Month: April 2017

Saturday was another bad weather day, so I didn’t get back in the air until today. A full week since my last flight — with the rainy weekends we’ve been having, I’ve been cut down to flying once per week. After last week’s dismal performance, I was inside my own head a bit. I tried to psyche myself up a bit on the way to the airport…I can do this! This time will be better! I repeated my mantra and tried to convince myself I would eventually get the hang of landing a plane.

Preflight went normally and as we taxied to the hold short line I was feeling more confident. We were taking off from runway 8 again, but I had flown this pattern last time, so piece of cake, right?

I took off and started to set up my pattern. I felt ahead of the plane — I pulled carb heat and power as we reached pattern altitude, called the tower, and deployed the first notch of flaps. I throttled back abeam the numbers and started coming down. I turned base and dropped another notch of flaps. My instructor was dead silent this entire time, and I took that to be a good thing. I had this!

Then I turned final.

Oh man — I had overshot the runway by a LOT. I had no idea what to do — do I turn back to try and line up? Call the tower and tell them I needed to abort the pattern? I laughed a bit and asked my instructor, “Now what?” He borrowed the plane for a second and did a steep turn to get us lined back up. We were on the exact opposite of a stabilized approach at this point, so we executed a go-around — far from nailing my first landing, I wasn’t even going to touch down on this first lap.

He asked me how that happened — I told him I had obviously drifted in towards the runway on downwind, eliminating the distance I had for the base leg. He told me it was because I was ignoring the wind, and he was absolutely correct. While surface winds were pretty much calm, up in the air the were blowing enough to push the plane around. Now my confidence had taken another shot and I struggled to keep things together the rest of the flight.

We did a few more laps and I paid more attention to the winds aloft. I did better with my ground track, but my landings were still poor. I am either flaring too high and dropping the plane down hard, or not flaring enough and landing flat on the nosewheel.

My instructor decided to try something different and he demonstrated a no flaps landing. He felt doing some no flaps and power off landings would help with my speed management. Just as we turned downwind, all of a sudden the windscreen was filled with rain. This was a new experience for me and it was a bit unnerving — I could barely see outside. I remember being very thankful I wasn’t alone in the plane at that moment, since I wasn’t really sure what to do.

I kept flying the pattern and then my CFI took over for the landing — good thing, as I have a hard enough time putting her down when visibility is great! We decided to cut the lesson short since the weather didn’t look like it was getting any better.

After some reflection, I realize I’ve been combining the roundout and the flare. I read a lot of articles and online advice on the landing process, and the best bits I’ve taken away are to focus on speed management and to level the plane off to arrest the descent and then just keep it from landing. I need to focus on a few things next time I am up:

• keep my speed in check (I believe I’ve been coming in too fast, adding to my landing issues)
• judging the roundout height properly (great tips here by Rod Machado)
• shifting my focus to the far end of the runway when rounding out
• concentrating on leveling the plane off, then holding it off, instead of just trying to go right into a flare
• using very gentle control inputs at the beginning of the roundout and flare

I’m looking forward to the next lesson where I can try to put this advice to good use. Until next time!

I recorded today’s flight in CloudAhoy – click the image below to see the track (you can clearly see my terrible pattern shape on the first lap).

Flight time today: 1.0 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total flight time to date: 39.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 136
Total landings to date: 132

Ugh.

Today was one of those days that leave me shaking my head and wondering if I will be able to do this after all.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up, but sometimes I leave the airport feeling like I just took a few steps backwards.

First of all, I haven’t flown in two weeks — first I had to wait for N1727V to get back from the shop (turns out it was getting a fancy new ADS-B receiver installed), then we had the Easter holiday weekend and I was out of town. I’ve been champing at the bit to get my solo out of the way and it’s been making me a bit nervous. The time off certainly wasn’t helping calm my nerves.

Yesterday’s flight got scrubbed due to weather, but I woke up today to a beautiful clear sky and relatively low winds. Today might be the day! I put on my “solo shirt” (a pilot shirt my sister got me that I thought would make a great shirt to be cut and used as a trophy!) and headed out to the airport.

My mind was reeling on the drive over. Was I ready? What if something happened when I was in the pattern? What if I completely mucked up my landings? I tried to get my head in the game and assure myself I was ready to do this.

I preflighted the airplane and my instructor demonstrated our fancy new touchscreen Garmin NAV/COM radio with GPS, traffic, weather, and a bunch of other fancy features. Pretty cool stuff! I got the ATIS and found out we’d be using runway 8. Great, the runway I have the least experience with — I think I’ve only used it twice, and once was before I was doing pattern work. This didn’t help settle my nerves.

I’m not sure if it was my rustiness after a two week layover, the lack of experience with the runway/pattern, or my nerves, but I felt behind the airplane the entire flight. We took off and did a few touch and go’s — my pattern work was sloppy — I wasn’t making square turns, I wasn’t holding my altitude properly, and my power management was off. More importantly, my landings were terrible. I was flaring too high, not flaring, coming in too fast, coming in too slow… I just couldn’t get a good landing out of this plane. After a few laps around, my instructor told me to taxi back to the FBO. I figured we were done for the day.

I pulled the plane up to the line and he told me he was getting out for a minute to grab something. We shut down and he got out and went into the office. Now I had no idea what was going on… was this a ruse and he was going to solo me? I was thinking there was no way he was going to sign off after the landings I just performed, but why else would we come back to the FBO and then continue the flight? WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING???

It was not a trick… he had run inside to grab an instrument cover, and we proceeded back into the pattern with my airspeed indicator “failed”. We did a few more laps and I was doing a little better, but it was a little hard to control the plane. It wasn’t crazy windy, but there was some turbulence and a lot of updrafts which were throwing me for a loop. I started to get fatigued and made my worst mistake of the day — I told tower we were turning base when we were actually turning downwind. UGH! My first real mistake on the radio — this more than anything else made me feel like an idiot who shouldn’t be behind the yoke of an airplane.

We were finally done for the day and brought the plane back to the FBO. Normally my CFI helps me push it back into the parking spot — this time he told me he’d see me inside and left me to take care of it! This was my first time pushing back by myself, and of course I botch it up and wind up with the plane well off the parking lines. Great way to end a wonderful flight! Luckily, an older pilot saw my struggle was real and offered a hand. He gave me some pointers on parking the plane and asked about my training. When I told him of my flaring issues, he told me not to worry and one day it would click. “It’s like parallel parking,” he told me. “You stress about it so much when you learn to drive, then one day you look back and realize you can do it with no problems!” I thanked him for the help and kind words, patted 27V on the cowling and apologized to her for the rough landings, and went inside for my debrief.

My CFI was also sympathetic — I think he saw my the look on my face that I wasn’t having a great morning. He told me a two week layover is like an eternity to a student pilot and it was natural that I was rusty — it also didn’t help that I was on a runway and pattern that was unfamiliar. I asked about the landings and he told me my problem was going right into the flare and not rounding out properly and letting the plane settle. “The plane is trying to tell you something,” he said. “You just aren’t listening to it.” I chewed this over on the drive home.

So, today was a bit of a disappointment, but if nothing else it has steeled my resolve to master this damn plane and get this solo done.

I forgot to turn CloudAhoy on until my CFI parked the plane and ran inside for the instrument cover, so this track is not the full flight. Click the image below to view it.

Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total flight time to date: 38.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 131
Total landings to date: 127