PackFlier

Today’s lesson was pretty short, only 1.3 hours.  It was, however,  packed full of soupy goodness. We moved our flight time up a few hours in order to get in before the storms started forming.  We noticed a cell moving from the west and we decided to take a short hop south to Southern Pines (KSOP) to get in the RNAV 23 approach.

Today, I filed the flight plan after my instructor reviewed my inputs.  Side note, ForeFlight makes filing too easy.   After run-up, I was allowed to call flight services to get our clearance. (Actually, I called directly to our local RDU TRACON, more on that in another post maybe)  This was interesting because last time, my instructor called and I listened to his read back and copied to my kneeboard. This time, however, I called and he copied my read back.  It was a small thing but was cool none the less.  It was a simple clearance:

C – Cleared round robin to TTA

R –  As Filed (Direct)

A – Climb maintain 4000

F – 125.17

T – 5364

I mean honestly, it couldn’t have been more simple but for my first, I’ll take it.

We departed Rwy 3 at TTA, once up to 900 ft I began a standard rate left turn towards Southern Pines (KSOP).  As soon as I rolled out on course, we were in the soup.  My instructor handled the radio work for the most part.  Once checked in with Fayetteville approach, we asked for RNAV 23 approach and given clearance to proceed to OWWEN.  We also chose the procedure turn for practice.

The cruise was pretty short and I quickly realized that without help I would be in trouble.  For short trips you really must be organized, especially in a single pilot environment.  I am still having trouble pulling up my approaches while in the clouds.  I also am just a step behind configuring the GPS.  I am sure this will get better with muscle memory but I am noticeably behind the curve and so far, I am not really making the radio calls.

As a personal point of pride, I make great effort to be as prepared as possible for my flight lessons and so far I am struggling to find a way to sharpen some of the skills outside of the cockpit.  There are few ways to properly simulate the multitasking.  Even my flight simulator doesn’t really fit the bill because it is so inherently unstable and you have no feel for the bumps, so that it is building some of the wrong skills.

Many students with the same problems have come before me so there is nothing new here.  It will click….eventually. 🙂

After going missed at KSOP, we proceeded back to KTTA where we asked and given the ILS 03 approach.  The original plan was to go missed and then perform the RNAV 21 approach since the winds were favoring 21.  About halfway down the glideslope, my instructor told me to give the horizon a peek.  I pulled up my foggles and saw a giant Cumulonimbus cloud building right near where the RNAV 21 IAF would be.  At this point we decided that after missed we would shoot the RNAV 03 approach and circle to land runway 21.  I haven’t actually performed a circle to land to an actual landing so it would be new.

I shot the RNAV 03 approach just fine down to circling minimums and began sliding to the right of the runway to enter a tight left hand pattern.  I have never actually flown a pattern that tight before and it was pretty neat.  I nearly greased the landing except for my left toe giving a little brake pressure… doh.  I quickly corrected that issue and we rolled out just fine.

I realized that for some reason, on IFR approaches I keep my feet higher on the pedals and a by product is the toe pressure right on the brakes.  I think it is mostly nerves, I will correct that.  It was, however, my best landing with my new instructor.(the landing was mediocre, but best with my new instructor)  I finally demonstrated that I can indeed land an airplane.

I am feeling really good about instrument training so far.  I think my strengths are Holding altitude, course tracking, stabilized descents and overall stabilized approaches right on the needles.  All of those things are starting to become second nature.

For my weak points, my brain, radio communications, my brain, working the gps, my brain, and um…. oh… my brain gets in the way.  I am joking but only partly.

I am making progress though.  In a previous post I mentioned that I felt my approach briefings were less than stellar.  I feel like I did a fair job on the 3 approaches today.

Todays flight:

1.3 hrs of flight time

1.0 hrs of actual

0.1 of simulated

I am getting more comfortable in the soup.  I like actual a whole lot more than the foggles.  I find it easier for some reason.  We have discussed how you have move your head more with foggles leading to more disorientation.  That could be the reason why.  The other thing is, you don’t feel quite as closed in.

The most important part was that I got to fly…. and in clouds!

In this lesson, we were originally going to fly west over to Piedmont Triad (KGSO) for an ILS approach in busy airspace.  Side objective was to get a little cross country time.  I am still lacking over 20 hours of cross country to meet the IFR rating requirement.  Once I arrived at the airfield, we noticed all of the clouds were east of us, so we chased the weather to get some actual.

My instructor decided that we would do a round robin to Rocky Mount/ Wilson (KRWI).  We would file for 5000 in hopes of making the flight smack in the middle of the clouds.  We were close and skimmed along the tops in and out and eventually deep in the soup.

For the first time, I filled out the flight plan and once my instructor looked it over, I clicked the file button.  Since it was VFR conditions above TTA, we decided to pick up the clearance in the air.  This was a first as well and I handled the initial call.

After calling up Raleigh Approach, I was given a vector, altitude assignment and squawk code and then asked to standby.  They were vectoring us around traffic before we could climb.  As I was setting the airplane course and trimming for the altitude, the clearance came across the radio and I was totally not expecting. (Why not you ask?  who really knows but I messed up).  Luckily, my instructor was writing down the clearance and handled the radio call.

The flight to our destination was pretty uneventful, other than being in the soup.  I had the airplane trimmed out and was flying along tracking to the destination.  We were handed off to Washington center and they asked us what type of approach we would like.  I responded we would like the ILS 04.  She cleared us direct to  BELGA intersection.  After a bit, approach asked us if we wanted vectors to final or would like to perform the procedure turn.  My instructor looked at me and I said, “Let’s do the procedure turn”.  My instructor keyed the mike and said “My student is requesting the procedure turn”  with a hint of pride.  I guess that was the right answer?  I figured, hey we are in the soup and likely staying in the soup until below 1700, why not do the procedure turn.  Good practice right?  I mean, this is for real and I want to be able to add this to my experience bucket for when I am doing this single pilot.

I briefed the approach, feeling better about this piece now. We performed the procedure turn at 2700 and we would be able to drop down to 2100 once we crossed BELGA.  Then we intercept the glide slope. As a side note, we requested a touch and go instead of a low missed approach so I could get credit for the cross country time.

Once we touched down, cleaned up the flaps and back in the air for the missed approach as per ATC instructions.  Climb to 1200 then climbing right turn to Tar River VOR (TYI) at 2100.

I contacted Washington Center once we were above 2000 and we got our clearance back to to KTTA.  Initially, they gave us an altitude of 6000, but we requested 4000 so we could stay in the clouds all the way home.

We were cruising along when I started to notice that the Attitude indicator was starting to precess a bit indicating a slight left turn when we were actually level.  We noticed that a bit of right rudder cleaned it up so I held in some right rudder.  As my leg tired I noticed that it was precessing more and the rudder wasn’t helping.  At this point we talked over whether or not this was a must report and under what conditions we would declare an emergency.  With the knowledge in hand that 500 feet below or 1500 feet above we would be in clear air, we decided to watch it and pretty much fly partial panel.  The important part here is we talked over our options on what we would do if things did become serious.  Say the Directional gyro starts to go or the Attitude indicator tumbles.  At this point, it just read about a 7 degree left turn but other wise seemed to be functioning.

As we neared our destination, we were handed off to Fayetteville approach.  We asked for the ILS 03 approach and were given vectors to HEDDY.  As we were briefing the approach we heard an interesting exchange on the frequency.  We only heard one side of the conversation, that being approach. “NXXXX, you are over 300 feet below your assigned altitude.” …….. “Do you have my number?” ……. “Call me at 555-555-5555”.  My instructor and I both moaned at the same time.  I mean, very glad it wasn’t us but ugh.  I haven’t been flying that long, only a couple of years but I do maintain contact with Approach for flight following on most flights and I have never actually heard the dreaded “Call Me” on the radio.  Bad news for any pilot, I feel for whomever it was.

We were vectored onto final and I followed the ILS 03 down to minimums, this time with foggles since we broke out of the clouds around 3500.  I was a little bit right of the runway but right on the glide sloop.  The landing was pretty disappointing.  We had gusting winds right down the runway swinging a little right to left and lets just say it wasn’t my best landing.

Crappy landing aside, I felt pretty good about the flight.  If anything, I was disappointed with my radio work.  It seemed my instructor was going to see how much of it I could handle and honestly, I did pretty poorly for all except the basics.  I missed copying the clearance, I had to be prompted a few times.  I guess like everything, that comes with time but I felt I should have been a little more prepared.  So I will take that knowledge and do some more chair flying and personal simulator time and see if I can figure that out.

Even the most frustrating days in the cockpit are good days, I got to fly….. I got to fly in clouds!

The skies were beautiful today…. if you were on a VFR flight that is.  Only high cirrus clouds today and very few if any.  However, summer is definitely on the way as afternoon convection made todays lesson nice an bumpy, so being on instruments would be interesting.

The preflight brief had me looking over the VOR-A approach at Siler City (KSCR).  I was informed that the GPS may or may not be on the fritz, hint hint.  This lesson is all about VOR tracking, timed holds and a circling VOR-A approach.

As we taxied, I received my mock clearance, “Cessna 72675, cleared to KSCR via radar vectors to Liberty, climb and maintain 3000 squawk 1200”

Once I was in the air and donning my fashionable foggles, I was given a convenient radar vector that lined me up direct to LIB VOR.

The ride to liberty was a non event.  Other than the air being a little bumpy, I was able to trim things out go through the cruise checklist and then start looking at the brief.  At that point, I hear “Skyhawk 72675, You are 9 miles from Liberty, Hold NW on the Liberty VOR as published, Expect further clearance 1620 current time 1600.”  I read back the instructions and went back to briefing the approach.  I briefed the entry into the hold, we would perform a parallel entry.  once we crossed the VOR we would start the clock… more on that in a minute.  Then we would make a right turn back to the VOR inbound course and begin the hold.

Sounds like a piece of cake huh?  Well, it starts getting real.  Once I crossed the VOR I turned on the outbound course and started the errr…. timer… err… crap, I wasn’t ready, I can’t figure out how to get the timer in timer mode.  “Don’t worry, We’ll keep the timer over here, you just tell me when to start and stop”  Whew… bailed out by the instructor.  Note to self, figure that out sooner.

Ok, 1 minute, right turn back to the the inbound heading.  “Are you sure we are turning to the inbound heading.” Doh, no, we need to turn back 45 more to the right to track the VOR inbound.  This sequence was the only part of the flight that I reached saturation.  I quickly corrected and got us back on course and around the hold we go.

Once we did one loop around the hold, as I was turning inbound, I was given the clearance for the approach.  Once we crossed the VOR, We started the clock.  5:28 seconds until we reach the missed approach point (MAP), And I was able to descend to 1380 msl for the circling approach.  As I was trying to get stable, I noticed that I was a little fast.  Even though I was stable through the descent to minimum altitude, I was consistently fast.  As we neared the MAP, I was told to take off the foggles.  We were going to be over the airport before the timer reach 5:28.  Evidently, this is pretty common.  My instructor informed me that most of the time, once you reach the MAP via time, the airport is slightly behind you.  Oh, and I forgot to configure for the approach.  Mixture wasn’t rich… doh.  Caught it on the missed.

Once on the missed, I was given clearance to TTA direct OZOPE at 2500 msl.  And… my gps magically started working again!  Once I was established direct.  I was then assigned a block altitude for maneuvers.

At this point I was asked to setup for steep turns at 95 kts.  I performed steep left and right turns.  Went pretty well.  Next, departure stall, slowed to 65 and full throttle.  Once I heard the horn I was allowed to recover.  Next, slow flight full flaps.  All of these maneuvers went well… no real issues.

Back on course to OZOPE at 2500 msl.  I see my instructor fiddling with something then all of the sudden, Covers go on the Attitude Indicator and Directional Gyro.  I lost my vacuum system.  Yay, partial panel.

Honestly, this part wasn’t really all that bad.  I immediately started to rely on my GPS track to keep me tracking to OZOPE.  I was able to brief the approach and stay pretty steady at 2500 msl and on the needles to OZOPE.

I briefed the approach…. well, ok, let’s be honest here.  This is where I felt kind of a bit lost.  I started with the name of the approach then jumped to the altitudes to cross OZOPE, then the descent to capture the glide path on the RNAV 21 LPV approach. then, I completely forgot the missed approach until prodded.  I feel this is an area that I really need to work on.  I’ll get it, just takes time.

As we crossed OZOPE and turned inbound on the approach, I hear… “Hmm, looks like the LPV indicator is turning yellow”.  What?  “Yep, definitely something going on here, we’re losing the WAAS, can we still proceed?”  Yep, we can use the LNAV minimums and step down.

I re-briefed, that once we cross YUXI, we can descend to 2000, then across WIZNY we can descend to 1060 until we cross OQBOK.  Once across OQBOK, we can descend to mda of 700.  Again, forgot the missed approach brief.  AAAAHHHH.

My last instruction was that once I reach 700 I can take off my foggles and land.  I took off the foggles and immediately blew the 700 minimum.  I was reminded that I needed to stay above that until I reached a normal descent point.  We were still about two miles away from the normal descent point.

Once we landed, we debriefed and I was told that I was his first student to fly partial panel on the second flight.  Neato, I guess I am doing well. 🙂

In the end, looking back, we did a whole lot in a 1.3 hour lesson.

• VOR-A approach
• timed hold
• steep turn
• slow flight
• stalls
• Partial panel
• RNAV 21 approach to LNAV since we lost WAAS

I was pretty tired but really excited about everything.  I personally felt I did well and my instructor echoed that sentiment.  Even though I was hot, sweaty, bounced around and mentally pretty tired.  I got to fly an airplane today!

As the title says, New Instructor, New Procedures, New View.  Today was pretty awesome.  After a studying hard for my IFR Written, and nailing it by the way, I have had a few cancellations due to weather and one due to getting rear ended in the car pool line at school.  That is a story for another post.

Today was exciting because …. well … I got to fly.  But more than that it was a day of firsts.

As I arrived at the club, I once again, with futility,  tried to get the hand scanner to realize that is in fact I, the master of not being able to get the hand scanner to work.  ugh.  Never fear my new instructor just pulled up and the scanner worked perfectly for him.

Before I head out to preflight we talked a bit and he asked “Did you bring your swim trunks?”  I looked at him oddly trying to figure out the relevance.  “I’m going to throw you in the deep end today.  We’re going to have to file IFR, how does that sound?”  I replied that if he was good, I was good.  First new thing, flying on an IFR flight plan.

The plan for this lesson was to fly over to KBUY and fly the RNAV24 approach, go missed and then fly back to KTTA and fly the RNAV21 approach.  He would work all of the radios and help me setup the gps but the flying part would be up to me.  Cool!

He selected an altitude that would put us in the clouds for the trip to and from so that I could experience actual conditions… no foggles! Well except for the parts where we were not in actual.  But we were in actual quite a bit so… super cool!  Another new thing!

Flying through clouds I was able to experience the lifting effect and deal with it accordingly.  I added a new instrument to scan and a new memorization called “Set Match”  a tennis reference.  This mean that I adjusted my heading but and cross referenced with the gps track to keep us flying right to the fix.

I will be honest, the flying part of this trip was not too bad.  I had some good fundamentals ingrained from my previous instructor and really it felt like a piece of cake.  I was never too saturated.  The only times I felt like I was getting close to being saturated were the brief parts.  I think, mainly, because I was trying to setup the approaches on my tablet while doing everything else.  This will come with time and experience.  Also if I was a little more organized, that may have helped out as well.

Flying to KBUY we flew direct to KBUY until we were cleared direct to DALSY.  We prepared for the procedure turn just in case but eventually we were vectored to the final approach and cleared.  Super cool.

Once we went missed, we were cleared to turn direct back to TTA and we asked for the RNAV21 approach via OZOPE.  As we neared OZOPE there was quite a bit of radio traffic as a baron was trying to get into TTA as well.  Initially we were told that we would hold at OZOPE but as we got close, they cleared us all the way down.  As a courtesy to the traffic, and request by ATC, once we were 500 below the clouds we cancelled IFR to unlock the airfield and allow the baron to begin approach.

Once I hit minimums, I took off the foggles and there was the runway right in front of me. Super duper cool!  So the last new experience was slowing from 90 to 65 and dropping flaps and trying to set us down nice and soft.  I kind of blew the nice and soft part as my site picture was way wonky.  I was assured that this happens to every student as well as seasoned professionals.  I will get better.

I can’t wait for the next lesson, I felt like a real pilot…. errr  minus the radio work and a lot of setting up the navigation.  I have a lot of work ahead but I am optimistic that the journey will be awesome!

My instructor took the controls for a few minutes to allow me to memorialize the occasion.

Some say that the IFR written test is the hardest of the FAA tests.  I have no real idea if that is true or not since I have only taken the PPL previously.  If you are willing to put in the work it isn’t a difficult test to prepare for.  I think more than anything, the difficulty arises in how the test questions are asked more than anything.  There are many instances on the test where two answers are correct but evidently, one answer is more, err, correcter?  Other answers sometimes differ by a single word or plurality, so if you are not paying close attention you could get it wrong.

I wish that I could say it is because when you’re flying IFR you really need to focus on all of the details so that something doesn’t slip through. However, that would be giving the test preparers huge amounts of credit.  Sadly, I think the true reason is more insidious.  I believe it comes down to average test scores.  There is some sort of reverse curve at work here in which they write intentionally vague questions in the hopes of bringing the average down.

Really, there is no excuse for not doing well on one of these exams.  You have all of the study information available and practice tests to take in order to get a feel for the content.  If you read enough of the prep content, you even start to memorize the questions.  This is where rote memorization divides the masses into feverish debate.

My feelings on rote memorization are mixed.  I believe that knowing the contextual side of the content is really important for determining the best answers in the grey area.  However, by memorizing questions and answers of varying perspective, you can in a sense, understand the problem from all angles.  I mean let’s face it, most of us memorized our times tables.  In college you commit to memorizing formulas and organic structures (if you were a chem nerd like me).  PEMDAS anyone!

I think that rote memorization is fine as long as you have the curiosity to look further into questions that you struggle with.  This way you can add context to the facts.

One advantage of rote memorization is the ability to recall a specific answer to a situation in a very quick manner.  I feel that this could be advantageous in a high workload/stressful environment when in hard IFR on approach.  I mean, if someone were to dangle you off a ledge and ask you what 9 times 7, you certainly are not going to want to be counting fingers and toes.

Memorization is obviously baked into the DNA of teaching / learning to fly.  There are so many rules and regulations that there is nearly an acronym for everything.  IMSAFE, PAVE, TOMATO FLAMES FLAPS, GRABCARDD…. I literally have pages and pages of just acronyms to memorize!!!

As far as the FAA instrument test is concerned, I am hoping that the test writers feel the same way.  I hope that the most important parts, of safely navigating and completing an ifr flight, are all there in their test bank.  Of course wanting to be a good pilot I am not going to trust in this assumption.  Instead I am going to study the fuzzy stuff for more context.

So did I take the test? And, if so how did I do you ask?

I had a challenge to get a good score from my previous instructor now airline pilot! What do ya think? 🙂

Bad weather scuttled my hopes and dreams for flying today.  However, I took the opportunity to meet with my new instructor and go over the things I have previously accomplished in my training thus far.  He slid in some questions to test my knowledge and I think for the most part, he was impressed.  It is always hard to figure out someone’s personality in a quick sit down.  The proof will be in how we mesh in the air.  My previous instructors were very compatible for me so hopefully this one will be as well.

We are going to shoot for another lesson this coming Saturday but right now, weather is looking pretty horrible.  If this lesson falls through, I will probably not fly for another 2 weeks.  I have my final ground school class this coming Monday and then I will take the written sometime in the week after.

After finishing this post, I need to put together some materials and hide myself away until I can get this written knocked out.  If you have read previous posts, I am unusually worked up about it.  I know in the end I will be fine, but I really want a good score to justify the hard work.

Lots of studying in my future.

It has been a bit since I last posted.  I am not ignoring the blog but there has been a slight delay in my training.  Honestly, I haven’t been flying lately.  A few things have compiled to block my progress, weather, studies …… my kids neurotic afternoon schedule.  Most notably, I am nearing the end of my ground school class and I am spending a lot of my limited time, and brain power, on getting ready for the the written exam.

My lesson this week was cancelled due to the impending snow that seems to be hitting the east coast on a fairly regular basis lately.  My next lesson is scheduled in a couple of weeks due to spring break and my written test hurdling toward me at an uncomfortable speed.  Honestly, I think I’m ready but who really knows with the way the FAA writes questions.  I consistently score in the mid 90’s on practice tests but there always seem to be a question or two that is either worded funny or I have no idea what they are talking about.  The latter scares me the most.

The last bit of info is that my current instructor is moving on to higher ground.  Well, not necessarily ground but she has taken a job with a regional airline!  Really exciting news as she is very passionate about aviation.  I really enjoyed working with her in getting started with my IFR training.  Admittedly, I was completely bummed when I first heard.  After thinking about how much she will be gaining with her career, I became genuinely excited for her.  I certainly hope to hear about her training and aviation adventures in the future.  I can officially say, I know and trained with an airline pilot!

Fear not readers, I will be interviewing/trying out with a new instructor shortly.  Instead of jumping right in with a fresh approach, I want to knock this written out.  Can you tell, that the written exam is front and center on my mind?  Not sure if I have made that obvious enough, lol.

I may post in between but it will likely be 2 weeks before I have my next (First Lesson) with a new instructor.

It has been a while since i’ve had an IFR lesson.  Weather and ground school studies has been keeping me away.  I am hopeful that my flight next week pans out.  We are coming to the end of my ground school class and as I prep for the test I am limiting my flight attempts to once a week right now.

That hasn’t stopped me from flying.  Last weekend I went up for a maneuvers and currency flight with my son.  Believe it or not, but during my IFR training so far, I haven’t been able to keep decently current with my VFR passenger requirements.

In order to be VFR current for passengers you must have 3 take offs and landings in the last 90 days.  The way my lessons were working out, with one landing per lesson, my currency was just slowly creeping ahead a few weeks at a time.

Look the real reason wasn’t currency at all.  To be honest, my club has a cookout on the second Saturday of every month and the burgers are awesome!  If you’re ever in the Sanford area on a second Saturday.  Come check it out.  We have an awesome club.  … And Burgers …. And hotdogs/brats … oh and also members! 😀

http://wingsofcarolina.org/events

Scroll down to “2nd Saturday Monthly Cookout“

I promise that you won’t regret it!

So today I was scheduled for another IFR lesson and the weather presented us with a test of Aeronautical Decision Making (ADM).

This morning I woke to this TAF:

KRDU 081138Z 0812/0912 27006KT P6SM SCT050
FM081400 27011G19KT P6SM BKN050 OVC060
TEMPO 0818/0822 6SM -SHRA FEW040 BKN050 OVC070
FM090300 30006KT P6SM SKC

For the un-initiated, the key factor here is “FM081400 27011G19KT”.  This means wind will be 11 knots gusting to 19 knots from 270 degrees.  My home aerodrome has runways at 03/21 so we would obviously be taking off of 21 with a right crosswind.

This presents us with a 9.5 knot crosswind and 5.5 knot headwind.  No big deal for the SkyHawk that has a 15 knot demonstrated crosswind.  Now let’s look at the gust factor.  If we take a gust right above the runway we are looking at a 16.5 knot crosswind with a 9.5 knot headwind.  This would put us at 1.5 knots above the demonstrated crosswind of the airplane.  “GO AROUND!!!!! QUICK!!!”

I know what you’re saying, there are plenty of old and bold pilots that land in crosswind components higher than this with no sweat.  You yourself may have landed a plane in a crosswind higher than demonstrated and didn’t even know.  This could be due to an unexpected gust, at the last minute on a fairly calm day, that made things a little hairy but all things worked out.

This brings us back to ADM and how important it is to have a good solid grasp on the possible outcomes of a flight.  This is a lot harder as a low hour pilot because you don’t know what you don’t know.  It takes time and experience to learn how to handle many different weather conditions and what your personal limits can handle.

I come back to a saying that I first heard from our Chief Flight Instructor when I first started flying.  A pilot starts his aviation journey with two bags.  A full bag of luck and an empty bag of experience. When things start to go sideways in an airplane, pilots can pull answers from these two bags.  Eventually luck will run out… we just hope that when it does, we have enough experience to handle the situation.

As the saying goes, “Aviation is one of the few endeavors in which you are given the test before the lesson.” (Also credited to our Chief Flight Instructor)

I talk with as many experienced pilots as I can in order learn from the many years of experience that have come before me.  I have a solid understanding that I am a low hour pilot and my experience bag has very little to pull from.  That is why even though today was marginal, it is also a lesson in ADM.  If I were on my own with no flight instructor, this would have been a definite no go for me.  I have a personal crosswind limit of 10 knots right now.  The primary reason that I am training for my IFR rating, is to become a safer pilot.  A large part of being a safer pilot is having good ADM.

In closing, with the winding gusting to just above the demonstrated crosswind component I could possibly be a test pilot.  This information coupled with similar wind conditions over the past few days, suggesting that gusts can be much higher at times than forecast.  I decided I don’t want to be a test pilot today!

So today, I am trying to decide:  Which one?

Bose A20, Many $$$$$

LightSpeed Zulu 3, Reasonably priced

As the title suggests, it was a beautiful day for flying.  After many simulator sessions, we were finally able to spread our wings and enjoy the great weather.  Of course, my instructor enjoyed the view and I got to inspect the instruments for most of the flight.  (The instrument glass is really clean, lol)

Even though I was under the hood, I was able to enjoy the cold smooth air.  It was a great opportunity to compare and contrast the simulator training vs the real thing.  The one thing I noticed right away is that once trimmed out, the real thing flies like a proper airplane.  No neurotic altitude and heading changes.  You can really appreciate how much a trimmed airplane can help lighten the workload.

During preflight, I had discovered that we had some light frost on the aircraft.  I wasn’t expecting this since the temp/dewpoint spread for the last 24 hours was decently large.  Of course the lesson here is that weather can be very local and differences are a thing.  No worries, rotate the airplane in the sun in order to remove the little bit of frost accumulated.  Some sun tan lotion and a pair of sunglasses and the skyhawk would be right at home at the beach. 😀

Start and runup went pretty well. Other than me being a bit slow on how to cold weather start.  It is simple so not sure what is going through my mind on how to handle the mixture as the airplane starts.  Maybe it is just nerves.

Runup went well so we taxied to the runway to depart into the wild blue yonder.  After a few runway checks, we were off!

At 700 feet I get the order to don my fashionable foggles. (They’re all the rage this season)  I comply and once back at the yoke I setup to track the liberty VOR.  It was now that I had the first,  “Hey something isn’t right here!” moment.  The VOR was centered vertical and horizontal.  I know that I am not that good coming off the runway so something is up.  I check that NAV 1 is tuned properly so what gives?  We are high enough that we should be receiving.  At this point, my instructor chimed in about the CDI being set to GPS and that if I want to use to track the VOR, I should use VLOC.  Doh!!!

Ok, so we are tracking right along and I get the airplane trimmed out.  Pretty well if I do say so myself.  Once we reach altitude, I trim up for a slow cruise.  Why? Not really sure other than the slow cruise configuration was at the top of my noggin.

My instructor asked me to perform a couple of heading changes and then we broke out the A Pattern.  The pattern went pretty well, no real surprises here.  Again, it was good to compare and contrast from the sim and I have to say, the real thing is easier. I say that now but I can almost visualize the serenity of this pattern then fast forwarding a few lessons where I am overloaded to the point I can’t remember my own name while trying to fly, navigate, talk, etc.  I can look back on this lesson like “Still easy?”

After Pattern A was complete, we performed a stall series, first an approach stall and then a departure stall…. and then a departure stall.  For the first departure stall, at current cruise speed I just pushed the throttle in and pulled back.  I felt a little weird about the process, like something wasn’t right.  However, the cold air made us climb like crazy and I could hear “Dangerzone” from Top Gun in the distance, so climb on!

After the recovery I get the question of, “Have you been taught how to do this for ACS?”  Oh… yeah… I remember now.  I need to slow to climb speed, then throttle on and climb.  Ooops!  It was an impressive climb in the cold air though. Haha!

So, for the second departure stall I killed the Top Gun music and slowed to 65 and then began a proper departure stall.

For the final bit of our flight, my instructor had me fly with my eyes closed.  Left turns, level out, right turns, left, level, left, right ……  I kind of enjoy those types of things.  It was pretty cool when she told me to open my eyes when I thought that we were level but, in actuality, we were in a slow left turn.  She also indicated that as soon as I closed my eyes, I immediately turned us to the slow left turn.  Crazy how your body interprets the feelings versus reality.  It is a good exercise to show you that you should trust the instruments.

“I have the airplane”, my instructor has me close my eyes as she banks and climbs/descends so I can setup for some unusual attitude recoveries.  I could tell she was enjoying this part. Overall, I think they went pretty well, nothing too exciting.

After a few vectors and altitude clearances like I was communicating with ATC.  I was told to remove the hood and we were set up on 45 degree into the pattern.  After doing the landing thing, I buttoned up the airplane and we debriefed.

I think the takeaways that I got from this lesson are a few:

• Properly trimmed airplane is awesome for these maneuvers (Smooth air doesn’t hurt either)
• I need to write down my altitude instructions ( I couldn’t seem to retain that information)
• Knowing your pitch/power settings makes life a lot easier

The last one I felt was huge today.  This is where I think the extra sim time in the beginning is paying off.  In the sim, you can cheaply learn how to use these settings.  They seem to work better in the real aircraft than I could have imagined.

Also, I think that once you figure out that your pitch power settings are just a starting point, it helps you as well.  Example, I started out with 2100 rpm and +1 pitch angle for ~ 95 kt slow cruise.  Today, I quickly figured out that it was really 2000 rpm and right around +2 degree pitch angle.  It was pretty easy to get things stable since I committed standard numbers to memory.

Lots of fun today and looking forward to the next lesson!

If you want to see the crazy track today, –> Clicky Clicky!