Getting a BFR - Bi-annual flight review

I got real busy when I became a manager two years ago in Beijing. All my trips to the US were swamped with meetings. Even if I did find time to fly with my instructor, I would not be relaxed and sharp enough to do a good job. When I transferred back to the US in April of this year, my medical certificate expired and I was in need of a bi-annual flight review. Here is what I had to do to become legal to fly again. A few friends were interested in this topic and here is the short journal.

On August 5, 2010, I went to see Dr. DWK and had my FAA medical exam done in about one hour. It included a urine test (for drugs for the most part), and vision, hearing, general reflexes, blood pressure and other tests. I received a second-class certificate. A second-class airman medical certificate is required for commercial, non-airline duties (e.g., for crop dusters, corporate pilots) and is valid for 1 year plus the remainder of the days in the month of the examination.
For a private pilot, a third-class medical will suffice. The third-class medical is good for two years. My second-class certificate can be used for two years for my non-commercial flying. The office assistant, YLD still remembered me. She mentioned proudly again about her grandson in Chicago, who is fluent in Chinese. We have had a good chat, about every two years over the last decade ;-) It cost me $100 for the exam.

A private pilot license/certificate never really expires once you have it. In order to exercise your airman privileges, you have to meet certain additional requirements, typically a current medical certificate and a bi-annual flight review. Certain flying clubs will add more requirements to make sure that you are not just legal to fly, but have recent flight experience and have been checked out by a club CFI.

My bi-annual flight review was completed on Sunday, August 29, 2010, with my CFII (certified flight instructor - instrument) instructor AS at Reid-Hillview airport (RHV) in San Jose.

I used to be a member of the Squadron 2 Flying Club before I left for Beijing 4 years ago. This photo was taken in front of the club office. And another one was taken in one of the classrooms with a big poster of a Cessna 172 control panel and Northern California FAA sectional charts.


Legally, we had to do one hour of ground instruction, mostly on the required equipments for flying and the required protocols for entering various air spaces around the San Francisco area.
The actual air time was 2.7 hours, which is a long time, because normally the time is only 2 hours. The air time included slow flight, steep turns, power-off stalls, power-on stalls, and simulated engine-loss emergency procedures. The extra time I had was take-offs and landings. I was quite rusty (and probably more tired than usual due to the summer heat) and did 15 of them in South County airport and Reid-Hillview airport. After this, I was good for 2 years of flying. The cost for the instructor was 2.7 hours plus one hour ground instruction, which came to $296 total with an hourly rate of $80/hour. The airplane cost wet (gas included) was $288.36 based on the $106.80 per hour rate. This is typical for a Cessna 172. I had the N65658 from the club.

I was instrument rated, but I am not current right now. This means that I cannot legally fly in the clouds. No one in his/her right mind will be really eager to fly alone in IMC condition with minimally equipped airplanes. But, having the rating and currency provides an extra boost of confidence and additional skill to avoid accidents. The next thing I need to do is some under-the-hood work and some instrument approaches, in addition to some just-for-fun cross-country flying.

Basics of Flight and Flying in the US

In my Toastmaster project #8 speech "Get comfortable with visual aids," I decided to try to explain the basics of flight to non-flyers. You can find the "Basics of Flight" presentation in PDF format by click the link. I would like to acknowledge that I found the materials I used for the the GIF files, on the Internet. I cannot name specifically any person or organization since I do not have a record of it now. You can search on "Basics Flight" and you might be able to see some of the GIF files I used in the presentation.

Flying has been my hobby for more than 20 years, since my Berkeley office mate took me to the UC Berkeley flying club based at the Oakland airport in the early 80's. I am instrument-rated and have about 600 hours of logged time. See this picture of a Cessna 172 parked in front of the Squadron 2 Flying Club at the RHV (Reid Hillview airport) in San Jose, California.

Flying gives me a real sense of freedom, and viewing the city from being able to fly as a common citizen is unthinkable to my colleagues in Beijing.

Years ago, I took my 8-year-old nephew on a flight. On our flight to North Philadelphia airport from Morristown, New Jersey, I let him handle the yoke, gently going up and down and turning left and right when we had really smooth air.

I told him that the airspace belonged to us commoners, that is, the people, and that the military is just carving out certain pieces in the name of national defense. As long as they don't overdo it, I don't mind. My sister told me not to give such liberal thoughts to my nephew's young mind, as they were living in Taiwan at the time. Very often, I called in to the military airfields for permission to fly over to save time, and I don't remember that I ever got turned down once. It tickles me still that I could do it as simply as that.

I recall one report from the English CCTV program a year ago that showed some Chinese farmer who had assembled his kit plane in the countryside and was the test pilot himself. It was amazing to me. I found the farmer not only talented but definitely courageous. However, the CCTV reporting had a different angle looking at this news, saying that this daring individual had violated some laws. It was not clear exactly what law this farmer violated, since the concept of general aviation and the regulation of airspace are just too new here. I would bet that the Wright brothers would never have had a chance here to do their first powered flight and to open up a new era in human history.

Government and society should guide this positive energy to innovate, and to create new and better things for mankind as a whole. Flying is not rare in the US, but not that common due to the perceived risks in learning to fly and operate an airplane. The last statistic that I remember is that there are about three quarters of a million private pilots registered in the United States. This is about 0.3 percent of the general population. Many pilots belong to this non-profit organization AOPA (Aircraft owners and pilots association).

I like to talk more about non-profit organizations in another posting in the context of modernization of China.