Lesson 18 - Turn on the Hose!

 If you're trying to drink from a fire hose, does the size of the hose really matter?

Today's lesson was simple in scope. Get me in the pattern and teach me to land an airplane. Landing, it seems, is something that different instructors do differently. For instance, some folks write of landing the plane on their introductory flight. Now, I don't know how much of that is actually understanding what's going on with the plane or just pulling on this or pushing on that per your instructor tells you to do to achieve the desired goal of setting the plane back on the ground. I'm inclined to believe in that case it's the "what to do" followed by the "why you do it" later on in the process. Suffice to say that if I'm just learning to land on my 18th lesson, that this is clearly not the approach my instructor is taking with things.

Instead, my instructor's philosophy is to make sure the student understands exactly how the various controls make the plane behave in the various aspects of flight, then ultimately tie them all together because when you land a plane, you're using all your tricks. Turns, slow flight, stall avoidance, altitude control, airspeed, wind correction... there's a lot going on in landing a plane. That's why it's taken me this long to finally get to landing the plane. We wanted to make sure I knew what the heck I was doing so when I got in trouble on a landing, I'd have the skills to get myself out of it. I'm not here to debate one method versus another. This is how I'm learning, and I'm quite happy with the results. That having been said, it doesn't make the process of landing the plane any less mentally taxing. All that stuff coming together to get the plane on the ground means you're thinking through all that stuff while landing the plane. And my brain was pooped at the end of today's lesson. 

We flew out to Colorado Spaceport for today's lesson. My last time out here (which was my first time out here) we did "near" touch-and-goes where I would fly within 50' of the runway then go around. It wasn't my best performance, as my slow-flight recovery that day stank like three day old sushi. This prompted a return to the practice areas and more slow flight and stall work to better hone those skills for a few lessons. But that was behind me. I've become more comfortable with slow flight recovery, so I felt good heading back out here. I at least had the advantage of having flown out here already so I knew the lay of the land. 

The flight out to the airport was uneventful. East from Centennial for a while, then turn north. We can't fly directly northeast because of Denver International's airspace. Winds were a little bumpy, but common for a hot day in Colorado. If you're going to fly in the Summer in Colorado, you deal with bumpy air. The downside to that is that this being my first time setting the plane on the ground, I was going to try to figure out in the process which movements of the plane were caused by my control inputs versus the wind. An extra layer of complexity, but if I waited for perfect conditions, I'd be on the ground a long time. You play the hand you're dealt. 

Landing an airplane is a matter of controlling airspeed and altitude as you approach the runway. "The pattern" is essentially a rectangular flight path that you and other aircraft generally follow so to not hit each other (very bad) and give you benchmarks along the way against which to check your airspeed and altitude. If you think of the runway as the long side of a rectangle, then the "downwind leg" of the pattern is the opposite side. This is where you will typically begin preparing for a landing. You then turn to the base leg, which would be the short end of the rectangle, then "final" is when you're lined up with the runway to set the plane on the ground. The opposite end on departure in the pattern is called the "crosswind" leg. "Pattern altitude" refers to the elevation above the runway. For general aviation (small planes), that's usually 1,000' above the ground. The field elevation at Colorado Spaceport is 5,515', making the pattern altitude 6,500'. There are altitude and airspeed steps for each of the legs of the pattern. The downwind leg in the Cessna, the downwind leg is flown at 1,000' above the ground (AGL) at around 90 knots. When you get to the end of the runway you'll be landing on, you decrease power to begin descending. Halfway through your base leg, you want to be 500' AGL, and at around 75 knots. You continue descending, turn to the final leg, and fly such that your airspeed is around 65 knots when you cross the threshold of the runway, At that point, you decrease your power to idle, let the plane glide, and start your "flare" to land on the runway as the airspeed and altitude decreases. If the stars are smiling, you set down nice and easy. Child's play. And if you believe that, let me talk to you about your car's extended warranty.

"Pitch for airspeed, power for altitude." That's the rule. (I remember it by the fact that "i" is the second letter in both "pitch" and "airspeed.") If you're flying too high, decrease your power and let the plane sink for a bit. If you're flying too fast, raise the nose of the plane to bleed off the airspeed. You can add flaps at various stages to increase drag and slow down as well but pitch and power are the key players. It's really a dance between the two. You will set your pitch for a given airspeed, but you won't be sinking, so you reduce power, which lowers the nose, which may increase your airspeed, so you have to raise the nose to lower the airspeed, which means you're not sinking as much, so you have to lower again, but you can't pitch up too much or you'll stall... Oh, and you're dealing with wind bouncing you around, too, and trying to stay lined up with the centerline of the runway... did I mention the firehose? The reality is that there's no way to introduce this concept gently. This is being thrown to the wolves, grasping everything you've learned and applying it. 

As I approached the airport on an extended final (about 5 miles from the east), I got us lined up, but then my instructor flew the landing to demonstrate how the landing itself was done. He described what he was doing (as he's done on our landings of late) so that I could get a feel for the control movements and their effects on the plane. After he flew this one, I did 4 subsequent landings. They were about as good as you might expect from a student pilot landing for his first time. Which is to say they were rough. But truthfully not as bad as I had anticipated. And I was very happy with my transition from landing to take-off. Flaps up, throttle full, keep us on centerline. pull back on yoke, rotate, go again. 

I think my approaches were rougher than actually setting the plane down on the ground over the runway. The biggest challenge to me was setting that mental sight picture of the glide slope, and reacting to how it changed when I was too high versus too low. I need to be faster to react, especially to "too low." That's an experience thing. The other thing that caught me was trying to gauge how quickly my control inputs would affect the plane. If I drop the motor to idle, how long would it take for my altitude to drop back on glide slope, and how much would it take increase the throttle to re-establish that proper slope once I was back on track. I don't think I let my airspeed get too slow through any of this, but my instructor was probably keeping a closer eye on that and reminding me in the process if it started getting too slow. Overall, I think I tended to be too fast, which prompted a go-around on one of the attempts. (Which was probably one of my smoother recoveries except for not pitching up more when I retracted the flaps, causing me to lose a bit of altitude.) I can't say there was any improvement across the board from my 4 attempts today, but I was able to get a feel for the process. Now that I know what to look and feel for, through, I'll be able to start making better adjustments. Like many things in this process, it's a matter of identifying the key things that are tripping me up and addressing them one at a time as I put this together.

We headed back to Centennial, but don't think it was an easy cruise. The afternoon winds had gotten bumpier, and my instructor has a bit of an evil streak in him to where he doesn't like me to ever be 100% comfortable in the cockpit. As I was flying back, he had me climbing, turning, tuning the radios to Centennial's tower frequency and giving him briefings of what we're going to be doing pretty much at the same time. I have a tendency of focusing on one aspect to the exclusion of another, so I managed to climb 300' while trying to tune in a radio frequency. I'll shift some of the blame for that to the smoky skies and lack of a horizon, so I didn't have as clear of a marker as I might otherwise have, but that's an excuse and I have to do better regardless. 

Things to work on... First off, I need to be better at calling out what I'm doing as I'm getting set up. "Below 110, flaps 10," and other call-outs for flight configurations. I need to call these out not only so my instructor knows what I'm doing, but because it's a good mental exercise to tell myself what I'm doing. I have a habit of talking to myself anyway, so you'd think this would come naturally. I'll chalk that up to landingus overwhelmus today, but if I write it here, I'll hopefully remember to do it next time. Also, on go-arounds, it's critical to call out what you're doing in terms of airspeed, flaps, etc. 

Second, I need to be ready for go-arounds at any given moment. My instructor warned me that I may be flying my best approach ever, and he's going to shout "coyote on the runway, go around!" to keep me on m toes. That's a mental piece of the puzzle that I need to integrate into the process--that at any given time, I may have to 100% shift gears and do something else, and when you're that low to the ground, you have to execute quickly and firmly. 

Overall, I was happy with how I did today. It wasn't pretty by any stretch, but I wasn't expecting it to be. When I look back at my other "first time doings" I've had so far, my demonstrated (lack of) skills is really on par with how poorly I did in those other areas as well, and I've come a long way in those areas. This, too, shall improve. Hopefully cooler weather in the coming weeks will give me calmer skies so I can feel "my" flying versus the wind's flying. 

Oh, and walking out to the plane, I spied this old warbird. Alas, he went the other way instead of taxiing by me, so this is as close a pic as I could get.