Fits and Starts

One month and three days -- that's how long it's been since my last flight. It's been a busy time around here, and we're gearing up to move the family about 80 miles to the east. The last month has seen house hunting and long drives across the countryside for work. And when I'm not doing that, we experience super-cell thunderstorms. And when the weather's clear, surprisingly so is my checking account (I'm looking into some kind of causal relationship).

But now, with an impending strong high pressure system coming into the western U.S., combined with a family trip down to Salt Lake City, it just may be that I'll be able to log another worthwhile cross-country (into some Class B airspace no less). Since it's been so long, I went up for about 45 minutes today in the convective heat and haze just to brush the dust of and -- coincidentally -- work on some crosswind patterns.

It doesn't take long to realize that the memory gets fuzzy fast. Routines break down, checklists are needed just a little more, and small things that were just beginning to become habit now require more conscious thought. Luckily, the big things are still taking care of themselves. I can still do a slip and my ground reference work. I can land in a crosswind. And, I found out a neat little trick in the DA-20 that highlights when you are entering an uncoordinated base-to-final turn. What? That's a very bad thing? You bet it is...

An uncoordinated low-altitude, low-speed turn is bad no matter how you slice it. It is a common error, and one that often has fatal consequences if allowed to get out of hand. Most often, it is the result of trying to "save" a turn that begins to overshoot the final approach course. By using too much left rudder and not enough left aileron, you begin a skid that allows you to lose altitude a little too quickly. Then, if you are not aware of what's happening and allow yourself to pull back on the stick, your airspeed will disappear. That left wing will drop from under you and you'll have about 5 seconds to contemplate your last error.

This clearly did not happen to me.

What did happen, however, is that I entered my turn at just the right altitude where there was a pretty strong wind shear. As the plane dropped through the variable winds, it was buffeted by the many burbles and gusts (also by the thermals coming of the ground). The reaction from the left seat was to try to maintain a steady track around the pattern and a somewhat constant rate of descent. I came through the shear and the plane took a nice yaw to the right, which I counteracted with a left rudder input (keep in mind that I'm bouncing around pretty good, so no control input is lasting more than a few seconds before needing to be opposed).

I also instinctively pulled just a bit on the stick and let the airspeed go from about 70 to 60. Not enough to stall, but enough to make everything turn a little mushy and feel wrong. And what was the "little trick"?

On climbout, I had both vents open due to the heat. As opposed to the trusty Cessna, with vents up above at the wing, the DA-20 has "dashboard" vents on each side. You can aim them in any direction and get a nice blast of ram air. But as the plane bobs and weaves, the jets of air don't come straight out. You can feel them shift around the interior, almost as if you were in an open cockpit feeling the relative wind.

I was having fun experimenting with this new cue, and as I entered the previously mentioned turn, I felt the air do something odd. I can't even tell you what it did, but it wasn't following what I thought it should do. It was enough that, combined with all the other physical happenings, made it clear that I was entering some regime of the flight envelope I didn't want to be in. Of course, all this took place in 30 seconds or less, but it was enough to feel that sinking feeling.

Happily for you and me, all of the burbling and blowing up above didn't hold down where the rubber meets the road. It was a nice, steady 10 knot wind, but with some variable direction between 45 and 90 from the runway. So it was a good dose of WD-40 for my skills and a reminder that while there is a black-and-white answer to stall speed and bank angle, the ragged edge of real weather can turn that to a gray mess very quickly.