Lesson 24 - Make a List and Check it Twice

 

The day's lesson focused on landings, because that's operationally what I need to work on. Truth be told I'm writing this two weeks after the lesson due to having to travel for work and then family vacation, so I don't recall the specifics of each landing. I'm feeling better about things each time I go up, I'm getting a better feel for controlling the airplane on approach, and am working on engraining the sight picture of what the runway should look like on approach and making the call to go around when things aren't where they should be. 

That's not what I want to dwell on this time, though. Today, I want to talk about checklists and the tasks we do in the plane that have nothing to do with moving the controls, because that was the weakest part of my performance today. As a student, you might not necessarily think about those as being important--especially during the more "mundane" parts of the flight, but the whole idea of flying is to make sure you stay ahead of the airplane. When it comes to physically maneuvering the plane, it means making sure you anticipate what the plane is going to do when you make this or that control input. When it comes to mentally flying the airplane, it means making sure you're thinking ahead to where you're going to be next. 

There are two ways we can keep track of the more mental aspects of flying--checklists and flows. Both are designed to keep us on task in terms of not forgetting details. Checklists are good for those times in flying where you have time to refer to a printed list of steps to take. Flows are important for those times when you don't have that ability. For example, your preflight inspection is a checklist-friendly task. While many of us (myself included) have developed that into more of a flow which we then reinforce by checking it against the checklist to make sure we got everything, we do go down and check the boxes of tasks. The run-up (for me at least) is very much a by-the-checklist list of tasks which I do in order every time. Step 1, step 2, step 3... and so on. 

Once you're done with run-up and you start moving towards taking off, the checklist gets put away. It's a distraction at that point because there's 8,000 other tasks you need to be doing in order to get the plane in the air. You're communicating with ATC or other pilots if you're at a non-towered airport. You're watching around you for other planes taxiing, traffic or wildlife which may get in your way, and following the taxiway signs to get you where you need to be. That's when having a flow is key; a mental way of working through steps necessary to get the plane in the air. "Lights, camera, action." Make sure you have whatever lights you need turned on (beacon, strobe, landing lights, nav lights, etc.), make sure your transponder is set, and get ready to go. That's a flow thing. You run that checklist mentally as you're taxiing and lining up on the runway. You confirm your runway before you advance your throttle to take off. You're not reading things at that point, you're just doing. Your verbal call-outs are your mental checking of the boxes on the mental list. 

Once you hit the throttle and start down the runway, you're mentally going through the flow of checking your gauges (airspeed in particular) to make sure they're working. "Gauges alive" is a common verbal confirmation to yourself that your airspeed indicator is working. (If it's not, abort the take-off.) You're checking the other gauges to make sure they're in the green. You're watching your airspeed needle. You don't have to read a checklist to say "rotate at 55 knots," you know mentally that's when you rotate. Another verbal confirmation at 55 knots just reinforces to you that it's time to pull back on the yoke and get airborne. And while the checklist tells you your V speeds for climb out, you don't read the checklist, you just mentally know what your airspeed needs to be and you get there. Again, verbal call-outs help that mental reinforcement. Piloting an airplane is one time where it's not only okay to talk to yourself, but it's a "best practice." As a pilot it's just good reinforcement. As a student with an instructor sitting next to you, it's reassurance to them that you know what you're doing. And they kind of like to have that reassurance. 

Once you're established in your climb-out, you can pull out the checklist, though truthfully it's not very long. If you're climbing in a typical GA training aircraft, your throttle will be full open and your airspeed will be somewhere around Vy, plus or minus a few knots. For the comfort of your CFI, a verbal confirmation of this is well in order. Once you reach cruising altitude, you can run a similar check as you pull power back to cruise power. Again--it's a checklist, but not terribly long. But since at this point you have time to pull out the checklist, it's a good idea just to do the visual reinforcement in addition to the verbal one. 

Once you run this checklist, you're not done. Yeah, you're cruising, but where are you headed? What do you need to do in order to be prepared once you get there? Now I have to admit that as a deadline-oriented journalist, this kind of planning ahead is a bit foreign to me. If I'm not going to be at the practice area or other airport for 10 minutes, my mind has a bit of trouble wrapping itself around the notion of getting the radios set up now. It makes sense to do so. Once you're clear of the airspace of the departure airport, you don't need to talk to them anymore. You need to talk to those who are where you are going. It behooves you to set yourself up to listen to them instead as soon as practical. So once you've run your cruise checklist, get yourself set up for where you're going. 

"WRBC." Weather, Radios, Briefing, Checklists." Get the weather. It's that simple. Tune into the ATIS/AWOS for the airport you're flying to. Know what you're getting into sooner rather than later. This lets you plan your arrival better as well. If you know the weather, you can make an educated guess as to which runway you'll be landing on. Knowing that lets you plan your arrival route to enter the pattern appropriately. 

"Radios," means once you have your weather, tune your radio to the tower or CTAF frequency for where you're flying. Again--why wouldn't you want to hear other traffic where you're going as soon as possible? It really does just make sense. 

"Briefing." Whether you have a passenger, CFI who wants to make sure you know what you're doing, or just by yourself, talk about what your plan is. What are you expecting in terms of runways? What's the wind doing? How do you anticipate entering the pattern? You may be wrong--if it's a controlled airport, ATC may have you do something completely different, but you have at least given some thought to how you're going to proceed, and have let your passengers know what you're planning on doing. If it's an airport with multiple runways, your briefing will be your way of telling yourself and your passengers whether or not you're comfortable taking one runway versus another if ATC at that airport gives you the option. 

"Checklist." Yep--run that cruise checklist again. Check your fuel, gauges, etc. And now that you know you're in good shape, you know where you are, and you have an idea of how you're going to proceed, you can contact ATC at the airport to get better instructions from them. 

With ATC instructions on where you're going to land, or following traffic patterns at an untoward airport, you can now begin your descent, which--yep--another checklist. You have time, so use the checklist here.

Once you're in the pattern to land, you're back to flows. There's too much going on to worry about checklists. Call-outs here are important as you get to each milestone. "Below 110, flaps 10." "Below 85, flaps 20." Again--good reminders for you, good reassurance for your CFI. Airspeed call-outs are also a good idea. It's mental reinforcement of the steps you need to take to get the plane safely on the ground. 

Once on the ground and off the runway, you can pull out the checklist again run those items. Yeah, the checklists are short and can easily be memorized, but reinforcing with the checklist is always a good idea.

As the saying goes, "Aviate, Navigate, Communicate." As pilots, even if we're the only ones in the plane, that last aspect is crucial. Whether we have people in the plane with us or not, we have to make a habit of explaining what we're going to be doing. If we can explain it, we can better execute it. And if you have a CFI (or DPE) in the right seat, they're going to need to know that you know what you're doing.

Lesson 23 - Learn your ABCs

 

Today was a review day. We hadn't focused on basic maneuvers (slow flight, stalls, turns, etc.) in a while, and my instructor likes to make sure I keep those skills sharp. Despite the blissfully calm winds and cloudless skies, ATC wasn't letting anyone do touch-and-goes at the airport today, so pattern work would have to wait anyway. My instructor and I reviewed slow flight and stall procedures in our pre-flight briefing, and I mentioned wanting to work on using ailerons and opposite rudder to align the plane with the runway as an exercise so I could get a better feel for that. Nothing extravagant, but certainly a good chance to continue to sharpen skills. As the lesson unfolded, there would be one skill I completely blanked on, and it's a skill you most decidedly want to be instinctive. 

Pre-flight inspection, run-up, etc., went pretty much by the numbers. I don't ever want to think that aspect is ever "routine," because familiarity breeds contempt, and I don't ever want to miss steps in any part of that process. That's why we have checklists against which to compare things. But I figured today was going to be a good day when I actually got the engine to start on the first try! (Seriously, that's happened like three times.) Set radios, get clearance, taxi to 17L, full throttle, pull back on the yoke, and get the bird in the air. Today's take-off was measures better than my last one. My entire attitude today was different from my last outing, and my ability to fly reflected that. 

I flew us to the practice area and set us up for some slow-flight exercises. From straight-and-level, reduce power to around 1700RPM, once the speed is below 110 knots (which is pretty much right away since cruising speed is around 95 knots), drop 10 degrees of flaps. Below 85 knots, drop to 20 degrees, then below 75 knots, drop to 30 degrees of flaps. In an ideal world, you do this without losing any altitude. That didn't happen my first time, I'm rather embarrassed to say I dropped 600' of altitude in my first try. Ugh! Climb back up and try again. Second try was oh, so much better. Got into slow flight, made left turns, right turns, even some controlled descents and tried to climb, though with 30 degrees of flaps in 180hp plane, you're not gonna climb much if at all. But that, too, was part of the lesson. 

Stalls were next, which is similar to slow flight. I was slow to adapt to my slowing airspeed and calling out flap applications as airspeed decreased, so I got flying really slow at a few points in time. It's really almost immediate from when you apply 10 degrees of flaps to when you follow up with 20, then 30 degrees as your airspeed slows that quickly in this exercise. I was hesitant and things didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. Still, recovery was pretty solid, so all in all, nothing to be too worried about. We'll keep practicing it. We then worked on rudder and aileron control to keep the plane aligned with the runway or other points. This went well, giving me a good feel for how the plane responds to control inputs for getting (and staying) aligned with runways.

Leaving the practice area, my instructor pulls the throttle to idle and says "your engine just died. What next?" Suffice to say had this been a real emergency, I'd probably not be here to write this. My brain completely froze and I forgot what to do. I knew scanning for a place to land and running checklists were in there somewhere, but I was losing altitude at 95 knots while I was trying to process what I was supposed to do. Um, oh, yeah... Best glide speed. I knew that was in there somewhere...

This is one of those skills that a pilot needs to learn. Period. Your life literally depends on it. That's not hyperbole. Your engine quits, you need to know how to safely land. It needs to be automatic. This is where your ABCs come in. (Aviators love acronyms, so it's fitting that this most basic one is for arguably the most important task.) A = Airspeed. Step one is to get to your best glide speed. Just do it. Pitch the nose up until you're at 68 knots (in the Cessna). B = Best place to land. As you're pitching for 68 knots, look out your left window (since you're sitting on the left) for a suitable place to safely land the plane. An open field, long stretch of empty gravel road (thankfully plentiful in rural Colorado) or similar flat place. If there's not one to your left, look ahead, then look right. Then run your checklists to figure out what may have caused your engine to fail. "Door to floor." The ignition switch is first, since it's closest to the door. Make sure it's on. Then progress to the right across the bottom edge of the controls. Make sure your master switch didn't get bumped. Turn on your fuel pump. Make sure your throttle and mixture are in all the way. Look down the center console to see if the fuel selector valve and shut-off valve are where they need to be. All of these steps (A, B, and C) need to happen very quickly, like within 30 seconds or less. In fact, once you've identified your landing spot, start flying the plane to it while running your checklists. If your landing spot is beside you, the longer you wait to turn towards it, the further behind you it gets and you may not make it back there. 

Once you've done all that, you can then look to see if you can get the engine started again, then contact the tower to let them know you're declaring an emergency. Set your squawk to 7700 (squawk is what ATC uses to identify you) to let them know you're in an emergency. If the engine won't start, just concentrate on setting the plane down safely at that point. Planes want to fly, even without power. A dead engine is certainly cause for concern and concentration, but not panic. At that point, your checklist runs "floor to door." If the engine won't start, shut off the fuel, pull the mixture to idle cutoff, turn off the electronics, kill the ignition, and unlatch the door. It won't open because you're flying at 68 knots and the wind will keep it closed, but unlatching greatly reduces the chances of it getting jammed when you land. If you've chosen your landing spot well, you should be able to glide to it. Landing speed on the Cessna is 65 knots, so if you're pitched for 68 knots, then (theoretically) landing with no engine will be similar to landing with the engine at idle anyway. You basically fly a power-less plane every time you touch down. You just have the advantage of power leading up to the point when you're finally over the runway. 

We talk about what to do in the event of an engine failure in our run-up briefing. We talk about it because it's that crucial. But talking about it is only part of the equation. Actually doing it has to be as routine as taking about it in your run-up briefing. Maybe my emergency procedure briefing needs to be improved to describe the specific steps I'm going to take, not just the generic "land the plane." How are you going to land the plane? Remember your ABCs. 

With that, we started back to the airport. Again ATC wasn't allowing touch-and-goes, so we just requested a full-stop landing. I flew the approach and landing, feeling rather comfortable every step of the way. I took us from 8800' down to 6800' (pattern altitude) as we flew towards the airport. Once in the pattern and the traffic in front of us had passed off my right wing, reduce power to 1700RPM and since I was already below 110 knots, drop 10 degrees of flaps. I continued my descent as we turned to the base leg, then turned onto the final leg, dropping 20 degrees of flaps and lining up with the runway. Since the winds were calm, there wasn't much pushing me left or right of the runway, so I could concentrate more on airspeed and altitude control on the landing. I flared a little to early, so I set us down on the runway with a bit of a "thud." Gotta work on that. It's just something you have to get used to. The tendency is to see the ground approaching and want to pull back. It's human nature. You're in a plane and the ground is approaching quickly. It's instinct, like putting your foot to the floor of a car when the person driving doesn't slow down as soon as you would. In a plane, if you pull back too quickly, then you float and land hard. If you do it too late, you land on the nose gear. It's just feel and timing. And that takes getting used to.

Lesson 22 - Pick Any Two

With the Wings over the Rockies Museum's 2nd exhibit space located across the ramp from where we tie down at Centennial, you never know what you're going to see sitting out there...

 There are three critical things to be in control of during a landing. 1) Airspeed, 2) Altitude, 3) Alignment. When it came to my landings today, it seemed like it was "pick any two." Either I was in control of airspeed and altitude, but not lined up with the centerline, or I was lined up with centerline, controlling my altitude, but blowing through at 100 knots, or on centerline, at a good airspeed, but 1000' above the friggin' runway. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's go back a bit. First, I wasn't expecting to fly today. My original plane had been grounded for maintenance early last week, so the school bumped me to the simulator. My instructor isn't a big fan of the sim for early pilot training, so he kept an eye out in case a plane became available last minute. One did, so he booked that one instead. That reservation didn't last long as that plane  also got sidelined for maintenance. So, no plane, no fly. My instructor said he'd keep his eyes open in case something came available last minute, but wasn't holding his breath. I pretty much wrote the lesson off, and didn't do any kind of mental pre-work that I usually do (chair fly, etc.) 

My phone chimes at 6:30 in the morning with a text message, "got a plane, meet me at 11." Okay, then. I guess I am flying today. There was part of me which thought "I'm not mentally prepared for this, I should scrub." But I didn't. Got the kids to school, got myself ready, and headed to the airport. Arrived, chatted about the flight and a few questions about my medical exam which I'm working on getting everything prepped for, and we headed to the plane. Preflight went well, taxi, run-up, etc., all went smoothly. Still, in retrospect, I think my mind was still only 90% focused. Something was distracting me. Cleared for 35R initially, then ATC moved me over to 35L and had me switch to the secondary tower frequency. No problem. Cross 35R, then position to take off on 35L. Cleared, apply throttle, and pull back. That was the first real indication that today was going to be a bit rougher than usual. My climb out was not clean, to the point where my instructor turned to me and said "are you sure you've done this before?" Truth be told, I can't really tell you what was going through my mind. It was just brain fog; distraction. 

Because we took off on 35L, we would be flying a left pattern. All my previous landing exercises have been right pattern. This was going to be new. I liked the idea since in theory I'm on the left side of the plane, so I'd be able to see better, as opposed to having to look across my instructor in the right turns. This was going to be a lot easier. For some reason, I totally blanked the landmark for the downwind leg. I'm flying the same pattern as I do for 17R, just the opposite direction. The landmarks are the same. But did I remember that? Nooo. I turned my crosswind leg, leveled the wings, and kept flying straight wondering to myself what the downwind landmark was. Duh, it's I-25, idiot. The big road with lots of cars that you're just about to fly over. This was not starting well. 

It turns out that my thinking that left turning patterns would be easier was a bit off the mark today, too. Why? Because my brain decided today that since I don't have to look out across my instructor to make turns, I can make them by looking out the left window at the ground below instead. Did you know that doesn't really work? (But Wal-Mart has their logo on the top of their building, so you know what it is as you're flying over.) If you're looking out the left window towards the ground, you're not watching your pitch attitude, which is kind of important when you're landing. If you pitch up too much in a left turn 500' above the ground, it very well may be the last thing you do on this earth. It's that important to keep it under control. I only made my instructor scream in horror once, but once was too much. Look. Out. The. Front. Window. I don't know how Lindbergh did it with only side windows, but I also ain't Charles Lindbergh.

Suffice to say my landings today were not smooth. We had two go-arounds out of necessity, not just because my instructor decided to call one as a drill. (Even those weren't without hiccups. Build airspeed then climb.) As I wrote above, I was concentrating on two of the three aspects of landing, and letting the third (whichever of the three it was) take a back seat, suffering the consequences as a result. It became a question of "which piece of the puzzle am I neglecting this time around?" 

The advantage (if it can be called that) of today's lesson is that I learned to recognize how the landing is affected by whichever aspect I was neglecting. Though it did take a bit for my brain to clear whatever fog it was in, eventually it cleared and I was able to start analyzing what I was doing while I was doing it. If I was concentrating on keeping centerline and altitude under control, my airspeed was all over the place, often way too high. If my airspeed was under control, I was up and down on altitude like a kid in a bouncy house, or off centerline like a drunk sailor. But that's part of putting it all together. If there's one takeaway from today's lesson, it's that for the first time, I felt comfortable in my ability to control the plane in each of the three critical aspects of landing. I know how to control pitch to control airspeed. I know how to control power to control altitude. I know how to control aileron and rudder to stay on centerline. I made the control inputs and saw/felt the tangible changes in the plane's path. What I wasn't doing was all three at the same time. That comes with practice. And more practice, and more practice. 

Still, I wonder if today's other lesson was "if you're really not feeling it, don't go." How much risk factor did I add to the equation today because I wasn't 100% focused? My instructor took the controls more today than he has in a long time, either because he wasn't comfortable with the flight attitude or because he felt I needed a few seconds to regroup. I can't help but wonder if I was in reality too distracted to be safe. Pilot attitude and emotion is one of the preflight checklist items. (PAVE - Pilot, Aircraft, enVironment, External pressures.) Was today a case where I pushed the Pilot aspect more than I should have? 

Lesson 21 - Crosswinds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 20 - Touchdown!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 19 - Silver Linings

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

Today was one of those lessons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 18 - Turn on the Hose!

 If you're trying to drink from a fire hose, does the size of the hose really matter?

Today's lesson was simple in scope. Get me in the pattern and teach me to land an airplane. Landing, it seems, is something that different instructors do differently. For instance, some folks write of landing the plane on their introductory flight. Now, I don't know how much of that is actually understanding what's going on with the plane or just pulling on this or pushing on that per your instructor tells you to do to achieve the desired goal of setting the plane back on the ground. I'm inclined to believe in that case it's the "what to do" followed by the "why you do it" later on in the process. Suffice to say that if I'm just learning to land on my 18th lesson, that this is clearly not the approach my instructor is taking with things.

Instead, my instructor's philosophy is to make sure the student understands exactly how the various controls make the plane behave in the various aspects of flight, then ultimately tie them all together because when you land a plane, you're using all your tricks. Turns, slow flight, stall avoidance, altitude control, airspeed, wind correction... there's a lot going on in landing a plane. That's why it's taken me this long to finally get to landing the plane. We wanted to make sure I knew what the heck I was doing so when I got in trouble on a landing, I'd have the skills to get myself out of it. I'm not here to debate one method versus another. This is how I'm learning, and I'm quite happy with the results. That having been said, it doesn't make the process of landing the plane any less mentally taxing. All that stuff coming together to get the plane on the ground means you're thinking through all that stuff while landing the plane. And my brain was pooped at the end of today's lesson. 

We flew out to Colorado Spaceport for today's lesson. My last time out here (which was my first time out here) we did "near" touch-and-goes where I would fly within 50' of the runway then go around. It wasn't my best performance, as my slow-flight recovery that day stank like three day old sushi. This prompted a return to the practice areas and more slow flight and stall work to better hone those skills for a few lessons. But that was behind me. I've become more comfortable with slow flight recovery, so I felt good heading back out here. I at least had the advantage of having flown out here already so I knew the lay of the land. 

The flight out to the airport was uneventful. East from Centennial for a while, then turn north. We can't fly directly northeast because of Denver International's airspace. Winds were a little bumpy, but common for a hot day in Colorado. If you're going to fly in the Summer in Colorado, you deal with bumpy air. The downside to that is that this being my first time setting the plane on the ground, I was going to try to figure out in the process which movements of the plane were caused by my control inputs versus the wind. An extra layer of complexity, but if I waited for perfect conditions, I'd be on the ground a long time. You play the hand you're dealt. 

Landing an airplane is a matter of controlling airspeed and altitude as you approach the runway. "The pattern" is essentially a rectangular flight path that you and other aircraft generally follow so to not hit each other (very bad) and give you benchmarks along the way against which to check your airspeed and altitude. If you think of the runway as the long side of a rectangle, then the "downwind leg" of the pattern is the opposite side. This is where you will typically begin preparing for a landing. You then turn to the base leg, which would be the short end of the rectangle, then "final" is when you're lined up with the runway to set the plane on the ground. The opposite end on departure in the pattern is called the "crosswind" leg. "Pattern altitude" refers to the elevation above the runway. For general aviation (small planes), that's usually 1,000' above the ground. The field elevation at Colorado Spaceport is 5,515', making the pattern altitude 6,500'. There are altitude and airspeed steps for each of the legs of the pattern. The downwind leg in the Cessna, the downwind leg is flown at 1,000' above the ground (AGL) at around 90 knots. When you get to the end of the runway you'll be landing on, you decrease power to begin descending. Halfway through your base leg, you want to be 500' AGL, and at around 75 knots. You continue descending, turn to the final leg, and fly such that your airspeed is around 65 knots when you cross the threshold of the runway, At that point, you decrease your power to idle, let the plane glide, and start your "flare" to land on the runway as the airspeed and altitude decreases. If the stars are smiling, you set down nice and easy. Child's play. And if you believe that, let me talk to you about your car's extended warranty.

"Pitch for airspeed, power for altitude." That's the rule. (I remember it by the fact that "i" is the second letter in both "pitch" and "airspeed.") If you're flying too high, decrease your power and let the plane sink for a bit. If you're flying too fast, raise the nose of the plane to bleed off the airspeed. You can add flaps at various stages to increase drag and slow down as well but pitch and power are the key players. It's really a dance between the two. You will set your pitch for a given airspeed, but you won't be sinking, so you reduce power, which lowers the nose, which may increase your airspeed, so you have to raise the nose to lower the airspeed, which means you're not sinking as much, so you have to lower again, but you can't pitch up too much or you'll stall... Oh, and you're dealing with wind bouncing you around, too, and trying to stay lined up with the centerline of the runway... did I mention the firehose? The reality is that there's no way to introduce this concept gently. This is being thrown to the wolves, grasping everything you've learned and applying it. 

As I approached the airport on an extended final (about 5 miles from the east), I got us lined up, but then my instructor flew the landing to demonstrate how the landing itself was done. He described what he was doing (as he's done on our landings of late) so that I could get a feel for the control movements and their effects on the plane. After he flew this one, I did 4 subsequent landings. They were about as good as you might expect from a student pilot landing for his first time. Which is to say they were rough. But truthfully not as bad as I had anticipated. And I was very happy with my transition from landing to take-off. Flaps up, throttle full, keep us on centerline. pull back on yoke, rotate, go again. 

I think my approaches were rougher than actually setting the plane down on the ground over the runway. The biggest challenge to me was setting that mental sight picture of the glide slope, and reacting to how it changed when I was too high versus too low. I need to be faster to react, especially to "too low." That's an experience thing. The other thing that caught me was trying to gauge how quickly my control inputs would affect the plane. If I drop the motor to idle, how long would it take for my altitude to drop back on glide slope, and how much would it take increase the throttle to re-establish that proper slope once I was back on track. I don't think I let my airspeed get too slow through any of this, but my instructor was probably keeping a closer eye on that and reminding me in the process if it started getting too slow. Overall, I think I tended to be too fast, which prompted a go-around on one of the attempts. (Which was probably one of my smoother recoveries except for not pitching up more when I retracted the flaps, causing me to lose a bit of altitude.) I can't say there was any improvement across the board from my 4 attempts today, but I was able to get a feel for the process. Now that I know what to look and feel for, through, I'll be able to start making better adjustments. Like many things in this process, it's a matter of identifying the key things that are tripping me up and addressing them one at a time as I put this together.

We headed back to Centennial, but don't think it was an easy cruise. The afternoon winds had gotten bumpier, and my instructor has a bit of an evil streak in him to where he doesn't like me to ever be 100% comfortable in the cockpit. As I was flying back, he had me climbing, turning, tuning the radios to Centennial's tower frequency and giving him briefings of what we're going to be doing pretty much at the same time. I have a tendency of focusing on one aspect to the exclusion of another, so I managed to climb 300' while trying to tune in a radio frequency. I'll shift some of the blame for that to the smoky skies and lack of a horizon, so I didn't have as clear of a marker as I might otherwise have, but that's an excuse and I have to do better regardless. 

Things to work on... First off, I need to be better at calling out what I'm doing as I'm getting set up. "Below 110, flaps 10," and other call-outs for flight configurations. I need to call these out not only so my instructor knows what I'm doing, but because it's a good mental exercise to tell myself what I'm doing. I have a habit of talking to myself anyway, so you'd think this would come naturally. I'll chalk that up to landingus overwhelmus today, but if I write it here, I'll hopefully remember to do it next time. Also, on go-arounds, it's critical to call out what you're doing in terms of airspeed, flaps, etc. 

Second, I need to be ready for go-arounds at any given moment. My instructor warned me that I may be flying my best approach ever, and he's going to shout "coyote on the runway, go around!" to keep me on m toes. That's a mental piece of the puzzle that I need to integrate into the process--that at any given time, I may have to 100% shift gears and do something else, and when you're that low to the ground, you have to execute quickly and firmly. 

Overall, I was happy with how I did today. It wasn't pretty by any stretch, but I wasn't expecting it to be. When I look back at my other "first time doings" I've had so far, my demonstrated (lack of) skills is really on par with how poorly I did in those other areas as well, and I've come a long way in those areas. This, too, shall improve. Hopefully cooler weather in the coming weeks will give me calmer skies so I can feel "my" flying versus the wind's flying. 

Oh, and walking out to the plane, I spied this old warbird. Alas, he went the other way instead of taxiing by me, so this is as close a pic as I could get.

Lesson 17 - Short, but Sweet

 

Today was supposed to be a fairly long day. We planned to fly east to Limon to spend some time in the pattern at Limon Municipal Airport. Limon is an airport that does not have a control tower, so that makes it a bit easier to start drilling into how to land the airplane because there's not as much traffic and you may even have the field all to yourself. Limon's about 40 minutes away by air, so we we planned some cross-country skills building and some maneuvering on the way as well. That's what was supposed to happen.

Instead, the front desk changed my plane at the last minute because something went screwy with the plane I was supposed to fly on its first flight of the day. They grounded it and gave me a replacement that had only 1.4 hours until its next mandatory servicing. The flight to Limon and back would have put at least 1.8 on the plane. Even if that had not been the case, we were fighting what looked to be some sketchy weather moving in a bit faster than what was originally forecast. The winds had already increased significantly. When I was planning things at 10AM, the weather at the field had the winds listed as "calm." When I got to the field at 11AM, they had picked up to a steady 11 knots, gusting to 18. Whatever we did today, it would have to be fairly quick because the weather and the required maintenance schedule mandated it.

My instructor and I thought briefly about just scrubbing because the radar already showed big green blobs of precipitation over the southwest practice area. Conditions were still well within our minimums, so flying wouldn't be unsafe. We would just want to be back before things deteriorated. I had a theory that I wanted to test, and even if that was all we had time to do today, it would be worth it. If you remember my last lesson, you'll recall that my stall recoveries were abysmal (to put it mildly). Upon reflection, I figured that the likely cause of my difficulties lay in the fact that I applied power almost instantly when I went to recover from the stall. This would not give me sufficient time to get the necessary control movements in place to counteract the forces created by increasing the throttle. If I were to try to do that just a bit slower, then I would be able to keep ahead of the curve. That was the theory, and I wanted to test it. The winds hadn't gotten any worse and the green blobs were tracking north (away from us) so we decided to go ahead and fly.

Aside from the engine backfiring when I started it scaring the living daylights out of me, the preflight and taxiing was pretty routine. I have to admit there's a level of confidence tied to the notion that these things are beginning to become "routine" to the point where I'm mostly skipping over them in my posts. My taxiing still isn't 100% centered on the yellow line, and I'm still learning how to deal with crosswinds on the ground, but I'm recognizing it and correcting for it. I'll take that for the win. Take-off went smoothly, though I drifted a bit to the left (towards the parallel runway) once I was off the ground. I swear, planes need rear view mirrors. I thought I was good based off of what I saw out of my side window, but nope. I drifted so I was probably in line with the taxiway between the two runways. Corrected, and continued the climb out and headed towards the southeast practice area. This was one of the first times I really felt like I had the airplane trimmed well for climbing to altitude by skill rather than luck. We continued flying southeast while I climbed to 8,500'. 

Clouds were rolling in around us, and I could feel the air getting a bit bumpy. I was able to keep things mostly consistent in altitude, but the plane I was flying in today had a throttle that wasn't quite as sensitive as the throttles in the others I've flown, so my "small adjustments" to the throttle didn't result in the RPM drops I was accustomed to on the other planes. Lesson learned - adjust RPM by listening to what the engine is doing, not by the feel of the throttle lever. 

Once in the practice area, I got the plane trimmed for straight and level flight, then set up for a power-off stall drill. I got it set up, stalled the plane, and went through the recovery quickly but carefully. And, yes, the key to successful stall recovery is just that--work through the steps with a sense of urgency, but not panic. Give yourself about 2 seconds from idle to full throttle, and you'll have time to adjust the yoke, rudder, and flaps to give yourself a much more controlled recovery. I was happy with that recovery, as was my instructor. Anything was an improvement after my last attempts. In this case, it was a matter of me finding the critical element that was causing the trouble and correcting it for much better results as opposed to just blindly trying stuff and hoping for success. 

Happy with that, my instructor looked at the big green blobs showing precipitation on our weather radar and the visible virga that was now encroaching upon us, and said "take us home." Virga (rain falling from clouds but evaporating before hitting the ground) often comes with downdrafts. Those are dangerous, especially at low altitudes. My instructor took the controls while I dialed in the radios, got the latest weather info, contacted ATC, and ran checklists. On the approach, we talked through the steps we were taking especially with gusty winds adding to the fun, such as little to no flaps and landing at a higher speed than normal. I was just along for the ride on this one given the adverse conditions, but we talked about the what and why of what my instructor was doing in the process. We landed, taxied back to the ramp and tied things down for the day, but not before admiring some Colorado National Guard planes that had stopped for refueling on our way back to the pad. 

Once on the ground, my instructor and I talked about where I am in the process overall. At this point, the big unchecked checkbox is the landings. He told me my take-offs, maneuvers, and pilotage are good. I'm just missing the mandatory part of flying--the landing. The challenge will be finding calm days to do pattern work. My flights in the coming weeks are scheduled for the late morning/early afternoon when weather like what we had today is possible. That makes it difficult to learn the basics because you can't tell whether the plane is reacting to the wind or control movements. On one hand, if you can learn in that environment, you can land in almost anything, but it's gonna take a whole lot longer. We'll see what the next lessons bring. Maybe if we can't do pattern work, we'll do some cross country work or who knows. And practice that other stuff because I need to keep that fresh as well.

Lesson 16 - Stall and Recovery

 

First off, I apologize for no scenery pictures on today's post. My phone mount fell off the windshield, so I just tossed it in the back seat rather than try to reattach it mid-lesson. So this representation of what the nose of the airplane was doing during my stall recovery drills will have to suffice. 

Seriously... Stall recovery is the bane of my existence at the moment. Some days I get it very smoothly. Others it gets me. And today was an "other" day for that. I'm not going to dwell too much on that, but for students who are hitting brick walls or plateaus in their training, this seems to be mine at the moment. There are four components to a proper stall recovery. First, apply full power. Second, keep the nose to the horizon to get air moving over the wing and reestablish lift. Third, right rudder to counter the left-turning tendency of applying full power. Lastly, retract flaps. All four of these things have to happen pretty much simultaneously. Today seemed to be "pick three of the four." I did a half dozen or so drills, and only one was even halfway decent. I'd forget one element, and all hell would break loose. In retrospect, I think my successful stall recoveries in the past have been done with a firm, steady, but not rapid application of power. This allowed me to balance the right rudder and counter the desire for the nose to buck up with a bit more smoothness because the throttle increase was fast enough to get the job done but slow enough to still be able to stay ahead of it. In today's drills, I think perhaps my application of power was far more of an immediate jamming of the throttle into the dashboard. As that happened, I was then playing catch-up with the plane and overcorrecting. Nothing good ever comes of overcorrecting.

Fortunately, my instructor realized that for whatever reason, this wasn't clicking for me today, and decided to move on to other things. Today, he introduced me to steep turns. Did I mention steep turns are friggin' fun??? I hadn't done one yet (at least not on purpose). In steep turns, you bank the plane to around 45 degrees to make the turn. You lose a lot of your vertical lift component when you do this (mathematically, half of your vertical lift component is now horizontal "lift." That component is allowing you to turn, but it's not helping you stay in the air. You have to increase your throttle and add some back pressure on the controls to increase the vertical component of the lift to keep you from losing altitude. You then have to remember to take that back out when you exit the turn. One thing with steep turns, you will also really feel it in your seat. They can also be disorienting, mind you, since you're looking at the world zip by. The key is to keep the horizon at a given point on the glare shield as you're turning. What surprised me, though, was looking at the flight path and seeing how tight those steep turns really are compared to the broader more typical 30-degree bank turns I do when maneuvering in the practice area. They're like less than half if a third of the diameter. These were a pleasant (and successful) diversion from my dismal stall recovery, so that helped get my mind back in the game.

Partway through today's flight, my instructor pulls my throttle to idle and says "you just lost your engine. Now what?" First, let me say that for those new students who are kind of dreading this, I was surprised at how controllable the plane is. You don't just fall out of the sky. First step is to pitch for best glide, then look for a place to land. Check to make sure you have fuel, the key is still on, the choke hasn't been pulled out, and all the "should be obvious" things. If it's one of those, correct it and restart the engine. If it's not, try the fuel pump to get fuel flowing again. If you can do all of that quickly, you will not have lost too much altitude in that time. That way if you can't get the engine to start, you still have plenty of airspeed and altitude to formulate ideas. Because my instructor pulled the throttle to idle for this exercise, I dismissed that as a cause, but it can be something that simple. (And--really--who decided the throttle and choke should be right next to each other? It's a good thing the knob on the choke has a different physical feel to it.) I have to work on verbalizing my checklists a bit more, but overall I felt comfortable in my ability to control the plane and try to troubleshoot. 

We were hoping to get some pattern work in at the airport today, but ATC was having nothing to do with that. So we flew a few more circles, got our weather info, and started heading back to the airport. The past few times, I've flown the approach with my instructor handling the landing. Today the winds were calm so I got to handle the landing as well--my first time with my hand on the yoke and throttle as we landed. Don't misunderstand--my instructor's hand was also on his yoke, and he was dancing the rudder pedals as we came in as well, so to call this landing the product of my efforts would be akin to saying the waterboy won the Super Bowl. However, it was a good introduction to pitch and power management for landing, and likewise a good introduction into really burning into my mind the sight picture of what the runway should look like on approach. Yeah, I paid attention the previous landings, but things get a whole lot clearer when it's your hand advancing the throttle to gain altitude because you've got 4 red lights on the PAPI. I'm looking forward to this next phase of the process.

One quick side comment about communication. Instructors aren't mindreaders, so as a student when you're flying, be very communicative about what you're doing so your instructor knows why the plane is doing what it's doing. For instance, when we were returning to the airport, my instructor pointed out that 2000 RPM wasn't a cruise speed. I knew that, I wasn't cruising. I was doing a slow descent into pattern altitude. I didn't tell him that's what I was doing, so he thought I wasn't paying attention to straight-and-level. Likewise, ATC told us to join midfield right pattern. There's an IKEA store at the midfield point of the pattern. I wasn't flying towards the IKEA, rather I was headed a bit south, towards the south end of the runway. My instructor asked me why I wasn't flying to the midfield point. I wanted to enter the pattern at a 45-degree angle as is common, so I was flying further south before turning northeast so I could join midfield at that 45-degree angle. Had I told my instructor that's what I was doing, it would have cleared up his concerns. Aviate, navigate, communicate. 

Oh, and make sure not to leave your headset in the plane. Thankfully they'll be waiting for me at the front desk next time. That could be part of the reason I didn't spring for the $1,200 Bose headsets. I lose stuff. I just ordered prescription sunglasses for flying. I'm gonna have to put a GPS tag on those.

Lesson 15 - Just Fly the Plane

 

Due to continued smoke and wind making conditions unpalatable, it had again been more than a week since my previous lesson. Since that lesson was hamstrung by wind and weather, it had been more than a month since my last decent lesson. I was looking forward to getting up and in the air again. Today we had fairly steady, but light winds, and the threat of early afternoon storms boiling up over the mountains. My instructor texted me prior to me leaving for the airport to see if I had checked the forecast. I told him I noticed the chances for afternoon storms, but at that point they were not going to hit until we would have landed. The forecast kept changing every time I looked at it, so "fickle as the wind" seemed to be a fitting metaphor. We agreed to head to the field and play it by ear. I went out, pre-flighted the plane, had the tanks topped off, all the while watching the clouds build over the mountains. My instructor joined me, and the storm cell that was initially tracking to the north had changed direction, headed pretty much straight for us. Ugh. We decided to keep going with the pre-flight, pulled the plane out to the line, did our safety briefing, and checked the weather one last time before finally deciding whether to turn the key (thus the meter). The storm had resumed its original northward track, so I decided to go for it. It was bouncy last lesson, so we figured if it were as bad today we could always return home. I felt the need to get into the air, though, because I was worried about my skills really regressing with only one decent flight in a month's time. The winds weren't too bad, out of the north at 8 knots. The skies were scattered with clouds, but the lowest at 3500', which was still above where I would be flying. The storm was still a threat, but not heading our way. Clear prop, turn the key, and let's go fly. 

The first thing I noticed when taxiing (headed west) was that the plane was not responding to my left rudder pedal. I had it to the floor, but the plane would only continue straight at best. I had my instructor take the controls to see if it felt odd to him. Of course it didn't. He knew exactly what was going on. 

"Where are your hands?" 

Right hand on the throttle, left hand, um, on my knee, not on the yoke. (I think I do this subconsciously so I don't try to steer with my hands. Bad habit. Well, both are bad habits. One bad habit to break another? Probably not the best plan. But I digress.) Did I mention the winds are from the north? Did I mention we were taxiing west? I've run into this before, I just didn't make the connection. Word problem - North wind hits tail of plane heading west. Which way does the nose want to turn? Hint - it ain't to the left. Step 1 - put hand on yoke where it belongs. Step 2 - turn ailerons into the wind with hand that is now on the yoke. Step 3 - apply more left brake to help plane turn left when needed because that north wind is going to keep hitting the tail. Ahh, much better.

I chose to learn on the Cessna 172S because my school has about a dozen of them. That means if one goes down for maintenance, there's a good chance I can book another in its place. While I have one that I seem to gravitate towards, I rotate through three or four of them for my lessons. They all fly more or less the same, but none of them have the same radio and navigation set-up. This means if there's one thing I kinda have to feel my way through each time, it's setting the radios up. All I'm going to say is that it's a good thing ATC is trained not to respond to idiot pilots who are talking on the wrong frequency. Having said that, once I was actually on the correct frequency, I did probably my best job of talking to ATC today, and handled the majority of the calls myself. 

I heard ground control clear a business jet to taxi, then cleared me to taxi on the same taxiway. He was about 2000' up from me on the taxiway, so if I were to pull in front, I would have had plenty of separation. I was a bit unsure as to whether I should wait for him to pass since he was cleared first, but my instructor said "move" with the same intonation as we give someone in front of us at a green light after about half a second. He then explained that while the business jet was cleared before me, a) I was closer to the end of the runway, and b) the controller knew where I was and wanted me in front of him despite him clearing me second. His wake turbulence would be greater, so better to have the smaller plane go first. Sometimes the lessons you learn aren't found in textbooks.

Lined up on the numbers, applied power, and we were off and flying. Once we were 500' above the ground, we turned to the southeast towards the practice area. On the agenda for the day, pilotage (aka, getting where you're going based on landmarks) slow speed and stalls, and after our last flight, altitude and speed control in general. 

I can't explain the difference between this flight and the last. The winds weren't as bumpy and the skies were just a bit clearer, but they were still factors to be dealt with. I just felt so much more on top of my game today than perhaps I have thus far in this entire process. Maybe it was the confidence of handling the radio communication. Maybe it was because it was my call on the weather to go flying in the first place. Whatever it was, there was a sense of ownership of the process. I definitely hope I can tap into that going forward. It will make my life (and my instructor's nerves) much easier. Our slow flight and stall training went very smoothly. The first one was a bit rough because I forgot how quickly the plane slows down when you reduce power and introduce flaps. I was taking too long to talk through the steps as opposed to just doing what needed to be done. Once that rust was quickly removed, things went cleanly. 

After a few bouts with that, my instructor turned and said "just fly the plane. Go wherever you want." I thought briefly about doing ground reference maneuvers or things like that, but that wasn't the mood. I wasn't frazzled by anything we had been doing. There wasn't the (figurative) cloud hanging overhead saying "you could have done that better, try again." I was just up there having fun and feeling good about how I was flying. I pointed the nose to the east and just enjoyed being in the air. After all, that's why I'm doing this--to be able to just fly where I want to and have fun doing it. I turned south, then when I came to highway 86 below us, I turned west to follow that back towards Franktown before heading back to the airport. Once I figured out that ATC wasn't responding to me because once again I didn't have the right radio punched up, I fixed that, told them where we were, and they gave me my routing back to the airport. 

I flew the plane until we were on the last part of the final approach because we had a bit of a gusty crosswind (the storms were beginning to roll in with their impact), and my instructor figured that was probably going to be a bit problematic if this were to be my first go at setting us on the ground. (I wasn't going to argue with him. My last time "in the pattern" lining things up wasn't the smoothest.) 

We parked the plane and walked back to the terminal both feeing very positive about things. I'm not going to say "it clicked." It wasn't that kind of a moment. If there's anything that can be said about my lessons, there are good days and there are bad days. Consistency, while being key, is still proving somewhat elusive. Hopefully today's experience will change that, and hopefully my planned schedule of flying twice a week will greatly reinforce the good while eliminating the bad. We talked about stage checks and figuring out which boxes still yet need to be checked to get me ready to solo. We hadn't had that conversation yet, so whether it was pure coincidence that we were having that today or not, it felt good to see a tangible sign of progress towards my goal. 

P.S. I left the field at 1:30pm. By 3pm, we had reports of funnel clouds and 1" hail in the area. Yeah, I think we got the last decent air of the day. Glad we decided to go up.