Having read extensively and flown several hours in fs2k, I knew exactly what to expect, but I'd never experienced it before.
Initially all of the strange new sensations were overwhelming. Reacting to all of them was adding a lot to my workload in the form of distractions ("hey! turbulance is rolling my airplane! hey!! turbulance is making me go up and down, and uh, shouldn't I DO something about that?? woaaah rudder turns introduce an alarming roll!")
During the takeoff roll my attention was badly channelized on steering and watching airspeed for rotation. After rotation I was trying to get used to the necessary control pressures while noticing that I was slowing back down to 60KIAS and being blown right across the runway. Amazingly it only took a few minutes for learned behaviors like flying straight and level to kick in (well, in my case, straight and 100fpm climb). Even by the end of the short flight I was feeling more comfortable.
Did everything but flare/land and taxi off the active.
Weather was great, no turbulence until the very end of the flight on our base leg. A few minutes after taking off I was even able to trim for level flight and look out the window a bit. Brought my camera but didn't use it -- didn't want to unstrap it before we did stalls, since it would be tricky to lash it down again in the back seat. Next time I'll bring a better means of securing it. Like the camera bag. Duh.
On takeoff I spent more time looking up and less time checking the IAS. Still don't like that feeling of knowing you're only going just fast enough to fly and then pointing the nose so high you can only see sky.
My new Lightspeed Crosscountry seems to work fine. Well enough to keep anyway. I eventually want to try a pair of 20XLs to compare.
Did most of the radio calls. First few were fumbled. Interesting how the tower guys are always responding so fast they almost step on my transmission. I'm sure on the taxi side they're just watching the planes, waiting to answer the call they know is coming...
No sidetone for my own transmissions makes it difficult too. Must be the same thing that prevents me from hearing Landon's calls. That is a really annoying "feature" of a trainer!
Did climbs, descents, turns, trim, power on/off stalls, power off turning stall, some slips. Having landed since then, I'm fairly sure I wasn't landing this time, but it seemed like it to me! Once again my tendancy to want to steer with the yoke only after flying.
Less talking, more flying. And I don't just mean me! Watched two planes land while holding at A7, had to wait a while to get a word in edgewise. Waited so long to report left base at TV highway that I actually reported turning final. At which point we discovered that the beacon was off, despite the fact that we both remember me finding it off in preflight and turning it on. Tower did finally spot us and we were cleared for landing. As usual, ATIS had some interesting theories (calm must be code for "gusting to 15"). I lined up with the runway a few times and then drifted off to one side before catching on to the crosswind. Landon pointed out the departing plane, crabbed about 15 degrees into the wind at rotation.
This time on landing Landon explicitly called "his plane" and landed with a bit of commentary. Transfer of controls after landing was a bit of a mishmash, and we swerved around a bit while we established who was steering. I acknowledged the taxi clearance with just "roger, 161" and Landon wanted more, so he followed up with "taxi to Eagle, cross runway 20" and tower came back with something like "taxi as requested" which gave me a chuckle. I swear my taxing is getting worse and worse, especially after a flight.
During the flight we did hood work, an emergency drill, and proficiency stalls (a term I had never heard) which involved intentionally experiencing a secondary stall, stalling from a 30 degree bank, accelerated stalls, and trim stalls. Radio work went much better. I discovered after the last flight that I knew what to say but unless I practiced by saying it instead of just thinking it I still choked when I opened my mouth. This time I was happy with the results.
Sometimes Landon and I are just not on the same wavelength. At one point he had given me a turn to a heading, and I started the turn and we kept talking about some topic (clearing turns?). After a while I realized that I hadn't noted the heading, and so I said "you gave me a heading, didn't you..." and we went back and forth a bit with him thinking he'd given me a headACHE. He's not an entirely straight-laced person, but I think I confuse him by joking about things that go wrong.
I'm a little concerned that we haven't really discussed coordination at all, beyond the book learning that I already had about left turning tendancies and adverse yaw. Well, except when I mentioned the smell of gas in the cockpit and he demonstrated that you got fumes from the wing vents when you slip. Now I can use my nose to tell when I'm slipping, which is handy since I didn't have another use for it.
We did power on/off stalls, steep turns, turns around a point, and emergency drills. I definitely had control farther into the landing this time, as we bounced it in. Might have even skidded a bit making A4. Much more comfortable on the radio now.
We started pattern work. We took off, did 3 touch-and-goes, flew out of the patten for a few minutes, and then returned to land. I was having trouble concentrating and I realized that was going to be a problem even before we left the ground. On our first takeoff my door popped open, since I had forgotten to latch it. Landon thought I was joking initially, but he took the yoke and I got it closed and locked without trouble.
In the end I did learn a few things, but it wasn't immediately obvious what they were. For one thing, the workload in the pattern was high enough for me that there was no time to reflect on the last landing before I found myself on short final again. Maybe that's unusual, but every trip had a new distraction on downwind, and just as I had predicted, my base legs were short or nonexistant every time, making it a scramble to get in landing configuration before thinking about the roundout and the flare.
After what I considered three marginal landings, I asked for a break and we spent some time talking about what was going on. I explained that I was always overloaded in the final moments because I was distracted by being slightly sideways and slightly off centerline. That was consuming all of my attention, and any roundout and flare I was doing was more on instinct than part of a learning process. Landon did his best to convince me that it was okay, but it's hard to shake the feeling that the wheels are going to get traction and send us careening off the runway. Taxiing on the runway at high speed feels almost out of control to me anyway.
Today I did double (!) my number of takeoffs and landings, so I'm probably being too hard on myself. Also, today is the first time Landon has really had to work at teaching me something. We both need time to adjust. ;-) Today's lesson made me really glad that I am flying three times a week -- this would be a bad experience have time to dwell on.
We flew to Scappoose, did power on/off stalls and emergency drills on the way, did 3 landings and 1 go-around at SPB with some really bouncy turbulance on final. Got pretty dark so we changed our go-around to a full stop at HIO on the way back. Turned out it was a little brighter than I thought -- I had forgotten to take off my sunglasses! Doh. If they weren't partially photochromatic I might have noticed...
Noticed on the way back to HIO that I had never set the heading indicator, which was contributing to my tendancy to angle towards the runway, even though I was watching my headings carefully.
We did 4 touch-and-goes at HIO followed by a go-around after a messy attempt at a slip-to-land. We flew out of the pattern for a while, did emergency drills, practiced the slip descent, flew back, did 2 more full-flap touch-and-goes followed by a full stop flapless landing. I did all of the radio work today since I'm pretty comfortable in a tower environment. There were no bouncers, no (or almost no) control input from Landon. A few were on the centerline! Once I did get to see how a sideways landing could go wrong, but it just turned into a bit of a sideways skid that was easily corrected. First time I've seen Landon start to jump for the controls. :)
I still get a little bit behind the airplane after the first circuit -- I'm not sure why. I still have a tendancy to drift toward the runway on downwind, but if I stick to a heading with a visual reference I do fine. I need to work more on spotting traffic (which is hard when flying right traffic with your instructor blocking your view!). Away from the airport I need to work on positional awareness. I'm getting to know the local area, but I'm bad at estimating distance. I have noticed a few of Landon's habits -- he always asks me where we are when we're about 6 southwest of the airport on the extended centerline of 2/20.
We flew down to MMV and did several crosswind landings on runway 22. We took N365ES, a much newer 172, since N53161 was in the shop. This was my first time handling the radios at an uncontrolled airport, and it went surprisingly well. We were at MMV because I had requested we go somewhere with left traffic. The visibility really is much better from the left. I spotted all of the traffic with no problem and it was much easier to judge my downwind and base legs.
Got to land and take off on one wheel several times. At least one of the crosswind landings was pretty good. None were disasterous.
We tried to do some hood work en-route, but that cheezy elastic hood is a disaster. With it seated "properly" on my head, it does block out the windows, but also all of the instruments. I have a clear view of the yoke and nothing else. Maybe if I were MUCH closer to the panel it would work. Next time I'm bringing materials to make some foggles.
Wind was 220@14 so for the first time I got to see runway 20 in use. There were still jets using 12 for landing and takeoff, which kept the patten interesting. In a lull in the activity at the end, we landed on 30, still in the same winds. Now THAT is a crosswind landing. I let us get a little downwind and it took some work to get back to the centerline while in a slip to stay lined up. Landon claims we were at full rudder deflection, but we seemed to both be working the rudders at the end in the gusts. We made the A2 turnoff, which is the longest landing I've ever done on 30! With 20 still active, I actually had to hold short, another first.
Just a few trips around the pattern at HIO in calm wind, including slips to landing, a go-around, some simulated engine loss in the pattern. Not nearly as exciting as yesterday. Some really nice landings.
I remember being surprised at how uncomfortable I was pointing at the ground on short final just a few weeks ago. Now I'm equally surprised that it doesn't bother me at all.
Completed my pre-solo written (which is why the cost is higher than the 0.8 lesson from yesterday), and discussed whether I should solo at Eagle if I was thinking of transitioning elsewhere. Looks like I'll be staying at Eagle and finishing up there with Landon.
This was my first flight in 161 since its 100 hour, and there were some nice surprises. The rudder moves much more freely. The brakes, which always felt uneven to me, were replaced. It might have even had a little more power as we climbed into the pattern. One oversight: it's still filthy!
After two landings and a go around on runway 2, Landon endorsed my logbook and my medical. Then it was two T&G's and a full stop alone! Landon tried to be sneaky, but I had him figured out. When I asked last time what work was left before solo, he fed me a line about some stalls and ground reference work, which I fell for. I was confident enough that I brought my medical with me, though. His ruse fell apart when he was unable to tell me what we'd be working on for the day beyond "we'll do a few T&Gs and what we do next depends on that". With winds pretty calm and almost straight down runway 20, the only interesting thing that could happen in a few trips around the pattern was solo!
Landon tells me that he called the tower, but I think we cought them on a shift change. A female voice cleared me to take off and for my first T&G, and my second time around I was cleared by a male voice, who asked me for a short approach. I declined that opportunity on my second solo landing! Third time around I was cleared for a T&G as I turned downwind, and I changed it to a full stop. But the ground controller congratulated me with my taxi clearance, so someone was paying attention!
Items of note:
Very busy today at HIO. While waiting in line behind two other planes at A7 we watched a jet depart, a DC3 land, two more jets do T&Gs and one plane do an intersection takeoff from B3. Then the two planes in front of us departed and we were cleared "for immediate takeoff", so we had to ad-lib the short- field takeoff.
That was enough action in the HIO pattern so we did the short and soft field takeoffs and landings at McMinnville. After a couple trips around the pattern alone in calm wind on runway 22, we switched to 4 so we weren't flying straight into the sun while climbing out at 55KIAS. 4 has a "blast pad" in front of the threshold which made short approaches easier to practice without fear of putting it in the grass.
Ironically my soft-field landings were rougher than my normal landings, so I decided to save those for some practice on an actual soft field next time, rather than mess up my nice normal landings. After we left MMV we stopped by Twin Oaks for one successful actual short-field landing. I probably didn't land until midfield, but the 172 had no trouble stopping in the remaining distance. Back at HIO I saved myself some taxi time by making the A6 turnoff for the first time. Anything shorter would be a waste for taxiing to Eagle. :)
As promised, today we landed at actual short and soft fields. Woodland State is a driveway-width strip of asphalt running parallel to I5. It's in reasonable condition except that shifting soil has made it sort of wavy. Landed easily the first time, back-taxied and took off again on runway 32. This time I let the pattern get away from me, paying too much attention to shaping it to avoid the hill. I ended up high, and we did a go-around. Landed next time and since wind was calm (or purely xwind in the light gusts) so we took off from 14 so I could experience the hill first hand. I admired it passing us at eye level on the left after I angled out to the right immediately. :)
We had some trouble finding Skyport, which is no surprise once you finally see it. It's just one edge of a field, with a few barrels and boards to mark it. For the first time in my short aviation career, I failed to land on my first attempt. We made it in on the next try, which may have been my real mistake -- my soft-field takeoff was a near-disaster. I was a little hurried because I had real reason not to stop rolling in the moguls. On the takeoff roll I was drifting left, and more and more right rudder was not helping. Eventually either the rudder finally got more effective, or Landon stomped on the rudder pedal, and we were going sideways across the runway toward the right side. We were flying in ground effect but not too well. About the time I got the stall horn blaring I bailed and asked for help. Landon just pushed the nose down a bit and we were already at 55kts and away we went. That's about when I remembered how poorly my practice soft-field takeoffs had gone at McMinnville. More practice before we try again in "actual".
Landing on runway 30 at Hillsboro was a piece of cake by comparison. I can't even remember exactly what happened, but I picked up some serious sink after I levelled off, and had to make a pretty abrupt move with the elevator to flare. The result was a very soft landing, which wasn't what I expected at the time.
It was nearly dark when I arrived. There was just enough light to preflight without a flashlight (although I had to get really close to the static port to see if it was clear). By the time we took off, after waiting for fuel, it was as dark as it gets under the winter overcast around here. Landon was concerned about fog. Luckily it never materialized, despite a slim temp/dewpoint spread of 2C.
We flew to the practice area and did a series of maneuvers including power on/off stalls, slow flight, steep turns and VOR tracking. It has been a while since I did any airwork -- steep turns were back in my 4th flight! Everything went pretty well, including the steep turns, which was sort of surprising. My steep turns in lesson 4 were not so hot!
We then returned to HIO where we had the pattern mostly to ourselves to do seven stop-and-goes. With the three expected on the night cross country my night landing requirements will be done. These landings weren't especially pretty (one was a real bouncer) but by the last one (which I got to do with no panel lights) was decent. It was pretty long (took A4 for the first time in a while) but wouldn't have scared away passengers. :)
Only 16 hours or so after I last flew it, N53161 developed a bad mag. Last night it appeared to have a fouled plug, which cleared easily. Today Landon said the engine just died when trying to run on the one mag. So today we flew N219SP, a late model 180HP with leather interior and IFR GPS. The cost for these amenities (which I made little or no use of!) was about $20/hr. Remind me again why I'm not flying at Twin Oaks?
The only thing we really accomplished today was about 0.6 of hood work, including slow flight, turns, climbs, descents, etc. We also did unusual attitudes, which turned out to be a piece of cake. Landon's technique for disorientation (best I can tell) is doing lazy eights and chandelles (based on the series of 0g and seat-crushing turns).
As an object lession in disorientation, Landon also had me make a turn with my eyes closed. I really had no sensation of rolling or turning, but based on the engine sound, the passing of the sun by the windshield and the g-loading I figured out pretty quickly that I had entered a relatively steep turn (Landon told me later about 45-55 degrees). That was actually a pretty easy maneuver to maintain with my eyes closed, since the engine noise and magnified g-loading gave me a lot of pitch feedback. I only rolled about 20 degrees back OUT of the turn though and really had no idea until I opened my eyes. So yesterday was steep turns in the dark, today steep turns blind.
There was lots of excitement in the pattern on the way back. My initial straight-in was modified to a "overfly at pattern altitude and join the right downwind" which turned into a "follow the Cessna on extended right downwind ahead, #3 to land". After an approach even the VASI could love (I'm prone to diving to the numbers) I got a bit slow at the end of the approach and made a very short landing. I probably touched down right on the threshold or even a few feet before. Easily could have made A7 if that had been my goal!
On the way home I was feeling pretty frustrated since the whole day felt a little sloppy to me, and I didn't really learn anything about any of the mistakes I made.
A long rest compared to my usual flying schedule. Turned out to be a spooky night cross country on Halloween.
I called Landon last night because I was concerned that the weather was going to be too scuddy for our eastbound cross country (to Hood River) and our northwestbound cross country was over the wilderness, making it hard to identify landmarks at night (or even stay upright, for that matter). He suggested we go north, so I planned a flight to Toledo. The only likely airport for a 3rd point was Kelso-Longview. Boringly it is almost directly on the line between HIO and TDO.
I didn't select a lot of waypoints, since there aren't very many good (charted) landmarks to identify and the hops were fairly short anyway. For two of my three non-airport waypoints I used VOR radials (actually the same VOR radial...). Looking back, I doubt we could have spotted the one visual landmark I selected at night. As it turns out, my waypoints were largely irrelevant, since low clouds forced us to follow the valley (and I5) rather than my nice straight lines. At one point we were down to 1000 AGL (and not a foot lower, I'm sure!) and starting to wonder if we were going to have to turn back or go IFR. That was as bad as it got, and I5 led us right to TDO.
I definitely would have turned back had I been alone. The scariest part was after the flight when I realized that I had just completed ALL of the necessary night training for my PPL. At the time I wasn't feeling too confident about that, but I did manage to spot all of the airports, make decent (one very nice) landings at all of them, and get home.
Another long layoff compared to my early pace. This was a mostly night flight to work on PTS maneuvers. Steep turns, power on/off stalls and emergencies. It was just barely light enough to pick out a field for the emergency landing. Even though we had a working engine it was a relief to discover that it really was dirt (and not, say, baby pine trees) on short final.
I've been meaning to go out and solo for the last few days, but aircraft scheduling has conspired against me. Landon is gone this weekend, so I'll get some nice day VFR in for sure!
Finally a chance to solo again. I'm not sure how significant it is to solo at 11.2 hours if you don't do it again until you have 20 hours! I wanted to practice short- and soft-field takeoffs, but there were about four other aircraft in the pattern already so of course it was "cleared for immediate takeoff" while Gary and student were a few hundred feet off the runway in 23L. I followed him around once and then we were split up as 23L was directed to cut in front of traffic on a really extended downwind. The sky would have been clear but for the dozens of leaf-burning fires all around, including one about 3/4 mile from the approach end of 30.
My backup plan was to head to the practice area for a while and get in at least some steep turns and possibly some ground reference maneuvers. It took a while to find a patch of sky that didn't have other airplanes aimed at it. I did a few steep turns each way (not bad, not bad) and then decided to find a suitable point to turn around. I was near Hagg lake, and didn't find landmarks that weren't at the foot of a hill, so I wandered back across the lake to try the other side of the hill.
A few minutes later the tower asked if I was still on the frequency and told me that Gary wanted to go home, and asked me to come in. There's always something new to catch you off guard. I'm supposed to initiate the callup so I have plenty of time to figure out where I am. And now I'm supposed to just reply with my location as if I just know? They asked me to report a left downwind (which makes perfect sense to me now) but at the time I thought "left base". Now getting into a left base from west of the airport is not entirely obvious. By the time I was paralleling TV Highway and eyeballing the end of the runway to judge a turn to base, the tower chided me for not reporting downwind and had me turn straight to the approach end of 30. Oops. Call it the VFR-A approach to 30. Now I wonder if I read it back wrong and they didn't correct me, or if I read it back correctly and just did the wrong thing. Either way, I knew far enough in advance that the pattern entry was awkward, and at that point I should have clarified it.
Back in the office Gary swore I was in the pattern behind him for "four or five" circuits and he thought I was still in the pattern when he called the tower. Uh huh.
Just as I had hoped, the pattern was not nearly as busy today. For one circuit the tower even told me I had the pattern to myself! All of my takeoffs were soft-field, except for one touch-and-go I had to perform at the tower's request. The first one was probably my best, but they were all okay. The key to good directional control seemed to be coming to a full stop before starting the takeoff. That's the exact opposite of what you want for a soft-field takeoff, though. I'm ready to go back to Skyport and do a few circuits on real grass again.
Most of my landings were great. One bounced enough times to count as three or four landings, which was good experience too. I never went though a bouncy-landings stage, so I don't have much practice recovering from them. As before it came from getting a little slow on short final.
One traffic call really got my attention. The tower asked me to report my position when I was abeam the approach end of rwy 20. They told me I had traffic "abeam the numbers" about the time I was abeam the numbers. Since they had just had me angle my upwind to allow a Jet to depart, I thought I might have actually passed over another airplane during my 150 degree turn from angled-upwind to downwind. Luckily they were talking about the traffic a mile ahead of me which I already had in sight.
While I was on a 1 mile final behind that same Cessna on very short final the tower confused our N-numbers and started talking to me about expediting my exit from the runway to allow crossing helicopter traffic. That was finally straightened out, followed by my bouncy landing and the T&G. The tower was very appologetic so I guess we're even for last Saturday's pattern entry snafu. :)
Winds were up today and weather to the east and west was poor, so we scrapped the cross-country. It was a great opportunity to practice crosswind landings, but it would have to be somewhere other than HIO -- winds 120 at 15 gusting to 20, straight down rwy 12! I preserved my perfect record of never having seen the departure end of runway 12 by requesting an intersection departure from A4. I almost said A6, and in today's wind that wouldn't have been a problem! We took off while the plane ahead of us was still taxiing to the runup area at 12.
I wanted a solo endoresement to MMV anyway, so I flew us down there and landed on the runway favored by the wind (170@14, if I remember right). We made a lopsided pattern to land on 22 in a light crosswind and a moderate headwind. It took one T&G to remind me what I was supposed to be doing. The rest of my landings on 22 were fine, offcenter with a slight drift. It'd be ugly in a taildragger but you hardly notice in a C-172.
We took the windy opportunity to practice turns around a point. My altitude and airspeed were good, and the actual turns were fine, but not pretty. The wind was unpredictable, probably due to the presence of a nearby hill.
We tried out the new hood that my R&D department had produced. This one is much better -- a cardboard arch that clips onto my headset. Absolutely no view outside (with nothing additional blocking the windows!) and an unobstructed view of the instruments. Sadly my R&D department forgot to practice on the simulator this time and my instrument flying made for some exciting maneuvers. I managed to make myself mildly queasy and had to give up after only 0.4.
At 60KIAS under the hood, Landon informed me that our approximate groundspeed was 2kts. It was windy up there!
The cloud cover burned off and it turned into an absolutely beautiful day for a cross country to the coast. In retrospect I don't know WHAT I was thinking planning a flight to the gorge when the coast range was clear. I missed my first landmark but we spotted all of the rest. Landon really wanted me to calculate groundspeed for some leg and he happened to point out the one where we had missed the waypoint and estimated our position. The resulting groundspeed was 180kts. I think our estimates were off...
We tossed the Astoria-Tillamook flightplan leg out the window and flew down the coast. It's very easy to find Tillamook that way. You just turn into Nehalem Bay and fly until you see AIR MUSEUM in huge letters and then land.
The leg back had us about 2 miles south of the intended ground track at the Hagg lake checkpoint, but both of us knew what we were looking for so we spotted Hagg lake easily. Hillsboro ATIS gave me a double-take when they got to the end of the spiel and said "landing and departing runway 2", which they rarely do in calm winds. So I had to let the winds come around again on the guitar, assuming I had misheard them. Nope, winds calm. Then they asked for a "3 mile right base" when we were nearly straight in on rwy 2, and actually off to the left. They must have known I needed practice questioning reporting requests from the tower. ;-) They amended and gave us the straight-in and I made Landon very nervous by landing about 15 feet from the threshhold. I actually had to accelerate to get to A6 in a reasonable amount of time.
Got in 0.8h of simulated instrument in some really scuddy weather. My flying was pretty decent since I remembered to practice in FS2002 the night before. Landon was vectoring me all over the place to avoid clouds, terrain and airspace. This is the first flight with my new GPS, and it was amusing to look at the crazy squiggle made by the track log.
We also practiced soft-field takeoffs and landings since I was still unclear on where the burst of throttle was in the soft-field landing. We made some interesting landings in some serious wind-shear before the hood work. It took full rudder deflection to almost line up with the runway at 50', and almost no rudder in the flare. Landon kept me under the hood down to about 200' AGL on our return flight, and I looked up and landed, remembering at the very last second that I wanted to practice a soft field landing. I added a burst of power and touched down so softly we could barely feel it. Aha!
Landon woke me up this morning to alert me to the (relatively) good weather and suggest we do my final required cross country. I had enough time to shower, get a briefing and file a flightplan before going to the airport. No fancy flightplan form for me, just one quick estimate of the initial heading and we were off.
Well, almost. We had to file IFR to get out of Hillsboro. Sure enough, we passed through a layer of clouds on the way out as I flew the Farmington Three departure for the first time in real life. We cancelled IFR at about 3,500 and transitioned to flight following (now that's an easy way to get VFR advisories!). I got a frequency change to give a PIREP for the cloud layer we passed through and opened our VFR flightplan.
We had to descend to avoid clouds, but we were able to stay above Salem's class D. A quick T&G at Albany and we were on our way back to "Hillsboro", but I knew there was going to be a diversion, and I knew Landon was planning on Independence State. He did trick me by asking me for an initial heading to Lebanon, which force me to grab a chart and FIND Lebanon. After I gave it to him he said, "Ok, now take me to Independence State." This was complicated slightly by our crazy DG (precessed about 30 degrees in there somewhere) and my airport blindness. The Willamette River has a kink which points right at it, and I got us there easily, but failed to see it until we were only one mile away.
I got to play with the GPS some more. I had expected it to be a good distraction for Landon, preventing him from distracting ME. In fact, showing him how to do various things with it was just as distracting as fielding pilotage questions.
In a hurry to get out of the airport today I kept up my speed on a 10 mile straight in to HIO. I nailed the VASI, but after pulling power and adding flaps as the speed allowed, it still took half the runway to get down.
The winds were variable and gusting to 18kts so my solo cross country was ruled out. We tried to get in some crosswind landings on runway 2, but the crosswind component near the ground was minimal. We got one, uh, landing in on runway 30 in a 17kt crosswind. The approach was beautiful (well, after blowing through final and flying back to line up). It would have been a fine landing if it had been about 5 feet lower. Instead I dropped it in and punched in the power before we could hit again. I would have really liked another shot at that.
After that we did turns around a point and S-turns around a road, as well as a simulated engine-out. The ground reference maneuvers were fine for altitude and airspeed. My S-turns could use some work (that was the second time we'd ever done them) and I need to work on picking landmarks during my turns around a point. Altitude and airspeed were looking good, though.
Back at HIO, Landon distracted me on final by suggesting I make a flapless landing. I combined this with a slip-to-land, which confused him. We remained mutually confused right through the landing. The landing was fine, but then he said "ok, ailerons into the wind" and my brain locked up. I had no idea what the winds were other than roughly down the runway and no view of a windsock. As Landon started to demonstrate he was distracted by the control forces necessary. At that point I don't think either of us really had our heads in the game. I don't think our safety was ever in question, but it's a good thing we didn't have just one more distraction. The whole experience left me frazzled.
And I just remembered, today was "crazy ATIS day" at Hillsboro. On departure the ATIS recording ended in, "advise on initial contact you have information Golf, or..." but it didn't offer an alternative. On our return the ATIS had cycled, and information Hotel included winds 040 at 13 gusting to 18, ..., landing and departing runway 30. Turns out they were really landing on 2, but it did get us to listen to the ATIS twice.
The plan was to show up, get checked out for solo at Twin Oaks, then dump Landon out of the plane and head out on my solo cross country. The weather was too crummy for my solo cross country, but I did take a few trips around the pattern in 4KU and I am now signed off to solo from Twin Oaks.
With its 180hp engine 4KU is pretty snappy. I had to back off to around 1800RPM to do the pattern at 90kts. At the 2100RPM I'd use in a 160hp 172 I was doing 100+kts. The plane is in fine shape except the elevator is pretty sticky, especially at the end of its travel. Just when you want that last bit during the flare, it feels like it's in molasses.
I arrived and preflighted 4KU. When I finally got Landon on his cellphone, he was with Hiro... just turning left base for runway 2. I was dragging the plane toward the fuel depot when he ran over and told me I was in 40H instead of 4KU. It's harder to push an airplane backwards up a hill than to pull it down the hill towards you! Then I got the brief "how to fuel an airplane" tutorial while Hiro refueled the 150 he was flying.
After waiting for Landon to sign off Hiro's XC and then mine, I finally got ready to depart about an hour after arriving at the airport. Just as I was about to start up, Landon runs over to the plane carrying a towbar. I'm wondering if I am supposed to move somewhere else to start, but no, he just wanted to tell me that this plane was a little nose heavy. Ok!
By the time I passed Salem I was starting to relax. Still didn't manage to take any pictures, even though there were some pretty views in the Willamette valley. It was a successful crosscountry, as I found all the airports and waypoints without any trouble. I got in full stops at Lebanon and Independence State. I even found Twin Oaks again.
Oh, and did I mention, the AI indicates in MPH, not knots? And com2 is a mystery feature of the GPS? At least I figured out the first part for myself, before I tried to set up an approach 15% too slow!
Flight service told me several times (even moments before departure) that the coast was clear (no really, the area by the sea had good weather!) and that it was possible to get over the coast range. I frantically planned a solo cross country to Astoria, Newberg and back. I was not able to depart as early in the day as I would have liked, which was stressful, but it was all for nothing, since it was immediately clear when I got about 10 miles west of Hillsboro that there was no way I was going over coast range.
It was probably stupid of me to even try and get to the coast, despite the alluring weather. It just sounded like more fun than buzzing down the Willamette valley (to lower ceilings, according to my briefing, than I'd find at the coast...). Frantically planning and then not completing a cross country to the coast was no fun, though.
In the future I don't think I'll even try to hurry up and fly a solo cross country if the weather happens to be nice. There just aren't enough hours of daylight in the winter to see if it's going to be nice, and then plan a cross country in the direction of good weather, and then fly it.
Yesterday the weather was beautiful and I was ready with my coast tour flightplan. Everything was perfect except that I had no plane to fly. 4KU was being used for a checkride and came back about 2.5 hours late. By then there wasn't time to get in a cross country before dark.
Today the weather was beautiful and I had a new plan, completed last night, which was only as long as necessary and did not involve crossing the coast range. I thought I had all my bases covered. Unfortunately, winds were strong and gusty at Hillsboro, so the weather didn't meet my solo restrictions.
Instead I went up with Landon to practice crosswind landings, first at Twin-Oaks, where things were pretty tame, and then at Hillsboro, where they were gusting to 25. Most of the landings were fine. On one I got a little slow and ran out of rudder authority just as a gust hit us. Landon suggested "more left rudder" when it was on the floor and we were pointing about 30 degrees into the wind. That one resulted in a landing. One touch and go was very brief, as I landed slightly above stalling speed and a gust picked us right back up and I hit the throttle.
Just in case, I asked Landon to sign me off for higher winds and crosswinds. I can now solo in 25kts with a 10kt crosswind, which might help me get in a cross country. We also talked about the written test and the oral part of the checkride, and I got signed off to take the written.
Until an hour before my flight I was sure I wasn't going to be able to go. The forecast (and actual weater!) for Olympia, 20nm north of Chehalis, was 1/4SM visibility in fog, ceiling obscured at 100'. While I was talking to McMinnville on the phone they contacted Seattle FSS and found a PIREP from CLS saying it was clear. I decided to give it a try, half expecting to be turned back just short of my goal. My cross country endorsement didn't include another airport 50nm from Twin Oaks, so it wouldn't have even been a cross country without CLS!
When I got there I discovered that it was indeed clear. As I was leaving I reported my findings to Seattle flightwatch: airport clear, stratus layer extending from the ground to about 1000' starting 3-5nm north of the airport. It was that close!
The visual checkpoints I had worried about spotting were easy to see. The refinery stands out even behind hills as the water vapor in the smokestacks condenses into miniature clouds. The nuclear power plant in the NOTAM is also extremely easy to see and identify -- I wonder why it's not on the sectional? My "airport vision" has improved and I spotted all of them as I passed them.
On the way back I stopped at Hillsboro. I considered this kind of a creampuff choice since I've landed there so many times. True to form, they made things interesting. They were never entirely clear on my tail number, beyond the fact that it ended in "KU" and might have had other digits like "3" and "4" somewhere. Just as I arrived abeam the tower on a left downwind for runway 2 they had two planes on a right downwind and one that was switching to 12 (but from where in the pattern I was not clear). But I finally spotted my traffic and they gave me my stop-and-go (they didn't seem to want to, but they might have guessed that I was on a solo XC since they asked for my intentions before granting it). For some reason there was light to moderate turbulence just off the departure end of 30 which I encountered on my way out of the pattern. Those poor planes making right traffic must have been flying through it every time. The left side of the pattern was clear!
Once again my first flight after heavy crosswind landing practice resulted in what felt like super-easy landings. After last time when I was fighting the wind all the way to the ground it was surreal to just land with no excitement.
Today's goal was to finish up simulated instrument work and preparation for solo PTS maneuver practice. We did steep turns, turning power on/off stalls, slow flight, VOR tracking, simulated engine failure to the ground, soft field takeoff in actual grass, night landing at Twin Oaks, plus a little of everything under the hood. Landon threw in some partial panel work before the unusual attitude recovery to make things interesting. I still think it would be more fun to shoot approaches to make up the time, but now that I have 3.1 hours by reference to instruments, I can save it for my IR.
It took me a record three attempts to land at Twin Oaks in the dark, where the runway lighting reminds me of a big "STOP N SHOP" sign that only says " TOP N P". It took me a while to find it even though we were right over the Newberg ridge when the hood came off. Like all airports, though, once you realize it's an airport, you wonder how you could have missed it. When I spotted it only a few miles away, I could also see Hillboro rwy 30's REIL blinking, about equally bright, despite being 8+ miles northwest.
After flying only once in January the weather finally cleared up this week. I was slow to take advantage of it, but it was still beautiful today. My plan was to fly down to the MMV area, practice steep turns, then do an emergency descent to land at MMV, practice some landings, then find a tree to do turns around and return to Twin Oaks.
After crossing the Newberg ridge I switched to MMV's CTAF and it was hopping. Someone else doing an emergency descent, a few departures, two or three other planes entering the pattern in various ways. I angled off to the east to find some room to do steep turns and wait for things to calm down and immediately spotted two other planes with the same idea. They were close enough together they may have been practicing synchronized steep turns.
I headed back over the ridge and did my steep turns at the edge of the valley west of Hillsboro. I called HIO from 8 SW and was instructed to report a 3 mile final for straight-in on 30. Wary of odd pattern entries (as you'll know if you've read the rest of the log!) I read it back carefully and turned toward the airport. They warned me that they had just given similar instructions to another plane, and shortly after my initial callup I heard another plane get similar instructions after reporting the exact same position (8 SW).
Obviously you can't land straight-in to the northwest when you're flying a northeasterly course to the airport. I reported at 4 miles straight out from runway 2 and they switched me to runway 2. Nice of them, considering the wind was 040@11. First trip around was uneventful. Second trip around the tower asked me to "extend my downwind" (in right traffic) for a Mooney entering on right base. I immediately asked if they intended me to cross the path of of this plane on my extended downwind. The tower guy sounded exasperated and called the traffic at my 11 o'clock. In reality we were so close at that point that he was closer to my 9, so I didn't spot him. Tower suggested I may have to angle left, so I did, and there he was, about a half a mile away, crossing my path from left to right. I continued angling at a 30 degree bank! To follow him in I had to do a 180 degree turn back to base. After that touch'n'go I departed to the west, did a turn around Turning Tree and returned to Twin Oaks.
And I finally took several photos. My wife criticized my choice of subjects: airports! But I really wanted to get a shot of Twin Oaks.
If you only fly once a month then all of the flights are going to be dedicated to grinding off the rust. Did a few crosswind landings at MMV and one back at 7S3. Did steep turns, power on/off stalls and an emergency descent in between.
Got checked out in 08Y, a VFR-only 180HP 172. Apparently being light on the avionics makes a big difference! Climbs at over 1300FPM easily. Its only reliable COM is a... you guessed it, GPS/COM! Only Twin Oaks would have a moving map GPS in a VFR-only airplane. And did I mention the vertical card compass?
I finally flew the last cross-country I needed. A trip I planned at least three months ago. It was designed to be foolproof, based a simple route with easy VOR navigation, in a direction where weather is usually tame and the airspace is uncomplicated.
It was scrubbed for bad weather (at least twice), missing plane and missing instructor. Several very nice weather days went by when I was otherwise occupied. I was going to fly it yesterday when the forecast light winds turned out to be 17 gusting to 25 starting before dawn (blowing my trashcan into the neighbor's yard) and lasting all day. Today those winds left some pretty clear skies and high ceilings and at last the trip was complete. They even cancelled the NOTAM putting the CVO VOR OTS all day.
I needed 1.8 to finish my 5 hours of solo xc. I flew for 1.9.
Power on/off stalls and slow flight went fine. Steep turns, which are usually easy, were barely within tolerances the first few times around. Back up to my usual standards by the end. Good emergency descent, turns around a point, s-turns on a road. One of the few times we've had enough wind to make ground reference maneuvers interesting.
Things went downhill when I got "diverted" to an airport we were very close to after doing the ground reference work. I located our position from landmarks, and Landon checked me with a couple VORs. I probably flew right over the airport looking for it. Finally climbed to 2000' and spotted a plane landing there, and found Aurora, which is much easier to see. Turns out our destination has trees on both ends and along one side. None of those FAA 50' obstacles, either -- the trees were a good 100-150' and 200 yards off both ends.
Had to go around the first time as we were very long. Barely landed on the runway on the second attempt. We should have just insisted on landing with the wind (and the glider/tow pilot) rather than trying to follow the other plane practicing landings. Soft field takeoff out of the grass was fine.
Got back to Twin Oaks and did another go-around from 10' after flying too tight a pattern. Second landing was better placed, still not as soft as it should be.
Flew over to Hillboro to improve my landings. Much better. I still never remember to do soft-field landings, though...
Emergency drill went fine. Landing at Sportsman was an unmitigated disaster. Oh great, my last dual flight and I'm flying worse than ever. Landon warned me at the beginning that he'd be hard on me, but by the end I had been so hard on myself that he was trying to reassure me that my flying was okay.
I did learn one thing from this flight, which is that I shouldn't do anything differently just because Landon (or my DE) is in the seat next to me. Having Landon with me makes me rush.
I got Landon to sign me off to solo to Sportsman so I could try and improve on the last flight. The air was bumpy but not too bad. A few times on final I was reminded of my first landing practice at Scappoose and how nerve wracking it was to be bounding around while pointed at the ground. Now it's more of an irritation as I try to nail the approach speed.
Landings were better, but not as consistent as I'd like. I zipped over to Hillsboro just for a change of pace, and since they couldn't decide which way the wind was blowing I got to land on 2 and 30. Then back to Twin Oaks where I made an atrocious landing. A very soft touchdown after recovering from a bad balloon, which is something I rarely have a problem with.
Landon showed up for a flight with another student and pointed out that he had added 1.0 of solo on my 8710-1 and I had flown for 0.9. Doh! Oh well, needed to end on a better note anyway...
My last bad landing at Twin Oaks made me realize how relatively few times I've ever landed there. And I'm guaranteed to land there at least once on my checkride! So I did a few trips around the pattern to get a few more tenths.
My checkride was originally scheduled for Friday, April 5. I met with my DE, Mary, that morning and we did the oral. The weather was just too crummy to do the necessary airwork, so we rescheduled for the next week. That was also weathered out, as the ceilings were iffy but winds were 12 gusting to 20 all over.
Finally on Monday, April 15 it looked good enough in the morning to give it a try. I had agreed to meet Mary at HIO since she had another checkride scheduled after me at Hillsboro Aviation. This also gave me a chance to fly for a few minutes before my checkride as a warmup.
On the way to Hillsboro COM1 quit receiving as I entered downwind. COM2 had known problems, so I turned away from the airport for a few minutes and tried to contact them using the other radio, the other headset jacks, etc. After not hearing anything, I turned back to see if they were giving my any light signals, and they were showing solid green. After landing I tried a few more times and had no luck. I shut down and met Mary on the ramp, told her what happened, and we tried again. Lo and behold, this time COM1 worked.
So we were off. I did a crosswind soft field takeoff (about 10kts direct xwind on 30) which I had never done before. She diverted me to Scappoose, and I had to go around a hill rather than over it due to weather, which was not a good sign. We got some slow flight in over the Willamette but the few clouds layer had solidified and there was no room for steep turns or stalls. We returned and I did a soft field landing. That was the thing I most feared and it went fine, so I figured I was home free, if I could ever fly again...
As I entered the second week of my checkride, I despaired of ever having Mary's schedule coincide with good weather. This time I had agreed to meet her at TTD, since that was the only way she'd have time to fit me in after her morning checkride. Once again I was happy to have the opportunity for some warmup, but apprehensive about completing my checkride from an airport I had never been to.
Portland's class C airspace isn't hard to avoid, but you sure do have to fly low over some areas without a lot of emergency landing sites. Inauspiciously, my attempt at a practice short-field landing took me to midfield, a landing which would have left me in the ditch at Twin Oaks.
Another downside to flying from TTD was the time it took to fly out from under the class C shelf to the north, where Mary assured me the overcast was high enough for our airwork. The rest of the flight maneuvers went fine, with the possible exception of the emergency landing, which would have overshot my chosen field (beyond which there was... another field!).
All I had to do was find TTD, which has some handy landmarks, and execute a short-field landing. Arriving from the north put me in right traffic, which I immediately realized was a huge boon because it did not suffer from the 900 foot bluff featured on the left downwind. My first approach was a lot like my earlier arrival, and I went around. Next time around I got the power out, the flaps down early, gave myself a long downwind, and found myself just failing to descend over the trees to the east of the airport. I swear I should have had a 600fpm sink and I was only going down at about 200-300fpm. Around again and I'm starting to question the wisdom of flying to TTD. This time the tower asked for a short approach and I almost laughed when I said "unable!". I got extended a good mile beyond my last base leg. With full flaps and no power, I got on a glideslope that was going to put me on the desired spot. Having done it, I don't recommend it, as at least one tree on the final approach path is getting tall enough that you might trim it if you don't go around it.
Afterwards I watched a few more people land and most touched down at or beyond the VASI point, about 1000' displaced from where I was trying to land. Next time I'll try to figure out if that 900' hill is really creating the updraft I'd like to blame for my high approaches.
I passed my checkride!