What I did on my summer vacation

Since my son was born 10 years ago, and my daughter 7 years ago, it seems
like my annual vacations have consisted primarily of playing "People
Transporter" and "Bill Payer" with absolutely no time for myself. Don't get
me wrong, I love my family and I love doing it for the kids but after 10
years of returning home from vacations more exhausted than when I left and
vowing that someday I would take a vacation "just for me", I finally did it.

Last Saturday morning I loaded everybody and everything into the 182RG and
headed out for a short 1:45min hop to Mackinac Island, MI. We had
reservations for 2 nights at one of the islands nicest hotels during the
final days of the Island's Lilac Festival. Although there are no motorized
vehicles allowed on the island, the Michigan State Park Department operates
and maintains a single paved runway that sees steady air traffic all summer
long. The Lilacs were in the final stages of bloom but still amazing and
the entire family had fun walking and biking around the island.

Monday morning came and it was time to fly the family to Grand Rapids to
spend the week with the in-laws so I could return north to Traverse City
where MY real vacation would start!

I'd made arrangements to do some multi-engine and CFI-I training with Tom
Brady, of Traverse Air, Inc. http://www.traverseair.com Tom specializes in
multi engine and sea plane ratings but was willing to see where the CFII
training would take us. We started Monday afternoon getting acquainted with
the flying characteristics of an old but beautiful low time Piper Apache.
After three more flights with one engine shut down most of the time on
Tuesday, a final checkride prep Wednesday morning, and a permanent cramp in
my right hip, it was time for the checkride. The checkride was a piece of
cake, Tom had me very over prepared and nothing the examiner requested came
as a surprise. After the oral we did slow flight, stalls, steep turns,
engine out procedures, Vmc demo, single engine instrument approaches and a
single engine go-around followed by normal and cross wind short field and
regular landings and we were done.

Time to grab Tom and jump back into the 182RG for some CFII training.
Basically I just talked my fool head off explaining and demonstrating
everything I could think of, then turning the controls over to Tom to do
unusual attitudes and to teach him some GPS approaches with the 430. We
practiced stalls, steep turns and unusual attitudes with me under the hood
and explaining them to him the entire time. After four flights between
Wednesday afternoon and Friday morning I found myself once again infront of
the examiner. This time the oral was a lot more relaxed. It basically
consisted of an hour and a half conversation of what I would teach my
student about different scenarios and in what ways were the FAR's the bare
minimums and not necessarily the safest guidelines that we should instill in
students. No problem. Off to fly. ILS. VOR-A. Steep turns. Taught him
unusual attitudes, a GPS approach, parallel entry into a hold, out of the
hold for the VOR-A circle to land to the cross wind runway and we were done!

After signing my CFI-I ticket, a firm handshake and a thankyou, it was a
short and a very pleasant flight from TVC down to 9D9 (just south of GRR).
I knew I was smiling the whole way, but sometimes it still hasn't sunken in
yet!

Saturday I gave a couple rides, then Sunday loaded the family and everything
else into the 182RG for a nice relaxing flight south around the puddle and
back to Stevens Point, WI.

8 days
27.6 flight hours, including my first 2 hours of AMEL PIC
and 2 new ratings

Now THAT"S what I call a vacation!!

Jim Burns
CP-ASEL-AMEL
CFI-I
AGI/IGI



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