Lesson 21 - Crosswinds

If my last lesson was a measure of how far I've come in my journey, today served as a reminder of how far I still need to go. Building upon my landings from last time, we decided to stay close to home and in the pattern today for more touch-and-goes. While my last time was in no way "expert" or even "textbook" in terms of my landings, they were at least more or less in the ballpark of passable. I felt I had an okay grasp on airspeed and where I needed to be on the various stages of landing. I had spent the past week thinking about what I had done and where I needed to improve. I replayed each landing in my head to try to burn that sight picture into my eyes of what the runway should look like on a proper glide slope. I wasn't expecting miracles this time out, but I figured I had a pretty solid foundation upon which to build. 

The weather was good. Skies were smoky but clear. Winds were low, only 5 knots out of the northwest. Despite the reported wind direction, ATC had us using runway 17, so a slight tailwind, but not much. For a moment, we thought they were going to shift the traffic to 35 before we took off, but they did not. I think they knew something we didn't, and therein lies today's hurdle. 

First, came a reminder from my instructor to be as complete in my readback to ATC as possible (if they say "follow the Columbia, taxi Alpha to 17L," make sure you read back the "follow the Columbia" part as well as taxi and runway info. ATC needs to know you know where you are in line.) Then a bit of crosswind compensation on taxi that was blowing me a bit sideways. Despite the weather report, these winds felt like they were coming out of the east, not the west. With all the hangars to the side of me, I figured it could be mechanical turbulence. Ailerons into the wind. Slow down, stop if you have to in order to get the plane under control. Then continue. None of this rattled me, but in hindsight they were little indicators that today wasn't going to go as smoothly as the last time.

Cleared for take-off, and up we go. Fly runway heading. Planes need rearview mirrors. My instructor had me look over my shoulder to make sure I was still in line with the runway on climb out. I need to learn how to turn over my shoulder without turning the yoke. I do try to remember to set the heading bug and pick a point on the horizon in line with the runway as I'm rolling down, and I make a point to check that as we're climbing, but a quick glance behind you to make sure you're still in line with the runway is a good thing. 

The first few landings went okay--on par with the last time. A little rough, a little stair-steppy on approach, and I need to remember to cut power to idle once I'm over the runway. Just take it all out. That's a mental thing I need to get used to--it's okay to glide without power, especially when you're already over the runway. I think if I remember to do that, then I won't have a tendency to float further down the runway than I did on these landings. Once on the ground, flaps up, throttle full, pull back on the yoke, and get us back in the air. 

I think I have become a bit timid on rotating lately. I don't want to stall, so I pull back just a bit and wait for physics to do its thing. When you've got 10,000' of runway, you have that luxury. I'm not always going to be flying into airfields with 10,000' runways. Pull back a bit harder, get us up off the ground, then adjust pitch for proper climb speed. But get us up off the ground first. That's important on touch-and-goes, because while you have speed coming in, you're still using a fair amount of the runway to land, so you don't have quite as much as you might think when taking off again. 

Next trip in the pattern, I noticed I was having a bit of trouble getting us lined up with the runway on final. I turned too soon, then flew to the runway about 5 - 10 degrees to the side. We touched down and went back up again. ATC had us do an extended downwind, which meant a longer approach. This time I was able to keep us a bit more in line with the runway because I didn't turn so close to it. I had a much longer time to adjust, though still wanting to float just a bit to the right. Bear in mind I'm landing on the right of two parallel runways, so I'm already a bit cautious about overshooting the approach and accidentally flying into the path of the left runway. Bad things can happen, as we saw a few months ago with a mid-air collision caused by exactly that. While I was focusing on keeping us on centerline (easier to do with the extended approach) I was a bit fast on my speed, so my instructor called for a go-around. Throttle to full, flaps reduced, and climb. Again, I was being Mr. Timid on the pull-back today so I didn't climb as fast as I should have. Rather, I skimmed the runway at about 100' for a bit before adding a bit more back pressure then removing the last 10 degrees of flaps. The danger there is that had I removed the last bit of flaps while still only 100' off the ground and not climbing, I could have lost that 100' of elevation pretty quickly with the reduced lift from retracting the flaps. But that's why "go around" training is part of our landing training as well, and why slow flight recovery figured heavily into my early lessons. That needs to be down pat. No excuses, because the ground doesn't forgive mistakes.

The next few times around, I noticed I was having the same trouble getting lined up with the runway. Always to the right of it. Was I that quick in my turn? It was starting to rattle me a bit. I'm so focused on landing and my aiming point that I've got something of tunnel vision going on to what else is around me; things like, oh, I don't know, wind socks? I glanced down at my kneeboard where I had written the weather... 320 degrees at 5 knots. Can't be the wind. According to the report, it's coming from the northwest. It's gotta be something I'm not doing properly. Yeah we were getting a few bumps here and there, but it didn't feel windy like the time a few lessons ago where we were getting bumped around like crazy. I was starting to get a bit frustrated, so my instructor took the controls for the climb-out so I could relax and gather my thoughts. 

We flew around again and on the downwind leg, my instructor asked for a wind check--a quick "at this moment" report of what the winds are doing. 110 degrees at 10 knots. Oh, crap! No wonder I was having trouble lining up with the runway. The winds had basically flipped sides! Instead of coming from the northwest, they were now coming from the east/southeast, and had picked up considerably. I was flying into a pretty much broadside 10 knot crosswind from the east. No wonder I was always to the right of the runway.

I'd love to tell you that armed with this new knowledge of what the winds were doing, I was able to compensate and keep us lined up with the centerline the next time around the pattern. Nope. "Ailerons into the wind, opposite rudder" looks simple enough on paper. I'm gonna need a lot more practice...

Lesson 20 - Touchdown!

It had been over a week since I flew last. One lesson had been scrubbed for maintenance issues, and the winds last Monday were above maximums, so we were grounded then as well. Learning how to land in high winds had already proven dubious, so even if the winds had calmed down below maximums, I'm not sure I would have flown anyway. "More frustrating than educational" is my litmus test for winds. Today dawned with blue, cloudless skies, and most importantly, no wind! Was today going to be the day I finally got a handle on landing an airplane?

I got to the field, prepped the plane, and we set off. If it's busy at Centennial, Air traffic control doesn't let pilots do touch-and-goes, leaving us to head off to Colorado Space Port instead. I don't mind flying into Space Port; it's a nice flight out there and I get a chance to work on pilotage and cross-country flying skills. Also, I  take that time to prep my mind for what we're planning on doing for the lesson. Today, traffic at Centennial was light enough where ATC approved us to stay in the pattern there. There were a few other planes in the pattern with us, so it became something of a game of "follow the leader" with no clear indication who was actually leading. We would be--quite literally--flying in circles (well, ovals) with ATC choreographing everything, including letting others periodically cut in. The nice thing about having parallel runways is that ATC can set aside one runway for us students and small planes, freeing the main runway up for the corporate flights. 

The downside of staying at the home airport for this work was that for the first time in my lessons, we started immediately on the task at hand as soon as the wheels lifted off the ground. There was no 10 minutes of flying to get to the practice area, no time to get a feel for what the air was like and think about what we were going to do. Nope, up off the ground, get ready to make the right crosswind turn to climb to pattern altitude. Ready, set, GO! I don't know that I necessarily missed the mental prep time, but it did take just a few seconds to get my mind in gear. Fortunately this wasn't a brand new process to me, but my nerves were definitely a bit unsettled as I made my first turns to enter the downwind leg and parallel the runway. 

The hardest part for landing is staying on the glide slope. This is the vertical path you follow when approaching the runway. In most cases, that's about 3 - 3.5 degrees from the ground. You pick your aiming point (about 200' past the numbers on the runway) and try to stay on that 3 degree line until you get just above the runway. You do this by coordinating the pitch of the plane (how high or low the nose is) to set your airspeed, and then add or remove power (throttle) to keep your elevation in check. It sounds simple when you see it written in the books, but it's really much more of a dance as the two are also somewhat interrelated. As you increase or decrease your throttle, the nose of the airplane wants to pitch up or down just a bit. You can't really adjust one without the other, at least to some degree. 

Centennial airport is equipped with PAPI (Precision Approach Path Indicator) lights. These are lights that are beside the runway with two lenses in front of each light, one red and one white. They're arranged such that the higher you are, the more of the white lenses you see. As you get lower to the ground, you see the light through the red lens. The idea is that the perfect glide slope will give you two red and two white lights. (Some only have two lights, so one red, one white.) If you're high relative to the glide slope, you'll see three white and one red. If you're really high, four white. If you're slightly low, you'll see three red and one white, and if you're dangerously low, you'll see four red lights. You don't want to see four red lights. You really don't want to see three. My instructor likes me to stay at two red at a minimum, erring on the side of three white. It's a lot easier to slow down and lose altitude when landing than it is to speed up and gain altitude. These lights are a great guide, but ideally you want to get a good mental sight picture of what the runway itself looks like as you are on the glide slope. If it appears short and squat, you're probably too low. If it appears long and narrow, you're likely too high. If nothing else happened today, I wanted to burn into my mind what that sight picture of the runway looked like. Not all airports have PAPI or other similar systems, so while they're a good reference when they're there, you need to learn how to do this without them as well.

Despite my nerves on my first attempt, things went pretty well. ATC directed us to do a standard pattern, so when we were past the end of the runway, I reduced power and added 10 degrees of flaps. This slowed us down to around 75 knots, and I made the right turn to the base leg of the approach, all the while losing about 500' of altitude in the process. Then the turn to final, line up with the runway, drop more flaps, slow to around 65 knots, and stay on the glide slope. The hardest part for me to gauge in this process is how to regulate the power to control elevation. If you add too much power for too long, you go from being too low to far too high. If you don't add enough power, you never correct your lack of elevation. This is something that you really just have to feel. Repetition. Not having any wind really helped me get a sense for how my control inputs were affecting the flight. If you looked at my approaches today in terms of elevation control, they probably looked like an uneven set of stairs, but I'll take that for the win at this stage in the game. 

Once over the threshold of the runway, reduce power to idle, and let the plane glide to just a few feet above the runway. Pull the nose up slightly so you don't land on the nose gear, and the plane will settle onto the runway as it loses airspeed and decides there's just not enough lift to keep it in the air anymore. For a touch-and-go, once you're on the ground, you retract the flaps, add full power, and take off to do it all over again. My nerves settled a bit once we were back in the air, so my climb-out and turns were a bit smoother. I got a bit steep in one of the turns, but corrected quickly enough. The second approach and landing weren't quite as smooth as the first; I flared a bit higher over the runway than ideal, so the plane hit a bit harder than I was hoping. We didn't bounce, but it definitely left room for improvement. 

On my third landing, ATC told us to fly an "extended downwind" leg. They do this when they need to create space in the pattern for an incoming plane. It basically means you fly longer in the downwind leg before you make your base and final turn. The difference is that in a standard pattern, you're descending and slowing down in the various legs of the pattern. When you fly an extended pattern, you fly further out from the airport, so you have to fly all that distance straight back. When you do that, you don't have the familiar reference points and legs to remind you when to reduce power, add flaps, etc. You're on a long straight-in approach to the runway, and have to gauge when to reduce power, add flaps, and all that stuff based on looking at the runway. For practical purposes, in a standard pattern, from when you begin your descent to when you touch down is about 3 miles. Your downwind leg is about a mile to the side of the runway you're landing on and you begin your descent when you're just past the end of the runway. So for a straight-in approach, you want to begin your descent about 3 miles away from the runway. That gives you your 3 degree approach angle. If you know the area you're flying in, you will know roughly where 3 miles is, and can work from there. If you're flying into an unfamiliar airport, you'll have to use GPS to figure out when you're three miles out. The thing to watch out on with straight-in approaches is that it's easy to be too fast because you don't bring your flaps in soon enough. The "flaps 10, turn, flaps 20, turn, flaps 30, land" rhythm isn't there. I found myself on glide slope easy enough, but forgot to bring in flaps and was about a mile out doing 90 knots. Too fast. A little too fast. I was, however, impressed with how quickly adding flaps sapped your airspeed. I made this landing a little further down the runway than I was aiming, but I got us down okay. 

We made three more landings, each just slightly different than the previous one, but most uneventful. Our last landing was the worst of the day. My instructor and I were talking about aiming points, and I got so wrapped up in the discussion that I didn't flare quite as quickly as I should have. My instructor realizing about the same time that I did that we needed to flare NOW, we both instinctively pulled back on the yoke at about the same time. Twice the back pressure on the yoke meant we nosed up higher than we should have, risking a stall. My instructor told me to add power as he leveled us off, took the controls and sat us down further down the runway. Lesson there, don't get so wrapped up in conversation that you forget what you're doing. There's a reason why we try to limit conversation during critical stages of flight. The final flare on landing is probably about as critical as it gets. No harm, no foul, and thanks to a long runway we got down without having to go around. 

All in all, though, a very productive day. I think I have a good sight picture in my mind as to what the runway has to look like. At least that runway. I'm a bit concerned when I go back out to Space Port or another runway that I'll be able to set that same picture though the runway may be narrower, longer, shorter, wider, or any combination in between. And while my instructor was assisting me in the landings, he said they were all about 90% all me. He was there just to make minor corrections to help give me the feel of things. After my previous two times learning how to land, today was a definite confidence booster. 

A few unrelated takeaways from today's lesson. First, when there's a lot of traffic, there's a lot of radio chatter between the traffic and ATC directing things. That has a tendency to distract from the instruction because you have to stop what you're saying to listen to ATC to see if they're talking to you, or if who they are talking to is someone you need to look out for. That cuts into the time for explanations of what you're doing, so just be prepared for that. If you're learning at an untowered airport, or one with much less traffic, you'll have more time to talk with your instructor about the process.

Second, the basic things are getting familiar enough to me to where I can take longer periods of time between flights and not feel like I'm forgetting everything. New skills will obviously need more frequent repetition, but the older skills are a bit more engrained in muscle memory. 

Third, I'm loving my new sunglasses. I had custom progressive sunglasses made for me so I can see distance out the windshield and still read my instruments and checklists. I'm no longer flying looking like a librarian with my readers halfway down my nose. Having proper sunglasses has reduced eye strain, and I think at least on the subconscious level has made flying a bit less taxing on the brain. That has to help...

Lesson 19 - Silver Linings

 A few days ago, a student pilot on a Facebook group I belong to asked for advice on how not to get discouraged in flight training when things didn't go as expected. I suggested that it was important to end each lesson with at least one positive thought and dwell on that. 

Today was one of those lessons.

The weather reports listed the winds as "calm" or at best "variable, 3 knots." The wind sock on the field hung limp. There were scattered clouds, but overall it looked like a good day to go flying. Calm winds meant I could really begin to wrap my head around landing the plane. That was today's plan. Take off, fly out to Colorado Space Port, do a few touch-and-goes, then return back to Centennial. 

We got up in the air, and discovered that the winds aloft weren't exactly "calm." Still, we plowed ahead. Space Port cleared us direct to runway 35 for touch-and-goes, and I began to descend and line us up. And that's pretty much when things went south. The winds were neither steady nor gusty, they were just unpredictable. We bounced around a lot, which made it difficult for me to read what my control inputs were doing as we tried to land. First attempt was a go-around. I climbed us out, but was a bit rattled, so my right turn into the pattern was not smooth. Then I started overthinking the turns. Then we tried another approach. More of the same. My instructor ended up flying this landing getting us on the ground, because he wanted to try to get a sense of what the winds were doing. He gave the controls back to me on climb out, and again my turns were not smooth. Again I was overthinking them, fighting myself as much as the winds. We attempted two more before deciding the conditions were definitely not conducive to teaching me anything about landing. We headed back to Centennial. Conditions did not improve on the way back. Because of this, my instructor handled the landing. Once on the ground, he commented that he had not fought that hard to land a plane in a long time. I guess I can couch my inability to figure things out in the context that my instructor was having trouble as well, so I shouldn't beat myself up. We decided we need to schedule earlier flights to take better advantage of smoother air. 

Looking at today's lesson in terms of its intended goals, it's easy to cast this as something of a failure. Mission not accomplished. However, anytime I'm in the air, I'm learning. Maybe not "how to land," but "what is it I need to figure out for myself so I can land in the future." I need to get a handle on power adjustments. "Pitch for airspeed, power for altitude" makes sense. What I need to figure out is how much (or how little) to adjust power to make necessary corrections. I'd be high, reduce power, then sink a bit too much, then need to apply power again and balloon up again as a result. There's a happy medium in there somewhere, a sweet spot. I need to find it. I've done exercises like that higher up, but without the runway in front of you and getting closer as you get lower, it's difficult to get a visual feel for what those changes are doing. With that in better check, I can pay a bit more attention to the "pitch for airspeed" side of things as well. 

Primary goal aside, there was a lot that went very well today. Things (outside of landings) are really falling into place. First, there's the pilotage aspect of things. My instructor asked me right off if I felt confident enough to fly us out to the Space Port without his assistance. I did. I knew how to get where we were going, the ceilings I would have to contend with, and the landmarks along the way. I had a bit of trouble finding the tower and runway from 5 miles out, but I knew I was in the general vicinity and by the time I was three miles out, I had a good point of reference for them. Same on the return trip. I knew I was east southeast of the field, because I was anticipating them landing me on the north/south runways and I wanted to head that direction so I could line up. They gave me the east/west runway instead, so I tracked back north a bit. There's not a whole lot on the ground to use as definitive references for much of the route south from Colorado Space Port; it's mostly farms and ranches. I think the more I fly that direction, the more I'll recognize. 

Second, my radio calls are getting stronger. I handled all the calls from run-up to when we were on final at Space Port. (My instructor handled the calls in the pattern at Space Port so I could concentrate on flying.) It's becoming more and more natural to me to talk with ATC and know what they want me to do. I'm still not 100% used to the speed at which ATC's instructions come at me, but that will come with time. My big worry there is even though I'm repeating what they're telling me, I'm also the kind of person who forgets a name 20 seconds after someone tells me what it is. Fortunately I've also learned that ATC does not view it as embarrassing to have them repeat instructions. The phrase "it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission" does not apply to aviation.

I still need to work on verbalizing my checklists, particularly the ones I run while in the air. WRBC - Weather, Radio, Briefing, Checklists. My instructor would ask for a briefing of what we're to do when approaching the airport, and I would give the briefing prior to even tuning the AWOS weather info. That's got to be done first, no matter what. Once I have the weather, I can contact the tower and get instructions, then brief my instructor and run checklists. And, again, remember to verbalize the checklists as I run them. Fuel, mixture, seats, lights, gauges... 

While on the subject of checklists, I'm filling in gaps in my ground checklists. These missing items are things that aren't on the checklist but are important steps such as tuning in the airport ground frequency and setting Foreflight and the plane's GPS before I start moving the plane. Also, I added "close window" to my pre-takeoff checklist after forgetting twice in a row. 

One other takeaway from today's lesson... it's a ruddy pain in the arse to try to use a touchscreen in bumpy air!