N1727V – Armstrong Aviation

August 29, 2017August 29, 2017

A whole new world

Apologies in advance for the deluge of words to follow.

It’s been quite some time since I last posted, and I apologize for that. The truth is that I had some pretty big upheavals in my training and I’ve been focused on dealing with them and trying to forge a path forward towards getting my certificate.

Let’s start at the beginning. When I left you last, I had just performed my first unsupervised solo, and my CFI wanted me to get around four hours of solo time before reporting back to him. Our next step was going to be flying our dual cross country flight. Well, I showed up at the airport one day and he took me aside and told me he was no longer able to act as PIC for medical reasons. He wasn’t sure when he would be fit to fly again, but it definitely wouldn’t be for awhile.

This was a pretty big shock — I loved my instructor and I was apprehensive about continuing my training with someone new. At the same time, I wound up joining a local flight club — I hadn’t planned on joining them quite so soon, but as chance would have it a spot opened up on the waitlist and I was in! They had instructors I could train with, but they didn’t have any Cessnas — I would be flying Piper Archers. They also fly out of White Plains (KHPN), which is a much larger and busier airport than Danbury. I wasn’t opposed to training with them, but I sort of retreated back to what was comfortable and decided to take a few more lessons at Danbury while I figured out what to do.

This is where Duke entered my life.

I flew another solo flight on 6/25 and was feeling a little iffy — I was safe and got the plane down OK, but I felt like I needed more practice and my confidence was low since my last flight was all the way back on 6/8. I also needed an instructor to show me how to get to the practice area a bit North of the airport. I got myself on the schedule with a new CFI and hyped myself up — flying with someone new would be good and would teach me new things. This would be a good move!

Well, I showed up at the airport and the guy never showed. I wasted an hour driving back and forth and some more time waiting to see if he was going to come in. I was pissed, and the school knew it. They offered to pair me up with Duke and he was willing to fly with me on the 4th of July. I accepted and showed up to meet Duke on the 4th.

Duke was great — we flew out to the practice area and practiced steep turns and stalls. We flew around a bit and he showed me some landmarks and taught me some things about our surrounding area. I ended that flight feeling pretty good about things, although my landings were crap. Then, I hurt my foot.

I wound up with some weird tendonitis/inflammation in my foot over the holiday weekend, and it kept me from flying for a month. When I returned to the airport on 8/6, I pulled a three hour lesson with Duke. We flew to KPOU and practiced landings, then navigated back to KDXR for some more landings. By the end of the lesson we were both spent. It was a good lesson and I left feeling great about continuing my training with Duke. We made plans for another flight on 8/12 to work on VOR navigation and I shook his hand and went home.

I never saw Duke again.

Tragically, Duke Morasco was killed in a training flight on August 11, 2017. It was a pretty nice day out and Duke was up with a 17-year-old female student with her father riding along as a passenger. They crashed not far from the runway at Candlelight Farms (11N), a grass strip close to Danbury. My wife texted me a news article about the crash while I was at work and I noticed the plane was owned by my flight school. Then I saw the picture of the plane and immediately recognized it as N1727V. I logged into our scheduling application and my worst fears were realized — Duke was the instructor scheduled in that plane that morning.

I was shell-shocked. This was the first death I had encountered up close in aviation, and the fact that it was my instructor in my training plane hit really close to home. I have to admit, I had some doubts about continuing my training after that. I did some soul searching and spoke to some fellow pilots online. I came out of it realizing the risks were exactly the same now as they have been the entire time I’ve been training. It’s scary to think that someone like Duke, a very experienced pilot, could be gone in a flash, but that’s the danger we all accept when we climb into the cockpit. I’m still waiting for more info on what happened during this flight — the armchair quarterbacks seem to think it was a spin stall at low altitude, but nothing official has been said yet. I’m not sure if we’ll ever have any answers. I’ll write more about the feelings I had during the hours following the accident, as I think it’s an important topic for new pilots, but that’s best saved for a separate post.

Here’s I picture I took of N1727V early in my training. You can click on the link above to the news article to see the picture of the plane after the crash.

I attended Duke’s wake and it was very touching. We had to wait in line for over two hours at the funeral home, that’s how many people came out for this man’s wake. Talking to his family and friends confirmed what I already knew — Duke was a great guy, always willing to help everyone around him, and he was a great pilot who was taken from us too soon. One day I’ll write a post with some more about him — I didn’t know him well, but I’m really glad I got to spend as long as I did in the plane with him.

Anyway, this is turning into a novel, so I’ll try and finish up. I started training with my new school and my new instructor. It is very different — we are doing “real world” flying — going to different airports and parking, getting fuel, etc… I’ve done two flights already — one to KPOU and the other to KHVN. Flying in and out of KHPN is a whole new experience — when JetBlue and Delta are sharing an airport with you, you have to up your game!

So, I will be picking up on the blog with my new training experiences going forward. In the near term, I’ll be working on my cross country planning as well as getting checked out to solo in the Piper Archer. It is different flying the Piper, but I really like it so far. Another nice part about flying a club plane as opposed to a school plane — the amenities! I’m getting experience with new avionics and features like autopilot and rudder trim that N1727V didn’t have.

In closing, I’m excited about finishing up my training and getting my certificate. I love my new instructor and the club is full of great pilots I can learn a lot from. The new airport and environment is challenging and I feel like this is pushing me to a new level with my flying. All in all, I feel like I took a couple steps backwards but this will lead to a huge leap forward. I was getting pretty sick of pattern work at Danbury, so it’s nice to actually fly around and get to see some new things.

I’m sorry for the delay in posting, but I needed some time to get my head on straight and figure out how to handle all of this. I’m looking forward to sharing this new chapter in my training with you! It’s fitting that this post comes as I completed the fourth page of my logbook. New page, new adventures. Blue skies!

Updated Totals:
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 4.7 hours
Total flight time to date: 58.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 218
Total landings to date: 214

June 8, 2017June 8, 2017

First unsupervised solo

I took the day off of work today so I could get my first true solo flight done. Man, I was full of conflicting emotions on the drive to the airport — a lot of excitement and pride to be sure, but also some anxiety and nervousness about truly being on my own.

I couldn’t have picked a nicer day — no wind, just a few clouds waaaaay up there, and good visibility. I checked in with an instructor before I went up just to go over the weather and make sure I hadn’t missed anything. All looked well so off to preflight I went!

I gave the plane a very thorough look over and everything looked OK. I started up and sat there for a minute before calling ground, just sort of letting it all sink in. Then I realized the money meter was running so I steeled my nerves and called for my taxi clearance.

We were using runway 35 as 26/8 were closed for maintenance. I was a little nervous about this since 35 is a slightly tricky pattern and approach, but I figured I’d just bumble my way through and see how it went. I taxied out to the runway, did my runup checks, and after a few minutes I was ready to go. A minute later I was in the air and all my focus shifted to flying a nice pattern.

I got a touch high on altitude but everything else was going OK — my speeds were on point, I called tower and got my landing clearance, and I remembered the proper noise abatement procedures for the 35 approach. Before long I was in the valley on final. I brought it in for a pretty nice landing and then I made my worst mistake of the day — I turned right off the runway instead of left (and worse, pointed my aircraft in the wrong direction once clear of the runway).

Ugh! I had even thought about this before starting the flight and KNEW I had to turn left to get back to taxiway Delta… not a huge deal, ground had me taxi over on Bravo, but I’m sure they were wondering what the hell I was doing. I did an awkward turn to the right to get back in the right direction and rolled back to the runway feeling a little embarrassed.

All in all I did 6 trips around the pattern. On a few of them I was following other traffic so my upwind legs were a little extended, but aside from that they were pretty uneventful. The first four landings were pretty decent, the last two not so much. Of course, my instructor was up with another student and they were following me on final on my last lap. I think that made me a little nervous and I touched down a little more… firmly… than I like to. All in all, though, it wasn’t terrible and I’m pretty sure they’ll be able to use the plane again!

I called ground for clearance back to the active — I thought I could squeeze one more lap in, but then I looked at my watch and realized I’d better get the plane back to the school for the next guy. I told ground I actually wanted to go to the FBO and after a short taxi I was shutting down.

I took a picture of my timesheet for the flight as a memento:

Timesheet from first unsupervised solo flight — Hope I did the math right!

All in all, it was a good flight. Slightly nerve-racking at times, but I kept control of the plane, played nice with the other traffic, and got the plane safely back on the ground (six times, even!) During the whole time I kept hearing my instructor’s voice — keep your speed up! Watch your ground track! MORE RIGHT RUDDER!

At the end, I sat in my car and filled out my logbook by myself for the first time. My hands were still shaking a little from the adrenaline — one day I’ll look back at that scratchy handwriting and remember what it felt like to truly be on my own for the first time!

The CloudAhoy track for the flight is below — click the image to view it.

Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 3.2 hours
Total flight time to date: 48.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 181
Total landings to date: 178

June 4, 2017June 8, 2017

Third solo – and the leash comes off!

It looked like it was going to be a nice day to fly — low winds, high ceiling, great visibility. I was hoping to get a bit more solo time in, and I wasn’t disappointed.

I did a few laps with my instructor and I was feeling a bit rusty (even though I had just flown yesterday!) My first landing was poor and I plopped it down a bit hard on the runway. We went around a few more times — the landings got better, but I was still making a few mistakes. My CFI pulled the power on me while I was on base during one of the laps, proving the point that I had descended a little too low and I wouldn’t have made the runway in an engine out scenario. That was a sobering lesson.

Just when I was thinking that maybe I wouldn’t be soloing today, my instructor had me drop him off and I was on my own again! I did three trips around the pattern. On the first one, I came in pretty high (my instructor’s lesson on premature descents still fresh in my mind). I didn’t like the way the sight picture was shaping up, so I executed my first solo go-around. I figured that would make my instructor happy!

I snapped a quick pic while I was holding short for some landing traffic. I wish I could get some in-air pics, but there’s just too much going on while in the pattern to even think about distracting myself with a camera. Hopefully when I do some cross country work I’ll be able to get some more interesting shots.

I turned crosswind a little early and started feeling a bit behind the plane…did I just mess up the whole pattern? How was I going to salvage this? Luckily I kept it together and got on a normal downwind and eventually came in for a pretty nice landing.

Second trip around was routine, but on the third things got a little interesting. I was following another Cessna and was just about to turn base. We had a King Air coming in for a straight in on the same runway (26). Tower first asked me to keep a tight pattern behind the Cessna, but when I turned base I guess he realized he wouldn’t have time to get me down before the King Air was on top of me (they had already slowed down to allow for spacing but they were still a lot faster than I was!)

Tower asked me to extend my base and keep heading North. I complied, and after a minute they told me I could make a right turn and follow the King Air in. This was a bit of a new approach for me, but it wasn’t anything mind-blowing…I just followed tower’s instructions and turned in to final once I had the King Air in sight and they had crossed abeam my wing.

I brought it in for a bit of a sloppy landing (the winds were starting to pick up a bit). I probably had enough time for one more lap, but I decided I was done for the day and took the plane back to the FBO.

I debriefed with my instructor and he told me I’m cleared for unsupervised solo flights — he wants me to rack up 4 hours of solo time before I see him again. Wow — the leash is off, and next time I fly it will be completely unassisted! Looking forward to a new challenge ahead!

Below is the CloudAhoy track for the solo portion of the flight — click the image to view it. You can see the extended base and right turns the tower had me take pretty clearly.

Flight time today: 1.6 hours
Total simulated instrument flight time to date: 0.6 hours
Total PIC time to date: 1.8 hours
Total flight time to date: 47.4 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 175
Total landings to date: 172

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 27, 2017May 27, 2017

Grounded…and a very important preflight lesson

I showed up at the airport today ready to fly — the ceiling was around 4,000ft, winds were a calm 3-4kts, and visibility was unlimited. Seemed like I might even be able to get some more solo time in (assuming I didn’t scare the crap out of my instructor during the first few laps around the pattern).

I went out to preflight and everything looked good. My instructor came out and I was just climbing into the plane when he yelled over from the passenger side: “Hey, did you preflight this airplane?”

Uh oh…that could only mean I had missed something, and miss something I had! My instructor showed me the passenger side main gear tire, and there was a flat spot (which I had noticed) and a bit of the tire cord peeking through (which I had not).

I didn’t think to take a picture, but here’s an example of what we saw (but our tire was nowhere near as bad as this one — it had just the tiniest bit of cord visible):

Bald tire — Not going anywhere with a tire that looks like this!

So, that was it, plane is grounded, done for the day.

I am kicking myself for not noticing this on preflight. My instructor emphasized just how important this is — a tire in bad condition can lead to a blowout on landing and turn a fun day into a tragedy.

You can bet I’ll be paying more attention to the small details during my preflights from now on. I feel like I’ve gotten a bit complacent in that regard, and that is dangerous.

I’ll file this one under Ground School — I’m glad I learned this lesson on the ground and not after touching down on the runway!

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