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Back In The Sky
by Dale Brown, 2008

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT TheBigFiveOh.com Blog @ Yahoo.Com, May 19, 2008

Early yesterday morning I took the trike down to Reno for a checkout flight in Northern Nevada Aviation's 1979 Piper Turbo Aztec F with chief flight instructor Hank Dempsey.

We had about an hour's worth of ground instruction including reviewing systems and important V-speeds, and then accomplished a careful and detailed walkaround inspection of the plane. The Aztec is an unpressurized six-seat airplane known for its stability, load-carrying ability, and short-field performance, but those traits take away from its speed and handling qualities. It's a good solid plane to get me back into the twin-engine flying game.

The weather conditions couldn't have been nicer: dead-calm winds at all altitudes, mostly clear skies, and great visibility. We did a normal takeoff and cruise climb. The Aztec is very twitchy in pitch, and the trim control is a big crank on the ceiling, so it takes some finesse to get the plane trimmed for level flight.

Hank had me do steep turns to get warmed up, then brought an engine back to zero thrust to simulate an engine-out. We used to completely shut an engine down for single-engine practice, but the startup-shutdown-startup-shutdown-startup sequence is very hard on engines, so we just pull power back and simulate feathering the prop and securing the engine.

With one shut down, I practiced shallow turns and then a minimum-control airspeed demonstration. At slow speeds and with the "critical engine" (the left engine) at zero thrust, the rudder is shadowed out by the plane's fuselage and the plane has a tendency to roll to the left. The Vmca demonstration is to let your instructor know that you know what Vmca is, how to detect when it's happening, and what to do about it before the plane uncontrollably flips itself upside down.

We then did takeoffs and landings at Derby Field in Lovelock, Nevada, and then did an instrument arrival into Reno. Once cleared for the Instrument Landing System (ILS) approach at Reno, Hank pulled the right engine, and I did a single-engine ILS approach into Reno all the way down to landing.

Tired (and with a wobbly left leg from holding that left rudder in for so long) but happy, I got my signoff for both the Turbo 182 and Turbo Aztec. I'm usually pretty nervous when it comes time for a check ride, but I think I did pretty darn good with my first flight in an Aztec.

I am still without my own airplane, but with NNA's Aztec available now, do I need to get my own? Maybe not.

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