Flying is Fun!

Obvious, I know. But I just realized today that a bunch of my lessons before my 2 1/2 weeks off were really hard work. Engine failure, getting ready for the check ride, the check ride itself, soloing...lots of work.

These last couple of lessons have been really fun! Today we worked on short field and soft field takeoffs and landings. I get the two types of takeoffs; it's pretty straight forward. Short field, you go full power while staying on the brakes, and then let go and pull up at about 55-60 knots. Once over 50 feet, level off, get up to Vy (73 knots) and resume the climb. Oh yeah -- all that's with flaps at 10 degrees, until Vy is established. Soft field is different; it's all about not sinking into the mud. Elevator all the way back, gently go full power. The nose comes up, and eventually you lift off at about 40 knots. Since that's not enough to climb, you have to hold the plane in ground effect while it accelerates -- which means pushing the elevator _forward_ even though you're 10 feet off the ground! Counterintuitive, but kind of fun!

The landings were harder. Soft field, once again, I get (not that I can actually DO it, but I get it). It's like the gentlest landing I can do, made gentler by the addition of a little power just before touchdown, and keeping the elevator WAY back. Short field I don't really get. Seems like a normal touchdown but without holding it off the runway, and then get rid of the flaps at touchdown and go hard on the brakes.

My substitute instructor (what was I calling him? Chris?) confirmed that what I felt yesterday was wake turbulence, and we actually felt a milder version on one of our takeoffs today. That's definitely what it was. And he also was sympathetic about finding the airport in the level of haze there's been the last few days.

We also saw the 210 that crashed last Friday. This was about 20 minutes after I'd finished my AWESOME pattern work -- he just overran the end of the runway. Shut down the airport for about 6 hours. And the plane was such a mess; it looked totaled. Very sad.

Next flight -- Friday! Solo! Then Sunday, then a lesson on Monday! Flying is FUN!

Wake Turbulence

The more I think about it, the more positive I am that what I experienced on final approach yesterday was wake turbulence from the plane landing ahead of me. A strong kick to the right, followed shortly by a strong kick to the left, on a perfectly still day? A somewhat larger plane on final right before me? A low approach? I did come in low, as I undershot the pattern altitude by about 150 feet.

On the one hand, I'm still a little worried because I should've thought of that. On the other hand, my reaction was good -- I increased power, thereby increasing my airspeed and altitude, and especially the altitude helped me clear any further turbulence. And it's not like I was losing control of the plane for no good reason. So, a bit of comfort in that, and lesson learned -- watch out for wake turbulence!

I've got a lesson coming up later this afternoon. I'm nervous -- I don't know why I'm nervous, and am kind of annoyed with myself about it. I know now I can fly, I know I can land (when I'm not tense and too fast -- and even then I can land, just not very nicely!). I guess I'm just not sure what my temporary instructor expects; I don't have the familiarity with him that I do with Kevin. So we'll see how that goes, I guess.

Scary approach = crappy landing

I couldn't resist the sunshine, so I went flying :-) It went OK; takeoff and the flight itself were pretty good. I went out over Woodside and did some steep turns and slow flight. Then I came back, and then things got a little scary. I couldn't find the airport at first. Then I saw Shoreline so I headed south of it and hoped for the best. Then the tower said, "report at 3 miles." I hate when they say that, I have no idea how far 3 miles is! Then I remembered that it's 3 miles from CalTrain to the airport, so I was getting ready to report to the tower over El Camino. Then he asked me to make a right 360 turn and report when I was heading back in -- I think things were just too busy and he didn't have space to put me in yet. So I did, and he thanked me when I reported.

But now I had to find the airport again -- I figured I was close, and that I should just turn right over 101 and hope for the best (he had asked me to make left traffic, and turning right over 101 would put me in the pattern). He told me to follow another plane, which I thought I saw but wasn't sure, so I asked for help and he told me to go ahead and turn base. So I did, and now everything should be normal, right?

Weirdest thing happened on my approach -- I was going along, and next thing you know I'm in a fairly steep right turn! I try to correct....and it gets steeper!! Freaked me out -- finally I corrected, and then the same thing happened to the left!! I'm not sure if it was just turbulence, or if I wasn't using enough rudder when correcting, so the "adverse yaw" took over and counteracted my corrections. Anyway, this rattled me a little, but I put my mind to setting up the approach. My approach was fine, but I wound up a little fast over the runway, and as a result my landing bounced..TWICE. Pretty ugly. But I got it down. I have an actual lesson tomorrow, so hopefully I can get it together before then!

Can't be perfect every time

I went out again this evening to try to get back on my streak of perfect landings. Conditions were pretty good; there was a 5-7 knot wind, but by the time I got out there, it was heading straight down the runway. So, not bad. I think the only thing that was a little disconcerting was the fact that it was SO busy!! There were huge backups both on the ground and in the air, and the controllers were just doing the best they could to get to everyone. I guess everyone wanted to be out.

So I went out, and decided just to get my 5 landings in -- I had originally thought about heading out to west of 280 and doing some maneuvers, but for some reason I thought that with the busy pattern, I didn't want to do anything that I might have trouble with, like leaving the airspace, and more importantly, having to re-enter it. So I stayed in the pattern.

My landings were OK, not exemplary, but decent. I bounced one, I got one perfect, and the rest all had small problems. The bounce was actually really small, and I recovered just fine. The final one was great, except that it was a couple of feet too high so I had a little bit of a thud -- not bad, just a little suboptimal. The only thing I really did wrong was I didn't properly pay attention to the ATC. She told me I was #3, and I assumed that meant I was cleared, which it didn't. She set me straight. Slight embarassment, but now I know -- I'd never been given a sequence number without a clearance before! And no harm done.

So, I have an actual lesson on Tuesday. Hopefully I can have my good landings that day so we don't have to spend so much more time on them.

Best. Flight. Ever.

I had the most awesome flight ever today! First question everyone's going to ask: Where did you go? I went nowhere; I just stayed in a pattern over Palo Alto. But, it was my first unsupervised solo -- my first time showing up at the club, no instructor, no ground lesson, just go out to the plane, preflight, start her up, and get going! I wasn't nervous; it wasn't anything out of the ordinary really, and it was totally comfortable.

So yesterday, I'd gone up with Alternate Instructor #1 -- let's call him Chris. Chris was really great! We went over what I'd learned so far, then we had a long ground lesson on short field and soft field takeoffs and landings, and then we went up into the pattern so he could see where I was.

Immediately he picked up on my bad habits, and kept on me about them. This is a good thing. My hand wasn't on the power on the ascent, I was riding the brakes during taxi, and I wasn't pulling back enough on the landing, so I was landing flat and fast. We did 12 landings, and I never did get it. I understood the concept, but I couldn't do it.

Well, today I did it. Of course when no one's watching, right? But I did it, on the final three of my five landings. The first two weren't bad, but they were like yesterday. The last three, man, they were beautiful. At the point where I would ordinarily have just let the plane land, I started pulling back. If I sensed the plane coming up a little, I compensated, but kept pulling it back. These were the smoothest touchdowns I've ever performed -- just two skid sounds on the runway, and done. Landings #3 and #4, I even had the stall warning going, for 2-3 seconds! These were really good landings.

I think the key is that on each of these landings, there was a split second where I was afraid I was short. Then I looked and decided, no, I'll make it just fine, and in fact I made it with plenty of room. I think in the past I'd react to that, get high at the last second, and then have to cut the power and drop hastily toward the runway, which is a hard attitude to gain control of again. This time, that didn't happen once, even when I started out high.

What's more, my radio work was flawless. Granted, there was nothing complicated going on, but I didn't do anything stupid, which was very nice. I still rode the brakes once, but most of the time I kept away from that habit. I think my hand's still coming off the power -- I move to trim, and then I don't go back to the power. But I'm aware now.

Anyway, I can't wait to fly again. I thought about continuing, but it's good I stopped when I did, with a complete success. And besides, I had to get to work!

Stick And Rudder

I haven't been flying in two weeks. First the weather wouldn't cooperate, then on the one day I could've gone, I didn't have time. Then I got sick, and am still sick -- I had a lesson scheduled today with Alternate Instructor #1. I won't assign him a name until I've actually done a lesson with him, in case it's not worth it. Anyway, I cancelled because this cold/flu/whatever is kicking my butt. Actually I'm winning now, but I'm still only at about 70%.

In all this downtime, I did finish reading Stick And Rudder, the book from 1945 (or so) by Wolfgang Langewiesche. It was an interesting read, overall! I see why people get fed up with it; it does have a tendency to say the same thing over and over again. Here's a scenario wherein the pilot gets into trouble. That's because (a) he doesn't understand about Angle of Attack, or (b) he has the mistaken impression that the rudder turns the plane.

But in spite of the repetition, it was still interesting, especially at this point in my training as I'm not so familiar with all the scenarios that may come up. Better to have read about them first. And one of the last sections had some really good hints about judging height on landings that I'm really eager to try out! Heck, it's beautiful today! I could go right now..except for the hacking cough and the need to blow my nose every 5 minutes, and the fact that just writing this blog entry is going to exhaust my energy and I'll need to recuperate for an hour.

Next lesson is scheduled for Thursday with Alternate Instructor #2. Hopefully by then the weather won't have gone south again..