A Little Practice

Today's flight was intended to bang the rust off in preparation for a cross-country flight tomorrow to Laramie, Wyoming. Though the winds were a bit higher than forecast yesterday, it wasn't too bad, and in fact was smooth enough that my 5-year old son got to ride along. I had made a plan to do some ground reference and miscellaneous other work to stay sharp, but decided to stay upwind of the airport in case it got too bumpy and I had to make a quick escape. This put me over more populated areas rather than the normal practice area, so I improvised a bit to make it a sightseeing trip and a few touch-and-go's rather than spinning around in circles.

It turned out not to be as bumpy as I thought, though there was still quite a bit of wind aloft. Since it's been so long since my last flight (and I'm still getting used to the Cessna 172), I decided to minimize my crosswind work on takeoff and used the smaller runway 25 rather than the primary 28R. It meant I had to taxi along a route I had never used before, and almost made a wrong turn, but the ground controller kept me on the right track.

With a 15-knot wind, liftoff was pretty quick. We had a few bumps climbing up to 6,500 feet, but it smoothed out after we got away from the sharp terrain around the field. We passed and circled back around the city to the west. Even though I was technically outside the Class C airspace, the controller let me keep my transponder code and I stayed on frequency with him. I don't know if he was able to do this since it was pretty slow today, or just because I had told him what I was doing (namely, sightseeing). Probably a combination of both.

We cruised along for a bit, found our house, flew over an oil refinery, along the Yellowstone River, and then came back into town. Since the wind was still up a bit, I requested a touch-and-go on Runway 25 again. This was interesting, since I didn't have a good view of the runway, and was used to aiming for the end of 28R, which is a 1/2 mile away from the 25 threshold. So, as I was cleared into the pattern, I was doing a bit of hunting to figure out how to get set up right and fighting the shifting winds as I descended. When I looked back at my GPS track though, I actually was just right, it just didn't feel that good.

I carried a bit of extra speed into the approach for the gusty headwind and had about 15 degrees of flaps rather than 20, the normal landing setting. That's one nice thing about the Cessna flaps -- you have more flexibility to set them for what "feels" right for the conditions. 20 degrees would have had me sinking too fast, but 10 would have had me floating a bit too much on touchdown. The landing had a bit of a hop, but nothing huge. I started to put the coals back to it, and then remembered, "carb heat!", and took an extra second to get set right.

Since there were only a couple of other aircraft around today, I requested another touch-and-go on 25. This was approved, but now I had to decide how to fly the pattern on a slightly skewed runway with traffic intended for the main one. It became clear that flying a normal pattern would not interfere with the other planes, so that was what I did. This time, I flew a normal downwind, base, and final, and had a bit smoother approach. Still a bit of extra speed, but came in nice and soft.

Of course, now, trying to remember to shut off the carb heat before adding power had its own consequences -- I forgot to raise the flaps. I didn't notice a lot of difference on climbout, but as soon as I tried to level off, it was apparent that something was not right. In a way, this was a good experience, since I now know that in an emergency, I can add power and deal with the flaps (carefully) after stabilizing the flight. In this case, I got everything straightened out as I was on downwind, and with the winds dying down a bit, I selected the main runway 28R to better stay with the flow.

Now that I was juggling the shift to the different runway, I forgot to put the carb heat on before reducing the throttle. It's always something.

When all was said and done, the time away from flying clearly takes its toll. While never in any dangerous position, and though I wouldn't say I was "behind the airplane", I need to ingrain the habits I need for the Cessna the same way that I have in the DA-20. I was at least with it enough to realize my errors in time, and could effectively deal with them without putting the flight in jeopardy. I suppose that is the key.

In a final bit of irony, the whole reason for flying to day was to prepare for a cross-country, but it turns out I will fly a different plane tomorrow anyway. That's aviation for you.