it. You start down the final approach from two minutes out and have 2000 feet to lose so the decent rate is a little higher than I like and if you have drifted closer or sped up in the dive it's even worse. Making the procedure turn away from the airport helps a bit, but it looks like it's going to be enough just to know you'll need to expedite the descent.

First Approach!

I flew the VOR into Big Lake under the hood. It was choppy and a lot of work but a LOT of fun. The second time, I think I might even have survived actual... :-) This is a useful approach too, because I could use it to get under and go into Palmer which only has GPS approaches.

I told my instructor that it was harder than I thought it would be, which she pointed out was a common theme with me... lol. It's more fun than I thought it would be, too. I can't wait to try it in actual IMC.

The Big Lake VOR is timed to the MAP so I ordered a timer - the clock is too hard to keep track of. How do people do this? Write down the start time and do the math on paper? Do the math in your head and write down the end time? Remember it all? I bought a timer... :-)

I practiced on MS Flight Simulator which made a big difference I think - the sim plane is a lot harder to trim out, but really helps with situational awareness. I ALMOST always know which way to turn now! I've run into several commercial pilots that use MS Flight Sim too. And it's good for knowing which way to look for the airport at MDA, although an experienced pilot would have already noticed this on the plate.

I have a program I can set the weather in the toy simulator with. So I set it at minimums (or just above if I'm not making it at minimums, because I like to land and feel like I accomplished something, THEN fly the missed) and I think it's pretty accurate. One thing I like about it is that you can usually see the ground before the airport - and it's tempting to descend a little and scud run the last little bit... just like I would be tempted in the real world. So I stay at or above the MDA and wait it out. Like a REAL instrument pilot... :-)

And for my son that will comment on my use of acronyms:

VOR - I forget ... lol Variable Omni something? Needle points to a radial.
NDB - Non Directional Beacon (AM frequency - we use a radio station in practice), needle points to it all the time.
MS - the Operating System almost everyone uses for stuff that won't run on any of the "Big Cat" OS's
MAP - Missed Approach Point
MDA - Minimum Descent Altitude
GPS - Have you been living under a rock?
IMC - Instrument Meteorological Conditions (and I spelled this right the FIRST time!)

Instrument Progress One

Let's see... so far I have an instructor I really like. Our temperaments are a good match and she rides a pretty good line between telling me what to do and letting me make my own mistakes. I CAN get pretty confused... and she seems to enjoy saying "I don't know..." when I ask "where are we?" a little sadistically if the truth be told, lol.

She's not the anal checklist type, but IS very professional and so far seems more 'learn-by-doing' than lecture which suits me fine too.

My steep turns under the hood were so bad I made myself sick, but I got them semi-tamed finally. We only have a little over 6 simulated hours and our last flight was partial panel radial intercepts... which REALLY confused me, but I'll get it :-) It's hard to imagine that visualizing ones position relative to a NDB or VOR (now which side is that radial on exactly?) becomes intuitive but I'm sure it'll come. My MS Flight Simulator is a big help actually.

It's going slower, is harder and will end up costing more than I thought it would be, and I have to lay off a few weeks because of work, but I can still have it wrapped up this summer. I'm beginning to doubt I can finish the commercial this summer too, though.

I passed the written by studying with the Sportys DVD course and the online 'Study Buddy' to get the endorsement thinking it would save me money, but now I'm not so sure... I'm in a 141 program so I have to log 30 hours of ground time regardless. I also took the written a little too early I think - If I'd have waited longer more of it would makes sense. Oh well... it's out of the way at least.

Inauspicious start

My first lesson dedicated to my Instrument Airplane rating got a little derailed today. I arrived a half hour early and got all the new student paperwork out of the way so it wouldn't interfere with training time.

The counter person and another CFI told me that my new instructor was on site with another student but to be prepared to wait because "he's always late" and to "get used to it".

At scheduled plus :10 I told the counter "This is pretty funny especially after the lecture he gave me about being on time because I pay for the scheduled time if I'm late".

At scheduled plus :15 the Chief Flight Instructor showed up: "I've talked to F, and he'll be right down".

5 minutes after that he hadn't shown up or even touched base to say he'd be a while so I left.

You know what... my time is valuable too. I have a family, a job, responsibilities and commitments. Believe it or not, I have to prioritize and schedule my day.

It doesn't sound like much, but making me wait 20 minutes to get started on a 2 hour lesson not only wastes my time but it cuts my available time to more like 1:30 - for pre/post ground and flying. You're lucky to get an hour air time in a 2 hour time commitment because usually the lessons run around 1:50 so you can stop in time for the instructor to take a break and prep for the next student.

So I'm down to 1:30 with likely 50 minutes max in the air, including taxi, takeoff and landing (which I am already pretty experienced in, thank you anyway), unless you're planning to make the next student wait 20 minutes, too? And then what? By the afternoon I'm waiting an hour? It's not like the guy has irreplaceable surgical skills I'm in dire need of.

I don't want to start each lesson pissed off because I've waited 20 or 15 or even 10 minutes for him. And, if he's late every day, I will be pissed off.

So... it set me back a few days but I've got a different instructor lined up.

Of course... I'll probably be REALLY late... :-)

4/29 update: Email from a friend.

Sorry to hear that your first instrument 'lesson' didn't go well. I'm not sure what's wrong with these flight instructors and making people wait. I think I told you about that guy that made me wait 20 minutes and when he finally did show up told me he was going to be another hour or so, but he would give me some things to start studying and I could wait for him. Ha! I haven't been back there since.

Guess what? Turns out to be the SAME GUY! Looks like I made a good decision...