October 15

"SEMINOLE 215FW, RICHMOND TOWER, FLY HEADING 320 RUNWAY TWO, CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF."

"HEADING 320 CLEARED FOR TAKE OFF, SEMINOLE 5 FOX WHISKEY."

Today was awesome!!! Got to the airport early this morning around 9:15. (Had nothing better to do) Started in the sim right away at 10 and did all of the same manuevers that I did yesterday, but I had stricter limits during the manuevers seeing how I had done them already. God the sim is sensitive. Anyways, I did about 2 hours in the sim until I felt comfortable with the manuevers. I sat in the sim for another 2 hours watching my partner do the same manuevers I has just done. Then we were finished and Steve (my instructor) said he couldn't take the sim anymore so he tried to get us a plane. The new one was just being rolled out of maintance so he tried to get that one, but unfortunatly the Robert ( pleasantly plump, lunch time, not a good time to ask a fat man to make a fun call) hadn't called ATP dispatch yet to let them know the plane was good to go. So instead we took N215FW, and 1979 Piper Seminole. I was so exicted walking out the doors of the Richmond Jet Center to the ramp seeing my seminole on the ramp along with about 12 other large jets and a bunch of King Air's. We did the pre-flight, got in and got our clearance out of the Class Charlie airspace. We tookoff right after a cessna landed, and right before a Chautauqua 3022, heading up to La Guardia took off. I don't think they were too happy we were going before them seeing how they taxied up about 12 feet from us and the captain staring at me tapping his fingers on the dashboard. I didn't care, I had my normal grin on my face when I'm doing something that annoys people (you know what I'm talking about). Got our take-off clearance and taxied into position on Runway 2, power set to 2000 RPM, engine instruments all in green, full power, release brakes, airspeed alive, 75 knots, rotate, positive rate of climb gear up, climb at 88 knots, turn to heading 320 1000ft above the ground reduce power to 24'' manifold pressure and 2500RPM. "SEMINOLE 215FW CONTACT POTOMAC DEPARTURE 134.70"
"DEPARTURE 34 7, FIVE FOX WHISKEY, CYA."

We got to 2,500ft, our altitude to go over to Petersburg ( Dinwiddy airport).
We climbed up to 4,500 ft to do all of those manuevers I had practiced in the sim.
And alls I have to say is wow, that sim sucks.
The airplane is so much easier to fly in real life compared to the sim. I did steep turns perfect, slow flight was pretty good, then we did a power off stall, then a power on stall, and then I shut down an engine. Man!! It sure was cool looking out my window at the left engine and seeing the prop not moving. HAHA! I restarted the engine and then we went to Dinwiddy airport were I attempted my first landing in the new airplane. Enter the traffic pattern properly, slowed to about 120 knots, and did my gear down before landing checklist, turned base, and did my 1000ft GUMPP check, (gas, undercarriage, mixture, props, pumps) and then the 400 foot above the ground Gear down and stablized call. Lined up perfect, speed is perfect at 88 knots, pulled the power back over the runway numbers and then slammed it down onto the runway, not a very nice landing :( I kind of scared myself seeing how the nose wheels slams down after each landing, I wish someone would have told me that before) We did a touch and go and tried it again. Actually about 5 more times, and each one was better and better and before I knew it, I was greasing the landings. It was time to go back to Richmond so we departed Dinwiddy to the east and went back to Richmond. I had a nice landing there, parked and shut down. When I got out, I reached into my back pocket to make sure my car keys were still there and they were, but I found out that I had been sweating just a little bit ;). All in all, a successful day and I can't wait to do it again!