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.

Lesson 5

Today I had a good time. It was chilly - 30 degrees, and sky conditions were clear. I met my new instructor, we dispatched the airplane, a Cessna 152, and I called to file an ADIZ flight plan and at the same time I got a weather briefing.

The preflight checks were a bit different because previously I had flown a Warrior. While I worked on checking the airplane, the instructor went back to the trailer to get the transponder code. Then we had to preheat the engine, and finally we started up and I taxied (badly) out to the runway.

I made the announcement on the radio (my first radio call), and we took the active runway and took off. I have a hard time telling how much the instructor was on the controls, but I think I mostly did all three takeoffs today on my own. We took off to the west, turned in the pattern, then departed to the southeast for the Chesapeake Bay. We came out over the water near the mouth of the South River. We turned south and proceeded to work on some maneuvers near the Deale intersection.

I did a 30 degree turn to the left and then to the right; both were complete circles. On the second turn, I hit my own wake turbulence, which was kind of cool. We did some slow flight, and a couple of stalls. I botched the power off stall, not putting nearly enough rudder, so the instructor bailed me out on that one because it broke hard to the right. Then we did a couple of unusual attitudes. I recovered OK, but the procedure that I used wasn't quite right. We turned north and followed the coast line for a bit. I could see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge ahead and to the right. The instructor showed me the chart and asked if I could figure out where we were, but I botched that too.

Then we flew back to Tipton, entered the pattern, and landed. I struggled with control, trying to fly the right speed. There was a right crosswind. On short final, I was supposed to put the right wing down, put in left rudder, and bring it in gently, but I flared too soon, went too fast, and floated a lot. The instructor did most of the work and we landed well in spite of me.

So we did three landings at the end, taxied in after the last one to refuel, then put the plane away.

Now for some impressions... The rudder is a lot more effective than I remembered with the Warrior. I tried to be conscious about using the rudder when I was supposed to, but didn't use it enough. And that airplane is very responsive to aileron inputs - the roll rate was faster than I expected. Going forward, I'm going to have a challenge keeping below the class B airspace for BWI. I made a few of the radio calls, but there were lots of them. I found them to be overwhelming. Next up - more pattern work.

Long Wait Between Flights

It wasn't working out for me at the flying club that I joined last year. It was too hard to get an instructor on the weekends. So I finally gave up on that club and found another. The new one is in Maryland at Tipton airport. The monthly dues are lower, the rates per hour are lower, and the club has more aircraft and instructors available. The down side - it's farther away from home.

But now I have an instructor and a lesson this weekend. Now if only the weather will cooperate.

Lesson 4

I've had another long period of no flying. This time it was because of work and vacation. But I went flying today.



Reading my last post, I see that I mentioned how nice a day it was for my last flight. This day was even nicer. The heat of Summer is gone and today was the first cool morning of the season. For most of the flight, the air was as smooth as glass. But I'm getting ahead of myself.



I think I have the preflight checks down. We did that uneventfully and then had a very hard time starting the motor. We finally got it started and then I taxied to the runup area. We did our runup checks, got our tower clearance, and I taxied onto the runway and throttled up to full and we took off. CFI had me pulling back on the yoke to take off and I guess I was again too timid with it. But we got into the air and made our turn on course. It was then that I noticed how easy it was to maintain course and altitude. The plane wasn't getting bounced around at all.



When we arrived in the practice area, I made some 20-degree turns and held altitude pretty well. Then we did some slow flight. It was easier than last time, probably because of the calm air. I held altitude well and even did a couple of shallow turns. Then, we did stalls, power on and off. Recovering was pretty easy but I'm a little worried that I'm not really feeling the expected control buffet. That was all review of last time. I noticed that I had to really haul back on the control yoke to get it to stall. It was pretty tough to hold it back for that long.



Then I did some steep turns. Again, I was able to hold altitude well and even felt my own turbulence when I completed the turn, having gone full-circle. So the maneuvers were a lot easier for me this time.



Then we did some S-turns. I found the arcs to be smaller than I was expecting. And we finished up with turns around a point. This one was tough for me because I wasn't able to hold altitude well at all.



That was it. We called it a day, and I flew back to the airfield. The temperature came up while I was doing my maneuvers and it was becoming ever more turbulent. By the time we approached the field, we were getting bounced around a lot. It was hard to line up on the runway and we were all over the place. It made for an interesting few final seconds and a relatively solid touchdown.



So overall, it was a good day, I didn't regress after such a long layoff, and it was just plain fun.

Lesson 3

After a long delay (2 out-of-town trips by me and 1 by my CFI), I finally got around to my second flight today. It was a beautiful day, quite rare for the middle of July in Virginia.

We went out to the plane, did the preflight checks, and started up. This time the radio worked fine and our ADIZ flight plan actually arrived in the tower in a timely manner. So we were able to taxi right out to the run-up area. I found it much easier to taxi this time and I mostly stayed on the center line. We did our run-up, everything looked good, and we proceeded to the hold short line. The tower cleared us for take-off and I steered us onto the runway.

I was surprised that the CFI just told me to advance the throttle to full and, with his prompting (and with him on the controls too), I steered the plane down the runway and pulled back on the yoke and we were flying. Of course I didn't put any right-rudder in (to counter p-factor and torque) until he told me to do so, resulting in a crooked path in the air. I was also a bit timid on the amout to pull back so he had to prompt me to establish a higher rate of climb. The tower told us to turn left, I turned on course, and we departed the area.

After about 15 minutes of flying, and climbing to 2000 feet, we arrived in the practice area. He kept telling me to establish a pitch attitude during climbs where the cowling appeared to be about even with the horizon. My climb attitude was consistently too shallow so there's an item for me to work on.

I did a couple of 10 degree turns left and right, then a couple of 20 degree turns, and then I tried steep (45 degree) turns for the first time. On the steep turns I was surprised at just how much it seemed we were tipped over. It was challenging trying to hold altitude. Of all of the maneuvers today, the steep turns gave me the most trouble (from a comfort/confidence point of view that is). It was cool to look out the side window to see how tight the turn was, how we seemed to have the wing pointed to one spot on the ground.

And then we did climbing turns, which went OK. Then, slow flight. We did a bit of that last time, but this time we did a lot more of it. So I throttled back and maintained altitude, with the nose pitched way up. Then we did it again, using 1 notch of flaps, then 2, then full flaps. Then I tried throttling well back, too much to maintain altitude, and tried to maintain altitude until the stall horn sounded, which was my cue to add power. That went well. Then we tried slow flight with the stall horn sounding continuously. I couldn't quite get it.

Next, stalls... My CFI demonstrated a power on stall, followed by a power off stall. On the power off stall, it felt like we suddenly dropped like a stone, but only briefly. I did a power on stall myself and recovered. I was expecting more vibration or buffeting.

Then we called it a day, and I headed back to the airport. I descended to pattern altitude near the airport, turned final, and with the CFI's help, got it lined up and on a stabilized descent. We were initially high so we put in full flaps and sank faster. I had a hard time keeping it on the center line, but it was surprisingly easy to establish a descent in which the runway simply grew in the windshield. Then we wound up low, he added power, and we set it down. I taxied to the parking spot and we shut down, tied up, and went inside.

This time I used the rudder a lot. It was surprising how much the rudder helped to establish turns. The weather was great, much smoother than last time, and that made it a lot easier to maintain course and altitude. I didn't chase the needles nearly as much. All in all, this lesson was fun, much more like the experience that I was hoping for when I first contemplated taking lessons.

For this lesson, I logged one hour.