landings – Armstrong Aviation

June 3, 2017

Second solo

Today looked to be shaping up as a fine weather day — ATIS was showing calm winds, 11,000ft ceilings, and unlimited visibility. The weather briefer showed some rain showers to the South of Danbury, but nothing too close to the airport. And when I arrived at the airport, I learned that today is my CFI’s birthday!

What better present for me to give him than a well-flown lap around the pattern?

Arriving at the plane we spied some lower clouds around the airport, probably 6,500ft or so. This wouldn’t prevent me from soloing, but we’d have to keep an eye on them. We took off from runway 26 with a few other planes in the pattern and I made left traffic.

We had to extend our upwind and downwind legs to account for the traffic, but I had the plane pretty well-controlled and was hitting my speed and altitudes. As I turned onto the long final approach, I was coming in a bit low — I had dropped flaps to 20° a bit too early. I added some power to compensate.

My first landing wasn’t great. A little crosswind had picked up and I corrected for it wrong — too much rudder and not enough aileron. I came in off the centerline, but at least my flare was decent.

We did another lap with another long approach and this time I managed my descent better. I was letting the plane get a bit too slow on final, so that is something I will have to pay more attention to… It’s extremely important not to slow down too much on final, lest you stall or lose elevator effectiveness and drop the plane in to the runway. This landing was much better, right on centerline and a smooth flare.

We went around one more time with another decent landing and my instructor told me to drop him off at the FBO. I was going up on my own again!

As I was taxiing to the runway, I snapped this shot — not the best picture because I didn’t want to lose control of the airplane. In hindsight, I should’ve waited until I was stopped at the hold short line before even thinking of taking a picture, but I was excited and wanted some kind of memento! You can see some of the cloud cover I was watching — definitely lower than 11,000ft!

The first lap around was uneventful. I was the first in the pattern so I didn’t have to follow any traffic. My landing was OK — I was working on keeping my speed up on approach, but I think I took the power out too early after crossing the threshold. After debriefing with my CFI, I now know that sometimes I will have to carry a little power until just before touchdown. I ballooned a tiny bit in the flare but held off and corrected it. I was expecting to thud down on the runway but it was actually a pretty smooth landing (I guess my height above the runway when starting the flare was correct!)

On the second takeoff it started getting a little turbulent. I was watching my ground track, doing well on speed, doing pretty well on altitude (got the plane a little high but corrected quickly). There was a plane taking the runway as I was on final — that worried me a bit but he took off quickly and wasn’t a factor. My landing was nice — a smooth flare and I kept it centered.

Third time around the wind started picking up. As I was on short final I was having to correct for the wind a bit and also manage my speed, which was bouncing between a touch too slow and a touch too fast. Again I think I pulled power too soon and this time I thumped the plane down on the runway. It wasn’t as hard as some of my first landings, but it definitely wasn’t a nice, smooth touchdown. At this point I decided to take the plane back in even though I still had time for one more lap. It was getting bumpy and I was getting a bit behind the plane, so better to avoid overload and end on a positive note.

When I got back to the FBO, my instructor was nowhere in sight! Turns out he had gone back inside after hearing I was coming back to the base. That gave me a little boost of confidence — even though I am flying and taxiing by myself now, I still thought he’d be watching me like a hawk until the plane was shut down. As it turns out, I didn’t even have to push back and tie down — the school was having an open house today and were putting the plane on display, so the line guys were waiting with a tug to get her in position. Score!

I survived and they’ll be able to use the plane again, so all in all a great solo flight! Landings haven’t become automatic yet — I still need to remind myself to look down the runway when rounding out, and I still don’t have a complete grasp on everything — but, as my CFI said, “Your landings aren’t expected to be perfect right now, just safe and reasonable.” It’s still a bit nerve-racking to be in the plane by myself — but it’s also exhilarating!

I recorded the solo portion of the flight on CloudAhoy — click the image below to check out the track. Pretty nice pattern work, if I don’t say so myself!

Flight time today: 1.2 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 1.0 hours
Total flight time to date: 45.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 168
Total landings to date: 165

May 28, 2017June 3, 2017

Dodging the clouds

I called the flight school yesterday evening and they confirmed the bald tire on 1727V had been replaced, so I was good to go for today’s lesson! The forecast and weather briefing were positive, but I saw some low-hanging clouds on the way to the airport that gave me pause.

They gave my instructor pause, too. He said I wouldn’t be going up solo today, but we could work on a few things in the pattern. I snapped this picture of some expensive-looking planes on my way out to preflight:

This time I made sure to preflight very carefully, paying extra attention to the two brand new tires that had been installed on the mains.

We went up and I started right traffic for runway 8. Immediately I noticed some strips of clouds right at pattern altitude. My instructor had me fly the pattern at a lower altitude than normal to avoid them, and we requested left traffic for the next laps (the sky was fairly clear on that side of the field).

It was an uneventful lesson, but a good one. We practiced power off approaches, stuck flaps approaches (with flaps stuck at 10°), and short approaches. I still need work on my ground track — I tend to stop thinking about the wind and I don’t keep an eye on where the plane is heading. I also need to pay more attention to the overall picture out the window — terrain, altitude, etc… In one of my power off approaches I would’ve ended up in the trees short of the runway because I had extended my downwind a bit too far.

My landings are definitely getting better — now it seems I have the occasional bad landing with most being decent instead of the other way around. That is encouraging!

I have a lesson booked for tomorrow (Memorial Day), but the forecast calls for rain all day so I don’t think I’ll be going up.

I didn’t record today’s flight on CloudAhoy — in fact, I don’t think I’ll be recording any more pattern flights with my CFI going forward. I’ll continue to record solo flights and any interesting (read: away from Danbury) dual flights we take.

Flight time today: 1.5 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 0.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 44.6 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 161
Total landings to date: 157

May 21, 2017

A huge monkey off my back — FIRST SOLO!!!

Holy cow!!

I’m grinning ear to ear as I write this — today the day I’ve been waiting for finally arrived!

The weekend started off not so great — I had a lesson scheduled for Saturday morning, but when I checked the schedule, somehow I was booked for the wrong plane! They had me in the C172R instead of my usual C172M. That meant that I wouldn’t be able to solo, no matter how good I performed. When I woke up Saturday morning, the winds were gusting a bit so I decided to cancel the lesson and wait until Sunday, where I would be able to fly my usual plane.

That was today — winds were forecast as calm, so I was full of anticipation as I headed to the airport. Let me preface this by saying I went out for a night on the town with friends last night. We went to see the play Hamilton (which was awesome!) and I didn’t get home and to bed until 1:30am. My flight was at 8am, so I was worried I wouldn’t be in top shape come morning.

I arrived at the airport and the winds were calm — in fact, it was a gorgeous morning. CAVU — ceilings and visibility unlimited. I told myself today was going to be the day — I was going to knock it out of the park! I preflighted and loaded up my instructor and we were off to the races.

My first pattern was going well, until I turned final and was way too high. My instructor called for a go-around and I sighed internally. This wasn’t going to be the day, was it… I resigned myself to getting some landing experience and kicked myself for messing everything up so early in the flight.

The next time around, everything looked good and I took it down for a landing. I actually nailed it this time! I shifted my view down the runway, rounded out, and held off for a nice flare that put us down on the mains instead of the nosewheel.

Second pattern was good, landing was good also. Hell, I was getting the hang of this! Third time around we had traffic coming into the pattern and tower asked us to expedite. My instructor called for a short approach and taught me how to do an emergency descent. That was a bit interesting — we pitched down to dive at 90-100mph and it felt like we were going into the trees. I flared a bit high on that one and came in with a thud.

We did another short approach and this time I performed the emergency descent — I did a pretty good job and the landing was OK as well.

Next time around was a normal pattern, but I flared too high again and came down a bit hard.

OK — we do another lap, this time I’m nailing the pattern. Altitude is good, speeds are good, and I land it pretty well. My instructor says, “Screw this, you know what you’re doing. Let’s get you up there alone.” My heart skipped a beat — this was it!

We taxied back to the ramp and my instructor left to get my logbook signed up. A million thoughts were racing through my head — was I ready? Would things be so different without my CFI in the plane that I would mess the approach up? What if tower asked me to do something unusual?

I started up CloudAhoy and prepped myself mentally for the challenge ahead. After 10 minutes or so, my instructor came back to the plane. He handed me my logbook, gave me a few parting words of advice, and said he’d be listening on a portable radio. He shut the passenger door and I was ready to go — by myself!

I started the plane up and got my taxi clearance. I had just started taxiing out when I was told to hold position for a helicopter departing off the taxiway. I was treated to the very cool sight of a helicopter spinning up and taking off while I waited to be cleared.

Then came the magic words — “Taxi to runway 8 via Charlie”. I headed out to the runway, did my runup, and before I knew it, I was holding short of the runway. I called tower and got my takeoff clearance. I told them, “Be advised, student pilot” just to make sure we were all on the same page. I lined up and all of my training flashed before my eyes — this was it!

Power full, tach is good, oil pressure good, airspeed alive… rotate!

The plane climbed crisply without my CFI in the right seat! Before I knew it, I was at 1,200 feet and was making my turn to crosswind. My airspeed was good, I leveled off at pattern altitude, and turned downwind. Flaps down a notch, airspeed good, called the tower and was cleared to land.

There was a Husky departing before me and the tower advised of that. I acknowledged and extended my downwind a tad to give the other plane time to takeoff. I cut my power on the downwind and started descending. Turned base, speed good. Dropped more flaps. Turned final — shit, the other plane is still on the runway! That’s OK, I have time and they are rolling. Now they’re clear and I’m on a good approach. Keeping speed in check — altitude is good. Full flaps. Here we go!

I came down to the runway, rounded out, flared, and had a really nice, smooth touchdown. I skidded a bit off the centerline after landing — must’ve had some rudder in without realizing it — and I almost put the throttle back in for a touch and go before I realized I had to make a full stop! Caught myself in time, slowed the plane, exited the active, and cleaned her up.

Tower gave me taxi clearance back to the runway. As I taxied back, I saw my instructor out there with the portable radio. I looked at him for a sign — he didn’t call me back or wave me off or anything, so I went back out for another go.

Second pattern was good — speeds and altitude were tight and I felt in control and ahead of the plane. I came down for my second landing and it was a good one! I didn’t think it was as smooth as the first, but I kept it on centerline and landed on the mains.

As I pulled off the runway, my instructor came on the radio and said I had to head back to the ramp. Uh oh! I thought I had messed something up, but turns out I was just out of time and had to get the plane back. I taxied back to parking and lined the plane up — my instructor met me and said I did a great job (and that my second landing looked much better than the first!)

He asked if I needed help pushing the plane back — nope, I got this! “Good,” he replied, “that’s what you’re going to have to do when you are by yourself!” He went inside to log everything and I got the plane parked and tied up.

I walked inside feeling like I was the king of the world. I got some congratulations from the office staff and went in to debrief. My instructor was happy — now we could continue with the rest of the training. He said I did really well and he knew I was ready. I got my first PIC time logged and a “first solo” certificate for my trouble. My CFI told me to get a shirt I could write on, cut the tail off, and decorate it so they could hang it at the office.

So, here we are — it was a long time in the making, but I’ve finally piloted an aircraft by myself! The boost to my confidence is enormous, and I can’t wait for my next lesson where I will be going up by myself again. I still have a ton to learn, but passing this milestone is a huge load off my mind!

Here’s the CloudAhoy track for the solo portion of my flight — click the image to view the track.

I’m still in disbelief that I actually pulled this off!

Flight time today: 1.6 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 0.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 43.1 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 154
Total landings to date: 150

May 16, 2017May 21, 2017

More crosswinds, no solo…

The weather has been pretty crappy lately, and I’ve been missing out on all of my Saturday flights. After being denied my solo again last Sunday, I was itching to get back in the air. I had to take Tuesday off of work to take care of some stuff around the house and — as luck would have it — the weather looked pretty good for a flight!

My plane and instructor were both available, so I booked a lesson and headed out to the airport. Unfortunately, the winds were picking up when I got there so I figured today wouldn’t be my day to solo. That’s OK, I wanted some more practice on my landings.

As I preflighted, I couldn’t help but notice this beautiful Falcon getting ready to depart:

What a nice ride! As it turned out, this puppy would be taking off right before me. We taxied out to the hold short and the Falcon took flight. I got cautioned for wake turbulence and then we were airborne.

All in all, a pretty uneventful lesson. I did better holding the centerline and landing, but with the crosswinds I’m not really flaring like I would on a calm wind day — the crosswind approach is a bit flatter and you kind of fly it down to the runway instead of doing a full flare. Good practice, but I really need a day with no wind to test if I really have the hang of this.

We went around a few times before the winds started really kicking and my CFI called it a day. I appreciate that he doesn’t want to waste my time or money, so we’re in a bit of a holding pattern (no pun intended) until I get a day where I can solo. A bit of crosswind practice is fine, but I still have this giant hurdle I need to leap before I can progress with my training.

So, I’ll chalk this up to a good lesson that increased my confidence in landing the plane. No solo today (can’t say I’m not getting a bit frustrated!) but a good learning experience overall.

No CloudAhoy track today — don’t think I’ll record another until my solo.

Flight time today: 1.3 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total flight time to date: 41.5 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 147
Total landings to date: 143

May 7, 2017May 10, 2017

A glimmer of hope!

After my last two crappy flights, I was determined to take control of my destiny and turn this ship around. I read up on landings, I assembled some tips I could put into action, and I tried to have a positive attitude for my next flight. Saturday was once again scrubbed for weather (this is becoming way too frequent!), so my last hope for the week was Sunday.

I wasn’t very hopeful — the forecast was calling for rain, but it looked like it might hold off for the morning. I went to bed early so I would be fully rested for my 8am flight and crossed my fingers as I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up and checked the ATIS — it looked a bit iffy…visibility was ok, wind wasn’t bad (~5kts), but the ceilings were pretty low…around 1,900ft with our pattern altitude at KDXR being 1,700ft. I headed out to the airport and got a weather briefing on the way — there was some rain heading into the area but the briefer thought it would hold off for awhile. As I got to the airport, I spied some nasty looking clouds and figured my CFI would say it was a no go. I snapped a couple of pictures at the airport that show how low the ceilings were:

To my surprise, we were going up! We didn’t have a lot of ceiling to spare, but it was enough for some laps around the pattern. I quickly preflighted the plane and we were off.

We were using runway 26, which I have the most experience with, so I was grateful for that. I took off and immediately knew today wouldn’t be an easy day (as my instructor calls it, a “pinky day”) — the air was bumpy and the winds were considerably faster once we left the ground.

We went around the pattern and I was determined to pay close attention to my ground track. I got a bit off course on the first downwind leg, but my instructor helped me correct and I was back on course. I wasn’t quite ahead of the plane but I wasn’t behind it either, and I was taking care of all my cockpit tasks (carb heat, flap settings, radio calls, etc…) I was also taking more care to trim the aircraft after each power change, something I’ve been neglecting lately.

We came in for the first landing and I was having trouble keeping it on centerline. I have this nagging instinct that tells me I have to land the plane wings level. In a crosswind, you just can’t do that. We drifted way to the right as we were touching down, but more importantly, I didn’t plant the plane into the runway! I remembered to shift my focus down the runway, level it off, and hold it, and the touchdown was nice and gentle! This gave me a confidence boost and we were up and around for another lap.

This time I focused on keeping aileron correction in and giving the plane plenty of rudder. Another thing I’m realizing is that keeping the plane on centerline results in a slightly different sight picture than I thought keeping the plane on centerline should be. Applying all of this resulted in another fairly smooth touchdown with the plane more or less where it should have been.

I had one lousy landing where I did drop us in a bit harder than needed, but overall I was pretty happy with my performance. On our last lap, the winds were changing direction quickly as we touched down and my instructor called it a day — I just don’t have enough crosswind experience to be able to handle rapidly changing gusts like that. He thought the productive part of the lesson had been learned and anything more would be frustrating and counterproductive…I agreed and was happy to end on a high note. It was a short flight, but my confidence (and my wallet) didn’t mind one bit.

Now, my success during this lesson is probably due to the fact that you land a bit flatter in crosswinds and aren’t flaring quite as much. Be that as it may, I was still really happy to have some decent landings under my belt. Definitely a pleasant change after the last two flights, and my CFI agreed that I showed good progress keeping the plane centered and handling the roundout and (mini) flare.

I didn’t use CloudAhoy on this flight because I wanted to focus 100% on my flying, so no track to look at for today. Looking forward to getting up there again soon and hopefully proving I am ready to solo!

Flight time today: 0.8 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total flight time to date: 40.2 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 141
Total landings to date: 137

April 30, 2017May 9, 2017

Another lousy flight

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

April 23, 2017May 9, 2017

I am a crappy pilot

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.

Bad landings — At least my landings weren’t *this* bad!

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

March 25, 2017April 3, 2017

Getting ready to solo

With my pre-solo checkride taken care of, I just need a signoff from my CFI and a good weather day and I’ll be flying by myself! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, so I wasn’t too upset when my CFI told me today wasn’t the day (it was a bit too windy).

I don’t have an appropriate picture for today, so instead here’s a shot I took of some cool flying machines in the hangar:

We went up for some pattern work and landing practice. My CFI “failed” my airspeed and attitude indicators — surprisingly, I think I flew my best patterns to date without them! I felt ahead of the plane and was really working to make sure I could do this alone without input from my instructor. He threw in a simulated engine out to keep me on my toes — I handled it pretty well (we got on the ground in one piece at least!)

My landings are slowly getting better as well — I feel like my timing on the roundout and flare are improving, but today I developed this annoying habit of twisting the yoke as I pulled aft in the flare. It caused the plane to go off the centerline and my instructor was not happy with this turn of events (no pun intended).

Next time we’ll be doing more of the same and trying to get to the bottom of this new yoke-twist thing I’ve got going on.

Click the image below for the CloudAhoy track of today’s flight.

Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 33.2 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 111
Total landings to date: 107

March 8, 2017March 17, 2017

Flying in Florida: Part 2

One day after I got to fly in Florida for the first time, I was scheduled to go up again with the same instructor — this time for a very different experience!

I finished up with the business conference I was at (my reason for being in Florida in the first place) and headed over to FA83, otherwise known as Orlando North Air Park.

Yesterday’s flight had me cruising around with the downtown Orlando skyline in view… today’s setting couldn’t have been more different. FA83 is located in Zellwood, FL which is a pretty rural area. I put blind faith in my rental car’s GPS and it eventually paid off. I turned into the airport and… had no idea where to go. It was just a long road with hangers on the left and farm fields on the right. I didn’t see any runways or anything, so I just started down the road figuring I’d find something airport-like at the other end.

The road to... nowhere? — The road to… nowhere?

I eventually found the hangar for Van Anda Aviation, which is the FBO at FA83 and who I was renting today’s plane from. My CFI texted me that he was running late (hah! now we were even!) so I chatted up the Van Anda guys for a bit. It was my first real “hangar talk” — I guess I’m getting closer to being a real pilot now!

We were flying N12933 today, a C172M. This was a carbureted model, very similar to the one I fly in CT (same model, but this one was a 1973 versus the 1975 back home). While the plane was similar, the airport was not — this was an uncontrolled, private field that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere! It also had a shorter and narrower runway than I was used to — 50 feet wide and 2,600 feet long (with the runway extending as a turf strip an additional 1,400 feet). This was going to be interesting!

OK — so we get her preflighted and we’re off to the races. My instructor handles the radio work today since he knows I’m going to be a bit overloaded with the different environment. We take off and start flying a pattern.

One convenient thing about this area is that there are plenty of straight lines to use to gauge your ground track! Here’s a satellite picture from Google Maps — you can see there are lots of options to keep your pattern lined up (the runway is aligned horizontally and located a little left and below the center of the picture — under the vertical column of white hangars). There wasn’t a lot of wind today, but I still found the ground references helpful.

After yesterday’s work on landings, I thought I was going to kill it today. Turns out that was not the case at all. My first approach I turned on to final and everything was wrong. I was way too high, too fast, and the runway didn’t look right at all. Some of this was not being used to the sight picture of a narrow runway, some of it was because I wasn’t managing the plane properly.

We flew a lot of patterns. My landings pretty much all sucked. I porpoised some, I banged on the nosewheel some, I just couldn’t get the roundout and flare keyed in on this runway. My CFI took the controls to show me the approach and what it should look like and that helped a bit. One thing I liked about this instructor was he let me make mistakes like bouncing the plane. Then I had to fix the mistake — just like I would if he wasn’t in the plane! That took me a couple times to realize — the last time I porpoised I quickly hit the throttle and turned it into a go-around instead of trying to force the plane down when I had way too much energy.

We also visited a nearby grass strip — that was pretty wild! Talk about a different sight picture, now there was no real “runway” to speak of, just a nice flat patch of grass! I did a landing there and my CFI showed me the soft field takeoff technique, where you assume the ground is muddy and you want to prevent getting the nosewheel stuck. You never stop moving, and you keep pressure off the nosewheel by pulling aft on the yoke. You get the plane into ground effect and then pitch the nose down to keep it there and build up speed until you can start a normal climb.

Soon it was time for a full stop landing, so I got us on the ground and we headed back to the tie-down spot. I was disappointed with my performance during this flight, but my instructor told me not to be — after all, I had been given a ton of new variables to work with. I appreciated the positive attitude and I know he’s right, but it’s still a little frustrating to continue to struggle with what I feel are pretty basic tasks.

With that, my time boring holes in the skies of Florida had come to an end. I settled up my bill and headed to Orlando International (MCO) to catch my commercial flight back home.

I did remember to record today’s flight — click below to check out the CloudAhoy debrief.

Flight time today: 1.5 hours
Total flight time to date: 29.3 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 101
Total landings to date: 97

March 7, 2017March 16, 2017

Flying in Florida: Part 1

I was scheduled to head down to Florida on business and I decided it would be fun to try and take a flight lesson with an instructor down there. After making a few calls, I scheduled two lessons during my trip with a local CFI who had been recommended to me.

My first lesson was flying out of Orlando Executive (KORL). Executive is a Class Delta airport in close proximity to downtown Orlando and Orlando International (KMCO) — it actually sits right under one of MCO’s Class Bravo shelves.

KORL

I was pretty nervous heading to my lesson as I had never flown with anyone besides my instructor back home. The ridiculous Orlando traffic (thanks to I-4 construction) certainly didn’t help my stress level. I would up being 20 minutes late, for which I apologized profusely! Way to make a good first impression.

I had spoken to the instructor on the phone and told him where I was at with my flying and that I wanted to work on landings. We sat and spoke for a bit before heading out to the plane and briefed how the lesson was going to go. We were planning on staying in the pattern and working exclusively on landings and pattern management.

We headed to the plane and did the preflight check. The plane was a 172R model — this model is fuel injected instead of carbureted, so the engine startup was slightly different. No big deal, though, and soon we were taxiing to the runup area.

I was having trouble steering the plane to the left — I would be pushing the rudder pedal all the way in and the plane would barely be turning to the left. I had to use the left brakes more than usual to keep the plane where I needed it. I should’ve mentioned this right away to my CFI but I thought it was more a pilot/technique issue than anything mechanical! More on that later.

We took off from runway 7 and started our pattern work. It was nice having some different scenery to look at! Our downwind leg took us directly towards the Orlando skyline which was pretty cool. I didn’t take this picture, but this is pretty close to our view on downwind (we were lower and more to the left).

Orlando, FL skyline

I really enjoyed flying with this CFI! He had a good teaching style and he shared the same views on flight instruction that my CFI back home does — namely, all of the information you need to fly the plane is available out the window. He emphasized this by failing almost all of my instruments. I had to climb out to pattern altitude with no altimeter, and when I thought I was there we would check and see how I did. I was coming in consistently low by 500-1,000 feet, but that wasn’t bad considering I was in a new environment for the first time.

We went over energy management techniques to help keep the plane at the right speeds while flying the pattern. We also did a lot of landings! I had one where it felt like everything clicked and I definitely feel like I’m getting closer to “getting it”. I also had some lousy ones, so I’m not there yet!

We also trained on some stuff that was new to me — using slips to lose altitude quickly and simulated engine outs on takeoff (where I had to then manage my energy to land the plane smoothly without nosing it into the runway). I also got a bunch of crosswind work — the winds weren’t as strong as they’ve been back home, but there was a decent crosswind so I worked on holding a proper ground track and keeping the plane lined up on final.

All in all, it was a great experience and I’m really happy I did it. I got to see some cool planes at the airport (the new HondaJet looks very nice!) and got a great view of a Learjet landing while I was in the pattern.

Taxiing back to the ramp I again had some trouble with that left turning, so I mentioned it to my CFI. He took the controls and agreed something felt off and he would mention it to the aircraft owner. I realized then I should’ve mentioned this as soon as I noticed it — what if they thought my wonderful landings had caused the issue?!?

We had a great talk after the lesson — we discussed the flight and flying in general. The instructor had some kind things to say about my flying and level of experience overall. According to him, I’m on track and right where I need to be.

Extra bonus today — the second page of my logbook is now full! On to page 3!

Flight time today: 1.5 hours
Total flight time to date: 27.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 89
Total landings to date: 85