Day 3 of Flight Training

This first picture was taken during the last portion of the maintenance standardization which went pretty good.  We were working through phase 3 of MAF's inspections for this particular aircraft.  Each aircraft is inspected every 50 hours and each time we focus on a different area of the aircraft so that in a cycle of 200 hours the plane has been gone through from front to back.  This inspection's focus was landing gear and wings with a light inspection on the rest of the aircraft as well.  Phase 2 which I helped with just before Christmas on this particular plane was  focused on the engine and tail with light inspection on the rest.  So it seems to work well having this inspection system in place allowing us to inspect the aircraft thoroughly with in the 200 hours yet while breaking the heavy inspection items allows for a quicker turn around.

These two pictures are from our stop over at Owyhee Reservoir State Airport as the sign indicates.  En-route we practiced working in terrain and then practiced the MAF airstrip evaluation procedure.  This procedure is not to different from that used for a precautionary landing, but it does a few variations and specifics to what we are looking for.  High pass looking for general slope of the area, obstructions, wind direction and then need to confirm that we have earned the right to go lower.  This is done between 500'-1000'.  The mid pass is next which is again to look for obstructions that may have been missed the first pass, then as well an estimation of touch down elevation and the other main thing we look for is length of the field which is done by timing the length and then converting ground speed and time into a length. Thankfully I have wiz wheel flight calculator to help with that.  This pass is done at 50'-100' and then the final pass if it is safe to go lower is done at 5'-10' off the deck,  We are checking the slope of the runway by taking readings off the altimeter at both ends of the runway, as well we are looking at the surface condition, and again looking for obstructions.  Lots going on and it has been a challenge to keep it all together these first couple times doing a full eval.  Once on the field we probably won't need to preform all the above passes but we do need to answer all the questions that where asked for every landing.  It's our Wind LASSO check that is part of our pre-landing checklist.
Wind - Direction and Strength
Length - Length and width of the strip
Altitude - Altitude at the touch down point
Slope - What is the slope we are dealing with
Surface - Pavement, grass, gravel, wet, dry ect...
Obstructions - What if any are the obstructions on the approach path or departure path.
A lot of things to pack in but once I'm more familiar with the aircraft and the procedure it will become second nature.

The family is doing well and we had a wonderful Easter weekend.  The kids were able to participate in a couple  Easter egg hunts one on Saturday with our fellow MAF families here working through standardization as well. And then again on Sunday where we were invited to a retired MAF families home for Easter dinner and fellowship.  All in all a wonderful weekend of celebrating Christ's death and resurrection to bring the free gift of salvation to His creation.