Lesson 42 - It's About Bloomin' Time (and Coyote on the Runway)

 

I was ready for a shot at redemption. My frustrations with my previous lesson (two weeks prior due to yet another maintenance cancelation last week) were still festering in the back of my head and I was ready to shake those demons. I knew I was better than that last flight, and dammit, I needed to prove it today. 

I was with my primary instructor today, so when I got to the field, we talked about the last lesson and the frustrations I encountered. We talked about things I knew I was doing wrong, and about things I thought I was doing correctly, but perhaps not quick enough for my other instructor and the tensions that created. He offered his perspective on things (which helped), then we moved onto today's lesson. That was then, after all. Pilots, like professional athletes, need to develop a sense of on-demand short-term memory loss so we can put our last screw-up behind us and move on. We decided that we'd spend the day in the pattern again working on landings either here at Centennial if we could get it or fly out to Spaceport if not. We went out to the plane, noticed that it seemed everyone and their brother was already out prepping their planes and heading out, got ours ready and headed out ourselves. 

I called ground traffic control, who is usually very good about telling us if pattern work is going to be a possibility or not. If it's not, we're right there at the end of runway 10, and can easily jump on that and fly east to Spaceport. Today ground control did not seem to indicate there would be any issue with doing pattern work at Centennial, so I accepted runway 35R and headed down the taxiway--along with what seemed like every other plane on the field. I think I was something like 6th or 7th in line, and in the 30 minutes it took to get to the runway to take off, another 8 to 10 planes had come in line behind me. With that much traffic, pattern work at Centennial was not going to happen. 

We flew out to Spaceport, and with the exception of me picking the wrong line of trees to make my turn to the north, the flight up went very smoothly. Spaceport had room for us in the pattern, and told us to enter downwind for runway 17. I noticed on the weather report that the winds were out of the north at 6 knots or so. This meant a tailwind landing, but--hey--that's the runway they're using, so today's lesson would include tailwind landings, I guess. I flew the pattern well, maintained my speed fairly well, and sat us down without much difficulty at all. First landing, all me. My shot at redemption seemed to be taking shape. 

Second approach, ATC had us following another plane in the pattern. I don't know what happened, but I turned from my downwind leg in the wrong spot, I don't think I lost a foot of elevation on the base leg, and with the tailwind, I was still 300' above the ground near the threshold of the runway. Go around. My instructor teaches the "Three C's" in a Go-around. "Cram" (full throttle) "Climb" (reduce flaps, gain speed and altitude), and "Clean" (once gaining altitude and airspeed, take flaps all the way out). I pushed the throttle full, gave a little right rudder to counter the left-turning tendencies when you do that, and began to climb. I only had 20 degrees of flaps in when I called the go-around, so I didn't reduce flaps right away. I began to climb, and really felt like I had to pull back on the yoke to gain altitude. Speed was fine (75 knots, normal climb-out speed) but boy was I fighting the elevator. Oh, wait... "Clean." Crap. Okay, reduce flaps. That's better! Brief discussion ensued about what got us into that predicament while turning back to the downwind leg. That's the nice thing about the downwind leg. It gives you a chance to quickly regroup and chat about what just happened. 

Air traffic control decided to change the runway direction, since--after all--we had been dealing with a tailwind. When Centennial changes runway directions, the just have traffic hold to clear things out, then have everyone land the opposite direction. Spaceport? Nah. They decided to have everyone in the pattern fly east, line up for landing on runway 26 (crosswind), then once back up in the air fly south and line up for runway 35. Curious way of doing business, but I got a crosswind landing in. Not the cleanest, but nothing bent. 

We flew south to line up for 35. Base, final, touch down. Fairly smooth! By this point I'm feeling a whole lot more confident. Back up, and head south. ATC has us extend our downwind for additional traffic. They extended us nearly 5 miles south to the edge of the airspace. When we turned back north, I hear ATC clear another plane into land, apparently ahead of us. I'm not sure what was going on, but my instructor and I are watching this other plane cut in front of us to land. I slow down a bit by raising my nose, and I add a bit of power so not to loose too much altitude. We're still watching this plane in front of us that's just crossing the threshold. I'm still flying the approach to land, but my hand is on the throttle ready to slam it forward just in case. Just as my instructor and I were ready to declare a go-around ourselves because the plane was still on the runway ahead of us, ATC told us to go around. This time, I got all three Cs, and the go-around was smooth. Back around, extended 5 miles south again (why, this time, I don't know), and back for one last landing at Spaceport. My flare was a bit high on this one, but I corrected and sat us down just a bit further down the runway than anticipated. We departed to the south.

Coyote on the Runway

Approaching Centennial, I get the weather info. Winds 330 at 10 knots. They were landing on runway 35, so 10 knots pretty much straight down the pipe. I'm good with that. I'm still a ways out from the field, but I take a southwest heading that would put me on final for 35L or 35R, depending on which one ATC gave me. While en route, A plane waiting to depart 35R reports a coyote on the runway. This is not that unusual at Centennial, in fact one had met an untimely end just the previous day. As he's taxiing towards said coyote, he reports that the coyote is taking a dump on the runway. I mean, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go, I guess. Now, of course, we have "Foreign Object Debris" (FOD) on the runway, which even though it's likely soft and squishy, is not something ATC wants being kicked up into oncoming traffic. So ATC begins to divert traffic away from 35R while they figure out how much of a risk this steaming pile of fresh coyote droppings presents (to say nothing of the coyote).

I contact ATC to ask to land, and they offer me runway 28 since 35R is currently in, I have to say it, "shitty" condition. With the winds coming from 330, that would mean a crosswind landing. I asked for an updated wind check, they said 330 at 6 knots. I had dealt with a 6-knot crosswind at Spaceport, so I figured I could handle it here. It was either that or wait until they figured out what to do with the coyote droppings. I accepted 28, they cleared me to land, and I made my turn towards the airport. As luck would have it, I was set up about 5 miles out, pretty much straight in. A little right aileron into the wind, a little left rudder (okay a lot more left rudder than I thought I'd need) to keep the nose in line with the runway, flaps, airspeed, and touchdown. And for the first time in 42 lessons, my instructor applauded! He told me of the 5 landings I did, three were all me, and the other two required only very minor inputs on his part. I said after 60+ hours of flying, it's about friggin' time I finally got it together. 

And the coyote droppings were apparently safely blown off the runway by a taxiing plane.

Another day of landings like this, and it'll be time to start looking at stage check and solo. While my landings felt very consistent today, I'm still not 100% happy with my altitude control on my base leg. That second landing when I was 300' too high, I need to be better than that. I was off my game. I know why I was off my game, though. And my crosswind control felt natural. I wasn't fighting anything, I was just doing what I needed to do to keep the plane on centerline. (And I think I was closer to centerline than I have been in the past, but honestly don't remember.) But overall, easily my best day of landing practice yet. I was never rattled and I think that helped. 

Here, also, is the LiveATC recording of the troublesome coyote. (Edited for time)

And I've decided that Wile E. Coyote is now my unofficial mascot. I found a Lego Wile E. Coyote at Comic Con over the weekend. He will become a keychain and be attached to my flight bag. 

Lesson 41 - Highway from the Comfort Zone

 I'm writing this a few days after my last lesson, because quite frankly had I posted my thoughts immediately following, it would not be exactly "family-friendly" reading. It was not a good lesson. Not my worst, but certainly far from my best. I'm so close to my pre-solo stage check I can taste it, and this lesson was Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. I was frustrated, even a bit disheartened. Mad at myself, mad at my instructor, just generally not in a good place. As we've all learned one way or another to never hit "send" on an e-mail written in anger, I decided not to publish my original thoughts and reflect on the lesson in order to cast it in a much more objective light.  

First off, I wasn't expecting to fly, having been bumped to the simulator due to my reserved plane (a Grumman) being down for maintenance. A last-minute cancelation freed up a Cessna in my time slot, so my instructor snagged it. Cool! It'd had been over two weeks since my last flight and more maintenance and scheduling cancellations have pushed my next flight to two weeks from now. I was happy not to have a 5-week gap (again!) in my training. Still, my mental prep was for doing VOR navigation and simulated IMC, not take-offs and landings. I've also been flying Grummans recently as I find them a bit more responsive than the Cessnas, in which I have to wait just a second or two to get a feel for whether the control input I just put in is having any effect on the plane. Third, I was flying with my secondary instructor, whose teaching style I'm still getting used to. This is not a criticism, mind you, just a difference and it led to some muttering and tongue-biting on my part during the lesson as I was working through my frustrations. 

We decided to fly out to Spaceport to do touch-and-goes since it looked like things were going to be pretty busy at Centennial. I don't mind the flight to Spaceport because it gives me 10 minutes to gather my thoughts on the way out and just mentally prepare myself. But right from the take-off, I was already a bit on the defensive. When taking off, you want to rotate off the ground at around 55 knots in the Cessnas, but you don't want to continue to climb just yet. You want to get off the ground, then lower the nose to build airspeed. This avoids a "power-on stall" where you try to climb with too little airspeed, stall, then unceremoniously fall back to the ground with (at that low altitude) rather disastrous results. I rotated, then lowered the nose just a bit, but my instructor apparently was looking for more of a nose-lowering than I gave him, so he chided me to lower the nose and proceeded to explain why it was important. "Yeah, I know," I muttered under my breath. I was doing that, just not as fast or pronounced as he was expecting. And that pretty much set the tone for the entire lesson.

We flew out to Spaceport, asked them for touch-and-goes, but they told us the pattern was full. Bummer, but we decided to fly east and kill 10 minutes doing ground-reference maneuvers, and then ask them again if they had room in the pattern for us. My ground reference maneuvers in this case were S turns around a road. It had been a while since I had done ground reference maneuvers, so it felt good to do them. My first attempt turned too soon, but the rest were pretty smooth and even. After a few minutes, we called Spaceport again, and this time they let us in. 

I've got over 100 landings under my belt at this point in my training. Procedurally, I know what to do. What I ran into today wasn't so much a matter of not knowing what to do, but not doing it soon enough or fast enough, and exposing lapses and things I need to not forget to pay attention to. When landing, I try to make small control inputs so not to over control the plane. That's especially problematic on landing, and it's been something I've really been consciously working on, as over controlling in the past had messed up my approaches. Because the Cessna isn't quite as responsive as the Grumman, and because of my known tendency to over control, I was being conservative on the control inputs. More than once I muttered under my breath "I'm $%&! working on it!!!" (and I know once or twice verbally) as my instructor told me to add this or that. I felt most of the time I was doing things right, just not fast enough, thus my instructor was on to the next thing while I was still finishing up the last. This led to a sense of fighting the controls as he's for instance telling me to get the nose down to increase airspeed, while pulling back on the controls because we were getting close to the runway and it was time to round out. Just enough lag to where he's saying one thing and doing something else, which then confused me and led to not-so-great landings. (Cessnas friggin' float down the runway.) Our last outing was much more relaxed and both my instructor and I felt good about my landings, so this felt like a bit of a setback. 

One thing that I did not do well today was my climb-out and turn from upwind to crosswind. I had my controls crossed, meaning I had right rudder and left aileron trying to make a right turn. This is not how you do that, as at low enough speeds, it leads to a stall, spin, and sudden impact with the ground. I think I've been pretty good in the past about adding sufficient right rudder, and my instructors have not mentioned this prior to today, so maybe it was a "just today" thing. Regardless, it really dug into my psyche today. Maybe it was because of the "I know this, how am I not doing this today?" aspect, and maybe that contributed to my interpreting my instructor's tone as wondering how I've gotten this far without knowing this. I kept wanting to say "yeah, I know, I get it," but then each time I took off again, I had to work to get in enough right rudder to stay coordinated through the turns. Hopefully that was just a "today" thing. I went home and hit the simulator pretty hard to work through that. Though completely different in feeling, it was more the mental procedural notes to "keep an eye on the ball" through the process. Correcting it is easy. Knowing to look to stay on top of it so you don't have to correct it in the first place is just another thing to add to the mental checklist. 

As frustrating as things were, let me cast things in a slightly different light a few days after the fact. First, I've noted that my primary instructor tends not to like to see me be too comfortable in the plane. He'll pile on another task for me to do if he sees me getting complacent. I've come to appreciate this, though I usually curse him at the time because it pushes me outside of my comfort zone. I think that's kind of where I'm at with my secondary instructor as well. He's flown with me enough to know I can land a plane. He wants me to get better and more consistent, so he's pushing me to think faster and react quicker. He's picking up on weaknesses in my thought processes and forcing me to fill in those mental gaps. Having to think about my weaknesses while keeping my strengths strong has similarly pushed me outside my comfort zone. In the end, I know I'll be a smarter, better pilot as a result. It's a teaching style that I think will take a bit more time to get used to, but it's already paid dividends. When I think back on the lessons which have left me leaving the field feeling the most frustrated, they're also the ones which pushed me the furthest outside my comfort zone and the ones which taught me the most. 

As they say in skiing, "if you ain't falling, you ain't learning." Every now and then you gotta get knocked back on your heels to push yourself to do better the next time. Yes there were times I wanted to holler "shut up and let me fly the plane!" Yes, I walked out feeling more frustrated than I had in a long time. Then I realize that a lot of that was me; things I wasn't doing well, things I had overlooked. I could fly the plane, but I can fly it much better. I know about being coordinated in turns, but as I tell my kids whenever they begrudgingly say "I know, dad," having knowledge and acting upon that knowledge are two different things. That's where this lesson came from. So, yeah. I left the field feeling frustrated and a bit mad. Now, I get to climb back into the plane, turn that frustration into action, and become a better pilot because of it.

Lesson 40 - "Miraculous?"

 

Nothing about flying is really "routine," but of late, the business at hand has been drilling down on my landings. Gaps in my mind have been filled in, and I'm feeling a lot more confident about my landings than I ever have. I was flying today with my secondary instructor, who has been working with me to get over my landing struggles. Today's lesson was designed to be "more of the same." Take off, hit the pattern, land. The pattern at Centennial was full, so we flew out to Rocky Mountain Metro in Boulder. I will confess that due to other things going on right now such as vacation and multiple things on the "honey-do" list, I'm writing this three weeks after this lesson, so my memory of details has gotten a bit foggy. 

The big takeaway from this lesson was the importance of maintaining a tight pattern--for the benefit of everyone in the pattern. You need to be in a predictable space (absent ATC instructions to the contrary) so when ATC advises planes in the pattern of others in the pattern, we know where to look and can find the planes (or they can find us). There were a few times in the pattern where either I was a bit far from the runway or the plane I was supposed to be following was outside the pattern and I could not find him. When ATC says "you're number 3 to land" and you only see one other plane in the pattern, is he number 1 or number 2 to land? If you think he's number 2 and you follow him, the plane who is really number 2 to land is converging on the same point you're flying towards, and, well, let's just say that's a situation that needs to be avoided. 

A tight pattern, mind you, is helped by landmarks on the ground that you can reference to know when to make your turns, so even on airports out in the middle of nowhere, you need to figure out points on the ground which you can quickly identify and line up with, or failing that, time your turns with a consistent count on the crosswind leg of the pattern. 

After a handful of not-too-bad landings, my instructor apparently felt comfortable enough in my abilities to introduce a new wrinkle--the no-flaps, forward slip approach. He had been working with me on side slips in previous lessons as a means to keep the nose lined up with the runway. A forward slip is similar in principle, but rather than keep the nose lined up with the runway and use the ailerons to move the plane side-to-side (hence "side slip"), with a forward slip you keep the plane's course moving forward, and let the nose point to the side opposite the aileron input. The goal with a forward slip is to introduce drag, slow the plane, and lose altitude quickly (in a controlled fashion). Given a choice, I'll use flaps, but it's a good skill to develop. 

We left Rocky Mountain Metro and returned to Centennial, flying south towards Chatfield Reservoir because my instructor prefers to fly routes over less-populated areas "just in case" something happens and clearings to land are easier to find. Makes sense, but my aerial photo of Coors Field will have to wait. 

We got back to the field and talked about how things went. My instructor called my progress since the first time we flew together a month or so ago "miraculous." Truthfully, I'm not sure how to take that. While I will definitely say my landings have improved greatly since, I didn't think they were quite that bad to begin with. Still, progress is progress, and I'm moving closer to my goal.