Lesson 8

More pattern work. I'm getting the hang of preflighting the plane and filing the ADIZ flight plan. The weather briefing also seems routine now. No news there.

So this time we did 8 landings. This time I think I mostly made the radio calls at the right times, mostly turned when I was supposed to, and didn't overshoot the climb to pattern altitude too terribly often. So I feel like I've got the procedures down, and I'm mostly managing to do the right things at the right times.

But all hell breaks loose when I reach short final. Maybe that's too strong. But I was consistently high, requiring me to pull the throttle to idle and put in full flaps, then we would really sink and then I had a tough time judging the right time to add power back to avoid sinking right through the glide path. Over the runway threshold I had a terrible time trying to keep the airplane on the center line. And just like last time, I felt like we were screaming right down to the runway and I was pulling the yoke back too early, levelling off too high.

So clearly I need to figure out how to use the rudder for alignment and ailerons for left/right drift. And I have to let the plane descend more before I pull back on the yoke.

I tried my first soft field takeoff - it was weird. We lifted off, I didn't push forward on the yoke enough to keep it in ground effect, we even chirped a tire again before finally getting to climb speed.

We did 2 simulated engine-out landings. Those were strange, delaying the flap extension, having to pay really close attention to airspeed. And on a couple of landings, I was way too high, so the instructor did forward slips. Boy was that a sinking feeling, and it seemed like the bank angle was enormous.

Oh, I almost forgot. During one takeoff, at a couple hundred feet off the deck, there was a big bird right in our path. I didn't get a good look at it, but I'm guessing it was a hawk. The instructor grabbed the yoke and turned us before I could react (I had been glancing at the altimeter for a moment to see if we were high enough to retract takeoff flaps). I'm guessing a bird strike would not have been pretty.

Lesson 7

Finally - pattern work. Everything seemed to happen really fast. I had a hard time turning the right amount; it always seemed that I was not managing to turn 90 degrees. I would roll into a turn, then realize that I need more rudder, apply it, then the turn would happen really fast and I would overbank. In the turn to crosswind I had a tendency to stop the climb. And sometimes at the beginning of the downwind leg I would find the airspeed really high because I hadn't pulled the power back enough. And I seemed to always pull up too soon as we approached the runway, usually resulting in a baloon. And I often either forgot the radio calls or botched them. One other event - a plane came straight in on final as I was turning base, putting us on a converging course that was uncomfortable. I reacted by rolling wings level, putting us on a course that placed us well behind that other plane. That pattern was more house-shaped than rectangular.

So here's the sequence - line up on the runway, full throttle, hold the center line with the pedals, rotate at about 50 knots, fly off. Climb at Vx (54) until clear of the trees, thereafter at Vy (67). In reality I think I just climbed out at about 70 every time. At 500 MSL, I would pull the flaps in (if they were out, at 10 degrees, which they were for our touch and gos. At 650 MSL, I turned right, leveled the wings only long enough to look for traffic, then turned right again. At 1000 MSL I pulled the power back to about 2200 RPM and leveled off for a few seconds. Then at midfield it was time for carb heat, then abeam the numbers power back to about 1600, hold altitude as the speed bleeds off, then 10 degrees of flaps once the airspeed drops into the white arc. Then pitch down to hold 70 knots, turn right when the numbers are 45 degrees behind us, hold 70 knots, extend flaps to 20 degrees, and get ready to turn right once again. Turn to get lined up with the runway (and I frequently turned too soon), and use pitch and power to control airspeed and rate of descent. When established on the stabilized descent, last notch of flaps, power to idle, bring it in over the numbers at 60 knots, flare, hold it off, let it settle. Then power to full and off we go (instructor pushed in carb heat and pulled the flaps in to 10 degrees). And around and around.

I got too slow a few times. And sometimes when I needed to speed up I had a tendency to increase my pitch attitude when I should have reduced it.

In summary, a lot was happening, it seemed to happen really fast, I need a lot more practice with this stuff, and I had a lot of fun.

Lesson 6

Too windy. I went for a lesson today, only to find that the gusts were pretty bad, over 20 knots. The airplanes were all getting rocked around and pulled against the tie-downs and chocks. I asked the instructor whether I'd be able to learn anything useful in our planned pattern work today. He said that he'd wind up doing most of the work because of the high winds, so at that point we cancelled the flight. We did a little ground instruction and left.