First SOLO!!!

I finally did it!! My first solo -- it was by all means a solo in the supervised sense, which was a good thing since I hadn't been up since my check ride. This time we were in the newly repaired 9849L, my new favorite plane. It has a nice smell. Or perhaps I'm just high on what my friend Maureen referred to as "heroin for rich people" -- the experience of flight!

Kevin and I went up and did a few landings to start with, and my first few attempts were pretty poor. Just getting a feel for things, I guess; then I had a few good ones. I was basically kind of inconsistent, some good, some bad.

Then Kevin left the aircraft. He said, "You're ready." And I couldn't really argue, except that a little more consistency on landings would've been nice. But I knew I could do it! So off I went!

First time: I took off, and I was expecting the plane to behave significantly differently without the extra weight. It did not..not really, anyway, maybe a little, but I was expecting a much bigger difference. Anyway, so I turned crosswind, downwind, got my clearance for the option, base, and approach. Actually I don't remember the approach; I just remember flaring early, and hitting the power and going around. OK, no big deal, we'll get it next time.

Second time: Pretty much the same thing, but this time I touched down beautifully, if I do say so myself! It felt great!! I taxied back, gave Kevin a big smile and held my finger "1" up in the air, and he gave me 2 thumbs up!

Third, fourth, fifth times: Go arounds. I don't remember what happened each time; I know the fifth time there probably was nothing wrong. This is where I felt the difference of Kevin not being in the plane; I was just floating there! What's going on? I'm getting out of here. But Kevin told me later, he didn't see anything wrong with it!

Then I landed really nicely once, and then my final landing was a little screwy -- I got blown around by the wind a little, right at touchdown, I think, so it was definitely not graceful. But, I didn't hurt myself or the plane and didn't make too big a fool of myself, so...I did it! 0.7 hours, Pilot In Command. That's me!

One of the things I was really worried about is that I have a tendency to dwell on mistakes. This is not a good quality, for anything, but especially for flying. So I was really worried that I'd get in a situation where I just couldn't land, I'd freak out and lose confidence, and then REALLY not be able to land. Well, today I had to go around three times. No confidence lost, no sense of urgency, just...let's try it again. Do you know what happened? Yes/no, doesn't really even matter. Let's try it again! Hey, this way I get to fly longer, right?

For the first time since I first started lessons, I really feel like a pilot. I am not a pilot; in fact I am about to begin learning about pilotage, navigation, dead reckoning, course planning, etc. It's a little daunting, but it's not bad. Actually it's only daunting in that screwing up course planning is a lot more likely, and just as fatal, as screwing up the actual flying. So I'm not a pilot, yet, but I really do feel like a flyer, and it feels great!

No Solo Yet

So the check ride was difficult. I was really upset right afterwards, if you couldn't tell. But after thinking about it a lot, I came to one conclusion: The check ride instructor was a jerk. No two ways about it, nothing I can do about it. I need to not get nervous. Jerks get more jerky when you're nervous. Fine, I can do that. Anyway, I'm over it.

I met with Kevin on Monday and he had exactly the reaction to the check ride report as I thought he'd have -- basically he thought most of it was BS and there were a couple of things we needed to go over. I now know about adverse yaw: When you turn using the ailerons, the outside wing develops more lift (you can tell, because it goes up), but also more drag, thus if the plane is turning to the right due to the bank, the natural tendency is to yaw to the left due to the drag. Adverse yaw.

I was also reminded of the four reasons for left turning tendencies, which I could not recite on command: Torque, P-Factor, Spiraling Slipstream, and Gyroscopic Precession. I'll have it tattooed to my forehead. Maybe we can name conference rooms after these at the office. Or kids: Hey Torque, stop screwing around! And Slipstream! How many times have I told you, stand up straight!

So we were going to go up and work on my rudder technique and then maybe do my supervised solo, but when we went out to 9849L, it was a no-go -- the front landing gear strut was completely down. It needs to have a couple of inches of clearance, otherwise (a) you have no suspension in front, and (b) the prop is right next to the ground, which is NOT good. There's been a lot going on in the maintenance department of the club. Basically, the head mechanic owns a dozen or so planes in the fleet, including 5346D, which as you remember almost crashed in a field. This clearly presents the potential for a conflict of interest; at the least, he could preferentially work on his own planes first and get them back in the fleet first. I don't know if that's actually happened, but it certainly brings up the possibility.

Second, and more seriously -- 5346D was never serviced. The mechanic took it into his hangar, worked on it for a while, took it out flying and declared it to be fine. Is it? If nothing was done, I'm sure as heck not flying it again. Turns out, another one of his planes had an engine problem only a few days later. Same deal, he worked on it for a little while and declared that nothing was wrong. The next day, a club member tried to start it up, and it wouldn't. Turned out a part of the starter was broken. So that was the explanation for the engine trouble, right? Maybe, but if so...how did he start it up in the hangar??

Anyway, lots of politics that I'd rather not deal with. I just want to fly, not navigate a complex political landscape.

I finally bought a copy of Stick And Rudder. It's a highly recommended text, and it reads really well. Yeah, it's a little simplistic, but who can fault a book on flying for being too simplistic? You have to start simple and then learn the intricacies.

Anyway, so we'll try again for the solo on Monday, if I can land better.

Check ride

Wow, that was really hard. I'm an emotional mess right now, largely because the more I go through life, the more I'm made to feel that the expression of any emotion is a bad thing. To which I say, BULLSHIT. It's a fucked-up aspect of our society that men are expected to not be emotional at all, and that emotion is viewed as a negative attribute.

What happened today was basically that everything went alright, except for yet again being put in a position that I was not prepared or trained for and that I didn't see the point of, but the checkride instructor accused me (correctly) of being too deferential to, and in some cases cowed by, authority figures. He's right, I am. But that's not the point. The point is, too fuckin' bad, deal with it.

I absolutely HATE it when people take their opinion and state it as fact. And yet, that's exactly what the check ride instructor expected of me. How's that?? If I'm not sure of something, is it not better that I say, "I'm not sure, but I think ____" than to just say "It's ____." ??? And maybe I do get too nervous around authority figures -- I know that; it's true. And it hurts me in my job, it hurts me all the time, much more than just flying. But guess what? That's part of who I am. You want to tell me I'm a bad pilot because of that? I, once again, say BULLSHIT.

I'm tired of feeling like I need to "act like an adult." I AM an adult, and not all of us are devoid of emotion, of passion, of whatever that thing is that makes life exciting and not the dull drudgery of most peoples' lives. Tell me this: If my life is a routine, where I go through it like a robot, never feeling anything, never getting excited, or angry, or sad, or upset, but only happy, calm, dreamy -- shouldn't I just kill myself? Am I not a waste of space at that point? It pretty much means I'm not accomplishing anything, I'm not challenging myself, I'm not putting myself in a position where there's something standing in my way, and if I'm not doing that, what's the point of living? I'm not trying to threaten anyone, or myself, I'm just wondering.

Whatever. Authority is bullshit. Checkrides are bullshit. I'm going to be a damn good pilot whether or not I know the names of all the types of flaps ever made, or whether or not I understand what "adverse yaw" is (uh...yaw that I don't like?). Fuck this, I don't need people telling me I'm stupid. I _KNOW_ I'm stupid; I'm like everyone else -- just trying to get by.

Nerves

I flew last Saturday and again today. Last Saturday was fine, basically the point was to touch up on my landings. The first four were bad; actually on the first three I didn't even make it down far enough to land! There were several factors; for one thing, runway 13 was in use (it's the same as the usual runway 31, but the other direction -- 13 faces in the direction of 130 degrees, or southeast. 130 + 180 is 310, so runway 31 faces the opposite direction), which I'd never used before so everything was a bit unfamiliar. Plus, I was in a different aircraft, 9849L, and I never did get comfortable in the seat. Also, I think the usual winds had started picking up a little bit -- after my third attempt and flyover, they turned everyone around and made 31 active, and then things went better -- except for the one where I levelled off too high and landed with a thud. Not good.

Today was not bad. I flew 6521J, my old favorite before I discovered 5346D, which I'm not flying again. I had a halfway decent landing, followed by a great one. Then we did engine out landings, which I did poorly on, and then no-flap landings, which I did very poorly on -- in fact on one of these, I ballooned...and I failed to go around. Kevin had to tell me to. That was a big mistake and I feel awful about it, especially getting ready to solo -- I'd have been toast if I were solo and that happened, though I'd like to think I'd have known to go around. The final no-flap landing was quite good.

So, Thursday is my solo checkride. Another instructor who I have never met will watch me preflight, get in the plane with me, and watch me fly, wherever he wants. I'll have to do slow flight, steep turns, stalls, simulated (hopefully) engine failures, all kinds of landings, pattern work...pretty much everything. Plus I have to know all kinds of rules and regs, that he's going to quiz me on. I'm not looking forward to this. Kevin wanted me to do it tomorrow, but I'm way too tired.

If that goes OK, then I'll be back with Kevin on Monday. We'll work on whatever the other instructor notes as "unacceptable" and then if there's not too much of that, then I'll do my supervised solo, where I do three takeoffs and landings with Kevin sitting next to the runway on a bench with a radio.

Oh -- today at least I didn't have the biggest goof out there. Another plane was getting ready to takeoff before us. The tower said, "____, hold short." (I can't remember the call sign; "hold short" means taxi up next to the runway but don't get on it) The pilot responded with just his call sign. The tower said, "Please repeat hold short instructions back." The pilot again responded with just his call sign, and said "OK." The tower, now getting impatient: "You still haven't repeated the instruction back to me. Hold short." The pilot, still not getting it: "Wilco." The tower, who must've been loading up their BB gun: "You need to say, 'Roger, hold short' when I tell you to hold short." Finally the pilot got it: "Roger, hold short."

The tower then told him several seconds later: "Position and hold" (which means get on the beginning of the runway, and wait). The freshly chastised pilot responded correctly with "Position and hold" and his call sign...and then BEGAN HIS TAKEOFF!! The tower was not happy: "_____, you are NOT cleared to take off!" The pilot aborted his acceleration and said, "OK, we'll taxi back." The tower wasn't having any of it: "I don't understand: Is there some problem? Why are you taking off without being cleared?"

It was actually pretty scary. I hope I never make that much of a fool of myself on the radio, or put myself or others in that much danger.

So, getting back to the point: I'm very nervous about Thursday. But I'll just have to do my best and let whatever is going to happen happen. Wish me luck!

After The Landing

During the last week, I've really found out a lot about how I react in a crisis. Several parts of this are not too surprising -- while I have a tendency to freak out about minor things (I CAN'T FIND MY KEYS!! AAAAARGHHH!!!!), when there is a true crisis, I tend to get very calm and methodical. I've noticed this a few times, and I'm really happy that I've consistently reacted this way in extreme situations.

The tradeoff is that I then wind up spending days, or even weeks, afterwards trying to process what happened. So that's where I am right now. Again, not surprising. I've spent a lot of time studying this week, and I'm really eager to fly again (tomorrow morning! ..in a different plane!). I'm excited to solo, I'm actually less nervous about tower communications because I was able to see in this situation that ATC are just people, too.

Some of the more bizarre reactions: I want to buy a plane. It's not that I think the planes are not well maintained or anything; I'm sure they are and I totally trust that. I think it's just to feel like I can get to know one plane really well. This is of course not going to happen for a few years. I think the other really strange reaction is that there was a part of me that really enjoyed the experience. I don't think I have a death wish or anything, it's just that I'm so into problem solving, and to some extent I'm extremely bored with any of the problems I encounter on a daily basis. I know that's pretty twisted, but what can I do? It's just what I feel. Bring on the crisis, I want to have to figure my way out of it.

More tomorrow!

Engine Failure

I have a really interesting entry in my pilot log today. It reads:

Slow flight, steep turns, power off stall, power on stall, simulated engine failure, REAL engine failure. Landings: 1.

We took a left Dumbarton departure out of PAO in our trusty Cessna 5346D, and went out over SLAC to do some maneuvers. All went well (actually my power off stall sucked, and I busted altitude on my left steep turn, but what the hell), and as I got toward lining up my simulated engine failure landing, Kevin terminated the maneuver -- he was happy with it, so we went full power, and started to climb...then we stopped climbing and started to SHAKE. I vaguely remember thinking we were stalling so I pitched down slightly, but no effect.

Then we realized -- the engine was actually failing. How's that for irony? Kevin took the controls from here. Can you imagine? I'm like 2 flights away from soloing, and my engine fails. I don't want to think about what would have happened if I was alone. Actually I think exactly the same thing would've happened, but the emotional impact would've been greater. Did I say "impact?" Scratch that.

It felt like we were running on 2 cylinders. We could barely maintain altitude, and the plane was shaking like crazy. We went through emergency procedures, checked the fuel, oil pressure, mags (switching to one mag, either side, made things significantly worse). Then we contacted PAO tower and told them the situation. At 60 knots, Kevin was able to get the plane to climb, really slowly (100 ft/min or so), so we circled there and tried to gain altitude, with the plan of getting to about 4000 and then getting over to PAO. We didn't want to go if we couldn't gain the altitude, because we needed to be able to clear all the houses (and Stanford) on the glide if necessary.

Eventually we made it up to 4000 -- the engine got much worse a couple of times, and actually seemed to clear something out and got a little better around 3500. We flew back over and Kevin put the plane down on the runway at PAO.

Several observations, other than the highly obvious "Holy shit, the engine just stalled!" 1) They don't teach you this because they teach you about the case where the engine completely fails, but there is a step in there: If you can climb, by all means, climb. 2) Kevin rocks. I must say we were both cool as cucumbers, though I'm sure I'd have been much more frantic if I were alone. 3) The tower and other aircraft were all very cooperative. The tower basically cleared the runway and held all other traffic off until we were on the ground. Another aircraft, a Citabria, circled over us so that if we did have to make an emergency landing, she could coordinate the ground crews (fire, ambulance, etc). Thankfully unnecessary.

21 hours, and already an engine failure. A doomed flying career, or just good training? I'm choosing the latter. Several things could have been worse in this scenario. For one thing, I was not alone, and had a very, very good pilot in the plane with me. We had an emergency landing site all picked out, given that I'd just done a simulated engine failure landing there. And the engine didn't go completely and did allow us to climb. As my pilot friend Tim says, "A good landing is one where you walk away. A great landing is one where you can use the plane again."

Note: Here is a Google satellite view of the field and the airport; I've marked the field with an X and circled the airport for reference.

Still Waiting

No cancellations. It's actually been kind of a nice break, but now with a week to go before my next flight, I need to start studying again. I still have the POH (owner's handbook) from N5346D, even though I was supposed to return it within a week (it's been 10 days; I'll return it Thursday or so after I finish the pre-solo quiz that needs plane specific info). I got a few new books on meteorology and flying technique.

I'm not really that eager to fly again right now, but I'm sure as the time draws nearer, I will be again. I'm just too busy!