It's just a single engine approach, how hard could it be?

Since I am posting more frequently, I will most certainly be able to keep my droning on and on to a bare minimum. I flew again yesterday afternoon. After a lovely preflight inspection in the freezing wind, we got our ATIS information and taxi clearance.

We lined up on the center line of runway 31 and I slowly advanced the power levers. (Just FYI, most planes have throttle levers, not power levers. Because the Diamond DA42 Twin Star is equipped with FADEC - Full Authority Digital Engine Control, there are no mixture, or prop controls. And by the way in a jet, they're called thrust levers. Anyway...) I still get a kick out of the feeling of power that comes when I advance the power levers. We accelerated to Vr (rotation speed) and lifted off.

WOW! there was a 20 knot headwind straight down the runway, so we got KILLER performance. I raised the gear and we were climbing at about 1800 fpm (feet per minute; try to keep up with the acronyms will ya?) we were at 1,000 feet AGL (above ground level) by the time we reached the end of the runway which is only 8,599 feet long.

After that the flight was pretty routine. steep turns, slow flight, power off stall, power on stall, Vmc demo, and finally a single engine ILS approach. This time there were no problems with any of the flight maneuvers. The only problem came with the ILS approach where because of the current wind conditions I had to do a circle-to-land instead of a straight in approach so i blew through my MDA (minimum descent altitude) by 80 feet. According to the commercial PTS (practical test standards) I cannot descend below MDA at all.

This last glitch notwithstanding, the flight was very productive. Be sure to check back soon for more boring stories.