Today was another opportunity for some solo practice. The wind was calm, but there was about a 10,000 foot ceiling of mostly overcast, with bit of sprinkles. It was a great day for just flying around, which is what I ended up doing. It's good to just get out and fly, practicing the mental checklists, engine management, and basic procedures....without the instructor fiddling with the airplane and its controls.
I had made a plan to experiment a bit with some power/pitch exercises, but the close clouds and rain shafts made it a bit uncomfortable. So I stuck with some ground reference and slow flight...even a power-on stall. And I practiced going through the GPS screens and adjusting the mixture for cruise flight.
It was really just fun to be flying without many distractions, and experimenting with different configurations of the plane. I have come to the conclusion that there is one main difference between a flight instructor and a four-year-old: The four-year-old can be instructed not to touch anything in flight and be quiet at appropriate times. The instructor is constantly asking, "What happens if the engine quits?" "What does this do?" "What happens if it gets dark?" "How much gas do we have?" Etc., Etc. And, of course, pulling the throttle, pulling circuit breakers, making us do crazy maneuvers, and generally making the student think, "Don't make me come over there!" Not that it should really be any other way....
I suppose that if it turns out I have any advantage in my flight training, it will be less because of past experience with airplanes and more due to the fact that I have driven down the freeway with three kids in the back seat. Flight lessons are a lot more like that than I would have thought.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thursday, October 25, 2007
More Hood Time
We took advantage of one more good day before everyone closes shop for a quick rain/snow cold front to pass through tomorrow. Moderate winds but clear skies made for another good day of under-the-hood practice.
We did some of the same exercises as before, some climbs and descents, turns to headings, tracking a VOR, and some steep turns. We also did a bid of slow flight, which we also did before, but this time we threw in stalls (both power on and power off). Then, we did stalls in a turn and recovery from unusual attitudes.
This last one is where I take my hands off the controls, the instructor adjusts power and/or direction while I keep my eyes down, then I take the controls and have to put the plane back on a straight-and-level course. The idea is that if you accidentally end up in the clouds, you could inadvertently be in a steep spiral or a slow stall without being aware of it. The goal is to be able to gradually unload the G-forces without overloading the wings or engine or stalling the plane.
Overall, these are fairly straightforward exercises, and I feel fairly comfortable doing them. Of course, as before, the instructor is having me fiddle with the GPS and radios while maintaining steady flight or maneuvering, to mimic the multi-tasking required for just about any phase of flight.
Coming back to the field, we decided to practice the crosswind landing on the small runway. I botched the approach pretty horribly (way too high) and had to make a "for-real" go around. On the second try, I was still a bit high, but could fix it with a forward slip, and we touched down just about right.
Now, it's time for a bit more book learning, to prepare for cross-country flight planning. If the weather holds out for a while, I should be able to do the required flights pretty soon. The official count to date is 25.8 hours, with 1.4 night and 1.6 simulated instrument.
We did some of the same exercises as before, some climbs and descents, turns to headings, tracking a VOR, and some steep turns. We also did a bid of slow flight, which we also did before, but this time we threw in stalls (both power on and power off). Then, we did stalls in a turn and recovery from unusual attitudes.
This last one is where I take my hands off the controls, the instructor adjusts power and/or direction while I keep my eyes down, then I take the controls and have to put the plane back on a straight-and-level course. The idea is that if you accidentally end up in the clouds, you could inadvertently be in a steep spiral or a slow stall without being aware of it. The goal is to be able to gradually unload the G-forces without overloading the wings or engine or stalling the plane.
Overall, these are fairly straightforward exercises, and I feel fairly comfortable doing them. Of course, as before, the instructor is having me fiddle with the GPS and radios while maintaining steady flight or maneuvering, to mimic the multi-tasking required for just about any phase of flight.
Coming back to the field, we decided to practice the crosswind landing on the small runway. I botched the approach pretty horribly (way too high) and had to make a "for-real" go around. On the second try, I was still a bit high, but could fix it with a forward slip, and we touched down just about right.
Now, it's time for a bit more book learning, to prepare for cross-country flight planning. If the weather holds out for a while, I should be able to do the required flights pretty soon. The official count to date is 25.8 hours, with 1.4 night and 1.6 simulated instrument.
After Dark
Tonight was the first night flight (in the left seat, anyway). I was nervous, just because it's another aspect of flying that I haven't done much of. I was also keeping a close eye on the winds, since they were calm all day, but were forecast to come up ahead of a cold front.
I arrived at the field just before 8, and met the new instructor that I would be flying with. He does part-time instructing, focusing on nights and weekends. My regular instructor's schedule is too busy to do much night flying (being limited to 8 hours per day of flight time).
I was mentally prepared for the difficulties of night flying, plus, I had tried to get accustomed to the cockpit switches without looking at them over the past few flights. That only worked partially...the dark is still very disorienting.
But, it was a calm, cool night, with a nearly full moon and clear skies. There was one other plane in the pattern, and I was ready to go. We had to make a quick takeoff to get ahead of a plane on final, but other than that, the whole flight was fairly low-pressure. We took off and when we got to about 100 feet above the ground, the wind made itself apparent. It was a fairly consistent 15 knots or so I'm guessing, and we had at least 10 degrees of crab angle to maintain course. Since I was with the "new guy", we went out of the pattern and did some rough ground reference over roads so that he could see how I would track in the winds.
Apparently, I did all right, since we only spent about 10 minutes on that, made a few 180's and 360's, and then headed back to the pattern for touch-and-go's. All of my reading about night approaches focused on the tendency to be higher and faster than during the day. The rule is, fly just the same at night. Which means, however, that my old hurdle of having a bit too much speed and power came back to haunt me again. I managed to maintain decent landings, though, and we touched down smoothly, even if it wouldn't have been good enough if I was at a short runway.
I didn't seem to have too much of the typical feeling of being too high in the flare, just being a bit high on final. So once I was over the numbers, things smoothed out. The other tricky condition was that the gusty winds consistently stayed above about 100 feet. So I got to play with maintaining a slip into the wind for most of the approach, then having the wind drop out and having to re-correct for the lack of gusts. The result was good crosswind practice, but a forgiving touchdown, with a nice, squealing stall horn. One of the approaches even had a pretty big downdraft, which kept things interesting.
We did a couple go-arounds, then switched off the landing light to see if I could still stick it. With the full moon, I could just barely make out the centerline as we were ready to flare. I flared just a bit high on the first "dark" landing, but the next two were squeakers as well. Then, we did a no-flap landing, which means a much longer float down the runway, but again, a smooth touchdown.
Total, we did 8 landings tonight, and I enjoyed the night flying. I didn't get much time for sightseeing over the city lights, but it was sure a good night for the first go at it.
I arrived at the field just before 8, and met the new instructor that I would be flying with. He does part-time instructing, focusing on nights and weekends. My regular instructor's schedule is too busy to do much night flying (being limited to 8 hours per day of flight time).
I was mentally prepared for the difficulties of night flying, plus, I had tried to get accustomed to the cockpit switches without looking at them over the past few flights. That only worked partially...the dark is still very disorienting.
But, it was a calm, cool night, with a nearly full moon and clear skies. There was one other plane in the pattern, and I was ready to go. We had to make a quick takeoff to get ahead of a plane on final, but other than that, the whole flight was fairly low-pressure. We took off and when we got to about 100 feet above the ground, the wind made itself apparent. It was a fairly consistent 15 knots or so I'm guessing, and we had at least 10 degrees of crab angle to maintain course. Since I was with the "new guy", we went out of the pattern and did some rough ground reference over roads so that he could see how I would track in the winds.
Apparently, I did all right, since we only spent about 10 minutes on that, made a few 180's and 360's, and then headed back to the pattern for touch-and-go's. All of my reading about night approaches focused on the tendency to be higher and faster than during the day. The rule is, fly just the same at night. Which means, however, that my old hurdle of having a bit too much speed and power came back to haunt me again. I managed to maintain decent landings, though, and we touched down smoothly, even if it wouldn't have been good enough if I was at a short runway.
I didn't seem to have too much of the typical feeling of being too high in the flare, just being a bit high on final. So once I was over the numbers, things smoothed out. The other tricky condition was that the gusty winds consistently stayed above about 100 feet. So I got to play with maintaining a slip into the wind for most of the approach, then having the wind drop out and having to re-correct for the lack of gusts. The result was good crosswind practice, but a forgiving touchdown, with a nice, squealing stall horn. One of the approaches even had a pretty big downdraft, which kept things interesting.
We did a couple go-arounds, then switched off the landing light to see if I could still stick it. With the full moon, I could just barely make out the centerline as we were ready to flare. I flared just a bit high on the first "dark" landing, but the next two were squeakers as well. Then, we did a no-flap landing, which means a much longer float down the runway, but again, a smooth touchdown.
Total, we did 8 landings tonight, and I enjoyed the night flying. I didn't get much time for sightseeing over the city lights, but it was sure a good night for the first go at it.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Where's the Wind?
One of the most important things to be aware of whenever flying is the direction and velocity of the wind. This is an important factor when flying cross-country (in order to make sure your ground track is in the right direction) and also when flying low, especially when going around the airport pattern. The latter case is the reason for practicing ground reference maneuvers, where you need to maintain a constant altitude while going around a point or doing S-turns. The trick is that the wind will be pushing you in some direction and you need to compensate for it by adjusting the rates of turns as you change headings.
That was my practice today, as it was last time, to be able to tighten the tolerances on my speed and altitude fluctuations while doing these. The wind was fairly calm at the field (as opposed to this day), so I thought it would actually be not very valuable training, but it's about all I can do still, since I'm not cleared for cross-country flying yet.
So off I went into our practice area, and tried to see what the wind was doing. I wasn't expecting much, but as I got to the western edge (along a river valley), I started picking up some moderate turbulence -- actually wind gusting through the valley. So consistent in fact, that when I came back over to the same spot a bit later, I hit the same air currents. So, the first S-turns didn't turn out that well and I left this spot for later and practicing some steep turns.
As I moved back to the east, the wind was a bit steadier, and only about 15 knots or so. It still took me a couple of turns to see which way it was going though, since it seemed to vary depending on where I was. The farmers down below must have thought I was lost, but I suppose they see a lot of planes just spinning around in the sky.
With a decent mix of turns around a point and S-turns, I did a few steep turns, which turned out okay. The final one was the best, even with altitude steady. Since I wanted to do some touch-and-go's, I started back, and called the tower. It definitely pays to pay attention, since the controller mixed up my call sign and another from the same school which is only one digit different. I had to negate the clearance he had given to the other guy, thinking he was me. And today wasn't anywhere near as busy as last week.
We got it straightened out, and I came in for the first approach. This one, like all the others (6 in all, with 5 touchdowns) seemed to come together just right. The wind was about 6 knots, about 30 degrees off the nose, so it was virtually perfect, and my groundspeed seemed awfully slow. Nevertheless, I kept the airspeed on, and even had a chance to do a forward slip on one of the approaches that was just a bit high.
One the second go-around, there was some departing traffic that the controller wanted to get off the ground. He asked if I would be willing to accept a "low approach" over the turf runway. That was a different experience, since every other approach has been over a paved runway. In the past, this has meant that we would fly lower and lower attempting to maintain a very low altitude over the ground, but if the wheels inadvertently touched, it was okay, since we were cleared for the "option". This time, not only was I not cleared to touchdown, but I was over grass, a no-no for this rented airplane (unless it's an emergency, of course).
This meant that I stayed a bit (a lot...) higher than I could have, but it was also interesting to approach a field that had no markings other than some white cones to delineate the runway edges. I saw that I can do all right without the VASI lights or other typical visual cues, and could have landed if it had been necessary.
Coming up...night flying?
That was my practice today, as it was last time, to be able to tighten the tolerances on my speed and altitude fluctuations while doing these. The wind was fairly calm at the field (as opposed to this day), so I thought it would actually be not very valuable training, but it's about all I can do still, since I'm not cleared for cross-country flying yet.
So off I went into our practice area, and tried to see what the wind was doing. I wasn't expecting much, but as I got to the western edge (along a river valley), I started picking up some moderate turbulence -- actually wind gusting through the valley. So consistent in fact, that when I came back over to the same spot a bit later, I hit the same air currents. So, the first S-turns didn't turn out that well and I left this spot for later and practicing some steep turns.
As I moved back to the east, the wind was a bit steadier, and only about 15 knots or so. It still took me a couple of turns to see which way it was going though, since it seemed to vary depending on where I was. The farmers down below must have thought I was lost, but I suppose they see a lot of planes just spinning around in the sky.
With a decent mix of turns around a point and S-turns, I did a few steep turns, which turned out okay. The final one was the best, even with altitude steady. Since I wanted to do some touch-and-go's, I started back, and called the tower. It definitely pays to pay attention, since the controller mixed up my call sign and another from the same school which is only one digit different. I had to negate the clearance he had given to the other guy, thinking he was me. And today wasn't anywhere near as busy as last week.
We got it straightened out, and I came in for the first approach. This one, like all the others (6 in all, with 5 touchdowns) seemed to come together just right. The wind was about 6 knots, about 30 degrees off the nose, so it was virtually perfect, and my groundspeed seemed awfully slow. Nevertheless, I kept the airspeed on, and even had a chance to do a forward slip on one of the approaches that was just a bit high.
One the second go-around, there was some departing traffic that the controller wanted to get off the ground. He asked if I would be willing to accept a "low approach" over the turf runway. That was a different experience, since every other approach has been over a paved runway. In the past, this has meant that we would fly lower and lower attempting to maintain a very low altitude over the ground, but if the wheels inadvertently touched, it was okay, since we were cleared for the "option". This time, not only was I not cleared to touchdown, but I was over grass, a no-no for this rented airplane (unless it's an emergency, of course).
This meant that I stayed a bit (a lot...) higher than I could have, but it was also interesting to approach a field that had no markings other than some white cones to delineate the runway edges. I saw that I can do all right without the VASI lights or other typical visual cues, and could have landed if it had been necessary.
Coming up...night flying?
Monday, October 15, 2007
Experimental
Today was simply a beautiful day for flying, and the schedule lately has been fairly flexible -- the instructor and I tend to decide "on the fly" as it were what to do on any given day. So it was today, when T.I.'s schedule dictated that he prepare for a last minute class that it sounds like he was suckered into by the other instructors. I had called earlier about possibly changing the schedule to to a "stage check", and based on consulting with the chief instructor, it was decided that I was competent enough to leave the pattern and venture out to spread my wings.The end result was a flight to take advantage of the calm winds and clear sky to solo out in the practice area. I was actually free to fly around pretty much as I pleased, within reason of course, and it was a really neat feeling. Sure, it was my third solo flight, but now, I was outside of the tower's airspace, and I didn't need to remain focused on flying the pattern and constantly changing power and altitude. As expected, though, I still had to work on the various tasks for the practical test. So, while there was work to be done, I had complete control over my course, the radio, and whatever I felt like working on.
Even though there was only a little wind, I wanted to go through the ground reference maneuvers to improve my altitude control. As it was, because of the strong winds last time, I could at least mentally go through the necessary steps, without needing to make the turns quite as extreme. On the other hand, I found that my S-turns didn't work quite as well today, and I can't pin down what happened. I seemed to do them better in the wind... I also saw that I still need to work on my steep turns, especially keeping the full 45-degree banks and maintaining altitude.
In between turns around a point and S-turns, I tried some slow-flight maneuvers -- straight and level and shallow turns. In doing so, I also realized that I'm a bit scared of practicing stalls solo. It's still a bit nerve-wracking, and I will probably need to have the most practice with these in the near future (besides all the new stuff to come along.)
Then, partly to do something new, and partly because another plane was in the same practice area, I just went off and played with power, pitch, and trim to observe how the speed and altitude change with certain settings. I also experimented with leaning the engine at cruise power by reading the exhaust gas temperature gauge, but it was getting to be time to get back to the field, so I made a turn back and concentrated on getting set up to enter the pattern again.
Today was a very busy day, and it was hard to get a word in edgewise. Usually, when I report inbound, I give all my information (ATIS received, intentions, location, and altitude), but today just limited it to my call sign to give the controller time to work out the other traffic. I was also coming in on the wrong side of the field, and so I had to spin around a few times to let several approaches finish and let a departure get off. I also think I may have bungled my position report (or at least didn't give the controller enough advance notice) because I think he thought I was somewhere else. Hence, my very confused-looking track out to the northwest of the field.
Even with that, I didn't let it affect flying the plane and staying out of everyone else's way. So, while I was a bit rushed to get down once I was cleared and made a half-flap approach, the landing was nearly perfect, and I felt pretty good about handling the situation. I probably gave the controller a few more gray hairs, but I think it was actually about the busiest day I've seen since starting lessons here. I suppose since it was my first solo trip out of the pattern and back in, I shouldn't expect flawless quite yet...
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Finally Some Solo Time
Through a coincidence of weather, workload, and aircraft availability, I hopped over to the field to fly a few circles around the pattern this afternoon. It's getting to be like skiing: when the weather's right, you just have to go (and be lucky enough to have a job that allows such flexibility).
Not much to report, since the whole idea was based around the fact that there was no wind, and with my recent crosswind challenges, it makes for easy landings...so they should have all been flawless, right? Yeah...
Out of a total of 9 approaches, I had a handful of near-perfect touchdowns, and just as I was thinking I'd finally gotten a handle on things, I didn't. I was coming down just a little fast, added a bit of power, but pulled back just a bit too much. I settled down too hard, and began porpoising, the classic error during landing practice. It only took two more bounces to know that I had to put a stop to things, power up, flaps up, and back up to try again. The next approach looked good, but I had tightened it up to squeeze in between an arriving and another departing aircraft. I ended up too high, too fast, and just went around.
The final approach also was just a bit fast, which I have identified as my biggest error through the whole training so far, but it worked out all right, and I made another smooth touchdown.
The experts discourage so many touch-and-goes, since it starts to get pretty old, and you should be working on a wide variety of tasks. But for me, landings pretty much are my weakest point, so I like to have the extra practice. I also need to simply build up some solo hours, since I'm now at about 20 hours -- technically halfway to the "end".
As it was, it was an hour well spent, because I could have easily handled a bit of crosswind, but it was a good confidence-builder to be able to settle the plane down with barely a squeak on a couple of those landings. That's a good feeling.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Windy Windy Windy
Another windy day. My instructor is beginning to vocalize his observations of my knack of picking not just windy days, but straight-out sideways crosswinds of 15 knots or so. (Honestly, it's not on purpose). One must also realize that due to T.I.'s workload (he doesn't even know how many students he has right now), it is rare that he remembers what we did on the prior lesson (true of most of his students, so he says). So, when it stands out that I tend to be the one who attracts the crosswinds, that's saying something...what it's saying, I don't want to know. But all in all, I have to say it's good practice, but it does get old after a while.
With the wind (and the bumps) that go along with the leading edge of a low pressure cold front, we ventured out, and as soon as we were near the edge of the airspace, I donned the hood (no Foggles today) for a good 30 minutes of bouncy, wind-corrected course-and altitude-holding maneuvers. For the record, I have read up on practicing without the attitude indicator (the gyroscopic "artificial horizon) in order to be ready if (when) it happens to fail. I think I would have been all over the sky if that had been on the agenda today. It was hard enough to watch speed, altitude, heading, course, and maintain some rough idea of "up" -- but on top of that was more fiddling with the GPS, VOR, and switching courses -- all while bouncing around in a 40-mph wind aloft. Yeehaw. My little tag that says "hood on" should have probably said "hold on".
When it was all done (which seemed like a full hour), I actually had managed to keep it together, and I don't think we were ever inverted...After we were back in VFR conditions, we played with the wind a bit, and did a turn around a point. The two groundspeed extremes were 98 mph to 156 mph. Wheee. But I stuck it pretty well, and I made a nearly perfect circle. Then it was back to the pattern, for some "interesting" landings in the wind.
If you look closely, you can see that my steep turn entry and exit is oriented almost exactly perpendicular to the runway, about 8 miles away. Yeah, it was like that all the way down, too. I'd like to say that my wide turn into the straight-in approach was due to the wind...no, I just couldn't find the runway...
In we came, nearly sideways, and as we came over the runway, the gusts were, shall we say, "noticeable"? The first landing was a bit wonky, and I just about got blown off the runway, but away we went, for another go. We made left traffic first, and I was turned about 15 degrees into the wind, which you can see was maybe a bit much, but manageable. The left turns (into the wind on base) also made the plane easier to line up on the runway. Never mind, though, because it got away from me in the flare, and I drifted too far over - Go Around
Up we went, this time making right traffic to allow another plane into the pattern. Now, I was really asking for it. My turn toward the runway would be greatly accelerated by the wind, and so we angled out a bit from the field. While not apparent on the track, I was banked as far over as I felt safe doing, a bit low, and with the runway quickly approaching. I was probably barely a thousand feet out as I finally got lined up, and I was almost ready to abandon the approach, but it came together, and the wind allowed me to get down fairly gracefully, considering the alternative.
One more time around, this time for a landing a bit more into the wind, but on a significantly shorter and narrower runway, with no VASI to guide the approach. Still, even with a bit of crosswind (now more like a couple of knots rather than a bunch) I managed to stick it pretty well, and it ended up being a good day.
One of these days, I might solo again...
Monday, October 8, 2007
Wild Card
That's what today was....if the winds were good, another bit of soloing....if the winds were up too much, a day of "under the hood" practice with instruments. It was again borderline right up until flight time, and I'm glad it took the fuel truck an extra five minutes to get the plane filled up. In that time, the wind went from wishy-washy calm to a clear crosswind. We still decided to do a couple of patterns to see how it would work out, and indeed, it was going to stay at about a 10-knot cross.
The plan was to practice a bit of short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings, but with two weeks since my last flight, it took all I had to just keep things together as it was. Nevertheless, a short-field takeoff is fairly straightforward, with the primary differences being applying full power with the brakes on and lifting the nose earlier than normal, to reduce drag just a bit by getting the wheel off the ground (but not so much that the extra angle of attack slows you down again),
The main lesson I learned today (which was not explicitly on the syllabus) is that if there's a lot of crosswind, I probably don't even want to try a short field landing at this point. To do it right, you need to be going a bit slower - which is uncomfortable enough - and still battle the crosswind with reduced control effectiveness - because of the slower speed. It really is a situation that, if it were real, might dictate finding a different field to land at. So, with these being the conditions, my landings weren't that bad, but I was feeling like I was fighting it a bit more than I should have. My last few flights, I've had to concentrate on keeping the nose up during touchdown, now I had to concentrate on keeping the ailerons deflected into the crosswind (and since this was a short-field exercise, I had full flaps rather than the half-flaps of my last strong crosswind landings).
The net effect of it all was a decision to skip the solo work and do the instruments. That was just fine with me, and I was looking forward to it anyway. These exercises are meant to familiarize the pilot with keeping eyes inside the cockpit, looking at the dials. This is necessary to practice keeping control and navigating if you accidentally enter low-visibility conditions while flying under visual flight rules (VFR). This is also useful if flying VFR on a dark night, with few references to the horizon.
The basics today included holding a heading and altitude, climbing and descending turns, slow flight, and steep turns. For challenge, we also fiddled with the GPS and a few navigation functions while I had to maintain heading and follow the instructor's altitude commands. Then, we got headed back to the field, and I got the Foggles off as we entered the tower-controlled Class D airspace. I discovered on this flight that looking toward the sun with Foggles on really blinds you, and I just about lost track of my attitude during one of our steep turns. On the other hand, steep turns actually seem a bit easier when I'm not looking outside, so I guess it balances out.
After the instrument practice, I went down for a soft-field landing, which again, is hard to do at low speed in a crosswind. I got it down okay, but with a bit of bounce, and then a touch and go for one more. The last one was a bit off-kilter, but better, and I did a better job of keeping my speed down (with the stall horn whistling for at least the last half-mile of the approach). I'm wondering if it was because of our angling into the wind, but I think it's just extra-sensitive.
My next flight will likely be a "stage-check" with the chief instructor. This is a flight to make sure that the instructor and I have done our jobs and I'm officially set to use one of the school's planes to go off into the wild blue yonder (or at least to the wild blue practice area, which is kind of "over yonder").
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