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Pre-solo checkride in the books!

I got a phone call from the FBO yesterday after my scratched flight — turns out the mechanic was able to fix the tach and N1727V was back in action! They asked if I wanted to come by this morning to knock the checkride out — they didn’t have to ask me twice!

I was pretty nervous heading to the airport today — I really didn’t want to blow this! What would happen if I completely bombed? Would I need another 30 hours before I’d finally be ready to solo??

Checkride

When I got to the airport my check CFI was already preflighting the airplane. We got everything squared away and started her up — success! The tach was taching and we were ready to go!

I taxied over to runway 8 and we were off. Standard climb out, then a turn to the north towards the practice area. As we were climbing we were fast approaching some clouds. I didn’t know if this was part of the test…

“Umm, let me know how high you want me to climb…I don’t want to get too close to those clouds.”

“We’ll have to get over them to get to a safe altitude, just keep going,” was the reply.

Woohoo! My first time going through the clouds! I climbed up through the thin layer and soon we were on top of them. It was a pretty cool sight seeing the sun appear as we broke through a floor of cloud cover.

My instructor had me get into slow flight configuration and we worked on some turns. I banked a little too steeply on these. Next we did some power off stall recoveries. He wasn’t happy with my first one (neither was I, to be honest) and he told me to approach it like a scenario. I was supposed to setup for final approach, start descending, and when I got to the “runway” 500 feet below me, I was going to pull back to stall the plane.

I set us up for another try and slowly flared the plane. It didn’t stall. I had the yoke full aft — still nothing. We sat there for a minute, nose pointed into the sky, and both had a quick laugh about how this plane didn’t want to stall today. I brought the nose down to set up again and flared a bit more aggressively this time. The plane finally decided to cooperate and I got my stall and recovered nicely. We did a few more of these then headed back to the airport to try some pattern work.

Along the way, the instructor asked me how I would know if the engine had quit or if it was just idling. I didn’t know the answer. He pulled the throttle and demonstrated idle. Then he showed me a true engine failure — he pulled the mixture to idle cutoff. There was no difference as the prop was windmilling. He said this was an important lesson — never try and stretch a glide thinking you might have a bit of power left in the engine. You really can’t tell if the thing has completely stopped working or not.

We headed for a long straight in for runway 8 and I performed a crosswind landing. It wasn’t great, but I think I did a pretty good job. We did a touch and go and went around the pattern two more times. My pattern work was pretty good and the instructor seemed happy with the landings. I was pretty happy with them, too — I definitely feel like I’m improving.

After our last landing we headed back to the FBO. He told me I had done well and wished me luck with the rest of my training.

One more item ticked off the checklist — now to fly with my regular CFI again and see what’s left before I can solo!

Flight time today: 1.1 hours
Total flight time to date: 31.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 105
Total landings to date: 101

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Practicing for the pre-solo checkride

My instructor told me I had to have a checkride with another CFI at the school prior to being signed off to solo. Before doing that, I wanted to go up with my regular CFI once more to practice some of the maneuvers I was going to be quizzed on.

We took off and headed to the practice area to work on steep turns. I haven’t done steep turns in a long time and I had forgotten just how much back pressure you have to put on the yoke to keep from losing altitude. We worked on these for a little bit and I did an OK job — nothing great, but it wasn’t complete crap either. I understand the procedures, I just need to work on my sight picture and control feel to keep from losing altitude in the turns. It should look something like this:

Steep turns

Next we moved on to stall recoveries. This was something I definitely needed a refresher on, since I had pretty much forgotten the procedures. We did some power on stalls (simulating a stall on takeoff) and power off stalls (simulating a stall on approach to landing). Once I had practiced them a little bit I felt more comfortable with them and I think I handled these pretty well.

We headed back to the airport and I got into the pattern. We were cleared for the option and my CFI pulled the power on approach. I practiced a simulated engine out approach and then he called for a go-around at the last minute. I hit full power and off we went! One more trip around the pattern and I came in for a landing with a bit of a crosswind. I think this landing was pretty good — it was a more gentle touchdown than some of my other attempts, although my instructor said I came in a bit flat. I still need to work on flaring properly.

All in all, a pretty good lesson. I definitely feel more ready for my pre-solo checkride (which should happen next week!)

Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 30.7 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 102
Total landings to date: 98

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Stalls, revisited (and first takeoff!)

Today we worked on more stalls.

After yesterday’s ground school lesson and the quick demo my CFI gave me during the last flight, it was time to do some real work with stalls.

We did power on and power off stalls, both with and without flaps extended. I learned to recognize the warning signs and how they actually expressed themselves during flight.

The warning signs are:

  • Buffeting — the feel of the controls starting to vibrate as the airfoil loses its lift
  • Control effectiveness — the controls become sloppy and mushy as lift deteriorates
  • Wrong attitude — the sight picture for phase of flight is wrong (for example, the nose is way too high for level flight)
  • Airspeed — the airspeed indicator shows you are flying too slowly
  • Kinesthetics — you feel the increased G-forces pushing you into your seat
  • Stall horn — the audible horn that sounds when the wing start losing lift

After forcing the plane into each stall, we worked on recoveries. This is something I’m going to need a lot more practice with — I want stall recognition and recovery to become second nature. This is a very serious area of instruction that can mean the difference between life and death.

I did reach a big milestone today: Performing my first unassisted takeoff! My inexperience showed — I was weaving around the centerline while accelerating down the runway and had trouble finding the right climb attitude after rotation. I also learned that it takes quite a bit of right rudder while taking off and climbing out to counteract the tendency of the plane to pull to the left (due to P-factor). I’m definitely going to need some more practice!

Flight time today: 1.2 hours
Total flight time to date: 6.8 hours
Total takeoffs to date: 1

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Slow flight and the dreaded stall!

Today we practiced slow flight.

We started the day with a ground school lesson on how to check weather. My CFI showed me the awesome Aviation Weather Center, which has become one of my favorite bookmarks. After determining the weather wasn’t bad enough to prevent a lesson, I grabbed the keys to N1727V.

Out to the plane, preflight, taxi to the active runway (still feel like a drunk duck), and takeoff performed by my CFI. This time he had me do the takeoff while he assisted on the controls. Out to the practice area we go.

We worked on slow flight — this is where you fly the plane at slow speeds (duh!). It is designed to teach you how the plane feels at slower speeds — the controls are less effective and you need more control input to move the plane around where you want it. This is a precursor to landing, where your final approach is done at slow speeds.

My CFI then demonstrated a stall. At altitude, a stall is easily corrected by pitching down and gaining airspeed. Where stalls are killers is in low altitude, such as when coming in for a landing. If you get too slow or let the angle of attack get too high when low to the ground, you can stall and fall into the ground with Very. Bad. Results.

Luckily, recovery (given that you have sufficient altitude) is fairly simple — get the nose down and increase airspeed to decrease the angle of attack and get that airflow normalized over the wing.

After the stall and recovery demo, we headed back to land at DXR. Another lesson in the books!

Flight time today: 1.4 hours
Total flight time to date: 5.6 hours

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Ground School – Stalls

The snow had stopped but the clouds and winds conspired to keep me on the ground today. We spent my lesson in the classroom going over stalls.

When a non-pilot thinks “stall” they think of something like a car stalling, where the engine stops. That is not what a pilot refers to when they talk about stalls. A stall in aviation is where the wing of the plane cannot generate enough lift to maintain flight — the angle of attack of the wing is too great to keep a smooth airflow over the surface of the wing. The disrupted airflow spoils the lift and the wing stalls, causing the plane to pitch down or to the side.

My instructor taught me about the warning signs pointing to an impending stall and how to recover from one. A stall can be a very serious event (one of the leading killers of pilots when it occurs at low altitude), so this was one somber lesson I really took to heart.