30 September 2007 – Flight Canceled

Flight canceled for today. Winds are from 220 at 21 knots gusting to 25 knots and overcast at 1000. Gusts are expected to go up to 35. Typical Oklahoma weather. Also Shawnee Regional has only one runway which is 17/35. So the crosswind component for winds coming from 220 at 21 knots is 13.5 knots. The POH for the Cessna 152 says the maximum demonstrated crosswind is 12 knots.

Next flight is scheduled for next Sunday at 11am. Bob will be out of town on Saturday, but I am on call to do a lesson if he gets back soon enough.

29 September 2007 – Flight 14

Today was the roughest flying day I have had in several lessons. I felt pretty used up by the end of the lesson. Winds were out of 160 at 10 knots gusting to 15 and very turbulent. I was constantly on the yoke trying to keep the wings level and trying to maintain proper pitch. I think winds aloft were a bit higher. We would hit midfield very quickly. Usually I have a little bit of time where I can collect my thoughts and relax before I start landing procedures.

When I was on the cross wind parts of the pattern I had to crab about 15-20 degrees to keep from drifting off my ground track. I had lots of problems getting a stabilized descent when on final. I was either too high or too low. Several times I had to add a lot of extra power to keep from being short of the runway. Bob had to prompt me quite often on final to keep me out of trouble. There were a few times I was thinking about just doing a go around. I think if Bob had not been in the plane with me I would have. Of course I should not let that stop me from going around if I do not like the approach.

We had several planes in the area today, including two helicopters. One of the helicopters I saw was as Bob was getting the airplane out of the hangar. It was a Schweitzer. What surprised me was how quiet it was. Where I work at is not far from several television stations which have news helicopters. You can hear those things coming from a mile away.

One plane came into the pattern improperly. When we saw him he was about a half a mile a way and going in the opposite direction. The proper procedure is to merge into the downwind leg at a 45 degree angle. I got a little nervous at one point because another plane was calling base just a little after I had turned base. I asked Bob if he was going to run over us or not. A common cause of midair collisions is another plane overtaking another.

On the final landing Bob had me do a shorter than usual rollout. Usually we turn off at the second taxiway. Since we had planes behind us he had me turn off at the first taxiway which is about 1000 feet from the end of the runway.

No solo today. Bob said it was just too rough out there today and I agreed. In his opinion I was a little shaky in the first half of the lesson, but by the second half I had settled down some and was doing okay.

As we were taxiing back to the hangar I saw another plane make a touch and go and commented to Bob how easy it looks from ground. He said the pilot was one of his students and went through the same thing I am going through and not to worry about it.

Overall I do not think I had a bad day. I think it was a combination of missing a weekend of flying and rougher flying conditions that made the lesson more challenging than I had dealt with in a while.

25 September 2007 – Flight Times

I did not get to fly on Sunday. New times are scheduled for 29 September at 9am and 30 September at 11am.

15 September 2007 – Flight 13

More touch and go’s today. The winds were steadily shifting throughout the lesson. We started out with winds out of the northeast, then to east and finally out of the southeast. As I type this the winds are current out of the south at about 10 knots according to the Aviation Digital Data Service.

Initially we started out using runway 35. About halfway through Bob had me do a full stop, back taxi to the start of runway 17 and takeoff again. This also means that I must change my callouts on CTAF. I think one time I announced a left pattern on runway 35 when I should have announced a right pattern on runway 17. So I had to repeat the callout.

Despite the crosswind, my landings were much better. When landing in a crosswind, you are banked into the wind. So when you touch down, the first tire to touch down will be the upwind tire. As you lose speed you will settle on the downwind tire and finally you let the nose down. I even had one landing where you could barely feel the touchdown. I got a very good landing comment from Bob on that one. I did have one landing where I started drifting excessively and at the last second Bob took the controls to arrest the drift. So more practice is needed to get the crosswind nailed, but it is improving.

Bob told me if we can get a day with no crosswind on the runway, he will let me solo. Being Oklahoma, who knows when that could happen. If we can not get a day like that, then I will have to wait a bit longer until I can get my crosswind landings more consistent.

There was a lot more traffic in the pattern today. I even joked at one point that we had a bit of a conga line forming up behind us. All doing touch and go’s. We even had a helicopter come across. Bob said the pilot of the chopper started out as one of his students a long time ago.

I did let myself get a little too distracted looking for planes at one point on the downwind leg and Bob had to remind me to pull carb heat and throttle back. There are a lot of things to do when flying, but you must always remember to keep flying the airplane.

No flying tomorrow. Bob is going to be out of town starting Sunday. He is going out to Durango, Colorado which is not too far from where I lived for a while when I was about 12. Ironically he is not going to fly there. He said he does not have a plane big enough to carry everything. Since it is in the mountains you have to be particularly careful of the higher elevation, less dense air and turbulence that can be generated by winds blowing over mountain peaks and valleys.

No lessons are scheduled for next weekend, but Bob said if he gets back soon enough we may get a lesson squeezed in on Sunday.

9 September 2007 – Flight 12

Bob called around noon and said if I wanted to do a lesson at 1:30 to come out. I did not turn down the offer. The weather had been steadily improving since this morning, but there were still some heavy looking clouds to the south. Bob said we would have to keep an eye on those and just stay in the pattern doing touch and go’s.

It was much more turbulent in the pattern today. I think we got into some pretty good updrafts. At one point on the downwind I looked down at the altimeter it said 1900ft and a few seconds later I was up to 2000. I remember also having to apply a bit of down pressure on the yoke at one point to keep from rising even though I had the plane trimmed out.

There was a little bit of a cross wind. So I had a chance to practice crosswind landings again. Except for one landing, I did much better keeping the plane banked properly to compensate for the crosswind. I was also touching down much better.

In my one wild landing I started drifting to the right a bit because I had too much bank. I remember saying out loud to Bob, “I do not like this”. He did not do or say anything until I got the plane down and we started rolling down the runway to take off again. All he said was if you do not like how an approach is going then give it full power and go around again. Obviously it was not as bad as I thought it was or Bob would have taken the controls, but thinking about just aborting the landing and going around again had not crossed my mind. In a landing I should always be prepared for the possibility of applying full power and going around whether because of bad setup on approach or something in the runway.

After the flight I talked to Bob about spin training. A private pilot certificate does not require spin training. You are only taught stall avoidance. If you do not stall, then you do not spin. Bob said he does not do spin recovery training because the gyros in his plane are not designed to handle it. So I asked if there was anyone else in the area that taught it. He said there may be a person in Seminole that would do aerobatic training and that he had sent students there before. So I will see if that person is still available to do training. If not there is a place about 60 miles that does do it. I have no intention of becoming an aerobatics pilot, but I do want to get exposure to unusual attitudes and spins.

9 September 2007 – 10 am Flight Cancelled

The weather is not cooperating today. Visbility is too low, so no flying. According to the weather reports I read, it is a combination of a cool front from the north and the remnants of hurricane Henrietta coming from the south.
There is still a small chance of flying later in the afternoon after 4:30 if the weather clears up. Otherwise, the next scheduled times are 15 Sep at 9am and 16 Sep at 10 am.

2 September 2007 – Flight 11

Finally got to do something a little different today after four lessons of touch and goes.

Bob said we were going to practice with foggles today. Foggles are glasses that look like safety glasses, but the upper half is clouded so that you can only look at the instruments. This is practice for a situation where you may inadvertently fly into a cloud or fog. This kind of training is for emergency purposes only. To legally be able to fly into non VFR conditions you must hold an Instrument Flight Rating(IFR). Flying into IMC(Instrument Meteorological Conditions) without proper training is a great way to get yourself killed. You will get disoriented and you and your plane will end up being a lawn dart.

As a VFR pilot, if you find yourself flying into IMC you must immediately fly out of it. This is done by turning the plane 180 degrees from your current heading. Without reference to the horizon it is very easy to become disoriented. Your sense of balance and direction will lie to you. You have to rely on your instruments. While not particularly difficult, you have to constantly be checking your attitude indicator, directional gyro, altitude and vertical speed indicator. I did a fair job and we spent about half our time practicing. We will spend about 3 hours overall doing this kind of training. Again it is only for emergencies, but it is good to get this kind of training. After I finish my private pilot training, I will probably continue on to IFR training. With IFR training I will have more flying options available to me and will make me a safer pilot.

After that we went in for more touch and goes. Bob had mentioned yesterday we would practice go around procedures. Just as I am getting ready to start to flare Bob suddenly calls out “Deer on the runway!! Go around!”. For a few brief seconds I am looking at the runway and off to the side to spot the deer. Wrong decision. Bob yells something like, “Apply full power and go around!”. Then he adds,” Turn off the carb heat, up one notch of flaps and don’t let the nose pop up”. I follow his instructions, but I do let the nose pop up and he has to grab the yoke to push the nose back down. “Don’t let the nose pop up! Once you get 500 feet per second of positive climb, take out the other notch of flaps”. I do that too soon and the nose drops, so Bob is grabbing at the yoke again to make sure we do not dive into the runway.

Of course there was no deer on the runway, but you never know when something unexpected may occur on the runway and you need to abort your landing. There will definitely be more of these. Of the few descriptions I have read, FAA examiners will do this several times on checkrides. This is a procedure I have to be able to perform without thinking about it and maintain proper control of the aircraft. I know Bob will be throwing more of these in to keep me on my toes and make sure I can handle the situation.

Just for my own reference the procedure I need to follow as I can remember it.
1. If told to go around, just do it. Don’t be rubbernecking, trying to find out what is going on.
2. Immediately apply full power and push in on the carb heat to turn it off.
3. Do not let the nose pop up.
4. Take out one notch of flaps. I need to ask if I do this if I happen to have only one notch in.
5. After establishing 500fps climb, take out the other notch of flaps and do not let the nose fall.

I need to be able to perform this procedure without even thinking about. In a real situation there probably will not be time to analyze the situation or think through the steps.

We had more traffic fly into Shawnee Regional(SNL), than I have seen so far. We had three different aircraft come in. I am sure people training at larger airports will probably laugh at this. One pilot announed he was going to come in on runway 35. Bob informed him that we were doing a right hand pattern on runway 17. It was somewhat hazy, but I was able to spot one of the aircraft. For the other two we had to rely CTAF announcements to know their location in relation to us.

I did spot one bird while on base on one of the touch and goes. Not particularly close like the previous time. It looked like a crow or a raven.

I am still having problems maintaining proper attitude while flaring. Sometimes I do not have enough pitch, other times too little, other times I am not waiting long before pitching further back. Bob says just about everyone has problems getting this down right and just to give it time.

Unfortunately no flying on Monday or next Saturday. So the next lesson is scheduled for 10am September 9. Between getting more comfortable with being in the cockpit and the temperatures being a little cooler, I was not quite as used up today. So Bob said we would trying to spend a couple hours up next time.

1 September 2007 – Flight 10

I will start out with something a little scary today. Someone posted a video of a Bonanza crashing on takeoff. This accident happened two days ago on August 30. The video is at http://fox40.trb.com/ . If you have flash block running you will need to click on the flash icon. Look for “Cameron Park Plane Crash”. Three people including the pilot were injured and one passenger killed. I will be watching for the NTSB report on this one. I will not speculate on the causes. While incidents like this are tragic, the reconstruction of the error chain will hopefully benefit other pilots.

More touch and goes today. The winds were light out of the east, so we used runway 35 for the first time. Amazingly I got most of my announcements onto CTAF correct. In one case Bob caught me saying runway 17 instead of 35.

I was not sure if coming in from a different direction would throw me off, but it did not. Actually I found 35 to be easier to approach than 17.

I did have some problems maintaining a steady descent on base and final. Sometimes I would come in a little high and fast and other times a little low and slow. Sometimes I would catch this on my own, but sometimes Bob did have to get my attention.

Landings are getting better. My flare technique still needs some more work. I am still letting the nose drop some just before touchdown. I was doing better towards the end of the lesson though.

Bob says tomorrow we will starting adding in go arounds to the landing procedure. So I guess I have improved enough that an additional level of complexity can be added.

I spotted my first aircraft while in the air today. It was Bob’s other rental approaching from the west. I saw it just as we were starting to turn from crosswind to downwind. The plane was a ways out, but stuck out like a sore thumb once I noticed. Bob did not say when he saw it, but I am sure he noticed it well before I did. Bob did ask me if I thought the plane was above us or below us. I said it looked above, but could not give the reason why. Bob pointed out that if the aircraft appears above the horizon then it is above us, below the horizon is under us and on the horizon is close to the same alititude we are.

The other plane appeared stationary with respect to us. That meant it was heading towards us. However since it was above the horizon, there was no danger of collision. Eventually it did start turning to enter the pattern behind us. It was surprising how fast the airplane appeared to move relative to us. We were probably fly 90 knots and the the other plane was probably doing the same if not more. That gives a speed differential of 180knots or about 200 mph.

Not much more to add for today, but if we do start practicing aborted landings tomorrow then the next entry should be a little longer.