Here are some photos from last couple days of flight training here in Nampa, Idaho at MAF. I will have about 2 and a half weeks of flight training. Each day I show up at 7:30am to preflight and discuss the days curriculum with my instructor, Jason. Jason flew as an MAF pilot in Africa for 13 years. He and will fly about 3 hours each day and wrap up about 4pm. Monday was fundamentals day. I practiced basic manuevers such as high performance climbs and turns, as well as setting up the airplane to fly slow and manueverable. We took the airplane though rapidly changing menuevers and speeds which stretched my abilities to their limits. I realized how much I would improve by the time my training finishes. I had the opportunity to experience first hand the precise techniques and procedures I had learned in the classroom. These are the basics that will be a critical part of all of the flying that is ahead of me. Tuesday we continued with the fundamentals and started to confront rising terrain as well. I learned how set up the airplane in a way that allows us to manuever in confined mountainous terrain with a margin of safety and also the ability to retreat if the conditions deteriorate. We also started practicing how to deal with engine failures while in the mountains. Today we moved deeper into terrain. We navigated into the mountains and practiced detecting specific characteristics and hazards as well as how to deal appropriately with them. We wound our way through the mountain canyon until arriving at the place I would hone a very important skill known as airstrip evaluation. From the air I am able to assess all the important details of an unknown, uncharted, or future airstrip site after making 3 over flights of the strip. After making a High, medium, and low altitude pass, I can get critical data such as runway length, slope, altitude, and other conditions. This is no easy task. I have to get all this data while flying a high performance airplane and using a stop watch, slide rule, mathematic formulas, and my perceptions to determine the data. While in the air, I am able to determine if it is safe to land, takeoff, and how to precisely operate at that strip. After evaluating the airstrip in the included photos, we landed. At this point we took exact measurements and confirmed that the data we determined about the airstrip from the air was very accurate. We then performed many takeoffs and landings from this remote strip so I could continue to unlock my ability to opperate precisely and safely from small airstrips. MAF has taken decades of experience and combined that with many hours of flight testing to produce the best performance and safest way to operate these aircraft in technically challenging enviornments like I have begun to see in Guatemala. They do an excellent job teaching their future MAF pilots. I am so thankful that they have invited me to join them for this in house training.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 03:22:16 +0000
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