27 Feb. 2008-Aviation Weather Seminar Day 2

Today we continued on with learning to interpret TAFs and METARs from the aviationweather.gov site. In addition we covered the use of the winds aloft charts.

On interesting point brought up during the discussion is that even though a lot of the information is available in graphical and interpreted formats, to be officially briefed you have to actually read the encoded METAR’s and TAFs. It is quite apparent that these codes were developed in the days of teletype and seem to be a real anachronism when compared to modern communications.

One other interesting site mentioned, but not weather related, is UND Aerocast site. These are a set of videos produced by the University of North Dakota covering various aspects of aviation. It covers mixed bag of topics. I had watched some several months back, but several have been added since I last checked the site.

The final class is on Saturday and lasts for four hours. This will be given by forecasters from Fort Worth. In addition, there are several other aviation seminars going on at Metrotech on Friday and Saturday. I think most do not require registration except for the aviation weather class. The schedule can be found here if you want to see what is going to be offered.

25 Feb. 2008-Aviation Weather Seminar Day 1

Today was the first day of the FAA Aviation Weather Seminar.

The first part of the class was devoted to discussing the Aviation Weather Center web site. I check this on the days that I have flying lessons scheduled to see if the weather is going to cooperate.

Part of the discussion centered on the Aviation Weather Services, Advisory Circular (AC) 00-45F (PDF). This document discusses the various aviation weather services offered. We focused primarily on Chapter 7, Forecast Text Products.

Another site that was mentioned is Weather World 2010 Project. The area focused on here was related to Air Masses and Fronts. This was again a brief overview of the features of the site. The site is oriented towards understanding various weather phenomena.

The final part of class provided some training on trying to understand and read Area Forecasts. The instructor spent some time explaining the various parts of the area forecast and how to read it. When you do not know how to read the area forecasts, TAFs or METARs they do look like a bunch of gibberish. Often the words are contractions of words that you can often deduce. Some do require looking up in the AC-0045F.

The next class is to be continuation of understanding area forecasts as well as exploring other features of the Aviation Weather Site.

Next class is Wednesday, so I will post an update then.

24 February 2008-Flight 32

I received a call from Bob about 5pm and said if I wanted to do my first night flight to meet him at 6:30pm. As usual, I could not say no.

The sun was just starting to set about the time I arrived at the airport. Bob asked if I had a flashlight. Fortunately I had one in the car and even more amazing, the battery was not dead. It was just dark enough that I had to use it do my preflight. This is a situation where a third hand would come in handy. One for the clipboard, one for pen and one for the flashlight. One additional preflight check I had not done before was to check the strobes and the navigational beacons. Those were just fine.

Once in the cockpit and doing my prestart checklist I needed the flashlight to read the checklist, check breakers and so on. The gauges do have red night lights, but it is only good for reading the gauges. Not for seeing other items around the cockpit.

Taxing the airplane was a bit slower than during the day. Landing lights do not have hi beams. Still I managed to get to the runup area just fine. At the runup area, I found out how useful it is counting your key turns when doing a magneto check. After my error several months back of accidentally turning off the engine during a magneto check, I have always counted my key turns out loud. One-two, check rpm, one-two back,check rpm, one, check rpms, one back, check rpms. You definitely need this when it is dark. You could use a flash light, but it would be awkward.

Getting from the taxiway to the runway was a little slow as well. You have to rely on the painted lines to get the center line. It is not obvious where the center line is as you turn onto the runway.

Taking off in the dark feels very different compared to day. You do not have all the usual visual cues that you have in daylight. You have the lights around you, but you have to be careful about using them for a horizon reference. Optical illusions could make you think you are level or climbing when you are not. So I was looking at my instruments a little more often to make sure I was level and that I had a proper rate of climb.

The first thing we did was head to the practice area west of the airport. We practiced some more with the VOR and just spent time getting used to the night environment. Bob also had me look for the airport beacons of both SNL and Tinker AFB about 20 miles to the west. It took me a little bit to make them out, but after I saw what they looked like it was not too difficult to find them later. After about 20 minutes of this we went back to SNL for touch and goes.

As with takeoff, the usual visual cues you rely on for landing are not there. It took me a bit just to get used to seeing the runway as we proceeded on the downwind leg. I noticed I was turning my base leg a little latter than usual. With the landing lights on you can start to make out the surface of the runway when you are about 500 feet away. Unfortunately it is not enough. Again with the lack of visual cues, it was hard for me to know when to flare. Bob did talk me through this, but I found myself on the runway before I expected to be. Instead of a proper flare, I was coming in flat on my landing.

After practicing with the landing lights, Bob said we needed to practice with the lights off. You never know when your landing light may fail so I have to be able to handle this situation. Now instead of at least seeing a little bit of runway, all I see are the runway lights on either side and solid black in between. No sense of depth. To handle this situation you land with 20 or 30 degrees of flaps, set the engine rpm at 1300 to 1500 and gradually let the plane come down. The technique is siimilar to what you would do in a soft field landing. We did about 5 of these. Even after five, I was not doing them very well. Either the engine rpm was set to high and the planed floated excessively down the runway or I was letting the plane drop too fast and landing harder it should. I will need more practice with these.

On the last two passes Bob demonstrated the runway lighting controls. This is activated by microphone clicks. Seven clicks turns the lights on and to their brightest setting. Three clicks reduces the intensity. We did the last two with the landing lights on. Bob and I both noticed the winds also seemed to be coming a bit more strongly from the southeast. So in addition to night landings there was a bit of crosswind landing mixed in as well.

One thing I was concerned about with night flying was how my eyes would handle it. When driving at night, the glare of headlights from other cars can be a real source of discomfort. I was happy to find that this was not a problem while flying. The lights from the city or from the runway did not cause me any problems.

The schedule for next weekend is unchanged and I will be adding entries during the week about the experiences at the aviation weather seminar.

24 February 2008-Flight Cancelled

No cross country today. Overcast and low visibility. If things clear up later today we may try and do an hour in the pattern or try to do a night flight.

Next flights are
1Mar- 9am
2Mar- 10 am Solo Cross Country maybe

If next weekend is a bust for the XC, then I think I will have to take time off from work to get these cross country flights out of the way.

Also I will be attending the FAA Aviation Weather Seminar on Monday Wednesday and Saturday of this week. I will blog about what I have learned from the seminars, so there will be posts about that on Monday,Wednesday and Saturday. The Saturday class is at 1pm, so I have plenty of time to get to the class after my flight lesson.

23 February 2008-Flight 31

I was not certain if we would fly today. It was overcast, below freezing and some fog in the area. We did delay by one hour and went up at 10am instead of 9am. It was still quite cloudy out, but good enough to get into the practice area and pattern.

During the preflight, I discovered there was only had 8 gallons of fuel in the tank. So we had to go fill up the plane first. So I got to practice refueling the plane again.

The winds were from about 130 at 10 to 15 knots. So it was an opportunity for more crosswind landing practice.

Once we did get up we went to the practice area first. We started off with some VOR practice. I had no problems tuning in the VOR and then turning towards it. If for some reason I have problems finding my way from Shawnee to Okmulgee or from Okmulgee to Stillwater during my scheduled cross country solo tomorrow, I can use the VOR to get back on course.

Next we practiced some more 45 degree turns. I still had problems holding my altitude. I think having all the cloudy weather was distracting me and I just need to practice more.

After this we started heading back to the field. Bob reaches down, pulls the carb heat, pulls the engine back to idle and says you just lost your engine. First thing I do is get my airspeed back to 60 knots which gives the best descent rate. At the same time I start looking for a place to land. I spot a green field, point it out and turn towards it. Bob has to remind me that I need to check fuel, carb heat, breakers, make sure the key did not get turned off.

I did not do a very good job picking my landing spot. It was too close and we flew by. So I pointed out another one and aimed for it. I was high and flew by it. Finally I saw I was coming upon a plowed field which is not a great place to land, but under the circumstances that was the best choice left. I was still high, so Bob said to slip the plane. I had not done a forward slip, so Bob demonstrated it and pointed out how we had dropped altitude without gaining airspeed.

I finally decided I was close enough to the ground and started applying power and climbing out. We were probably at about 300 feet when we started to climb out.

I did all sorts of things wrong. Besides not picking a good enough landing spot, I kept letting my airspeed increase. Deviating from best glide speed means descending faster and wasting altitude. Also if I had thought about it, my first landing spot was probably the best one. Instead of think I was too high I should have thought, I had enough altitude I could have flown a standard pattern. The way I was situated at the end I would have been making a downwind landing which means higher ground speed. If I had stuck with my first choice and flown a pattern around it I would have been upwind and had less ground speed.

If it had been for real I would have gotten down and had the plane under control, but since the final landing spot was a plowed field the plane probably would have nosed over. Still a good exercise and gives me a lot to think about.

After this we went back to SNL for some touch and goes. The crosswind on the runway was about 6 to 8 knots. I managed to do quite well on my crosswind landings today. Even Bob commented I was handling them well today. I told him, it still felt very tricky and he commented you can’t be thinking about what your going to have for lunch when your doing a cross wind landing. I can believe it. You really have to concentrate and know when you should bank versus use the rudder to stay on the centerline. One of the landings I was right of centerline. Bob said I should try aiming for left of centerline and I will come out on center. So I did that and the second and third landing were right on.

We did have to avoid an eagle once during takeoff. When I saw it, it seemed to just be hovering there. So we deviated to the left to avoid it. The eagle did not change its course.. Bob has noticed that eagle in the area several times over the last several weeks.

After the flight Bob looked over the work I had so far for tomorrows cross country solo. He said everything looked good. I have to make full stops as Okmulgee and Stillwater and get my log book signed by someone on the ground. Bob also wants me to refuel the plane in Okmulgee.

Tomorrows flight is getting moved from 9 am to 11am. Bob thinks it will be a little less hazy. Winds tomorrow are supposed to be about 5-10 out of the south and clear skies. So tomorrow is looking good for my first cross country solo flight.

16 February 2008-Flight Cancelled

The weather strikes again. Lessons are canceled. Fortunately it did not turn to be as bad as a few months back.

The next lessons are scheduled for:
23 Feb- 9 am Pattern work.
24 Feb- 9 am first solo cross country

10 February 2008-Flight 30

I got a call from Bob at about 2:30 saying if I wanted to go up today to meet him at 4:30. I did not turn down the offer.

The winds were 8 knots from 60. Since we using using runway 35 today, this made for 70 degrees across the runway or about 7.5 knots of crosswind. Good conditions for practicing crosswind landings.

Flying today was a mixed bag. We did two touch and goes to start off. With the almost 8 knots of crosswind, I was having difficulty staying on the centerline while landing. The 152 is rated for 12 knots crosswind component. I was really having to use cross control of the rudders and aileron to keep lined up. I do not think I had needed to supply so much rudder before. My landings tended to be more of the carrier type. I was dropping the plane onto the runway instead of letting it touchdown. Bob says I am not giving the plane enough time to settle before I pull back on the yoke during touchdown.

After the two touch and goes, we went out the practice area to practice with the foggles. I did pretty good. We started out first with just doing 180 turns and Bob added in using the VOR. Again you have to remember to always fly plane. So a few times while fiddling with the VOR I had to stop and get the plane back into straight and level flight. After tuning the VOR I had to turn towards it. As a VFR pilot I probably will not be messing with the VOR if I fly into IMC. I would just do a 180 turn and get out. However as an exercise of remembering to fly the plane with distractions, it is good practice. We also practiced climbs, descents combined with turns.

We also practiced unusual attitude recovery while I had the foggles on. I handled that no problem.

After about 30 minutes of foggle practice, we did some 45 degree turns. I will still need to practice those more. The first few I was not getting the proper site picture so I was gaining or losing altitude. By the time we were finished I was doing a better job, but I still need to work more doing 45 degree turns to get that site picture in my mind.

Finally we returned back for more touch and goes. The first touch and go was like the eariler ones. I was still not giving the plane time to settle. The second one turned out not to be a touch and go. Just as I crossed threshold Bob called out deer on the runway. Compared to my first comical handling of this several lessons back, I think I did quite well. I smoothly applied power, compensated for pitch up, waited until a climb was established and finally brought up flaps. I almost forgot about carb heat, but I got that in before Bob commented.

We made one more pass around the pattern and did a full stop. I tried to be more careful about letting the plane settle, but the landing was still a little rough.

I also made a real effort today to keep an eye on not letting my airspeed get too high on base and final. I did pretty good on base and kept it around 75. On final I still was not quite keeping it at 70. I was more often than not at around 75 to 80. So I still need to pay attention and get finer control of my descent.

Assuming the weather cooperates the schedule is
16 Feb 10:30am- More pattern work
17 Feb 9:00am- First solo cross country.

9 February 2008-Flight 29

Today was my third dual cross country. We flew from Shawnee to Wiley Post to Guthrie and back. Before heading to the airport I called to get a weather briefing and figured out my wind corrections. While I was preflighting the plane, Bob looked over my work and said it looked good.

Our first stop, Wiley Post, was my first time to fly to tower controlled airspace. Bob tried to go over with me what to expect and what to say, but it still took a lot of prompting on his part to talk to OKC control, Wiley Post tower and Wiley Post ground control. I have heard the occasional horror story about controllers not always being friendly towards student pilots, but everyone I talked to was very professional in spite of my stumbling and trying to get the words out.

Part of our flight from SNL to Wiley Post(PWA) took us right by Tinker Air Force Base. We climbed up to 3500 to stay above their traffic pattern. It felt rather strange to be looking above the AWACs planes doing their touch and goes. It is definitely a perspective I had never seen before.

PWA was also different because it has two runways. Today we were told to land on 17L. My pattern work was a little better today. I did let my airspeed on approach get a little high at one point and Bob had to remind me to back off. However I was making a conscious effort to keep an eye on the airpseed and to keep my speed on final to 70 knots.

The taxiways at Wiley Post are more complex than at SNL. One thing I had not thought about was the need to hold on the taxiway after exiting the runway. I knew about holding when preparing for takeoff, but not after landing.

We made a full stop at PWA, shutdown the plane and went into Atlantic, which is the FBO. Bob says this is where the designated examiner(DE), who will do my checkride, has his office. Bob was not sure if the DE will come to SNL or if I will have to fly to PWA when it is time to do my checkride. It has happened both ways in the past. I will want more time to practice at PWA if I have to do my checkride there.

After about a 10 minute break, we climbed by into 02M, contacted ground control and waited for clearance to taxi to 17L for takeoff. After clearance was received, we taxied to the runup area near 17L and I went through the runup checklist. After that we proceeded to the runway hold line and waited for clearance to take off. After clearance was received, we took off.

Take off was uneventful, we contacted OKC control for flight following to Guthrie and continued on.

Guthrie took about 20 minutes to reach. I hit all my check points okay and flew into the pattern. I still had some problems keeping control of the airspeed. I made sure my pattern was wider so I was not having to turn too sharply to make final. However, Bob had to remind me to not extend flaps until I am in the white arc, which is the safe region for operating flaps. I was around 75 knots on final and the landing was pretty good.

After Guthrie it was back to SNL. This was another 20 minutes. On that leg for some reason I kept letting my course drift to right and I had to keep correcting. Bob was really questioning me about finding various landmarks using the sectional so that I always know where I am. It was also starting to get a little more turbulent. We hit one bump that made my hand fly off the throttle. That had not happened in a while.

Since I was coming in from a different direction, SNL was a little harder for me to spot. I could see Shawnee Lake and I knew SNL was a few miles to the east of it, but my eyes just couldn’t quite put the picture together. When I finally saw it, I felt like I was practically on top of it. Once I knew where I was, I was able to get into the pattern and landed with no problem. Airspeed was around 75knots, so I need still need to work on getting it down to 70.

Despite all that I did today, Bob thinks I am ready to do a solo cross country. Unfortunately the forecast for tomorrow is looking too windy. My first solo will be to Okmulgee to Stillwater and then back to SNL. What surprised me is Stillwater is towered. Bob says not worry. Stillwater is a smaller airport than Wiley Post and lots of student pilots go there, so the controllers are used to it.

The schedule at this point is
10 Feb- On call to work in the pattern
16 Feb 10:30am- More pattern work
17 Feb 9:00am- First solo cross country.

Also with respect to the aviation weather class at Metrotech in OKC. The Monday, Wednesday, Saturday class is full. However the site at http://www.faasafety.gov lists additional seminars as they come available. Not just in OKC, but around the country.

6 February 2008-AOPA Safety Seminar

I attended an AOPA sponsored flight safety seminar. The topic was the Top 5 Mistakes Pilots Make.
The areas discussed were

1. Maneuvers-Stalls, flying too low, base to final stalls.
2. Approach and Landing-Crosswinds, poor visibility
3. Takeoff- Loss of engine on takeoff
4. Weather-Flying into IMC
5. Fuel- Specifically running out

I will not give the specifics of everything that was covered, but I found it very informative. If you have an opportunity to attend one of these seminars, I highly recommend it. It was a good review of safety issues. Especially with my first solo cross country coming up.

I will mention one item I found interesting. If you have to do a nonairport landing and you are in control of the plane you have a 96% chance of survival and an 80% of walking away from it. If you are not in control of the plane(ie a spin) when you reach the ground you will probably not survive. I found that statistic quite surprising.

To see if there is a seminar coming to your area you can go to http://www.aopa.org/asf/seminars/seminar.cfm?FA=SS

For those in the OKC area, there will be a set of aviation weather seminars on 25 Feb, 27 Feb and 1 Mar given at Metrotech. The Monday and Wednesday times are 7pm to 9pm. I am not sure about the Saturday times. I signed up on site with my email address. I am supposed to receive more information in the near future. When I get it I will post here. I do not have contact information, but I think it is offered as part of faasafety.gov .

2 February 2008 – Flight 28

I did my second dual cross country today. The weather was quite good with winds roughly out of 360 at 7 knots. We flew from Shawnee to McAlester to Okmulgee and back to Shawnee.

We got off to a slow start, because I did not calculate my wind correction before I went to the airport. I thought Bob wanted me to wait until I got there. So I called the weather briefer, got the winds aloft and used the E6B to get my flight charted the rest of the way. That put us about 30 minutes behind schedule. Next time I will get all that calculated before I arrive for the lesson.

After I finished up calculating our course, I went out to preflight the airplane while Bob looked over calculation. After I finished preflight, Bob said everything looked good.

The flight to McAlester was pretty straight forward. I did a good job of holding my course and altitude. I hit all my checkpoints within a minute. Bob also had me identify other airports and landmarks using the sectional as we flew by them.

The terrain gets more hilly and and has more trees as you proceed east. As we were flying, I was trying to always look for places I could set down if there was suddenly an engine problem.

My pattern work was not very good. Bob said I was turning into the downwind too close to the runway and turning my base too soon. I also was coming in a little high and fast, so I was finding myself floating down the runway instead of getting a solid touchdown. We did a fullstop at McAlester, taxied back to the start of the runway and took off again. The takeoff was a little different. Bob told me to maintain a climb at 80 knots, instead of the usual 500 feet per minute. This was because there were hills on either side of the flight path and Bob wanted to be clear of those before we reached them.

The leg from Muskogee and Okmulgee got a little more interesting because a plane passed closer than I would have liked to have seen going in the opposite direction. I did not even see it until it had almost passed by. I am not sure how close it really came, but close enough to remind me you always have to always be looking for other planes and keep your head out of the cockpit. Always see and avoid.

As we approached Okmulgee we tuned to the CTAF and heard lots of chatter. Planes doing touch and goes and ILS approaches. I thought it was going to be really busy. However by the time I got there, there was only one plane up. I guess everyone else knew a student pilot was on the way and got clear of area! .

I made the same mistake of making my pattern too close, too high and too fast. I think if we had not been running behind schedule because of my not having the flight plan ahead of time, we would have had the time to do a few touch and goes in the pattern.

From Okmulgee back to Shawnee was uneventful. I hit all my landmarks withing a minute. We also took the time to practice with using the VOR some more. Tuning into the Ada and Okmulgee VOR for practice.

My pattern work back at Shawnee was better, but I had familiar landmarks to work with there. Bob commented on my making a good landing. Of course that is in familiar surroundings. Planes are for going places you are not familiar with, so I need get more proficient at flying to unfamiliar airfields.

When we were done, Bob said he was happy with my navigation, finding airports and landmarks. He did say I need to keep a better eye on my airspeed though.

The next flight is scheduled for 9 February at 9am. It is a cross country to Wiley Post, Guthrie and back to Shawnee. This will also be my first flight into controlled airspace. If I do well on that flight and the weather cooperates on Sunday, I will get to do my first solo cross country.