Lesson 57 - A Little Night Flying

 

After my previous lesson, my instructor texted me, "hey, how 'bout a night flight next? It's supposed to be warm." I looked at the long range forecast, and while Monday was indeed going to be warm, it was also going to be windy due to a system moving through. I suggested moving our Thursday lesson to the evening since I happened to have the day off from work that day. It wasn't going to be warm, but the winds looked reasonable. We scheduled for 5pm, with being the middle of December was well after sunset. 

It was a bit chilly, so my instructor and I tag-teamed the preflight inspection in order to get through things just a bit faster. Fortunately, the plane was parked right under the only light pole on this end of the field, so we could see what we were doing. We were quick, but thorough. I often read stories of folks rushing through their preflight inspections in the cold and at night, but we still made sure we didn't forget anything, except remembering that I had gloves in my pocket. 

We took off and headed south because I wanted to get away from the city lights for a bit. Flying at night is "easy" when flying over the city because the lights give you a good sense of a horizon. Flying in the middle of nowhere takes that visual cue away and I wanted to experience that. I got more than I bargained for. We picked up Parker Road, which is our typical route south to the practice areas. Not that we were going to be doing and ground reference stuff at night, but it was an easy landmark to follow into the darkness. Before too long, I noticed that my view forward had gotten very dark, indeed. That's to be expected, as there's not a whole lot out there. Still, I should have been able to see some lights somewhere. I glanced down at the ground beneath us. Recent snows still laid on the ground so I had a bit more definition on the ground than I may have had without it, but something still seemed a bit off. I glanced at my wingtips. The strobes were picking up moderate snow. Apparently there was a line of snow showers to the south of town, and I had just flown into them. We weren't in the clouds because I could still see below me, but we were enough into the thick of the snow where visibility was quite compromised.

My first thought was to do a coordinated "standard rate" 180 turn and head north. We were flying into IMC (instrument meteorological conditions), and that's what you're supposed to do in that situation if you're not IFR rated. I'm not. My instructor is, however, and he seized upon the opportunity. "Give me a steep 360 to the right." A what??? We're flying in IMC and you want me to do a steep turn? But--hey--he wants to walk away from this flight as much as I do, so he wouldn't have me do anything to put us at risk. Okay, I don't have reference outside the window, so look at the heading indicator, not which way I'm flying, rock the wings to 45 degrees, hold altitude, watch the heading indicator and attitude indicator, and make a 360. About halfway through the turn, I see hints of lights sweeping by out of the window, though not necessarily in the direction I thought they should be. I checked my instruments and I was where I should be. No sooner had I finished that turn, my instructor had me do another steep turn to the left. Same thing. Watch my heading and attitude indicators, don't lose altitude, and--again--about halfway through, I caught hints of city lights sweeping through the window. And--again--not in the direction I thought they should be. But my instruments were exactly where they needed to be for the maneuver. 

"So, what'd you think?" he asked me. It wasn't scary or unnerving. I've flown steep turns and I've flown without being able to see out the window, so it wasn't anything particularly unusual. However, the disconnect between what my instruments were showing and what I thought I saw out the window was quite sobering. It was a quick (and powerful) introduction to spatial disorientation at night. The lights play tricks on you. Trust your instruments. We flew around a bit more in the almost complete darkness looking down for hints of roads or cars on them, and then by GPS to get us headed back to the airport to do some landings. 

You would think an airport beacon would be easy to spot. After all, that's why airports have beacons--so planes can easily spot the airfield. By now we had flown far enough north to where we were out of the weather, so we had a good view of the city lights underneath and ahead of us. Could either of us find that stinking beacon? Nope. I found a dark area which I presumed to be Hess reservoir, then found the power lines that cross south of the field and then flew that direction because I knew I could find the runway from there, even without seeing the airport beacon. I called the tower, they cleared us to land. 

Prior to flying this flight, I had spent some time on my simulator doing night landings. I wanted to give myself a sense of what to expect. No, the sim isn't exactly like the real thing, but I figured it would point out things I'd want to pay attention to. The biggest issue I had on the simulator was keeping the centerline lined up. Also, a lack of peripheral vision as a reference for when to time my round-out and flare. I found in the real world, with depth perception to help out, keeping things lined up on centerline was easier than on the sim. Still not easy, because you only have lights on the edge of the runway to help, but easier than on the sim. Not having that peripheral vision to the side to time your round-out and flare, though, that got me every time. We did four landings at this point, and I flared too high on each and every one, causing me to lose airspeed and stall just a bit higher than I wanted to over the runway. "Smooth" was not part of the equation. After our forth landing, I decided I just wanted to fly and enjoy the lights of the city, so I asked the tower for a departure to the west, which they gave me. Once headed west, I handed the controls over to my instructor, pulled out my camera, and started taking pictures. It was a few days before Christmas, and all the neighborhoods were lit up. It was pretty cool. 

Completely unrelated to flying, it took me a bit to get the settings on my camera set to where I could get clean, well-exposed photos. I found that even with a good zoom lens, we were simply too high to get the neighborhood lights in any detail, so I just stuck to wide city shots. I also learned my iPhone takes much better night pictures than my old Canon DSLR. Go figure. 

After I took a handful of pictures, I took the controls and brought us back to the airport for one last landing. This time, I was going to hold just a little bit longer to try to time my round-out and flare just a bit better. I lined up, held things off until the last moment, rounded out, and THUD! I landed flat on all three wheels. Better than landing on the nose wheel first, but maybe I over-compensated just a bit. 

I've got one more required night flight, and it has to be 100 miles minimum. I also need 5 more night landings, so my instructor suggested an idea for our next night flight, a tour of a lot of local airports. I'm not sure when we'll get that scheduled, but I'm looking forward to it. 

Lesson 56 - Brush Up your Crosswind

 

After my previous lesson, I wanted to continue to work on my instrument flying, and also if practical, work on my crosswind landings. At this point, every lesson should check off more and more of the requirements for my final check ride. Get those out of the way, then just polish the skills that need polishing (like landings). Then I'll be ready for my final exam, so to speak. I checked the weather when I woke up, which had the winds at 7 knots out of the west. That was perfect for working on crosswind landings. By the time left for the airport, the winds had picked up a bit. By "a bit," I mean 14 gusting to 20, and still out of the west. If I were flying solo, that would be a hard "no go" at that point. The club rules dictate a maximum crosswind of 8 knots, and I'm more than fine with that. 

I sat down with my instructor, half expecting to come to the conclusion that the winds were crap and we wouldn't fly today. Nope. Today I was flying with my secondary instructor who likes his students to really know how to handle crosswinds. The 8-knot rule is for student solo, not for students flying with instructors, and he saw this as a perfect opportunity. Gusty crosswinds, but still within the minimums for the plane itself. I couldn't come up with a reason not to have a go, because it's definitely something that makes sense to learn with an instructor sitting next to you. We figured we'd do a little navigation work under the hood and then see if ATC would let us do some touch-and-goes before calling it a day.

We got in the plane and got the latest weather, which indicated the winds had calmed down just a bit, now down to 10 knots gusting to around 17. We decided to switch things around and see if we could do touch-and-goes first since 10 gusting to 17 was preferable to 14 gusting to 20. ATC obliged, and we were soon up in the pattern setting up for crosswind landings.

I've written about this in the past. I've drilled crosswind landings in the past. Today, they kicked my butt. I was fighting the wind today. Part of it stemmed from my instructor having me fly these without setting any flaps, so my approach speeds were faster than I had done in the past. The challenge there is that instead of using the flaps to create drag to slow down, you pitch the nose of the plane up a bit higher to slow down. When you do that, you become a bigger target for the wind. The gusts were also more unpredictable than just a stable crosswind, so my adjustments were not as good as I wanted. Add to that I had a tendency on round-out to want to level the wings, which is not what you want to do in a crosswind situation. Still, I pushed through four crosswind landings, in which I did manage to set the plane down on the runway more-or-less in line with it, but definitely not on center. It was, however, a significant crosswind, so while I won't say I did good, I won't say I did horrible, either. Definitely something I will work on again (and again) as conditions allow. My fifth attempt at landing resulted in a go-around because ATC had me do a short approach which left me too high. I slipped down to the proper altitude, but I was too fast and unstable for comfort so I waved off. We then departed to the east for some instrument work.

Today, I wanted to work on dialing in and tracking VOR navigation signals. I knew I could do better than my last time up, and wanted to prove to myself that I actually did know how to do it. I was back under the hood instead of using foggles because that's what the desk had available. I much prefer foggles. The hood kept sliding down, causing me to have to crane my neck up a bit to see the instruments. But that's neither here nor there. I felt I did better today with things, but I don't think I was quite as task-saturated, either. I still need to get better at dialing in VOR and GPS information in small spurts so not to take my attention away from keeping the plane on course. That comes with familiarization with the navigation electronics on the plane, which I'm just now starting to play with. 

I tracked the VOR signal out to a small private airfield, arriving about a mile south of it, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty good. I switched to GPS navigation and followed that back to the airport. Along the way, my instructor told me to close my eyes while he put the plane in what pilots call an "unusual attitude." This is where the instructor (or examiner) takes the controls, puts the plane in a steep climb, bank, dive, or otherwise not ideal situation and says "fix it." You've got to quickly assess the attitude of your plane and the steps needed to correct it. Nose down too much, you've got to raise it. Nose up to high, you've got to lower it. Watch your airspeed. Level the wings. Work your way back to your course and altitude. I will admit this was fun, and I corrected us with relative ease. 

When the GPS showed me about 10 miles out from the airport, I called the tower, took off the hood, and flew the approach visually. By now the winds had shifted direction so they were coming more or less out of the north. Yay! No more crosswind!!! I set us down on the runway with comparative ease to my earlier crosswind endeavors, to the point where my instructor later called that landing "pretty much perfect." Coming from him, that's high praise indeed. When he says that about my crosswind landings, I know I'll be ready for my check ride. 

Lesson 55 - Where Am I???

With the first solo out of the way, I'm actually coming down the home stretch. That's not to say I'm going to be finished tomorrow by any means, but now it's just a matter of planning the lessons so they start checking off the required components needed for my final check ride. Those include night flights, 10 hours of solo time, and "cross country" flights, both with an instructor and by myself. Also included in that requirement is that I fly at least 3 hours in simulated (or actual) instrument flying conditions. We decided today would be a good day to work on that.

I prepped the plane, we took off, and once I reached cruising altitude, my instructor pulled out the "foggles," and had me put them on. Foggles are essentially clear glasses with the top half of the lenses fogged over so you can't see anything but a blur of light through them. The bottom is clear so you can see your instruments. These are different from the hood I wore my first time, which is essentially an oversized golf visor. The foggles have the advantage of letting light through, which does a better job of simulating flying in the clouds where you're still surrounded by light, but you just can't see anything through it. 

I remembered from my first time flying by instruments that I was over-controlling the plane. I was turning too steep and climbing too fast, so I overshot everything. I worked the simulator a bit between then and now, and trained myself to make smaller adjustments. This paid off. My instructor had me climbing and descending, and also turning left and right. These I did with relative ease this time. Smaller control movements meant I didn't overshoot. 

Next, my instructor had me climb and turn at the same time. This is not quite "rub your belly and pat your head," but it still required a fair amount of concentration. I did okay with this early on in the process, but when my instructor had me making a series of turns and climbs in succession, I started to lose my bearings and began missing my targets. Now, some instructors would see this and maybe dial it back a bit to get me back in my comfort zone. Nope. Instead, he decided to layer VOR navigation into the mix, since when flying by instruments, this is one of the tools a pilot would be using to navigate. 

I have practiced VOR navigation on my simulator, and I tracked a VOR radial my last time under the hood, so this wasn't necessarily new to me. What was new was having it layered in with not being able to see anything but my instruments, and having to tune in the frequencies and radials while maintaining flight based solely on the instruments. This meant for a student pilot who is relatively inexperienced with this workflow, spending an inordinate amount of time looking at the radios and VOR gauge, drawing one's attention away from the other gauges, particularly the attitude indicator which is really the best visual reference you have to what the plane is doing. You can't see outside, so there's no horizon in your periphery that can guide you. Combine that with having to track this radial, then that radial, then turn and fly towards the VOR station and a whole lot of other more-or-less unfamiliar (and certainly unpracticed) maneuvers, and things went sideways fast. 

"You don't know where you are or what you're doing, do you?"

Yeah, that's a pretty fair assessment at this point. I had no concept of which way the plane was pointed. Yes, the heading indicator showed 90 degrees (east) but my mind simply couldn't picture which way that was. I was utterly confused. My altitude control was suffering mightily as well. At least I knew which way was up, but I was just having a hard time keeping level flight. 

You often hear about "spatial disorientation" when pilots fly in the clouds. Pilots get into those circumstances and simply don't believe their instruments. I experienced that today. It's not pleasant. It's easy to see how so many pilots crash their planes in cloudy/foggy conditions. I'm not gonna lie, it rattled me. Not to the point of being afraid or incapable of continuing, but because of how quickly task saturation set in and got me to that point. 

This was drinking from the firehose again. I've had a small handful of lessons like this; lessons where I'm pushed well past my comfort zone. We then dissect things and work on the various skills that come into play in that scenario. After I got thoroughly disoriented, my instructor had me take the foggles off. Since it was the addition of VOR navigation and me trying to wrap my head around that which seemed to be the tipping point, we worked on VOR navigation where I could see out the window. I'm not confused by it, but it's not yet second nature. That will come with time and practice, and when it becomes more second nature, it will be easier to incorporate it into the workflow when I can't see out the window. 

We returned back to the airport, where I flew a pretty decent approach, but we had a fairly significant crosswind which I struggled to keep up with. Not sure why, because I knew it was there. I just didn't do a good job at all of dealing with it. Something else to work on. 

The race is on...

Teaching students to fly is the most common way for pilots working their way to the airlines to build the requisite time required, which is 1,500 total hours. Well, my instructor hit that magic number and is headed to the airlines on March 10th. So, the race is on. Can I get through all my requirements and be ready for my check ride before he leaves? Time will tell.