26 January 2008-Flight Cancelled

In spite of predictions of it being nice and in the 60’s, I actually woke up to it being foggy and in the 30’s. Needless to say the 10:30 flight was scrubbed. Bob suggested we wait and see what things looked like by 1pm, but things were still not cleared up in Okmulgee or McAlester.
So no flying today.
There is a possibility of flying tomorrow, but that will be an on call thing.
The cross country is rescheduled for 2 February at 10am.

20 January 2008-Flight 27

It was quite windy today. Winds were 20-25 knots from 160. Winds were predicted as high as 30 knots.

I was running a little late today, but when I got to the airport I could see the plane in the pattern. I was a little concerned that the flight might get scrubbed because of winds. After Bob got back with his previous student he said going up today would be good practice for me, but we may cut the lesson short.

I went out to do the preflight. With temperature at 34 and the wind, it made for a very cold preflight. I had to go inside once to warm my hands up a little. When I checked the fuel in the tanks, I could hear the fuel sloshing around in the tank. It made it hard to get an accurate reading with dip stick, but it was not hard to tell there was more than enough fuel for the upcoming lesson.

With the winds so strong, it was good practice for remembering to hold the yoke properly while taxing. You want to hold the yoke properly to ensure that the wind does not flip the plane over. If the wind is a quartering headwind, you want elevator neutral and the yoke turned into the wind so that the upwind aileron reduces the tendency of the upwind wing to lift up. In a quartering tailwind, you want the elevator down so the wind does not nose the plane over and you adjust ailerons so that the upwind aileron is down. To make sure I had this straight I had to double check the FAA Pilot Flying Handbook. This one of those things I really need to have down by heart. I could get failed on a checkride if I do not demonstrate this properly.

As we taxied to the runup area, it did not take much throttle to get the airplane rolling. You have to remember when you get at the speed you want to taxi to remember to reduce the throttle and not ride the brakes. I did this correctly today, but Bob has had to correct me on this in the past. One other thing I noticed while taxiing that I had not noticed before was the change in the sound of the prop as the wind would blow past the prop. It would change from the sound I typically was used to, to more of a lower pitched almost chopping sound. I mentioned it to Bob and he said that was normal.

Because the winds were so strong, Bob had me point the plane a little more in the direction of the wind while I was doing my checklist in the run up area..

After the run up checklist was complete and a clearing turn was done, we proceeded to the runway and started to takeoff. With the extra 20knots of head wind, the plane was up in the air very quickly. By the time I was at the end of the runway, we were almost up to 1500, which is when I would start turning my crosswind.

Despite the windy conditions it was not as turbulent as I thought it would be. On crosswind I had to crab the plane quite a bit to maintain a course to the west. With the extra 20 knots of ground speed on the downwind leg midfield came up quite fast. Similarly on the base turn I had to maintain a lot of crab to keep from getting pushed away from the airport. On my turn to final I tried to make sure I was above the glide slope. With the extra headwind, your ground speed is less and it takes longer to reach the runway. Unfortunately I was never able to avoid having to apply extra power at the end so I would not be short of the runway.

With the gusty crosswind conditions, the landings were a bit trickier. Actually the wind had a tendency to vary from the southeast to the southwest. So it was back to the juggling act of trying to keep the plane banked into the crosswind, using the rudders to keep the nose pointed at the centerline and adjusting the throttle as needed. It kept me busy, but I did not have the feeling of being overwhelmed like I had felt in similar conditions in previous lessons.

The touchdowns left something to be desired and I think Bob went for the controls once or twice when he thought I was not handling it. I was still coming in flat and Bob kept prompting to keep the nose up.

We went around about six or seven times before Bob decided it was best to stop for the day. The winds were just getting to strong.

The conditions were quite challenging today, but I was glad I went up. It was good practice and good experience. Not all flying days are going to be nice.

The next lesson is scheduled for 27 January at 10 am. We will be doing our second cross country. It will be between McAlester, Okmulgee and Shawnee. If I do well on this one, the next cross country I do will be solo. After this cross country, we will start doing some night flying as well. I have to do three hours of that.

19 January 2008-Flight Training Magazine

I received my February 2008 copy of AOPA’s Flight Training magazine a few days ago. Looking through the table of contents I saw an article about aviation blogs. As I started reading through the first column of the article, something in the corner of the eye spotted Flying in Shawnee. I had to stare at the words for a moment to make sure I was not imagining it, but I was not.

Here is the excerpt,

“Flying in Shawnee (http://flyinginshawnee.wordpress.com/) is one of the many blogs in which a student pilot details his flight-training progress. In early December its author, a 41-year-old computer programmer in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has scrubbed three consecutive lessons because of the weather. I can certainly empathize.”

I will add that if you are not subscribed to Flight Training, the first six months are free and it does have articles of interest for student pilots. You can find out more at aopa.org.

No flying today as mentioned in the previous post. From the weather forecast, tomorrow is uncertain. Winds are predicted for 15-30 out of the south. Hopefully the morning with be calm.

13 January 2008-Flight 26

I have actually gone up for two days in a row. Will the wonders ever cease!

The weather was much nicer for flying today. It was still cold, but not near as windy.

Today we just stayed in the pattern practicing touch and goes as well as soft field takeoffs and landings.

The touch and goes were pretty straight forward. I managed to remember all my pattern procedures. Bob says I am still a little fast on final and I should be shooting for 70 knots. I am usually around 75 to 80 knots. It was not as big of a deal yesterday because we had pretty good headwinds. In that case my ground speed will be less on landing. With virtually no wind today, I had a higher ground speed on touch down. Also I need my speed at touch down to be lower because when the airplane lands I want it to stick to the runway. If I am going too fast the wings are still generating enough lift to keep the wheels from fully contacting the ground and that can make me vulnerable to getting pushed around by crosswinds.

After a few normal touch and goes, we practiced some short and soft field takeoffs and landings. I need to review the procedures for these as Bob had to keep prompting me on what do for each one.

After this Bob let me take the plane up on my own. Bob said I could have the plane for thirty minutes. In addition to doing touch and goes I was told I should fly over to Shawnee Lake, which is about 5 miles to the west of SNL. Looking back at the previous posts, the last time I had soloed was 3 November. A little over two months ago. I must admit that since it had been so long, I felt a little nervous. However as with the first time I went up by myself, I just followed my procedures and got through it just fine.

I decided to fly out to the lake first before doing my landings. Just before I would normally turn the downwind leg, I announced on CTAF that I was departing the pattern to the west. I continued my climb to 2500 feet and continued towards the lake. It was quite hazy out and Bob said to make sure I do not lose sight of the airport while heading out. I kept looking back over my shoulder as I proceeded to the lake. About a mile away from the lake I decided the airport was getting a little too hard to see for my taste and I turned back to the airport. Better safe than sorry. After turning back east, I announced I was inbound from the west and planning to enter a left downwind for runway 35. When I looked at the clock as I entered the downwind I had used up 15 minutes of time. It seemed like I had only been up for a few minutes. I even asked Bob afterward if the clock runs fast in the airplane. He said no. Time flies when your having fun I guess.

I had time for one touch and go and a full stop. I have done better landings. My landing speed was still getting too high, around 75 to 80 knots and I floated down the runway further than I should. After two landings I had used up my remaining time, so I taxied the plane back.

Also it looks like I will not do my ground school test before classes start at UCO. I have finished the course material, but I need to do a little more studying before I feel I am ready. Since I only have one class to take this semester, I will be able to devote a little more time to ground school test prep.

The next lesson is scheduled for 20 January at 10:30am. We may do a cross country on Saturday, but did not schedule anything because Bob says he may be out of town that day. Hopefully I will get a call saying Saturday is a go as well.

12 January 2008-Flight 25

The weather held out and I was able to go up again today. It was about 40 and winds out of 350 at 10 to 15. Right down the runway.

Today we covered multiple things. After getting up in the air we went to the west practice area to work more on steep turns, foggles and VOR practice.

We did three sets of steep left and right turns. My first two were not too good. I was not holding the sight picture and the plane was either climbing or losing altitude. It still is taking some getting used to pulling some g’s while in a steep bank. However by the third time around I was making good turns and holding my altitude.

Next we went into some foggle practice. Bob had me do a series for turns to the North and then to the South while using only instruments. Like the steep turns, it took me a few times before I was maintaining altitude and stopping my turn on course. Bob did mention that I was making my turns too steep and I need to maintain standard rate turns while in cloudy conditions.

After doing about 4 turns with the foggles, Bob added in use of the VOR. He would tell me which VOR to tune in and then turn towards it. This adds an extra level of distraction, because you still have to maintain level flight. A few times I had to stop messing with the VOR to focus on getting the plane level. Always remember to fly the plane. After I found the heading to the VOR, I had to turn towards it. While I was doing this I was trying to imagine myself accidentally flying into IMC and needing to get out it. As a VFR pilot you never intentionally fly into cloudy conditions, but if I find myself in that situation this kind of training can save my life.

After this we practiced unusual attitude recovery. Just as a review of the exercise, I put my head down so I can not see the instruments. The instructor will put the plane through of series of climbs, descents and turns. When the instructor gives you back the controls you have to get the plane back to level using only the instruments. Getting the wings level is pretty straight forward. If you are nose down you need to reduce power and pull back on the yoke until you are no longer descending. If you are nose up, then increase to full power and push forward on the yoke until you are no longer climbing.

I did this exercise pretty well I think. The biggest thing I need to keep in mind is to keep an eye on the vertical speed indicator(VSI). I do not want to release pressure on the yoke until the VSI says have stopped climbing or descending.

After this we went into the pattern to practice some touch and goes. I am still not quite there on getting things right in the pattern after having been unable to fly for five weeks. Because of the direction we were coming in and Bob said there were no other planes up today to just enter the pattern on base leg. I did so, but this totally threw off my little state machine that goes midfield- carb heat on, even with numbers reduce power, flaps down, descend. Instead I just flew the pattern. Just as I was turning onto final I was doing about 100 knots and Bob said it was time to slow down unless I was doing a Citation landing. At that point I realized what I did wrong and reduced power and slowed down in plenty of time for a pretty decent landing. I do need to be more flexible in my procedures and not just blindly follow them or neglect to follow them just because things did not happen in the right order.

The second time around in the pattern I was late with carb heat and Bob had to remind me. Finally the third time around I managed to get everything right. In spite of the problems I did good flares and touchdowns today. I had the stall horn sounding just as the wheels hit the runway. Even Bob commented that my touchdowns were good today.

After three touch and goes we called it a day. After we got back to the office I had Bob look over my sectional, which I marked up for the next three cross country flights. One of those flights will be dual and the other two will be solo. Some of the legs seemed to be a little sparse on landmarks, so I was not sure if my landmark spacing was too far. Overall he said it looked good.

Next flight is tomorrow at 10am. The winds are supposed to be light and Bob said I should be able to get some solo time in.