Lesson 10 - The Three Second Rule

Today my instructor decided to shake things up just a bit and instead of more stalls and slow flight, we opted to work on ground reference maneuvers. This means flying patterns based on what you as a pilot see on the ground. You pick a spot to use as a reference, and fly to it, beside it, or around it depending on what you’re trying to do picking other reference points along the way. Ground reference maneuvers—particularly flying a rectangular course—are necessary skills to develop in order to learn how to fly a pattern to land the plane.



After analyzing (over analyzing?) my previous two take-offs, I made sure to be very cognizant of what I was doing with regard to flying straight over the runway once I lifted off the ground. That paid off, as I did a much better job of staying on centerline of the runway on departure. But today’s departure introduced something new. Bumpy air. Gusty winds and showers were expected to move into the area later in the afternoon, and the air was already starting to get just a bit unsettled. We hit some pockets of bumpy air which had a nasty tendency to pitch my nose up. I didn’t compensate as I should, and lost a fair amount of airspeed as a result. I did correct—eventually—but I wasn’t taking the lead on flying through the bumps, instead letting the air move the plane and then figuring out how to correct after the fact. That will come with time and experience. Now that I know what the “standard” is, it will be easier to work towards it.



In any case, ATC had us fly a roundabout route out of the airport rather than our usual “fly straight out and turn west” that we’ve flown many times before. My guess is that they were routing us around traffic in the area, but it gave me experience listening and making more turns per ATC’s instructions. It was also a reminder that ATC has a habit of giving instructions relative to local landmarks such as roads, lakes, large buildings, power lines, etc. Flying out of the same airport all the time, I’m learning those local landmarks as we reference them. (Being local to the area helps too.) From this, I would suspect that it’s probably quite a good idea for a pilot flying to a new area to do his/her homework not only on the airport itself, but the local surroundings. If ATC tells you to fly to report over such-and-such road, you need to know where on the ground such-and-such road is. Even flying in the practice area today, I learned new roads. “Who needs a roadmap when you’re flying?” Well, there’s a good reason why you do.



Back to the task at hand—ground reference maneuvers. These are so far (to me) the most tangible example of “flying” the plane in that you’re directing the plane where you want to go and making constant adjustments to get it there. (In retrospect, this would also apply to my rather bumpy climb-out as well, so I’ll have to remember that for next time.) For purposes of training and certification, there are steps required to set up each maneuver and complete it within requirements. The first step is to establish which way the wind is blowing, because you want to start these with the wind at your back (downwind). If you can see flags, wind socks, or other visual references on the ground, that will give you an idea of which way the wind is blowing where you are. You can also use the weather info you got when you took off, though that may change depending on how old it is and how far from the airport you are—especially in places where the topography will direct the winds. You can also compare your airspeed to your groundspeed. If you fly a circle, your groundspeed will increase when compared to your airspeed on the downwind leg of the circle. It will be less than your airspeed if you’re flying into the wind. (Yes, in some planes in slow flight configurations in a strong enough headwind, your groundspeed may well be next to zero.) Note the changes in groundspeed relative to airspeed with respect to heading, and you’ll have the direction of the wind.



The direction of the wind is important to know in ground reference maneuvers because the wind will be blowing you one way or the other relative to the ground and you’ll have to compensate for that with the controls. For example, in a turn around a point (circle), when you enter on the downwind leg, your groundspeed will be the fastest, so you will need to bank the plane steeper to make a tighter turn in the air because it is moving you relative the ground. As you proceed around the circle, you will need less of a bank angle as you transition from moving with the wind to against it (headwind).



We did three different ground reference maneuvers. The first was an S turn across a road. You find a road, and as soon as you cross it, you start a 180-degree turn to cross it again, then reverse your turn again to cross it a third time. The idea is that every time you cross the road, you’re wings level and crossing perpendicular to the road. The key to this is to just transition directly from one turn to the next smoothly, as opposed to stopping one turn, holding straight and level while you’re crossing the road, then beginning the next (which is what I was doing as I was thinking step-by-step again).



Turns around a point were next on the agenda. The trick here is to maintain a consistent distance from a given point on the ground while you fly around it. The easy way to do this is to pick a point, then pick a half dozen or so identifiable points equidistant from that point every 60 degrees or so, then basically fly from each point to the next. When you look at the flight path from my lesson, you’ll see that I did pretty well on my first attempt, but not quite as good on my second. The difference was that on my first attempt, I had easily identifiable points on the ground to fly to; a stand of trees, a building, a road, etc. For my next point, I picked a small building in the middle of a field with really not much that really stood out as a reference a set distance away. As such, my ground track got a bit wonkier than ideal. I still managed to keep it close because I spent a lot of time looking out the side window judging my distance from the point that way.



And therein lies the hiccup in the process. Remember the title of this chapter, “the three second rule.” No, that doesn’t apply to M&Ms which fall on the cockpit floor. It means that as a pilot, your eyes should never be focused on any one thing for more than three seconds. They need to be constantly moving around. One of the goals of these ground reference maneuvers is to perform them with less than a 100’ change in altitude through the maneuver. For the S curves and the first turn around a point, I did surprisingly well on that front. This second turn around a point was not as consistent. The reason? Because I had definite points to fly to during my first run-through, I spent more time looking out the front of the plane to find the point and fly to the next one. This meant I had a good sense of what the nose of the plane was doing. On my second one, with no real discernable equidistant points from the center to fly to, I spent more time looking at the point itself from the side of the plane. Did you know that when you’re looking out the side of the plane, you lose track of what the nose of the plane is doing? Yeah. Strange. Who knew??? The upshot was that my altitude wasn’t nearly as consistent as it was on the first run. I’ve written “outside, outside, check the gauges” before as a visual flow for your eyes. With ground reference maneuvers, it’s “side, front, check the gauges.” You have to keep tabs of what the plane is doing across all three axes.



Last on the agenda was a rectangular pattern, which on the ground track looks more like a very long oval. This simulates flying a rectangular approach pattern to a runway. I picked a road to be the “runway,” and another point to serve as my downwind leg reference point. The idea is then to fly the downwind leg, then make the turn to base, followed by the turn to final. With the downwind leg less than a mile from the upwind leg, the turn to base then to final was more of a constant 180-degree turn as opposed to two separate 90-degree turns. I thought I did pretty well on these, though my altitude still fluctuated more than I had hoped. Part of that was me trying to correct for altitude gains and losses as opposed to just resetting and continuing. When I start chasing altitude, I tend to make matters worse.



After a few goes with rectangular patterns, I dialed in the weather information, butchered the call to the tower letting them know we were inbound to the field, and started our trek back east to land.

Lessons 8 and 9 - Context is everything.

I’m combining lessons 8 and 9 because they occurred on back-to-back days. I’m not sure how I managed to schedule that as it was quite by accident, but I wasn’t going to complain. I figured flying two days in a row would probably help from a consistency standpoint. And it did, but I’m getting ahead of myself.



First, it had been 10 days since my last flight, but in that time I (finally!) devised a way to remember the flippin’ safety briefing. It stems from the notion that a lot of what I’ve been learning has to do with a flow of things. The preflight inspection is a flow. You start here, end up there. Pre-maneuver checks are a flow. You start by checking the fuel selector by your feet, then move up and around the non “six-pack” gauges to check engine oil temperature, vacuum pressure, fuel flow, etc. I figured I’d work the safety briefing to likewise be a flow. I start next to my seat with the fire extinguisher, then across to my seatbelt and seatback, then to the door (emergency exits). From there, it’s the yoke to remind me to talk about positive exchange of controls between my instructor and me. Between the two yokes is the radio, so that’s my reminder to talk about keeping conversation to a minimum during critical stages of flight so we can communicate with ATC. From there it’s up to the GPS to talk about hotspots (congested traffic areas) we may encounter, then looking out the front window to talk about general safety concerns during the flight. And by gumby it worked. I got through the safety briefing without missing anything or getting tongue tied. I still think I want to polish things up a bit, but at least I’m not forgetting anything.



Despite that success, I definitely had some cobwebs on taxiing and take-off. When I hit the throttle to take off, I (may have?) over-corrected on the right rudder and it took some doing to get back on centerline. Apparently I took my left hand off the yoke during this, too, much to the bewilderment of my instructor. I vaguely remember trying to turn the yoke to get the plane back on centerline (it doesn’t work that way), and when I remembered that minor detail, I took my hand off the yoke as a reminder. I forgot to put it back on the yoke until it was time to roll out. Once airborne, the plane started drifting to the left of the runway. This is not necessarily a good thing in any situation, but particularly dangerous when you’re taking off on the right runway of two parallel runways. Drifting to the left puts you in danger of flying over the other runway. That’s kinda frowned upon. My instructor got us back where we should be, and I then continued the climbout.



After some “routine” maneuvers to clear the rest of the cobwebs, we set about working on slow flight again. For some reason, this has been a mental hurdle that I to this point was having trouble getting past. I knew the steps, but making them happen smoothly? I think part of that has to do with the nature of slow flight itself. It’s not something you do when you’re cruising. It’s primarily a condition when you’re landing, during which time you’re also controlling your descent and focusing on lining up with the runway. Doing these maneuvers at 1500’ above ground level while maintaining altitude is just different enough to where it wasn’t clicking with me. Nevertheless, we spent the better part of the lesson plowing through slow flight then recovery, then more slow flight, then more recovery. On one hand, a lot of review, but on the other, is it review if you’re still struggling with it? Keep plugging away.



That’s not to say my instructor didn’t throw some new challenges my way through all this. This time, it came in the form of setting the radios and getting weather information for our flight back to the airport while cruising and turning. Remember back a few lessons when I wrote about walking and chewing gum? All things considered, I fared pretty well though I gained about 300’ altitude while turning and listening to and writing down the ATIS (weather) information. I’ll get there…



Anyway, I set us heading back to the airport before my instructor took the controls to set us up to land. Because landing is slow flight, I kept an eye on what he was doing. We were on final to land when ATC instructed us to abort the landing and go around. Neither of us know why, but there had to be something ATC didn’t like. Without blinking an eye, my instructor cruised through the same slow flight recovery steps I was stumbling through, getting us climbing again and out of harm’s way. Two things came clear to me. First, the “real-world” demonstration of how it’s done. There was no step-by-step explanation or hypothetical. Full throttle (with a little right rudder), reduce flaps, build airspeed, climb. THAT’S how—and why—it’s done. It made sense. Second, this is something that I will want to master. It may take me 100+ hours to get to the smoothness with which my instructor pulled things off, but when ATC tells you there’s a threat, your response has to be automatic. You can’t pause and pre-think the steps before you do them.



We landed, sat down and chatted about the day’s flight—the good, the bad, and the ugly (take-off)—and called it a day. Tomorrow was another day, and we’d be back at it soon enough.

 



“Tomorrow” arrived, and it was time to get back going again. We chatted again this morning about what we noticed last flight, and I mentioned the newfound context in which I saw slow flight and recovery. My instructor reassured me that as a student who had all of 10 hours under his belt, I should not compare myself to someone who demonstrates slow flight recovery techniques many times a day every day of the week with regard to the smoothness with which he acted the previous day. In an emergency, form follows function. Just get the steps down and worry about polishing them later.



Out to the plane, prepped it and set off on the day’s adventure. I didn’t get 200’ down the tarmac before I encountered something I hadn’t dealt with before. Up to this point, I was actually taking a bit of pride in how much improvement I had in keeping the plane taxiing (more or less) on the yellow line. I was having a bugger of a time today. Hello “crosswind!” On the ground, this has a tendency to turn the plane into a weathervane. The wind was coming from the right, causing the plane to want to constantly turn that direction. Ailerons turned into the wind to stabilize the plane, and a whole lot of left rudder and brake to keep the plane rolling where you want it to. And—yes—it changes every time you turn a corner. It wasn’t my prettiest taxi. Definitely a challenge, but I’m glad I had already gotten somewhat of a handle on taxiing before throwing this monkey wrench into the works.



Speaking of challenges, my take-off was a bit ugly today, too. This time I had my hand on the yoke and had no trouble keeping us centered on the runway, but—again—once airborne, the plane wanted to slide to the left. I’m gonna have to figure out what’s going on there. I’m honestly not sure. Was it the wind? Am I pulling the ailerons slightly to the left when pulling back to lift off? It’s something I’m going to pay close attention to next time out of the gate. That has to get better. Alas, until I’m landing, doing touch-and-goes to get repeated take-offs in order to troubleshoot isn’t going to happen. I would also expect this to have to be corrected before getting to landing, so we’ll take it one take-off at a time. I think just knowing the tendency, figuring out what the probable causes of it might be, and getting ahead of it should clear it up.



Southwest to Chatfield Reservoir. Slow flight and stalls were on the agenda today. On our way out there, we got talking about cruise power levels, cruise descent power levels, and climbs. In the process of that discussion while having my eye on the horizon thinking I was in level flight, I managed to lose 500’ in elevation because I had the power set too low. I think I was just gradually pitching my nose up to keep the horizon at the same place on the windshield, meanwhile slowly bleeding airspeed and altitude. Gotta watch outside the window but confirm with the gauges. Look outside, look outside, check inside (gauges). Lather, rinse, repeat. Not the shining start I was hoping for.



In lessons past, whenever I had something of a befuddling moment like that, it had a tendency to knock me off my game. My instructor and I would work through things step by step again. Do this, check that, do this, check that… This time, something different happened. I’m not entirely certain how it came about, but it was cool how it worked out. Instead of going through mental checklists of what steps 1, 2, and 3 would be, I just flew the plane. Need to climb? Full power, let the nose come up. If you need to climb faster, apply more back pressure to the yoke. Less focus on mentally going through the step-by-step checklist in my head allowed me to just feel my way through what the plane was doing as I made control adjustments. My instructor would say say “climb to 8000” or “descend to 7500,” and leave it to me to figure out how to get there and make corrections along the way. (Hint – when descending only 300’ or so, don’t worry about rolling in trim. You’ll have to level off too soon.) I was able to work a lot of things out in my mind just flying here, there, and around. I felt comfortable. I would like to think this more relaxed approach stemmed in part from my instructor’s faith that I actually know what to do, but need to put things together in my own way.



After a bit of flying circles, climbing, and descending, I felt plenty confident to start setting up for slow flight and recovery. This time, I didn’t focus on the individual steps in process (which I know), but thought about the end result and the best way to get me there. It’s difficult to describe in words the difference in these two approaches because either way it ends up reading like an instruction book on how to fly the maneuver. The closest I think I can come is that today’s approach focused on the “why” as opposed to the “what.” The “what” is the step-by-step description of how to fly the maneuver that my instructor and I had talked about numerous times. “What’s the first thing we do? What’s the second thing…” and so forth. Today I looked at it from the perspective of “why” those are the steps we take. Why do we reduce power? Why do we increase pitch? Why do we lower flaps? What effect do each of those actions have on the plane? That’s what I was figuring out in my mind in the first part of today’s flight—feeling the action and reaction so I can put them together to get the plane to do what I want it to do. They’re not so much individual steps as actions taken in concert to get the plane where you want it to go.



I set us up for slow flight, flew a few turns, recovered, climbed, set up more slow flight, recovered… Sometimes it wasn’t pretty, sometimes it was “textbook.” Where things weren’t pretty, though, there was realization of why it wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t watching my airspeed. I was pitched up too high. All easily corrected for a better job the next time. The difference in my mindset was most noticeable. I was ahead of the curve because I wasn’t thinking about what came next. I was still plenty shaky because of inexperience, but I felt better about it, if that makes any sense.



With that renewed confidence, I proceeded to setting up stalls and stall recovery. These weren’t quite as clean, but I haven’t done many of them yet. Probably most of the roughness here came from the stall itself, not setting it up or getting out of it. I’m wondering, too, if I was picking up well enough on what the stall felt like to know when to recover from it. We’ll do more of that next time. 

On top of all of this, my instructor had me making more radio calls and multitasking with respect to flying, setting up radios and getting weather info. I think I made sense for the most part on my calls, but don't quote me. Probably forgot a few words here and there. On one hand I could probably write things out on my kneeboard before saying them, but on the other hand, that would require writing on my kneeboard while flying, which at this stage would probably introduce more chaos than having to repeat radio calls because I flubbed a line. My handwriting is bad enough without having to read what I just wrote at 8000' in bumpy skies. 



I think the takeaway from today’s lesson is that I’m learning. I’m doing less and less guessing of what to do, instead starting to draw on experience of knowing what happens when I do this, that, or the other and applying that to different aspects of flight. It’s a good feeling. Today was definitely an “I may actually be able to pull this off” kind of day. With any luck, this will continue next lesson.

Lesson 7 - Stage Fright?

I will never fault game show contestants for not knowing obvious answers ever again. I knew what we were going to be working on today. I went over in my mind the necessary steps. This wasn’t uncharted territory. I was ready. Then performance anxiety set in. The ability to retrieve that which I had been practicing went completely askew. But I’ll get to that in a bit.





The first takeaway of the day was the importance of density altitude. In my ground school, I learned what it was and how to calculate it. For those wondering, density altitude is what the air feels like to the airplane. We all know the air in the atmosphere gets thinner the higher you go. The air also gets thinner the warmer it gets. Airplanes have a “ceiling,” which is the maximum altitude the plane can fly. This is a function the wings, weight of the plane, and power of the engine. That ceiling is also dependent on the density of the air. When it gets hot out, the heat makes the air thinner. As a result, the plane will not perform as well as when it’s cooler out.



Today, it was hot outside—90 plus. The density altitude at the airport was 8,700 feet. That means even though the true elevation of the airfield is 5,885 feet, planes flying today would behave at take-off the same as they would behave on a “standard day” (59 degrees) at 8,700’. To keep the math simple, that’s a technical loss of about 3,000’ of elevation. The practical working ceiling of the Cessna is 12,000’ on a standard day. Losing 3,000 from that means we’ve got a practical working ceiling of only 9,000 feet. We typically maneuver between 7,500 – 8,500’, so we were pushing the upper limits of that ceiling today. When I was just crunching the numbers for ground school, I did the math and didn’t think about how it actually affects things in the air. Today at 8,500’, we were hard pressed to be able to climb faster than 300 feet per minute. If there’s a mountain at 10,000’, you’re not going to be able to get over it very easily (if at all). That’s why density altitude is important.



The second takeaway from today is that I’m getting more confident with the airplane. The preflight checklist material is getting easier. I need to come up with some kind of mnemonic device for the safety briefing. I gave myself the safety briefing in the car before leaving for the field. I got tongue-tied in the plane. (I did get through the take-off briefing, so there’s that.) My taxiing is improving, despite what felt like a right brake that was sticking every once in a while. Don’t know if that was my imagination or just a quirk of the plane I was flying. Today’s take-off went (relative to previous take-offs) very smoothly. I’m feeling better about those. I need to work on trimming the plane once we’re off the ground, because I felt like I was having to pull back on the yoke harder than necessary on climb-out. If flying the plane is best done with subtle control movements, having to apply that much pressure to the yoke to maintain climb runs a bit counter to that. However, I was concentrating on listening to ATC tell me where to fly and when I could start my turns that I wasn’t worrying about trimming the controls. That will come.



Today’s lesson focus was slow flight and stalls. (Wing stalls, not engine stalls.) As I hinted at the beginning of this entry, things didn’t exactly go as smoothly as I had hoped. I had practiced these maneuvers in my chair fairly often since my last flight. I felt confident after my last lesson that I could do these things without prompting. I felt pretty good, but somehow my mind went blank. I grew up doing community theater, so I’m generally immune to stage fright. Generally, but perhaps not completely? 



A few things tripped me up, I think. On our first slow-flight, I had the plane’s nose pitching up way too much. In retrospect, I think I may have forgotten the flaps were extended on this exercise, and was pitching the nose for a “clean” slow flight configuration, which is a lot higher than flaps extended. I don’t know that I ever fully realized that, as I kept having a tendency to pull the nose high through the drills. At least I recognize it now, so when I drill in my head over the next week, I’ll paint a clearer mental picture.



The second thing was that whole “action-reaction” thing. Every action on the controls has a predictable reaction. Because the reaction is predictable, you as a pilot have the ability to counter that reaction as it happens so the reaction does not interfere with the maneuver. For instance, when one applies full throttle, the plane tends to pull to the left. This is easily countered by gently applying a bit of right rudder to counteract that tendency. I learned this on the runway. You’d think I’d remember it in the air. On my first slow-flight recovery, I pushed the throttle full forward, put the nose to horizon, reduced flaps, and after all was said and done, realized I was about 15 degrees off course (to the left). Well, yeah, dummy. You forgot the right rudder. Next time went better. Apply throttle with right hand, step on rudder with right foot. Maintain heading. They’re related.



The other action/reaction thing which tripped me up was reducing the power to idle to practice stall recoveries. Part of the stall drill includes flying a descent with the throttle set to idle. However, that descent needs to be a controlled descent. When you reduce power, the nose of the plane wants to drop. You don’t just let the plane drop and recover by pulling back on the yoke. We’re simulating a landing maneuver, and the last thing you want when you’re close to the ground landing is to do anything which would make the distance between you and the ground get closer faster. That’s where “controlled” comes into play. You know the nose is going to drop when drop power to idle. You have to counter that by pulling back on the yoke. You want to descend, but on your terms, not the planes. Since you as a pilot know what is going to happen, similar to stepping on the right rudder pedal when increasing the throttle, you can pull back a bit on the yoke when decreasing the throttle so you maintain control of the rate of descent. It can’t be a “step one – reduce throttle. Okay, that’s done, onto step 2. What’s step 2…” The reaction happens simultaneously with the action, so your control inputs to counter the reaction have to be equally simultaneous. A mental checklist of the steps is good, but the steps have to come quickly and naturally. I wasn’t quite there on that aspect today. I was thinking about each step one after another after another. Fortunately my instructor was rather accommodating to my requests of “well, that sucked. Can I try that again?” Improvements each time, thankfully, but anything but smooth.



A side note about the stall horn. It’s not loud. It starts off very quiet, a pitch and frequency best described as “mildly annoyed mosquito.” When you’re working with your instructor through these maneuvers, it’s sometimes easy to miss through the conversation. It does get louder as the stall deepens, but if your headphones are especially good at blocking out exterior noise, you’re still going to have to listen carefully. I think by the time the stall horn gets to the “HEY IDIOT!!!” stage, the plane will have let you know by other means that it’s stalled. Early in your lessons, though, it’s okay to fly and hear that annoyed mosquito during these maneuvers so you know what it sounds like. That way you know what to listen for and can correct earlier once you get used to flying and you’re not flying specifically to get the airplane close to stalling.



The last impromptu lesson on today’s flight dealt with low level wind shear and gust factors. I fly in Colorado. Colorado summers are known for their ability to spawn severe weather at a moment’s notice. We actually had a tornado touch down north of town this afternoon, which should give some indication to the unstable nature of the air on the way back to the airport. The practical lesson in low level wind shear come from flying below a developing storm cell with a considerable down draft that we didn’t see coming. Sure felt it, though. Fortunately we were still 1,500’ above the ground when we hit it. The winds at the field had become very gusty while we were out and about, too. Weather reports had them gusting nearly 20 knots above the reported wind speed. Fortunately the winds were still pretty much out of the north, so that meant they were a direct headwind for our runway, but to compensate for the gusting winds, we had to fly about 10 knots faster on landing, and only set 10 degrees of flaps so the flaps wouldn’t act like sails in the gusts. I haven’t gotten to where I’m landing the plane yet, so I was just “enjoying the ride” at this point. Enjoying, but observing at the same time.



Next time, a review of stalls, and also steep turns. I’ve done a few steep turns, but not on purpose.

Lesson 6 - Confidence is Key

I was a bit nervous going into this lesson, just based on the pattern of good lesson, bad lesson, good lesson, bad lesson up to this point. Last week was a good lesson, so if the pattern held, today was going to be a rough ride. It wasn’t all sunglasses and autographs, but by and large, things went well today. It was a good confidence booster.

That’s not to say there weren’t some minor goofs. I missed a wing access panel that was only hanging on by one screw on my walkaround, and my safety briefing needs polishing. I also forgot to check flight controls during my run-up check. (I had checked them previously, but it’s on the checklist—I need to do it.) And I’m going to buy my own fuel tester, because the thimble-sized one that was in the plane I flew today splashed more on my hands than what got in the cup.

Taxiing is starting to feel more natural. I’m still a little wobbly on the line and a still a rather poor judge of where the line is underneath me. (Can I get a glass-bottom plane?) For the third flight in a row, I did not accidentally move the throttle the wrong way during any of the maneuvers. Take-off went well. I’m glad I was on the secondary runway so I didn’t feel pressure with a whole lot of traffic behind me; it calmed my nerves. I mean, airplanes don’t have horns, but at the same time, you can’t dawdle on the runway if there’s someone on final waiting for you to leave.

Today’s lesson brought us back to slow flight operations. We did these a few lessons back and I felt okay-ish with the concept. Today went better. Like last time, my instructor covered my instruments with a sheet of paper so I had to maintain altitude and airspeed by looking outside and listening to the plane as opposed to watching my instruments. For the most part, I was able to maintain my altitude within 100’ for everything, which I will consider impressive given how sluggish the controls are in slow speed flight. One thing I keyed in on for myself was being able to keep a constant pitch attitude by watching the angle of the horizon versus the wing since the nose was so high, especially during clean slow flight. Dirty slow flight (flaps down), your pitch angle isn’t quite as steep because the flaps create more lift, but I was at near full throttle just to maintain 55 knots.

I’m just starting to get the hang of trimming the plane. It’s been hard for me to get a good sense of how much to turn the trim wheel to make the necessary adjustments, and I need to get better at setting the pitch attitude with yoke then trimming off to match that, as opposed to using the trim wheel to set the pitch attitude. Set the pitch attitude with the yoke, trim off the pressure, then you can make minor adjustments with the trim wheel as needed.

The winds were calm today, so as a bonus, we worked on ground reference maneuvers, specifically S-turns. Not great, but not bad for the first time out of the gate. I think I was a little nervous to get us into too steep of a turn, but I was reasonably close to wings level whenever I got to the road we were using as a reference, though perhaps not exactly at 90 degrees to the road.

I’m also working the rudder more in flight than I have in the past. Part of that has to do with not having to concentrate so hard on other aspects of flight that I forget that there is a rudder on the plane, but the other part is that the rudder plays a significant part in these maneuvers, so you really have to use it.

Next time, more slow flight, stalls, and recovery—without prompts from my instructor. So between now and then, lots of chair flying to get the steps clear in my mind. And I’ll get the safety briefing.

Lesson 5 - Lightbulb Moment

I missed flying the previous week due to weather, so I was sure I was going to be rusty about some things with it being two weeks since my previous lesson. Still, I had done a fair bit of chair flying (sitting in a chair and pantomiming the motions while going through the procedures in my head) and after my previous “instrument flying” fiasco, I realized I was going about things completely wrong. That was a habit that had to change, and change quickly. I was ready to work on that. Preflight work was beginning to seem routine, which I think is a good thing. Routine enough, at least, to where I did everything even if I forgot a step and went back to it before checking against the checklist to make sure I had covered everything.

Seriously, I got tripped up by the safety briefing again—embarrassingly so because I had just gotten off of a commercial flight the previous day where I cheerfully ignored the safety briefing because I’d heard it a hundred times. So I punted on the safety briefings for the day, leaving them to my instructor so I could concentrate on flying the plane. I’ll get them another time. He now has them posted with my lesson plans, so I’ll have them to refer to before the next flight. Whether I remember them, well…
 

My instructor left me to do all the preflight work this time, which I’m getting more confident with. Repetition is a good thing. We pulled out onto the line, started up, and proceeded to the run-up area. Run-up is where you check to make sure things are working before taking off, get the latest weather info, and talk to ATC about what you would like to do. You double-check your breakers, set your gauges, check the left and right magnetos, alternator, and generally make sure all your needles are in the green where they belong. Make sure the flight controls are free and clear. After a pre-takeoff “what to do in the event of an aborted takeoff” briefing, we proceeded per ATC’s instructions to the runway.

Line up with the numbers, apply full throttle, right rudder only as needed to stay on centerline. Finally, I got it without much issue. Reach rotation speed, apply back pressure on the yoke, and let the airplane start to climb. Throttle is at full. Climb rate and airspeed is controlled by what? Pitch attitude. The higher the nose, the slower the airspeed. There’s a target airspeed you want to hit, in the case of the Cessna, around 75 knots give or take. DO NOT look at the VSI. Just don’t do it. Watch your horizon against your nose, and watch your airspeed. If the nose to horizon is consistent, your airspeed will be consistent. That's physics. Let that be your guide. Watch outside, watch outside, confirm with gauges. Watch outside, watch outside, confirm with gauges. This is starting to make sense.

 
Out comes a big sheet of paper. Apparently my instructor forgot his sticky notes, so he had to improvise. What for? Well, when learning to fly by instruments, you fly under a hood that prevents you from looking out the windows. When you have a nasty habit of flying by the instruments and not looking outside, you fix that by covering the instruments. No instruments forces you to look outside, to listen to the engine, and to feel what the plane is doing. Take the instruments away, and you’re 100% flying by visual cues. I spent the flight climbing, descending, and turning using the horizon and reference points in the airplane. I’d fly a bit, mess something up, and then my instructor would fly the same maneuver so I could see what it’s supposed to look like out the window. This is not something you can learn from a book or YouTube video. It’s something you have to see and feel from the controls in the air. It’s all based on where your eyes are in the plane and how you perceive things around you from that position. With that revised reference, it was easy to fix mistakes, and—hopefully—break bad habits. We landed with me feeling for the first time that I was actually in control of the airplane, acting ahead of it instead of playing catch-up. Next time? Hopefully that will continue.

Lesson 4 - What. Are. You. DOING???

Feeling pretty good about the previous lesson, and having a better (albeit not “firm”) grasp of checklists, etc., I was looking forward to this lesson. More slow flight operations, which I enjoyed the last time up and hoped to be able to hone my skills. That struck me as something that if I could master, I’d feel better about my ability to confidently control the airplane. And that’s the goal, right?



Clear prop! Throttle open just a little bit—about ¼”. Turn the key to start. Once it catches, let go of the key and advance the mixture to keep the engine running. Throttle to 1000 rpm. Avionics on. Lights on. Set radios. Check brakes. We’re ready to get going to run-up.

I’ll start off by saying that for the first time, I felt good about my taxiing skills. I could make the airplane go where I wanted it to, even if I’m still not 100% sure if I’m right over the yellow line or not. Having said that, my take-off wasn’t near as nice as I had hoped. Perhaps it was because I felt a bit rushed because I had to get onto the runway and up in the air fairly quickly due to traffic. I think I probably wasn’t 100% lined up with the center of the runway, and not sure of my foot placement to control the rudder pedals. My instructor and I seemed to be in a bit of a battle over rudder control for a bit before we got things straightened out and got airborne. But that was just the start of things. Remember earlier when I wrote about bad habits being hard to break? Well, yeah. About those, specifically flying by instruments instead of what’s outside the window. More specifically, trying to maintain a constant rate of climb by watching the Vertical Speed Indicator, which is arguably the most lagging instrument on the panel. Another spoiler alert – that doesn’t work for beans.

To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how far I was pitching up, nor do I know what my airspeed was because I was clearly not watching that gauge. Apparently it wasn’t very fast. About the same time I realized I probably was doing something wrong, my instructor rather firmly asked “What are you doing???” The accurate response was “f***ing up,” but that was a foregone conclusion that didn’t need to be verbalized. I pitched the nose down, gained some airspeed, humbly transferred the controls over to him to get us back on a reasonable climb attitude, and regrouped my thoughts.

Change of plans. Let’s go back a bit to more of the basics this lesson, okay? Turns, climbs, descents, straight-and-level… Listen to the airplane and let it tell you what it’s doing. I’d fly a little, then he’d fly a little while having me tell him what is going on and how to correct it. Sometimes you have to hit pause and reset. Give things a little thought, a little bit more time. There’s no schedule that says “by X number of hours you will have this mastered.” Everyone’s different. And if it takes me longer than others to master the skills, I’m still flying towards my goal. I’m paying by the hour for the plane whether I have my license or need an instructor with me. Better in my opinion to master and build than to hope all gels down the road and never feel confident until if or when it does.

Lesson 3 - Slow and Steady

I did my homework this time. I showed up with the weather, condition of the plane, any NOTAMs or other advisories. I wasn’t going to start off on my heels like last time. We got to the plane, inspected it, got it going, and ready to go. I was feeling pretty good. Still a little shaky on start-up procedures, but we’ll work on that.

“Your turn for the safety briefing.”

Um, crap. Yeah, that speech we all ignore on every commercial flight we take. Guess what—they’re required by law whether it’s two hundred people in an airliner or two people in a Cessna. And the truth is, they cover pretty much the same thing, except the Cessna’s seats aren’t equipped with flotation devices. But at that moment in time, my mind drew an almost complete blank on what is covered.

Okay, fire extinguishers. Yeah, I remember that. It’s between the seats, so easy to look down for a bit of a memory jog. In the event of a fire, the more experienced pilot (not me) flies the plane and I fight the fire. Seatbelts are to be worn at all times, which in the Cessna is a foregone conclusion because once you close the door, you can’t get to the flippin’ seatbelt latch to release it anyway. There are no lavatories, so scratch that line. Seatbacks upright—they can’t be adjusted. No tray tables, so forget that line. There are two exits, which you should unlatch in the event of an emergency to make exiting the airplane easier on landing. If the doors get stuck, kick out the front windshield. We are to maintain a sterile cockpit during critical phases of flight, which despite the age of COVID has nothing to do with cleanliness. It means we avoid extraneous conversation during taxiing, take-off, and landing; anytime we’re under 1000 feet above ground level. (i.e., when we’re listening for ATC to tell us where to go and what to avoid.) We need to point out hot spots, or areas where there may be heavy traffic congestion as we taxi along. It’s common sense to look both ways before crossing the street, but when there’s a lot of traffic, it helps to look twice. The hot spots, usually marked on the airport diagrams, are areas where that second look is advisable. Three-way verification of control anytime we transfer the control of the airplane from one to another. “My controls,” “your controls,” “my controls” It’s not a custody battle, it’s confirming who’s flying the plane, which is kind of important to know. (“Is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?”) Lastly, it’s both of our jobs to point out anything that is unsafe during the course of the flight, or to assist in any aspect of flight which would improve safety such as looking out for traffic or obstructions. In today’s vernacular, “See something, say something.”

Remember last lesson when I forgot the right rudder on take-off? Hint – don’t compensate by flooring the right rudder the next time down the stretch. Just add a little. As needed. Keep the plane on center, that’s all you need. Okay, next time I’ll remember that. (Hopefully.) Today’s lesson, slow flight. I made a point to watch a bunch of YouTube videos on slow flight operation so I knew what to expect. Knowing what to expect is one thing. Developing the mental muscle memory to get into and out of slow flight is a bit trickier, but it’s one of those things that you just have to practice.




The premise is simple. When you’re coming in for a landing, you want to fly the plane at the slowest possible airspeed that will still allow you to stay in the air and be able to control the plane, albeit a bit more sluggishly than at higher airspeeds. We practice this at higher altitudes, though, since the possibility of a stall and losing altitude is great. So, we make sure we’re at least 1500’ above the ground, pick a heading and reference point, and slow the plane down by reducing power to around 1700 rpm. You will want to pitch the nose up to maintain altitude because just lowering the rpm will cause the nose to drop. If you’re doing slow speed with flaps (landing configuration), then you will want to apply them in stages. Below 110 knots, you can drop 10 degrees of flaps. Once your airspeed drops below 85 knots, you can drop to 20 degrees. Each time you add flaps, watch your pitch and altitude. Adding flaps increases lift. Below 75 knots, you can add full flaps (30 degrees). When airspeed approaches around 50 – 55 knots, adjust power to maintain airspeed and altitude at that pitch angle.

Chances are that in this configuration, you may not be able to see the horizon over the nose of the airplane, so look to the left and right of the plane to keep an eye on landmarks there as well to maintain course and altitude.

To recover from this, apply full power and pitch the nose down to increase airspeed while maintaining altitude. At the same time (or as quickly as you can slide your hand from the throttle to the flaps) decrease flaps to 20 degrees. Once airspeed increases above 60 knots, reduce flaps to 10 degrees, then reduce them fully after 70 knots, and let airspeed build to cruising speed before reducing power to set final cruise configuration. Repeat as needed.

For my first time out of the gate, I wasn’t bad. Was I fully in control every time? Perhaps more than I give myself credit for, but it was still new enough to where I thought I was still chasing things just a bit. Again—practice. That would come with the next lesson, right?

Lesson 2 - Reality Check

“So, what’s the weather? What are the squawks on the airplane? When’s it due for maintenance? Did you review the checklists?”

What??? I was supposed to actually remember all that stuff from the first lesson? I was supposed to do prepwork before showing up? I watched the videos assigned as homework, but this stuff? I missed that memo.



It was there, mind you, just buried under all the other information I thought I was absorbing in the first lesson. And that pretty much set the tone for this second lesson. I spent the entire flight lost between being both behind and ahead of myself at the same time. Behind in that I didn't remember a lot of information from that first flight. Ahead in that I was eager to demonstrate my theoretical knowledge, but without perhaps remembering all the steps involved.

There were some things which were starting to click into a routine, like the preflight inspection. Turn on the power inside and turn on all the lights plus pitot heat. Lower the flaps. Walk around to make sure everything’s illuminated and by the time you get back to where you started from the pitot tube should be warmed up. Turn on the avionics switch and listen for the cooling fan, check fuel levels, and then shut everything back down. Always check the fuel levels early on, because you don't know how long it will take the fuel truck to show up if you need to top off. 

Next, the walkaround. You see commercial pilots do this and wonder what they’re looking for. Well, pretty much anything that shouldn’t be there, or things that should but aren’t. You don’t worry about the walkaround while you’re inspecting the lights because otherwise you’re draining the battery unnecessarily. Do that quickly then you can take your time with this. You make sure flight control surfaces are free to move. You check to make sure control cables are secure and connections are good. Check the wheels for damage and brakes for wear. Make sure the access panels have all their screws in tight. Check the engine oil to make sure you have enough. Add a quart if needed. Check the air filter and internal air inlet for obstructions, check the belt for wear, and look for any physical damage to the plane which would cause concern. Lastly, check the fuel for any contaminants and make sure the fuel caps are on tight. Once that’s done, it’s time to untether the airplane, move the wheel chocks (you’ll know if you forget this one), and pull the plane out onto the line to get ready to go. It’s all on the checklist, though it’s easier to just develop a natural flow of things to look at then verify with the checklist in this case.

The inspection is pretty easy to get into a routine because there’s nothing else going on. You can give your full attention to it then move on. Once you’re in the airplane and the prop is spinning, you’re multitasking; always keeping one eye on what the airplane is doing while keeping the other on what you want to be doing next. If you’re the type who has trouble walking and chewing gum at the same time, this may present some rough waters for you. I’m not the best multitasker, but a career in journalism has taught me such important life skills as eating while driving, so it can be mastered.

The flight itself was a rough one. Perhaps it was because I was knocked back a bit at the beginning by not being prepared, or forgetting to apply right rudder on take-off and almost running off the left side of the runway, but I felt continually behind the 8-ball the entire time. I felt that I was controlling the airplane, but not necessarily in control of it. A lot of the maneuvers I felt I got more by dumb luck than by skill. We landed (with only a slight improvement in my taxiing skills), and while not discouraged, certainly dwelling in the realization that this was going to be a lot harder than it looks in YouTube videos. I knew I could do better, though, and saw my next flight as an opportunity to prove it.

Lesson 1 - The Introduction

In many ways it’s difficult to call this first lesson a “lesson,” due to the information overload that comes with it. I smiled and nodded a lot taking it all in, confident I was going to retain all of it for later. Yeah, right. We did the preflight briefing, preflight inspection, checklists, safety briefing, everything you’re supposed to do before taking off. I’m writing about as much of all that as I retained, which is to say I’m mentioning we talked about it and that’s it.

In reality, the flight went pretty well despite my abysmal attempts at steering the plane with the rudder pedals. Thank goodness the tower wasn’t watching us; they’d have grounded us thinking I was drunk. I wonder if CFIs place bets on the number of times their students turn the yoke trying to get the plane to turn on their first flight. (At least a dozen?) If ever there was a sign this was not like anything I've done before, this was it. 

But honestly, I did learn a lot—or realize a lot—as a result of this first flight. This was not my first time with a yoke in my hands having flown my friend's Warrior around Upstate New York. I wouldn’t say “it came back to me,” but those flights 20 years ago did offer context which upon reflection back on the ground I would use to make adjustments for future flights. I noticed some decidedly bad habits like flying by the instruments instead of what’s happening out the windows which I knew I was going to have to work hard to break. (Spoiler alert—they’re harder to break than you think.) I also learned the importance of setting the seat height correctly so you could see over the nose but under the wing out to the horizon. Lots of little things you don't think to think about but play an important role in how well you do up in the air.

I left the field excited and energized about what was coming next. This was going to be fun! This was a new adventure. This was going to be one of the hardest things I’ve done in a long time? Nah, how could that thought enter my mind?

Putting Theory into Practice

About 2/3 of the way through ground school, it became obvious that it was time to get my butt into a plane and get some practical experience. I've always been booksmart. Learning how stuff works has never been a problem for me. But one can read all the books in the world on how to play golf and never actually be able to hit the ball off the tee. The theoretical needed to become practical.

One of the early lessons in the ground school training covered how to choose a flight school. Let me back up here about 5 years when my wife bought me a gift certificate for an introductory flight lesson as a birthday present from one of the local schools, Aspen Flying Club. My birthday’s in March and I wanted to wait until Summer, so I set the certificate “someplace safe.” Sound familiar? Yep. Five years later, I find the darned thing again. I look up the school and compare it to what the course said to look for—ample fleet of aircraft, good maintenance, flexible scheduling, realistic portrayal of what training will actually cost, availability of simulators, ride-alongs, etc. The school pretty much hit all of the major check boxes. That and a chance encounter with a neighbor (also a drone pilot) who flew with Aspen sealed the deal for me. I called, made an appointment, and scheduled my first lesson. They even honored my 5-year-old gift certificate!

Between then and my first lesson, my doorbell chimed with a seemingly never-ending parade of parcels from Amazon to fill out my flight gear. I passed on the aviator sunglasses, though somewhere in my basement I have my grandfather’s aviators he wore when he flew. Sadly he died just after I was born so I never had the chance to fly with him. But like a giddy schoolboy, I had everything I needed and probably then some. (And probably not a lot of practical stuff that I should have, but I’ll worry about that later, though I should probably toss my old Leatherman into the bag. Tools are good things to have.)

Ground School

 I fell into getting my PPL quite by accident. While it was always a dream of mine, it was always "someday." And we know how often "someday" happens. Well, sometimes the stars align and you can't help but to act. 

My union offered to pay for FAA commercial drone certification classes for any member interested; the class and the FAA test. Uh, yeah! Of course. I use drone footage in the news stories I produce, and being able to fly the drone myself means I don't have to worry about whether the photographer I'm working with is FAA certified to fly or not. Have drone, will travel. They partnered with an online training outfit called Pilot Institute which offers a very well laid out training course for those looking to get their Part 107 certificate. At the risk of this post sounding like a commercial for them, the instructor does a great job of explaining not only what you need to know, but why you need to know it. I started in October, and by the end of November, had passed my FAA exam. (One question short of a perfect score!) 

There’s a tremendous amount of common material for the part 107 exam and the private pilot exam—so much that I was able to score a 67% on an online practice private pilot written test just based on what I learned from the part 107 training. “Hmm” says I. I’m two-thirds there. What’s to stop me from learning the rest? As luck would have it, Pilot Institute also offers a training course for private pilots. As luck would have it, they had a Black Friday sale for said course. Sometimes, opportunity knocks quietly at your door and you have to wonder what's going on. Sometimes opportunity swings a sledgehammer straight at your head so hard you have no doubt whatsoever what you need to do. 

Once I signed up for the Part 61 course, it became very clear that while I may have cruised through 67% of the FAA practice test based on what I learned from my drone training, this course was far more in-depth and there was a whole lot more than just that extra 33% that I would have to learn. Dozens of hours of presentations, countless practice quizzes, and scenario-based training awaited me. This clearly was not going to be the same “watch the videos over a month and take the test” that the drone course was. I started in December, and it has taken me 6 months to get through everything. Now, it’s going to be a month or two of continual review reinforced by in-flight training before I think I’ll be confident enough to take the test. I know the material, but it’s not yet as automatic as I want it to be. I want to look at steam rising off of a warm pool on a cool night and not have to think “okay, what kind of fog is that???”

Clear Prop!

“Flying a plane is no different from riding a bicycle; it’s just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.” – Capt. Rex Kramer (“Airplane!,” 1980)





Alas, as I found out on my first day flying, Cessnas don’t have spokes. So I guess my Manny Mota rookie card is safe. For now. However, there’s a lot of truth to those words. For those who have mastered the skills of piloting, I’m sure it feels as natural as riding a bike. But before any of us are led to believe that flying is easy (or in any way natural), we need to remember the skinned knees, broken wrists, and goose eggs on the noggin which tended to accompany our childhood attempts at first riding a bike. No new skill is easy in the beginning. A student pilot is well-advised to keep that in mind, because no matter how book-smart one is—no matter how much theory the new pilot has absorbed and understood—it doesn’t matter one bit once you open the throttle and the plane starts moving. Putting that theory into practice is an entirely different kind of flying, altogether. (And yes, there will undoubtedly be many more Airplane! references throughout this tome.) It’s with that spirit which I am going to chronicle my journey to flight. It has been a lifelong dream for me. 

I grew up right next to Andrews Air Force Base, now called “Joint Base Andrews” after the Navy decided it needed to expand inland. Not a day—not an hour went by without something flying low overhead. We learned to just pause whatever conversation we were having until we could hear ourselves think again. It’s hard not to catch the aviation bug watching the never-ending airshow in your own back yard. The thought of becoming a commercial pilot always sat in the front of my mind, at least until I was getting ready to graduate from high school and had to make a decision as to what I was actually going to do with my life. A family friend and airline pilot advised me that getting a four-year degree in something other than aviation was the smart course of action so when I got laid off from flying, I could fall back on something. It was the emphatic nature of the word “when” which struck a chord, so I shelved my dreams of flying for a living in favor of something more practical. (At that time, engineering, though that would change to journalism in due course.) Still, the dream of flight lay just below the surface—stirred up after college for a few years by a friend with whom I flew around upstate New York in his Piper Warrior. Fast forward another 20 years and life’s pieces have fallen into place. My dream of taking to the skies finally has a chance to become reality.


Join me if you will, for a rather unpolished look at one person's journey to achieve his goal of flight. This isn't a retrospective on how I did it. I haven't done it--yet. You get to sit in the passenger's seat while I work through the process. No doubt this is presenting itself as a daunting task. I'll probably run into things that are just going to kick my butt. I'm writing this because I'm a journalist. I'm writing this because putting thoughts on paper (computer screen) helps me remember them, and there's a lot to remember. And I'm writing this so other aspiring pilots who may come across this will hopefully see some of their own experiences reflected in my own, to know they're facing similar battles as other student pilots. So welcome aboard. Please bring your seatbacks to their full and upright position, fasten your seatbelts, and enjoy the flight.