Hello! It has been very busy here in Michigan and I have not provided updates as frequently as I would like. My last blog entry is a link to a blog from a pilot flying with Air Serv in Africa. I don't know this person personally but it is an organization that is helping a lot of people in many difficult locations. Winter is starting to loose the battle to Spring here in Michigan. Winter has been very long and it is not over yet. However, around Valentines day we set several record high temperatures around Grand Rapids, and no new winter storms have hit the area. The improvement in the weather means that I am flying more. This is great as I flew very little in the months of December and January. February was not much better for flying but I began teaching an Instrument Ground School class through SMAT in Ionia. I have four dedicated students and we spend about three hours every Tuesday and Thursday evening learning about how to operate and aircraft in the IFR environment safely.

Adding to my overall busyness is the fact that the first of two major exams at School is coming up in only a month. Everyone must pass the FAA General oral, practical and written exam and then pass the Airframe or Power Plant oral, practical and written exam. At some point around the first or second week of April I will take the General and Airframe exams with my fellow students at SMAT. It is THE big exam for the whole year. We will be tested over everything we have covered since August. We take the test one on one with one of our two instructors. The test will take ALL day, 8-12 hours. At the end of the exam I hope to be a certified Airframe mechanic.

After the General and Airframe exams in April the months remaining in the program (May-August) will be devoted to Power Plant operations. At the conclusion of the curriculum all SMAT students will take the FAA Power Plant oral, practical and written exams. This is another all day test. All of us at SMAT then plan to be official A&P mechanics for Graduation.

The son of one of our instructors works for a well known avionics and electronics company. He visited our school last week and brought a Cirrus aircraft with a new experimental all glass panel next generation flight deck. The Cirrus is an impressive high performance all composite aircraft that represents a whole new direction in aircraft design and manufacturing. The computers that operate the flight deck are even more revolutionary. The clean crisp fashion that critical flight information is presented improves the situational awareness of the pilot by leaps and bounds. However, at a cost of about $500,000 this airplane is not practical for many people. Never the less, it was great to spend most of the day learning about this aircraft that represents the future of aviation.

Composite materials allow for a more aerodynamic shape than aluminum and rivets.

A modern glass flight deck. Notice the side stick control.

Many new airplanes are now equipped with a parachute for the whole airplane.

Putting a new aluminum skin on this wing has been an on going project that I have been working on this week.