I am having a blast up here at Dulles! The SAAB lands so much different from anything else I've ever flown. Take out the speed and "feel" differences of the Cessna's and other models I flew, and as far as sight picture and pitch requirements for landing go.... it is way different. The pitch attitude looks like a low pass... in a G/A tric gear plane, if you used the same pitch attitude it would look like you were going to wheelbarrow the nose. After you touch down, though, you can tell that it takes a few seconds for the nose to touch.... when it looked otherwise until that point. All of my landings have been something I have been doing well with. My checkairman told me that I am squared away with those and that he and the previous checkairman gave me 1's for them. We get graded on a daily basis. 1-3 is the scale system they use, where 1 means proficient, 2 means requires additional training but has normal progress, and 3 means you need more training but lack normal progress. There isn't any sugar coating, but they don't bull$hit you with your progress... No harsh words or anything demeaning, they work more like the military... The checkairmen will say you are squared away or you don't meet the standards. No extraneous stuff... probably to just limit their liability in case someone accidentally says something that walks the line.

My last landing of the day at Allentown was kind of a plop, LOL. The two prop systems we have on our planes actually do cause performance differences as far as power reductions go. One drops quick when you pull the power lever and the other will keep coasting on in. No one ever mentioned that in ground school, but the class was taught by someone who never flew a SAAB.

This part of the world is beautiful .... We did have to pick our way around buildups this afternoon. That is definitely different than G/A flying, because we keep it tight to the cloud. In G/A you try to get some distance between yourself and a cell or TCU. I do have my line check on Tuesday... that is where you fly a normal day (in my case several legs and not just one out-and-back), and after the checkairman is satisfied with my performance then I get signed off as having all my training completed and I can begin normal ops at my base. I'm looking forward to it. You all have a great evening.