Fast Plane, Short Field

December in Montana leaves much to be desired. It's below freezing, there's snow and ice on the ground, and storms blow in suddenly, with cold fronts bringing high winds and low visibility.

All the more reason to take advantage of a summer day on Australia's east coast to take a flight in a Piper Archer to bang a bit more rust off.

This time, I flew with the local flying club and one of their instructors on an intro flight to see how the operation differed from the light sport guys down the road.

On the plus side, the Archer is a bigger, more stable airplane and the weather was a lot smoother than last time. Light easterly winds and cool temperatures under a high overcast made for a much more pleasant trip. The instructor was very professional, as this school caters more to those seeking higher ratings. They also have a wide selection of aircraft just in case I feel like working on a complex endorsement or playing around with a G1000 panel again.

But today was just a bit of airwork and circuits to refamiliarize myself with the Piper. Yes, it's silly to argue about which is better - high wing or low, but I am now firmly in the low wing camp. Fundamentally, it's just easier to look outside. There's no extra strut hanging out in the wind, and clearing turns (not to mention the pattern) simply feel safer.

So, what was the down side? The last two flights from this field were in a Tecnam light sport plane. It can settle down to the runway at 45 knots and stop on a dime. So, flying on and off a 2,800 foot runway didn't seem like that big of a deal. Though the runway is much shorter than the 9,000 feet that I used in my primary training, the small light sport scaled everything down. It seemed just about right.

Today, in a standard category, four-seat low wing, a bit too much speed on final and a bit too long of a flare in ground effect means that this airplane eats runway for breakfast. So there we were...bouncing down the runway at 75 knots, realizing that this first touch and go was more "go" than "touch". It meant that all the confidence I managed to rebuild during the hour doing steep turns and stalls was somewhat eroded by my utter lack of ability to make a smooth landing. Oh well.

It took three tries, but I managed finally make a half-decent touchdown. I guess next time I'll work on short field approaches.

Overloaded Circuits

It was windy, but not overly so. Nonetheless, I haven't had a day of pattern work like this since 2007. To wit:

Nine touch-and-goes, with some of my most consistently wonky patterns ever. If you want a visual illustration of the difference between accuracy and precision, you couldn't do much better. Precision? Did pretty well at holding heading and altitude visually. Accuracy? Though altitude was pretty good, with just a couple of spikes, my heading was consistently off due to two main causes: the shifting winds and the right-hand traffic pattern that made it hard to judge my downwind turn - especially being over water with no set turning point. You can see the result as my downwind leg is pretty much a random walk.

The Tecnam continues to be somewhat challenging, even though the instructor says I'm picking it up pretty well for someone with a full private certificate. Though generally such a pilot is too heavy on the controls, my experience with the Diamond gives me a leg up. Now if I could just find a way to erase the fact that I haven't flown in a year...

On the plus side, I got some good experience with gusty winds, up- and down-drafts, and a gentle crosswind. On the negative, it's a bit frustrating to be doing the same things that I covered in primary training. Ultimately, it's for the best, but it would be nice to get off this self-imposed plateau caused by not flying for so long.

South of the Border

In yet another episode of the "new plane, new instructor, new airfield, new country" saga, today was a "first flight" all over again. This time, it was a Tecnam Eaglet - a plane that in the U.S. would be classified as a Light Sport (LSA), but here in Australia is the foundation of the "recreational pilot" certificate.

In short, it's a lot like the DA-20, but with slightly less power, much lighter, and much more sensitive to control inputs. On the other hand, it doesn't take much rudder to stay on course, except for a full-power climb.

The flight was supposed to be an extended intro to the light aircraft. I am planning on converting my U.S. private pilot certificate to an Australian version of the same thing. There are naturally a few bureaucratic hoops to jump through, including a test and a checkride, but flying is flying. At the recommendation of my instructor, however, I am looking at becoming certified as a recreational pilot here at first. This will allow me to fly daytime VFR anywhere (very similar to a U.S. recreational or sport license) and build some hours in preparation for the full certificate. Further, in my case, it won't require a checkride - just an instructor endorsement.

So today was to be the first step, but didn't really work out as planned - for better AND worse. Not only was it very windy today, leading to some nervousness about the whole situation, but my instructor was late getting arriving back to the field. The winds I was experiencing on the ground all day were adding almost an hour to another student's flight.

Not to just sit idle, I poked around the hangar and the planes that were still there. I read through the operating handbook, flipped through the VFR flight rules, and watched a few planes in the circuit (what us Americans call the pattern). When he finally showed up, yet another student arrived as well for his lesson. Since my instructor wanted to fly with me personally, we quickly adjusted the plans and another instructor took his place with the other guy.

We didn't have much daylight left, so what was supposed to be an extended flight to visit some other fields and fly over Brisbane was cut short. Nonetheless, it was a nice flight, and the winds died down a bit with dusk coming on, so the bumps weren't too bad.

It was pretty simple - a lot like my very first flight years ago. Gentle turns, climbs, descents, and even a "roll on a heading" that I did so long ago. But that was just with me at the controls. Seeing my hesitancy at handling the plane, the instructor wanted to show what it could do. He took us into some steep turns, a zooming climb, and twisted through the sky in ways that I had never experienced before - even during my "unusual attitude recovery" exercises back home in Montana.

The thing that got me was that everything happens much faster in this plane than I have been used to. It turns faster, climbs faster, responds immediately to power and control adjustments, and takes off after just a few seconds of rolling down the runway. Much different than watching the airspeed slowly come up and gradually letting the plane lift off. This one practically jumps into the air and doesn't stop.

The other trick the Tecnam has in store is that it keeps your hands busy on the ground. There are no toe brakes, so stopping power comes in hand brake form. You can talk all you want about proper control inputs on the ground (climb into/dive away from a quartering crosswind, blah blah blah)...but when you've got one hand on the throttle and one on the brake, the control surfaces don't get much love.

I'm also used to flying a standard pattern and setting up a stabilized approach for landing - obviously a good thing. This plane doesn't require such formality. Tighten up the pattern to half of what you're used to, cut the throttle, and glide in. Not at all what I'm accustomed to, so I think I was giving the instructor a bit of a twitch as I flew a textbook pattern.

On the last go-around, he took the controls again, and twisted the plane around on one wingtip from downwind to final, had us at 40 knots and touched down just off the edge of the runway threshold. We were taxiing off the runway barely 100 feet from where we landed! Wow. Practically bush flying.

A New View

As expected, today's flight was an exercise in new experiences. My instructor asked at the end, "Did you learn anything?" I answered, "Well maybe not so much learn, as was reminded of things that I should already know, but wasn't that good at executing." You know, things like landings and stalls. But afterward, I realized that I really did learn a few things. It's one of the big benefits of flying with someone new - a different style, different pet peeves, and just simply a different view of what makes a good pilot. So it was today. The weather couldn't have been better, especially for this part of the world and this time of year. Rain, fog, wind, and thunderstorms are regular companions of outdoor activities. And for most of the week, that had been the case. But this morning was clear and cool, with a light breeze and just some high scattered clouds. 

The airport sits just outside of Calgary, and caters to general aviation, charter, agriculture, and flight training. But its proximity to the larger field means there is some complicated airspace and several controllers to get you in and out. Today's flight was in a standard Cessna 172. Standard in this case really means a stock airframe with instruments and radios right out of 1970. This means busy radio work to switch from one frequency to the next. Also, no GPS in this plane, similar to a prior flight. This time though, I depended on my instructor's familiarity with the area to keep us on track. And this is an interesting point. 

In order to fly as Pilot In Command, I need to be current and have my medical certificate in my possession. But that's just in the U.S., or a U.S.-registered plane in Canada. To fly a Canadian-registered plane requires paperwork at the very least. Today, without said paperwork nor my medical, my instructor was technically our PIC. But as we discussed the situation, he made it clear: "I'm in charge on paper only. You are in command of this flight." And that's as it should be. The point of the flight was to refresh some of my skills and practice. If I felt like I could fall back on the instructor's expertise, it probably wouldn't be as effective. 

That said, he obviously would not let the flight get to a bad place. Far from it, the two hours we spent flying a short cross-country to Red Deer, AB had such a variety of little experiences, I never would have anticipated them beforehand. After a normal preflight inspection, we hopped in the plane and went over a few details of the departure. The engine fired up on the first shot - something not always guaranteed with an old carbureted piston powerplant. I called up the ground controller and received our clearance to taxi. As we made our way to the runway, the instructor and I heard something neither of us had ever heard before over an aircraft radio. 

A few planes were in the pattern (or, as the rest of the world says, the "circuit") and one had just landed. As it was taxiing toward us, he received a call from the controller. Pilots and controllers get used to the pace of the transmissions, and the timing of the calls back and forth. So it's very noticeable when something is different. In this case, the controller had a stutterer on his hands. When transmissions are measured in seconds, especially in busy airspace, I could see how such a condition could be a hurdle to a smooth flow. Now, with just a couple of planes on the ground, it was no big deal. 

Cleared for take off, we departed to the north using IFR - "I Follow Roads". The flight to Red Deer took just under an hour, and I can't remember a smoother flight. In the U.S., if you fly VFR you can go quite a while without hearing anyone on the radio. Unless you request flight following, when you need to remain on the frequency with a controller, there is no requirement to be in contact with anyone - indeed to even have a radio at all. It's similar in Canada, with the exception that they have an "en route" frequency. It's not for air traffic control, but more like a party line for anyone flying in the vicinity. Even though you might not be anywhere near the traffic, you hear someone calling in every few minutes stating where they are, what they're doing, and what direction they're going. It made for quite a bit of chatter during our flight, but we managed to fit in some small talk between transmissions. 

My instructor is a 23-year-old from the area who had aspirations to fly the Space Shuttle. Unfortunately, while several Canadians have flown on the shuttle as mission specialists, none has ever flown as a pilot. Apparently, NASA requires a few things that Canadians aren't able to provide - such as U.S. military service or other similar piloting work that is restricted to U.S. citizens. I never knew that before. Arriving to Red Deer, we did a quick touch-and-go. And it really was quick. I flew the approach a bit fast, and with no flaps. Why? Because I hesitated with the initial flap deployment, and as we turned final, rather than change configurations, I opted to maintain a relatively stable glide. It was a case of the instructor keeping quiet and letting me make the best (or worst) of a situation - as long as we were never in danger - rather than jump in. And that is indeed a sign of a good instructor. 

On the way back to Calgary, we mixed in some airwork - stalls, steep turns, an emergency descent, and a couple of things that aren't on any private pilot lesson plan. "Have you ever done a negative-G pushover?" my instructor asks. Now, I've seen some videos of this done and I understand the concept. There are some pretty dramatic examples out there - and plenty that I would never endorse, since they violate the rule of ensuring that everything in the cockpit is secure. Here's a good example that was very similar to what we did: Negative G Ours was pretty simple, and produced just about one second of weightlessness. We started from level flight and just pushed the nose down. My instructor had the controls and had me hold a pen in my hand, not unlike the video. It was pretty quick, so we did another one a bit stronger. Pretty fun, and yet another new experience for me. 

The other non-standard thing we did was during the mock emergency descent. As every pilot does during primary training, the instructor will pull the power back and say, "Find us a landing spot." As I have done so many times before, I went through the checks that I would if the engine really had stopped: check the fuel, the mixture, the ignition, anything that might be the cause of the failure. Then, as in a real emergency, the pilot does what he can to prepare passengers for the landing. In this case, one of those things includes advising the passengers to be ready to unlatch and open the door so that it doesn't become jammed shut during impact. "Oh, like this?" says my instructor as he literally opens his door in mid-flight. "Nice," I say. It obviously caught me off guard for a second, but after having read about how much a non-event a door opening in flight is, it was quickly dismissed as we continued our mock emergency descent. I laughed, since I couldn't believe that someone would do that on purpose, but I was glad he did it, and told him so after landing. It was good to experience exactly what happens when a door comes open. In short: nothing. The slipstream keeps it closed, and he had to push pretty hard to show just how much force it would take to open it in flight. So with our "emergency" over, we went to steep turns. 

Now, I have never done steep turns in a Cessna. And with my history of lackluster success, I didn't really know what to expect. But I had confidence that I could at least give it a good try, even though it's been two years since I had done them. In fact, they didn't turn out half bad. The plane was remarkably stable, and from my memory of the DA-20, probably more so than my training aircraft. So while I had some wobbly entries to the turns, they were respectable, and I know that with a few practice runs, I could pull them off with very little difficulty now. Then it was back to the starting point, and a soft-field landing. I hadn't done one of these for a very long time. Unfortunately, it wouldn't have mattered. Even though my speed was good, I floated a bit too long and sort of dropped it in since my sight picture isn't quite tuned to the 172's configuration. Good landing, but not exactly "soft". If it had been wet grass, I probably would have put it a bit into the mud. The flight was a great time for me and my instructor, as well. He had never seen a U.S. pilot certificate before, and though he has flown in the states, not too much more than I have now flown in Canada. The good news is that even with over a year since my last flight, I can still do it. But it will be some more hours with an instructor (and hopefully in the same plane) before I'm ready to really solo again.

With a Capital "C"

I don't have my logbook. I don't have my medical. I'm not current for passengers. I haven't flown in over a year. And I'm in a foreign country. Must be time to go flying. 

After a very busy schedule working north of the border in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia over the last 18 months, there is now a narrow window of opportunity in which to get some time in - albeit with an instructor as my Pilot In Command. Without my credentials, I can be nothing more than a passenger or quasi-student, but that doesn't keep one from going up whenever possible. Tomorrow, it will be a different experience however. Spending a few extra hours in Calgary, AB allows me to get some time in a new environment (again) with a new instructor (again) and in an unfamiliar aircraft (yes, again). But to keep things interesting, I will also get a feel for flying in Canadian airspace. Listening to the scanner the other day, I can tell it's not too different - as expected and intended by the international standards for aviation (ICAO). 

The biggest things that I have identified so far is that airspace has a slightly different classification up here, and they use the word "decimal" instead of "point" when stating a radio frequency. So, where an American will say 121.0 as "one-two-one point zero", it's "one-two-one decimal zero". I think I can handle it. It is said that there is a distinction between flying 100 hours and flying the same hour 100 times. In other words, if all you do is fly the same airport or same cross-country over and over, you're not really seeing or learning anything new. In contrast, my mere hundred hours will now include two (and soon to be three - stay tuned) countries, a half-dozen or so different instructors, flights into Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Arizona (including the Grand Canyon), and California - with the variations in traffic, terrain, and weather that each one brings, and a mix of non-towered, towered, Class B, flight following, and various other idiosyncrasies that each flight brings. In addition, I have so far taken up seven different people as passengers, a couple of them more than once. So begins a new chapter, with new adventures waiting out there somewhere. Now, I will finally get a chance to fly in the Canada that I have worked so long in, and flown countless commercial flights to reach virtually every weekend of the last year and a half. But my time here is short, and at the end of the month, another destination awaits. Next stop: Australia!

Oshkosh!

As a pilot, it's a bit embarrassing to admit that I had never heard of Oshkosh before about 2006, when I seriously contemplated earning my certificate. I don't know anyone who has ever gone, and I know very little of the history of the event. It might be a long time before I'm ever able to fly there myself, but for now, I will be content with simply being there.

The biggest gathering of aircraft anywhere in the world. General aviation, warbirds, homebuilts, experimentals, helicopters, commercial, military - if it flies, it's at Oshkosh. Every year since 1953, the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA) has hosted this monument to aviation and all things aeronautical.

I haven't flown for over a year due to work, but that hasn't kept me from planning and thinking about it on my various journeys on commercial air. Soon enough, I'll be able to fly again, bang the rust off, and try some new experiences in a new place.

For now, Oshkosh will have to do.