In an attempt to build up my skills in the Piper Arrow, an example of the “complex” airplane that must be used for an FAA flight instructor flight test, I went out to western Massachusetts on Saturday to MassMOCA, an electronic components factory converted to contemporary art museum. The most arresting exhibit currently is by the explosion artist Cai Guo-Qiang. He tricked out Ford Tauruses with fiber optics to simulate rockets and fireworks then hung them from the ceiling in one of MassMOCA’s largest rooms. This is well worth the trip to the North Adams airport (KAQW; surrounded by mountains and not suitable for IFR or night operations). If you were bored by the car exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts you’ll like this one.
http://www.caiguoqiang.com/project_detail.php?id=114&iid=517 shows some photos. The exhibit closes in October 2005.
Rats. I wish I were going to be back in Cambridge before then… MassMOCA has some really cool stuff on occasion. Wasn’t there an installation a while back that was sheets of paper being dropped slowly from the ceiling?
Phil, Good luck with your Flight Insructor test. I’m currently studying for mine. Just need to find some more time. In your area do you have to take the initial ride with an FAA Examiner or can you just use a DPE? I’ve heard that sometimes its better to take the initial ride for Instrument Instructor, then add-on the other(s).
Amittai: The paper-dropping exhibit was in the same room.
Johnny: My understanding is that in every area you must first try to take a checkride with the FSDO and then they have the option, if they are too busy, of sending you to a designated examiner. If I still owned my Diamond Star, a non-complex plane with which I was intimiately familiar, I would have tried to do the CFII checkride first and then done a CFI add-on in the Piper Arrow, in which I have very limited experience. But the DA40 is gone and the Cirrus isn’t here and in any case I won’t be an expert in the Cirrus until the end of the summer.
钢结构
重钢
重工