Traffic Avoidance

Today, we learned about traffic avoidance....but more on that later.

First, we had a bit of ground instruction regarding the pattern and signs around the field. A little bit of talk about left-turning tendencies and slow flight, the main focus of today's lesson.

The plane was fueled up during our office time, and I had the preflight all to myself while the instructor took care of some admin. stuff. This was a different plane, but was covered in bugs like the other one. The weather today was concerning me, since there was a broken layer and some light sprinkles, but it was up at 12,000 and VFR for the practice area.

Again, I handled the radios, this time remembering to inform the controller that I had the proper ATIS weather information. I handled the taxiing much better as well, not repeating my prior imitation of an inebriated airline pilot. This plane has a castering nosewheel, so taxiing is done with power and brakes. When setting up for the run-up, the plane should be allowed to coast straight so as not to load the nose in a turning condition.

Although there were about 6 planes in the air, including a glider, as I arrived at the field, there was no one else around during takeoff. Takeoff itself also went much better, without a big yaw to the left as I did last time. I tried a mental technique of pressing the right rudder like a car's gas pedal (accelerating down the runway). It worked too well, and I yawed a bit to the right, but not badly. The DA-20 lifts off at about 45 knots, so it doesn't take long to get up in the air.
Climbout was smooth and we went a bit higher than last time to have room for slow flight and descending turns, to prepare for pattern work. At altitude, we did two clearing turns and then proceeded into two level 360's. They sure seemed fine when I did them (at least the altitude was good), but looking at the GPS track, I can see I'll need some work on ground reference (although that wasn't a concern today).

Then we slowed down and put out full flaps to practice rolling on a heading as we did before. This time, though, the slow speed makes everything "mushy" and exaggerated. It was hard enough before, but this time I had to keep arresting the big yaws I was creating. While still slow, we did some 90 degree descending turns. These were pretty uneventful, except for an inadvertent stall due to a wind gust. Then another climb, level off, and then slow down with flaps again. We did another descending turn and then a descending 180. Back up, then power to idle to practice a gliding, descending turn as would be needed in an emergency. The DA-20 has a gliding ratio of about 11:1.

Finally, we added power, climbed up a bit and leveled off for the inbound leg to the field. About this time, we called the tower, and heard the clearance for the school's other DA-20 to take off. As we were looking for it where it was "supposed to be", it magically appeared in front of us and I made a little bank to make sure we stayed clear. He probably saw us first (we were looking toward the sun) since he also steered clear. Pretty much a non-event, but still added a bit of excitement.

I flew most of the pattern from downwind to base, to final. I held final pretty far down (for a second-timer) and the instructor took the landing at about 300 feet AGL. Then it was a taxi back and time to go to work again.