On a beautiful Sunday afternoon held my training on that well known aircraft as is the Piper Navajo. I'll come later on this legendary aircraft since I will spend enough time with it.

Meeting my trainer

Same thing as in the real life, usually in the first minute you know if it's gonna click or not. Well, I knew we weren't becoming best friend... But hey! who cares, let's do what we got to do. By giving training there is some basical principal like

• Readiness

At least getting to know who you're about to train, learn about his background, experience and figure out how mentally, physically and emotionally he his before the flight. In the end, I was going to be the one flying the plane... I could have been depressed at the point of wanting to end it on this flight, high on something or tired as sick, he wouldn't even notice... Instead he starts with ''So you got zero hour on that plane??? ''

The walk around

Doing the walk around, I learned about the main failure of those models like; the exhaust system that can cause your engine nacelle to catch on fire, the baggage door that can open in flight the needed oil required before flight... Other than that, he didn't have that much to say. More likely he didn't know that much, speaking of the fuel drain, he didn't know how much fuel drain total this plane got; ''Oh, there is more on one side than on the other'' he said... Learning later on that he had an engine failure a few weeks back because of water in the fuel tank...

Bravo Champion!

When a trainer is getting train

I expect to learn stuff, and be positively challenged at some point. I did a check ride with a 20 000h+ pilot who is a test and a instructor pilot on the new C-Series from bombardier, that was a hell of a ride and even then he ask about my flight experience before we step-in. Back on that day, let's say once level off at 5 500 feet, the attitude of my trainer changed a bit.

''Ok I see you are quite in control of the aircraft'' he said

and me '' Well, except the power setting that differ since there is turbo... It's all the same ''

Doing some maneuver

45 degrees S-turn

The deal is to bank to 45 degrees add some power, turn 180 degrees and come back on the opposite side, back to where it started at the same altitude. The goal is to find out if the candidate can handle steep turn without loosing altitude, gaining speed and fall in a spiral witch can become a deadly situation and or cause structural damage.

Slow flight

Slowing down the aircraft near to it's stall configuration, keeping the control of it without stalling it. When I teach it, I compare it to having a huge fish on the rod and you work it out to not break the line. On every new aircraft I fly, it's my favorite maneuver cause it give the feel of the aircraft at slow speed. Less airflow over stabilizer make mushy control of the aircraft which is the feeling we got over the runway just before the touch of the wheel.

Stall

Now time to break the line. This is usually where the pilot gets scared or uncomfortable at least. It starts with a stall buzzer advising you getting close to the stall, then the feel of turbulence over the wing then the nose dive and pilot performs the recovery. On every flight test and training on twin engine they don't want you to perform the stall due to the laminar wings, it kicks a little more than on a conventional wing. There is not that much to be scared about, I did a few in the past, but usually the instructor or examiner next to me didn't want me to stall it.

''Now stall the aircraft'' he said

''You want me to stall it for real or recover a little before?'' I asked

''For real'' he said

I'm not gonna asked twice, to me, it's the perfect way to feel how they aircraft react when it's in the state of ''Not flying anymore''I think he got uncomfortable, cause he called the stall before the line break. But from there his attitude over me changed a bit more and he was getting more friendly. 😂

Emergency training

Then we went over the emergency. Engine failure, finally an aircraft that can hold on one engine, engine fire in flight simulated, cabin fire. Pretty much the same procedure of in any other aircraft.

Approach and landing

The Navajo is not that fast as I taught. Cruising at 150 knots, descending at 140, approaching at 120, flare at 100. I use to fly something way faster than this on the cruise with the same approach speed, so I had to plan to slow down way before. So those speed gave me plenty of time to plan and make a smooth approach and landing.

Conclusion

4 Hours later and 100 gallons of fuel burned, It was a cool ride on that plane, confident of flying it alone. I'm more deceiving about my trainer, actually he's not a trainer, he's a sloppy pilot who's been asked to train me. I learned about his way of flying the plane, which differ from the manufacturer recommendation and also from standard operation.

This field of operation is less regulated since there's no passenger involve, training is done inside the company without that much of oversight from the minister authorities... Made me understand why pilot with a lot of hours in this field of operation have the reputation of being sloppy and not going by the rules. The rules are made for safety only, why not following them. A good opportunity to learn about what not to become!!!

Still ❤️✈️

[create by @skyleap]