Lesson 73 - External Pressures and Density Altitude

Aviation is full of acronyms. ATOMATOFLAMES, NWKRAFT, IMSAFE, FLAPS, CGUMPS ... It's pretty endless. If you're a pilot and you're reading this, then you know. If you're not, don't sweat it. Just be glad your pilot does when they're in the cockpit. One of the safety acronyms we use is PAVE

Pilot

Airplane

enVironment

External pressure

It's kind of a "go, no-go" checklist that pilots should run through to determine if they should fly the plane. Is the pilot in good shape? Is the plane airworthy? What's the weather? Are there any external pressures which might make you want to fly when it's otherwise not safe to do so? Today's lesson targeted the last two in this checklist.

Today's flight was to be a long cross country flight to Colorado Springs and Pueblo with my instructor in preparation for my eventual solo long cross country flight. Since I have switched from the Grummans to the Pipers, I've had the added benefit of a rear seat in the airplane. Both of my kids have expressed interest in flying with me pretty much since I started this madness over two years ago. While the Cessna 172s I started training in had 4 seats, I was reluctant to fly with my kids because I wasn't comfortable flying. Then I switched to the Grummans, in which I got comfortable enough to carry passengers, except that the Grummans I was flying only had two seats, so with my instructor in the right seat, there was no room for anyone else. I can't carry non-pilot passengers until I get my license. The Grummans got totaled in a hailstorm, so I switched to flying the Piper Archers. Now I have rear seats, willing passengers, and a CFI who says "sure!"

My daughter is fast to play the "eldest child" card whenever possible, so she claimed dibs on the first flight. I wanted it to be something cool, not just flying in the pattern, so I scheduled this long cross country to Pueblo so she could fly with us. She was understandably excited, and I was anxious to make this as memorable of an experience as possible. I figured we'd fly to Colorado Springs, where we'd fly over her grandparents' and her aunt's houses. (They live on the approach to the airport.) Then we'd fly to Pueblo where we'd stop and get some ice cream, then return back to Centennial. It would be a full flight, but a fun one. My desire to fly this for my daughter is a textbook example of an "External pressure" to make the flight.

My instructor had me run a weight-and-balance sheet for the flight since we were carrying an extra passenger. This is a sheet where we total up the weight of everything on the plane, and based on that weight, the outside temperature and atmospheric pressure, and published performance data for the airplane, determine if it's safe to fly, and what kind of performance we can expect. This is the "enVironment" part of the acronym. I ran the numbers, and based on published charts, we were under the maximum allowable weight even with full fuel tanks, and performance would be on par with other flights despite temperatures expected to be a bit on the warm side. Things looked good. On paper.

We arrived at the field, and I got the plane ready while my daughter gleefully snapped countless photos on her phone of the process. My instructor looked over my weight-and-balance sheet and agreed that we were in good shape based on the published data. We loaded everybody and everything up and set out on our journey. I taxied us to the run-up area where things were textbook. I had the flight plan pulled up on my iPad to get us down to the Springs. ATC cleared us to take off on runway 10, which was going to save us a good bit of time in its own right. We decided to try a short field take-off since I'm working on perfecting those techniques. The temperature was around 80 degrees, and the density altitude at the airport was reported at 8,900'. (Density Altitude is the altitude that the plane feels like it's flying at. Warm air is less dense, and higher elevations have less dense air, so the warmer it is, the higher it "feels" to objects flying through them. A density altitude of 8,900' is high, but not unusual for Summer. Plenty of small planes were flying today, and besides, things looked good. On paper.

Lined up on the runway, brakes set, 25 degrees of flaps, full throttle, release brakes, and we're off. The plane seemed a bit lethargic compared to what I was used to, but we're also carrying an extra body and full fuel. We're still below max gross weight, though. We're good. I reach 64 knots and begin to pull the nose back to take off. We take off. Almost immediately, the stall horn sounds. I pitch the nose down to level flight to try to gain more airspeed. Not really gaining much speed. Maybe a little, but I'm also not climbing. I pitch up a bit to try to gain altitude, and the stall horn starts chirping again. Level off, gain a bit of speed, pitch up to climb again, and the stall horn sounds again.

This is only my 5th time flying the Piper Archer, and my third in this specific airplane. I have not had a chance to really get a feel for how these planes perform to know if it's performance--or lack thereof--is operator error or something else. But I was beginning to take this personally that this plane simply did not want to listen to my command to climb. Stall horn. Level off to gain airspeed, climb, stall horn again. At this point, my instructor senses something not right (operator error or ?) and takes the controls. I'm thinking he's going to do some magic experienced pilot stuff and get us on an even keel, and I can debrief with him later what I was doing wrong. Nope. Stall horn, level off, gain a little air speed, try to climb again, lather, rinse, repeat. We had made it to Parker, which by this time we should have been at 7,500' We were barely at 7,000'. This was not good. At least I was comfortable knowing it wasn't operator error, but that still didn't change the fact that this plane was just not gaining altitude near fast enough to suit our tastes. We contemplated turning back, but weren't quite ready to call it a day. After all, this was supposed to be the fun long cross country flight with my daughter that she would remember forever. (She was oblivious to any difficulties we were having in the front row of seats, continuing her enthusiastic documentation of every minute of the flight on Instagram to rub it into her friends.)

We finally got enough airspeed to where we could climb without the stall horn chirping, but we were not climbing very quickly at all. My instructor checked the density altitude for Colorado Springs. They had a density altitude of 9,200'. Ugh. Not good. If we were getting this poor performance here, we'd likely get even worse performance there. Decision time. The enVironment was turning against us. We weren't losing altitude, so immediate safety wasn't an issue. There were External pressures to continue the flight. My daughter deserved to have a fun, full flight.

I'll be honest in saying I was solidly on the fence at first. I said "let's give it a minute" to see if things calmed down. Again, we weren't losing altitude, so an extra minute to see if things changed wasn't that much of a risk. The stall horn chirping while we were only 500' above the ground was unnerving, but as we gained altitude and began to quiet the stall horn, there was a moment when I thought maybe things were changing. 

Things didn't change. I could sense my instructor was just a bit uncomfortable. This wasn't a "what do you think?" kind of situation where he's asking because he could go either way and wants to know my thoughts. He was genuinely concerned. That was enough for me. That's it, we're landing. Not worth the risk. Live to fly another day. We told ATC we were returning to the airport. They cleared us to land on the runway we just took off from. I made an uneventful approach and despite flaring just a bit too early (now the plane wants to fly!) sat down safely and just a little bit past where I was hoping to. We taxied back to the ramp, tied down, took a few more pictures, and headed in to try to figure out why there was such a discrepancy between what was on paper and what we experienced.

We pulled up the performance charts, and "on paper," we should have had been able to achieve a climb rate near 350 feet per minute. In the 10 minutes from when our wheels left the ground to when we decided to land, we gained only 1,680' in elevation. That's 168 feet per minute, about half of what we were expecting. It's important to note that the "service ceiling" for any aircraft is the altitude at which its climb rate falls below 100 feet per minute. We weren't too far above that at all. Suffice to say even if we were to continue the flight, I would have spent the time worrying about the poor performance, not concentrating on flying the route.

Factors? First, there's obviously the weather. Planes don't perform well at high density altitudes, and performance charts may not mirror real world conditions. How much that is off is hard to measure; it's just something you have to feel in the air. Second, there's the age of the plane. Compared to some I've flown, this plane is a relative Spring chicken. But age still plays a factor. What we think played a large part is the spinny thing at the front of the plane.

Like any mechanical device, you can get speed or power, but getting both at the same time is a rare treat. Airplane propellers work by creating thrust as the blades spin around. Depending on the pitch of the propeller, you can get good speed or good power. Complex airplanes have variable pitch propellers, which allow the pilot to set the pitch of the propellers depending on need. The trainers don't have that feature. A propeller can either be weighted towards good climbing performance--a climbing propeller, or good cruise performance--a cruise propeller. Our plane today was fitted with a cruise propeller. Because of that, its performance on climbs will be less than what's in the manual. This wasn't something I really thought about. I had flown another Archer with a cruise propeller a few lessons back, but didn't notice any real performance issues with it. But, it was a newer plane and we were carrying less weight on that flight. Discussions with other instructors after we landed revealed this plane is known to be a poor performer in hot weather. Now we know.

Takeaway from the day? If something doesn't feel right, get back on the ground. We could have proceeded and likely would have completed the mission. But the risk--especially with passengers--is not worth it. That and I'd have spent the entire flight worrying about the performance instead of enjoying the fight. (To say nothing of the fact if any ensuing crash didn't kill me, my wife most assuredly would have.) 

Lesson 61 - One of THOSE Days

Today's task, a flight out to Limon, CO using GPS and VOR navigation in addition to visual landmarks. This was going to be an easy day. My last flight was my "long cross country," which I had flown with my second instructor, so I was pretty confident in that part of things. Today was going to work more on electronic navigation, using GPS and VOR navigational aids. The weather was cold, and we had just had a fresh snowfall, but other than that, a regular walk in the park.

Yeah, right. I wouldn't have written that if it were true.

This was my first flight with my original CFI after a long time flying with my second CFI. This was mostly just due to scheduling, as I tried to alternate between the two so to balance both styles. I found I'd learn things with one, but be able to better practice them with the other. Weird dynamic, but it got me through my landing difficulties and onto my solo flight, so--hey--whatever works.

Anyway, the first hint today was going to be strange was when I got to the airport and there was a note attached to the book for the plane. "Engine break-in period." The plane had just received a new engine. This meant that we were to fly the plane with the throttle at 100% for every stage of the flight except landings. That also meant no touch-and-goes, which wasn't really in our plans anyway. Second, we had to de-ice the plane, which is somewhat a pain. Plastic bags of warm water to melt and loosen the ice, then wipe it off with a towel. Fortunately being in Colorado, the sun does a pretty good job of melting frost and ice by mid-morning, but that only works where the sun hits. I pulled the plane out and turned it around so the sun could shine on the shady side of things, but it still took a bit to get things clean. And for whatever reason, I simply wasn't clicking on all cylinders today. Nothing major, just forgetting stupid things like my run-up checklist and just being a bit behind in thought. 

We took off and headed east. When you're climbing in a small plane like a Grumman, you have the throttle full as you need all the power you can get. Once you're at altitude, you back the throttle off a bit, set your pitch and fly straight and level. This plane today did not want to fly level for love or money. It just wanted to climb. Maybe the cold air had something to do with it, but it seemed every time I looked at the altimeter, I had climbed 100'. Trim? Didn't matter. No amount of nose-down trim kept this bird from climbing. 

Once en route, the plan was to pick up flight following from Denver control on our way out to Limon. Flight following is just an extra set of eyes on you as you fly to your destination. They'll alert you to traffic nearby and things like that. They don't necessarily tell you where to fly, though they will if you're in a congested area to keep you out of the way of other traffic. You call them up on the radio, they give you a unique code to punch into your transponder so they can identify you specifically on their screens, and you go about your flight. They were rather busy today, so they first took forever to get back to us when we called them. When they did, they gave us a code to enter. Simple. Nope. The transponder in the Grumman is a touch screen. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was that touch screens in a bumpy airplane cockpit were a good idea, but I'm pretty sure they were also responsible for screen doors on submarines. But, noooo.... that wasn't enough. In addition to having trouble hitting the right buttons on the touch screen, said touch screen decided it was going to malfunction. When you did finally land your finger on the "5" button, "3" showed up on the screen. It was a mess. All the while ATC is getting increasingly frustrated with us because we're not yet showing the requested code. After about two minutes of trying, we gave up and cancelled our request for flight following. So much for that.

Back to the task at hand, flying to Limon via GPS. It's simple, right? You have GPS. You enter your destination. You press "go to." A magenta line shows up on the screen. You follow the magenta line. Apparently not. You follow the magenta needle that shows up on your heading indicator. I did not know that, and my instructor was a bit annoyed at that. "What has your other instructor been teaching you?" he asked rather incredulously. Apparently it's not enough to fly the same heading as the magenta line though you're maybe a mile or two one side or the other of it. "Fly the needle" means you keep the plane directly on that magenta line. Yes, that's definitely how you want to do things when flying on instruments, and maybe this was a difference in expectations where my CFI was looking for instrument precision on this flight and I was using them as general references in conjunction with VFR rules. 

Be that as it may, we made it out to Limon. This was my first time flying to an un-towered airport. That means there's no air traffic controller telling you where to go. You have to make your own decisions on which runway to use, identify other traffic that's also flying around the airport, and most importantly, don't hit anyone in the process. I have the opposite problem from a lot of students. Many who fly out of un-towered airports cannot grasp radio calls to air traffic control. I'm the opposite. Communications at un-towered airports to me seem a bit wild west. There's structure, but there's no readback. It's all on you. And while it's not quite a foreign language, it's certainly a very distinct dialect. There were a few planes in the pattern at Limon today, so it was definitely an experience.

Landing at Limon was okay. We opted for a full stop/taxi back landing due to the wet runway conditions thanks to melting snow. No big deal. The runway was plowed. The taxiway, on the other hand. I got the nosewheel stuck in a pile of slushy snow that took some doing to get out of. Just one more thing to knock me off my game. 

We decided we were both frustrated enough for one day, pointed the nose west, and headed home. Not my best outing. Lots of little things. Some out of my control, some that I simply didn't execute. But in the list of unproductive lessons I've had, this one sits high on the list. 

Lesson 72 - Short Cross Country (redux)

Today was a repeat, a cross country flight out to Limon, CO. I flew this flight earlier this year with my old CFI before he left for the airlines. However, school policy says I must have flown any potential solo cross country route with my current CFI, so here we were planning another short hop out to Limon. I "just" need my solo cross country to wrap this process up, so whatever I can do to make that happen, I'm going to do it. 

On one hand, having to re-do this flight is bit of a bummer because in some ways it was just burning money to satisfy the legal or other policy requirements of the powers that be. No one likes wasting money, even if the views are great! On the other hand, my this was only my fourth flight with my new CFI, and he hadn't had a chance to fly with me long distances yet. He's still getting used to me, getting a feel for my strengths and weaknesses. Its his name on the endorsement, and I'd want the same of any student if I were teaching. Besides, my last flight to Limon was, well, let's just forget that one, shall we? 

I was a bit unsure of the winds forecast for the day, so I planned a flight to Limon and also to Fort Morgan, where earlier in the week the winds looked a bit more favorable. I figured we'd see what the winds were doing when we took off and fly to one or the other. The winds today favored Limon, so that's where we went. Today's flight was VFR (visual flight rules) which means you're navigating by what you can see out of the window. Yes, I have GPS in the plane, and I had the flight pulled up on my iPad to keep track of where I was, but I was not flying it by "magenta line." My job was to pick easily-identifiable landmarks along the route to get me to where I am supposed to be going. Old-school pilotage. Early on in my training, my original CFI had me draw up a flight plan to Limon using landmarks on the ground. When I looked at the map for identifiable landmarks between here and there, I got the joke. It's all farmland, and from 3,000' above the ground, all the farms look alike. I drew up a plan that followed the roads, since they were easily seen, if not necessarily the most direct route. My old CFI and I never got around to putting that plan into action, so I revived it for this trip. (My previous flight to Limon relied more on electronic navigation to get me out and back.)

With the flight plan loaded into the tablet and sun shining, we set off. My soft-field take-off technique still needs work. I need to get better at staying in ground effect to build up speed before climbing out. (Part of that is that I also still need to get used to climbing with 25 degrees of flaps. All of my climb-outs today were slower than I'd like them to be.) Once airborne, I flew to Parker, then down to Franktown where I picked up highway 86 which runs out to Limon, and followed that all the way out. 

Approaching Limon, my instructor dialed in Limon's airport on one of our GPS units to figure out what our descent rate should be. I haven't had the chance to play much with this aspect of the technology in the cockpit yet, so this was a bit of an electronics education for me. From where we were, it told us we needed a 500 foot-per-minute descent rate to get to pattern altitude over the airfield. I pulled out just a bit of power, set trim, and enjoyed probably one of the smoothest descents from altitude I've flown. (I'm really liking the Archers.) It was almost like having autopilot, which I'll get to momentarily. In any respect, it was almost like I knew where I was going and what I was doing! 

I did mess one thing up. I descended to 6,400' to overfly the airport, since that's the elevation my instructor dialed into the GPS. Normal procedure when overflying an airport is to do so 500' above pattern altitude, which is 1,000' above the field elevation. My brain, then, decided that 6,400' was 500' above traffic pattern altitude, so once over the field, I started descending an additional 500'. Alas, my brain was wrong. Field elevation at Limon is 5,400. Traffic pattern altitude is 6,400'. I'm pretty sure my instructor said that, and I'm pretty sure when I looked up the airport I saw the field elevation, but at that point in time, my brain was having none of it. It made up its mind, and it was wrong. Fortunately, it just meant that as I started descending down to around 6,100', my CFI reminded me that I was quite low enough for what we were doing, and perhaps I should level off a bit. 

The landings were pretty good. I was working on my short-field technique without necessarily making a point to do it, just that we only had 4,600' of runway and we were doing touch-and-goes, so I needed to land as short as possible so to have enough runway to get back up again. There aren't thousand-foot markers on this runway, so I really didn't have a specific aiming point. Having said that, I didn't really think I floated unnecessarily far down the runway, and had I been concentrating on making a specific point, probably would have made it easily enough. 

My climb-out performance still wasn't what I was hoping it would be. It was warm, but not hot, but I seem to have been given a choice--speed or rate-of-climb. If I wanted to climb at 300' per minute or more, my speed was 60 - 70 knots at the most, which is just too close to stall speed for comfort. I'm still not sure where that's stemming from besides me not being used to flying with 25 degrees of flaps. That's something I'm going to work on next time. It's probably just one little thing, but I need to figure out what it is. Outside of that, I only had one approach that got too low and slow for my tastes (and my instructors). I was getting ready to go around right when he said "go around." He said he wanted to give me a go-around anyway to see how I handled it, so there's that. I think on that landing, I put in full flaps just a touch too early, and did not put in enough power in return. 

We left Limon to head back to Centennial. I didn't have a specific flight plan for that beyond "go back the way I came." Nothing was in the iPad, so I just followed the road. I had thought earlier in the week that I could do some instrument flying and foggle work this trip, and was contemplating pulling my foggles out of my bag when my instructor asked if I had ever flown with autopilot. I hadn't, since neither the Grummans nor Cessnas that I had flown actually had working autopilots. He suggested I dial it up to see how it works. That sounded just as reasonable to me because my check ride examiner is going to expect me to know how to use the autopilot if it's in the plane I do my check ride in. 

It's actually pretty simple. You dial in the heading you want to fly and hit the "heading" button. Then you get to the altitude you want to maintain and hit the "altitude" button. The computer takes it from there. Need to change course? Just enter your new heading. Need to climb? You can turn a knob to increase your rate of climb to get you to a new elevation. Easy. "Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight." Well, not quite. This flavor of autopilot will maintain your heading and altitude. It does not control your power or speed. If you reduce power, which tends to reduce altitude, it compensates by adjusting the pitch, which impacts speed. If you it a downdraft and lose altitude quickly, it doesn't see that as turbulence, but just a need to get you back up to the requested altitude, which it does by increasing pitch which reduces speed. While flying with the autopilot engaged and talking with my instructor about other things, my airspeed was quietly creeping down--almost to stall speed. Fortunately, the pilot can (a) overpower the autopilot, and (b) disengage it entirely in those situations. My instructor showed me where the "disengage" button was, and I flew manually the rest of the flight. Lesson: Autopilot allows you to take your hands off the controls. It does not mean you take your eyes off your instruments.

With that lesson learned, we called Centennial, got clearance to land and returned home. I was a bit lower than I should have been on my approach, which kinda bugged me that I let that happen, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it. On my landing at Centennial, I flared too high because I was used to the narrower 60' runway at Limon and thought I was lower than I was. As a result, I floated further down the runway than I wanted to. (Definitely not a short field landing this time.) It wasn't a bad landing, but I wasn't as in control of it as I would like. But if that's the worst that happened, it's a good day in the air.

Lesson 60 - The Long Cross Country

 With the initial solo stage now behind me, it is now time to focus on the last significant part of this journey, the long cross country flight. I've written before that "cross country" is kind of a misnomer. For training purposes, a "cross country" flight is a flight to any airport more than 50 nautical miles away. The "long" cross country is a flight of longer than 150 nautical miles, with at least three airports, and a distance of at least 50 nautical miles between two of those stops. 

My instructor and I planned on flying east to Fort Morgan, then continuing to Akron, then return to Centennial. Flying the plane is only part of the process, arguably the smallest part of the process. The long cross country is all about planning. Weight, waypoints, navigation, fuel, plane performance, etc. It's the "make sure you can make it safely" part of flying that we don't often think about as passengers. In the digital age, this kind of planning is easily done using software like ForeFlight, but--naturally--instructors have a mean streak and want you to learn the old fashioned way with charts, plotters, and paper. (Okay, it's old school, but you really do need to understand how to do that so you understand why ForeFlight gives you the numbers it gives you. That, and there's a geeky quality to showing up with a bunch of paper for each leg with all the info written out for you.)

I arrived at the airport plan in hand. Well, you know what happens with plans. The first thing my instructor and I do is look at the weather. Fort Morgan is fogged in. "Primary target covered by fog. The decision to proceed is yours." (I told you there would be frequent "Airplane!" references throughout this blog.) After a bit of deliberation, we figured the fog would burn off in an hour or so. Let's just fly to Akron first, that way when we leave for Fort Morgan, the fog will likely have lifted. It made sense, so we rolled with it.

Only one minor little hitch. In the digital world, to reverse the direction of my flight, all I have to do is hit the "reverse direction of flight" button. Presto, change-o, I have all new numbers for headings, times, etc. I didn't do this plan digitally. It's all on paper. As a result, I spent the time waiting for the fuel truck to arrive frantically re-calculating my route. Because of wind speed and direction, it's not just a matter of turning your heading 180 degrees. 

We took off, and navigation by the waypoints I had chosen went fairly easily. I was worried the large radio tower I picked would be difficult to find, but the fresh snowfall allowed me to easily see the antenna against the snowy ground. I'm not sure it would be quite as easy in the summer, but it worked today and that's all it needed to do. 

Arriving at Akron, we discovered that the runway had not yet been plowed. Planes had been taking off and landing, but it was packed snow on the surface. My instructor and I decided that a "full stop and taxi back" landing was off the table. We weren't gonna stop. We weren't even gonna slow down. Touch (very lightly) and go. Neither of us had any desire to slide off the side of the runway today. 

Leaving Akron, I turned towards Fort Morgan, which isn't really all that far away. Fort Morgan sits beside the South Platte River, which was what was causing the fog. There was still a healthy amount of fog right in the river valley, but--as my instructor predicted--the fog had lifted from the airport. What's more the runway had been plowed. We did a stop-and-go so we could say we actually stopped, then raised flaps, applied power, and off again for home.

The flight back home was routine. I again used that same tall radio antenna as a landmark to get me back and found it without issue. With this flight, I was able to knock out the required long cross country requirement with an instructor. There would still be 5 hours solo cross country, but that will come later. 

Lesson 59 - Zen Interrupted

I don't know that I really intended to have back-to-back solo flights, but--hey--I have the endorsement, I may as well enjoy it, right? My previous solo flight was more of a "you're finally up here by yourself" flight, so this time it was time to get to work. Today was "brush up your landings" day. 

The pattern at Centennial was full, so I flew out to Spaceport. The winds were out of the south, so I thought that would be perfect. Straight down the runway. I get out to Spaceport, call the tower, and ask for touch-and-goes. They say sure. Fly to Bennet and straight in on runway 26. Um, the winds are straight out of the south. Why not 17? No. That would make too much sense. Sorry, they're using 17 only for departing traffic. Anyone wanting to do pattern work will be using 26. Landing on 26 with winds out of the south means a crosswind, and a direct one at that. I ask for an update on the winds. 170 degrees at 8 knots. With my solo endorsement, 8 knots is the maximum crosswind I'm allowed to land in if I'm by myself. I was "legal." Unsure, untested, but legal. I figured I'd have a go at one, and if I didn't like it, I'd go around and just depart to the south. 

I have actually flown crosswind landings many times on my simulator at home. I've got different scenarios set up with varying degrees of crosswinds. I'll scroll through them as I practice so to mix things up a bit. It's good practice to build muscle memory, but the sim is never "quite" like the real thing. Fortunately like the sim, today's wind was a steady 8 knots, so there wasn't a whole lot of adjustment I needed to do to stay on centerline. The key is to crab the nose into the wind just a bit so you keep your course over the ground in line with the centerline of the runway on your approach. Once you're on short final or crossing the threshold of the runway (wherever you feel comfortable), dip your wing into the wind and apply opposite rudder. Dipping your wing into the wind creates a turning force to combat the wind, and opposite rudder points the nose of plane straight down the runway so when you touch down, you're rolling in the right direction, not headed off to the side. It's a bit of a dance and one that definitely takes practice to get right.

I'll be perfectly honest and say I surprised myself on my first landing. It was rather smooth and (mostly) on center. I figured that was good enough to build upon, so I stayed in the pattern and flew a half dozen or so more landings. None were "perfect," but all were pretty decent and I felt in control of the process the entire time. Today was definitely a confidence builder. Good solo flight getting out to Spaceport, good crosswind control on landings, I was actually reveling in the moment. 

Feeling good about things thus far, I figured I'd cap the day off by flying solo over my house. It's on the way back, so I wasn't going to be going out of my way or anything. I found the major cross street near my neighborhood and lined up to fly over it. I was thinking about quickly texting my wife to have her look out the window (voice to text in a loud cockpit would be interesting, but no worse than it butchers my usual messages). It was just me, my thoughts, and the cool notion of waving to my family as I flew over the house.

"Three Eight Eight Charlie, are you on frequency?"

Oh, crap! There's that little thing you have to do called "talking to the airport you want to land at." I was so caught up in the zen of the moment I forgot I still had real work to do. Fortunately I had not yet entered their air space; I was still a few miles out and flying a course which would have me skirt the outside of it. However, I'm in a trainer whose call numbers ATC sees multiple times per day as student after student flies the plane out and returns to the airport. They had every expectation that I was going to turn inward at any moment. 

The thoughts in the previous paragraph raced through my mind in about half a second as I was snapped out of my state of zen, and I told ATC that I was indeed listening to them. They instructed me to continue to runway 17-left to land. By this time I was nearly over my house, so I just waved quietly as I flew overhead. 

The takeaway? Never get so caught up in the fun that you forget you still have a job to do. I didn't bust any airspaces or break any rules, but I was not giving the primary task at hand the attention it needed. I'm not naive enough to say it will never happen again, but it was a glimpse into how easily it is to get into that mind space.