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.