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.

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...

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").

The Winds of Change

Today wasn't shaping up to be a very good flying day. Just like yesterday, the winds were up and gusting...not bad for flying, but not good for soloing, either.

I arrived at about 3 pm and the winds were still about 15 knots, as forecast. In fact, T.I. was considering calling me to cancel just because there isn't a lot we need to do besides get the solo done. I asked if it was pretty much like yesterday, which he confirmed, so I said that I wouldn't mind still flying and doing something else. We decided to jump ahead a bit and do some of the simulated instrument training and go over a few preliminaries for cross-country flying.

So, we went into the classroom to go over the lesson. It involved reviewing the instrument scan and then some introduction to weight-and-balance. We also went over short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings. While T.I. spoke, I had a clear view of the mid-field windsock, and just kept hoping that it would slack off a little.

As luck would have it (you can't really be a pilot unless you're a little lucky, right?) the wind began to die down. After the 15 or so minutes we talked, it had stayed consistently calm. As T.I. finished the lesson, he looked outside and said, "Wow, the wind really went away." I said, "Yeah, in fact it's been down the whole time you were talking."

"Hmmm....we might change our plans, then."...things were looking good.

So out we went and up into the air. As we lifted off, the decision was made: remain in the pattern. The air was remarkably smooth considering the conditions up until a short while ago. Around we went, the old familiar course...

My landings were still a bit heavy with power, and T.I. gave me some advice to slowly bring it out a bit sooner than I had been. I had a couple of bounces, but I had it under control, and we survived...

After 5 landings, the wind was still calm. It was time. "You ready to go by yourself?" "I think so."

Back to the hangar, and go over the logbook and last minute advice. Mainly to watch my airspeed and throttle settings on that last 50 feet above the ground. Then I was off. A bit nervous, as I suppose I am for every flight, but actually feeling really good about the whole thing. I had it set in my mind that I would stick these landings, and I just focused on that. Everything else is almost habit at this point.

As usual, the plane lifts off much sooner without the extra weight, and I would have been speeding through the pattern if I hadn't taken a bit of the power out...kept it at about 2000 rpm rather than our typical 2200. And there it was, my first solo approach. I had it made, and I greased it onto the runway...flaps up....full power....off we go again.

With other traffic in the pattern, I made a right hand approach for the next one, and had to extend downwind a bit to give some room, but no problem. Pretty typical for this field. Down I came, and again, hit it right on. This was getting to be too easy. Probably was, compared to the ridiculous crosswinds yesterday...

Around one more time, everything set up just right. Another smooth landing and an exit to the first taxiway (a general indication of a really good landing and rollout). All in all, probably the three best landings I've ever had. Photos and handshakes all around, a congratulation from the tower controller, and a virtually perfect end to a questionably-starting day.

Red Bull Air Races - San Diego

I went to the Red Bull Air Races this past weekend. Suffice to say it was awesome. Words don't really do it justice, so the following are a few videos.


One taken of a single run, very near my vantage point:


A really nice behind the scenes:


A decent compilation from the other side of the bay:


Another good compilation, including some of the "side show" activity:


A bit of the Red Bull stunt helicopter:


An older video that gives some background of the air races: