Jim Carson

• Personal home page: http://www.jimcarson.com

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Static Page Comments

• May 2, 2002, on Flying:

  After you finish your instrument rating, you may find your VFR skills have deteriorated because the instrument flying gets you accustomed to being led through the system to the end of the runway. (This happens to a lot of folks, often during the first few forays into an uncontrolled field.) If you have enough hours, you might consider adding the commercial rating. It's functionally useless -- you're severely limited on things you can do "for hire" -- but it does present an opportunity for working towards tighter tolerances and becoming smoother in your control. Another fairly "useless," but amazingly fun thing is the seaplane (technically: Airplane Single-Engine Sea) add-on rating. You can do this in a long weekend, weather permitting, and it will do wonders for your soft-field technique. It will be the only time you'll get 20-30 landings an hour and not seriously bend anything ;-) I would be curious on comments on the King test preparation. I thought their subject videos (e...

• May 2, 2002, on Instrument Flying:

  >> Most instrument instructors sing the praises of the simulator[...] >> However, chances are that the simulator available to you will be >> very different from your own airplane. I disagree with this comment for a few reasons. First, debriefing is an essential part of the learning experience. A huge benefit of the simulator is the ability to review what you've done and where you spectacularly screwed up. WHen you're initially learning the basics of the system, you'll benefit less from being in the noisy cockpit (and actually having to fly -- instrument procedures are less about flying than they are understanding systems). Second, a simulator lets you experiment without breaking anything and spending an excessive amount of money. You get an infinite amount of "do-overs." * Want to fly the step-down approach into Medford Oregon? The LDA into Vancouver Pearson? The ILS into Boston's 22L? Just pull the chart and dial up the right frequencies. * Wondering why you c...