Lessons 44 through 50 - "You Think You Can Do This By Yourself?"

Okay, it's been a while since I've posted an update. To be honest, a lot of that has to do with not knowing what to write. It's not for lack of material, mind you. It's because these past 7 lessons have had some of the highest highs and lowest lows I've experienced in this journey. They're definitely worth talking about and I've been wanting to do it. Alas, it's human nature to dwell on the negative, and after leaving some of these lessons not thinking I was fit to fly a kite, the old adage "if you can't say nothin' nice, don't say anything at all" kept popping into my head. I didn't want this blog to become my vent, so I'd hold off until the next lesson when I could build upon the weaknesses exposed in the previous one. Sometimes that would be the next day or two, so it felt natural to want to group both together. But I'd not get to writing that post, then another frustrating day in the air, and the cycle repeats. 

I wrote in an earlier post about the importance of seeing weaknesses as challenges, not setbacks. As frustrated as I was leaving the field after some of these lessons--as much as I wanted to scream and vent to the universe--I stepped up my game the next time out. Incrementally, things improved. I felt more and more confident. Things were starting to come together. My landings started out over this period of time ranging from "well, nothing broke" to "could be better." By the 6th lesson, they were ranging between "marginally passable" to "hey, not bad!" Still not quite as consistent as I would like, but the trend was definitely moving in the right direction and both of my instructors seemed pleased with my progress.

When you talk to pilots who have "mastered" landings, many will tell you "one day, it just clicks." I don't know if I buy that. "It just clicks" implies that there's just something magical that happens; that all of a sudden a wand is waved and bingo, you can land. I wish. For me, it's been a long road of flying, analyzing, finding key weaknesses, correcting them, and just continuing to gradually fine-tune everything until the pieces more-or-less fall into place. Here are some of the things I really focused in on in the past few months.

First (and I've written about this in my previous post) airspeed. You have to maintain airspeed. A stable approach makes this much easier to accomplish and that's the standard you should shoot for whenever possible. Know what those speeds are, get there, and stay there. Having said that, you're not always going to have the luxury of a stable approach. There are times when you'll have to land short or come in hot. What you need to get good at is not so much maintaining your airspeed, but having absolute control over your airspeed through the entire process; being able to get it to exactly where you need it to be at critical moments (i.e., right at the threshold). You owe it to yourself to know how to correct being 90 knots on base and still make a solid landing. It's energy management. You're going to be correcting those mistakes in the process of learning how to land. Pay attention to how you're correcting those mistakes because knowing how to correct them teaches you how to control the plane.

Watch your instructor land. Pay attention to speed and attitude. They won't be perfect textbook landings, but your instructor will be ahead of the plane the whole way. They'll be fast and they'll pitch up to bleed off that excess airspeed such that you won't really notice they're doing it. They'll be high, but they'll go into a forward slip to drop airspeed and altitude. Learn the stable approach. Learn how to correct an unstable approach. Both are important. But most of all, do not get behind the plane. If you find yourself playing catch-up, just go around. 

Coordinated flight. I really didn't know how much this was impacting things until my secondary instructor pointed it out to me. "Keep the ball centered." That was a broken record our first few lessons together. Coordinated flight means the plane has much less drag through the air and can operate more efficiently. It's also much less dangerous in slow flight where you're teetering near stall speed. Part of that may have stemmed from the fact that I switched airframes about the same time I picked up my second instructor, so there were differences in how the Grumman reacted that I wasn't as quick at picking up. Whatever the reason, the broken record approach to beating this concept into my head worked. After a few lessons, my instructor quipped that he didn't have to keep reminding me because it had become part of my routine flying. 

The final five feet are critical, so don't lose focus. Fly the plane to the tie-down. Crosswinds will blow you side to side until your wheels are on the runway. At the same time, you can't let yourself get so concerned with maintaining centerline that you forget to watch your airspeed. If you're floating sideways when you reach stall speed, you're going to set down with something of a thud and put a side load on the landing gear. If you're a foot above the deck and not exactly on centerline, don't get too fussy. If there's runway beneath you and the nose is pointed to the opposite end, you'll probably be good. Let it settle and roll. 

Trust your gut. I have two instructors who have different perspectives and procedures on things. I had one lesson with my primary instructor where I was landing okay because I was trusting my instinct to keep the nose pointed down just a second longer than my brain wanted me to. He remained quiet for the most part, letting me work out things on my own. On my next lesson, my other instructor would be telling me "okay, begin your roundout" before I felt I needed to, but I listened to him and ended up rounding out just a bit high as a result. Later lessons went smoother because I took my instructor's words as what to do, not so much when or how to do it. By doing things when and how I thought they needed to be done, I got a better sense of control and my instructor felt more confident in my abilities as well. Know they'll step in when safety is at risk, but they'll try to give you as much slack as possible so you can learn to feel things yourself.

October 5th, 2022

This was lesson #50, a milestone in its own right. To this point I had logged about 80 hours--twice the minimum required for getting one's license. The smaller of the two parallel runways at Centennial had just re-opened after a month-long resurfacing. We could finally do pattern work at the home field without having to fly elsewhere. We get in, start up, take off, and immediately get to work. One landing. Not too bad. Second landing. Friggin' gorgeous. Actual applause from my instructor. Third, forth, fifth, all pretty solid. On my 6th landing, I was 10' off the deck when my instructor casually said "go around." There was no urgency. This was a drill. This was him throwing me a wrench because he felt comfortable doing it. Throttle full, reduce flaps partially, nose to horizon, gain airspeed, start climbing back out, retract flaps fully once sufficient airspeed and altitude. What I remembered early on being a series of steps I had to cautiously calculate flowed out of my hands as smoothly as I remember marveling at my instructor doing them in those early lessons. As I climbed out, I thought, "by George, I think I've got it!" 

My instructor suggested we call it a day. I agreed. I didn't think we'd gain anything by spending more time/money in the air today. We landed, taxied to the ramp, and my instructor took the controls so I could chill. He says "You think you can do this by yourself?" I said "yeah, I think so." He said he didn't do anything on any of those landings. They were all me. And then, I heard the word every student pilot wants to hear, "solo." He said he'd put in for my stage check once we tied down. It was then that I realized all the work I had been putting into getting my landings in check--working with two instructors with two vastly different styles, screaming, venting, beating myself up, picking myself back up--paid off. 

Lesson 43 - Airspeed, Airspeed, Airspeed

 

The day started out on an optimistic note. My instructor and I chatted about our most recent flight when I had three out of five solid, unassisted landings. Another day like that, and he'd get me set up for pre-solo stage check. That's what I wanted to hear. It's what I've been waiting to hear since I started this journey. And then we took off. And it became abundantly clear that this would not be "another day like that." 

I don't know which planets were out of alignment, but my airspeed control s-u-c-k-e-d. There's no other (polite) way to describe it. And no way to explain it, either. This is something that I've had under control in previous lessons, and for the first half of the lesson today, it seems to have gone completely out the window. I'd be on target, check something, and somehow have gained or lost 20 knots. Maybe I wasn't trimming properly. I felt like I was fighting the controls a bit more than I have been in previous flights. I can't even blame the plane. I was in the same plane I flew last lesson where I was in a good groove. Maybe the heat? Maybe a tailwind? It was a bit bumpy, but not unreasonably so. I honestly don't know or I would have been better at correcting it. Simply put, I was not in my groove today. 

We stayed at Centennial today because they had room in the pattern which allowed us a good number of landings since we didn't have to spend 20 - 30 minutes flying to and from other airports. More landings, more chances to prove "I got this" I thought. And after a while, I was able to find some consistency at the end, right before our "low fuel" warning light came on and we called it a day. (We were just over half when we took off, which was my minimum without asking for a refuel, and the warning light came on at 1/4.) We could have gotten one or two more in, but we were both hot and a bit tired and at the point of diminishing returns anyway. So here in no particular order are my take-aways.

First, and I wrote this before, and every instructor since Orville and Wilbur has said, "airspeed is key." If you aren't consistent on your airspeed, you're not on a stable approach, and your landing will suffer. Airspeed. Is. Everything. Fly the numbers. If the book says 65 knots over the threshold, be at 65 knots over the threshold. Pitch for airspeed, power for altitude. Use trim. Get this right and the rest will fall into place. 

Second, careful, small adjustments to the controls. Do not over-control, but do not under-control, either. I was just a bit fast on one approach, and was a bit timid in how much I pulled the nose back because I didn't want to balloon. I landed flat on all three wheels. A little more pulling back earlier would have bled off the speed and gotten the nose in the right attitude. In hindsight, this could have been due to a poorly-trimmed set-up. If I'm trimmed too far nose down, my speed will be fast and it will take more back-pressure to raise the nose. On another approach, my speed was on target but I was a bit low, so I added power to slow my descent, but I added too much power and we started to climb a bit without gaining airspeed. Add just a little bit of power (100rpm or so) and keep the pitch attitude. 

Third, if things aren't going right, take a break and regroup. My instructor can sense when I'm getting frustrated, and about halfway through flew a landing so I could watch and recalibrate myself. It helped. Maybe it was just a quick mental break, maybe it was just seeing it done well, I can't say for certain. But whatever, when I got back on the controls, I felt my landings were a bit better. Still not great, but more "all me" than the previous ones. 

Forth, F18s land ridiculously fast--ATC told us 270 knots approach speed. But it's friggin' COOL to see them landing and taking off on the parallel runway while you're doing your pattern work. Sadly, no pics, but damn that was awesome to see from the air. 

In looking back on this lesson, I felt like I was fighting the plane more than I have in previous lessons. That tells me I probably wasn't trimmed as I should have been. When I think back to my earlier landings when trim was an afterthought, these landings were very much on par with them in terms of consistency. When I look back on my last lesson where I was definitely much more consistent and comfortable, I wasn't fighting the plane. I wasn't pushing the nose down or pulling the nose up. Maybe upon reflection, that's the biggest takeaway. If you're fighting the plane, you're not flying the plane. So perhaps that become  my focus next time out. Make sure I'm flying the plane. When I do that, things work. 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Coyote on the Runway

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 41 - Highway from the Comfort Zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 40 - "Miraculous?"

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lesson 39 - A Few More Like That

Today was a good day. Today, I walked away with a bit of a spring in my step that I've not had in a while. Today, my landings were consistent. Not perfect by any measure, but I felt comfortable--even confident--with each of them. For the first time, I felt in control of the entire process. For me, it was another small, but personally significant milestone.

My previous two lessons had been with a secondary instructor who framed landings in a slightly different way than I had flown previously. We tweaked some techniques and integrated some new skills. While there was still considerable room for improvement, his fresh perspective on my technique allowed me to become much more comfortable with the process, with a better feeling for how to control the various aspects of the landing process. My lesson today was actually with a third instructor. I was supposed to fly with my primary instructor, but he and this instructor swapped students for the day so that a stage check could be performed for the other student. (Instructors cannot stage-check their own students.) 

Unlike my secondary instructor who was brought on partly to actively ferret out weaknesses in my technique and correct them, this instructor seemed to take a bit more of a passive approach. From the get-go, it seemed he was comfortable letting me do my own thing, fly the plane my way. He met me at the plane, we taxied, and after a circuitous tour of the taxiways because ATC decided to change runway directions causing us to have to taxi to the opposite end of a 2-mile-long runway, we were up in the air and heading northwest to Rocky Mountain Metro airport for touch-and-goes. We could have stayed at Centennial, but I was in the mood for a change of scenery.

The 15-minute flight out was smooth and uneventful. I set radios, got weather information, contacted the tower, all the stuff pilots need to do. It felt natural and un-rushed. Metro ATC vectored me in for our first landing. Flaps 10 degrees, pitch for 85 knots, set trim accordingly. Base turn, add flaps, airspeed drops to 75 knots. Turn to final, add full flaps, and if all is right, airspeed will slow to 65 knots while I use power to control my descent to landing. Hold centerline. Okay, I'm drifting. Slip. Drop left wing, add right rudder to keep nose aligned. Too much. Back a little bit. Back on centerline. Good. Pull power to idle, level the wings, and (wait! I'm moving sideways, crap! More left aileron, right rudder.) Hold it, hold it, set down. Not bad. We did another, and another. By my third one, I felt a sense of consistency to these landings I hadn't experienced before. My instructor offered assistance and guidance, but it was more in the form of reminders to do what I know to do, not to try anything different. It began to build my confidence, prompting a few "that was good. let's do another like that" comments from him. As a student who's struggled mightily with landings over the past 6 months, hearing "that was good" as opposed to "what happened??!!" is a welcome change of pace. 

With the exception of seemingly always being blown a bit sideways at the last minute when I rounded out to touch down, I felt like I could control the plane and make it do what I needed it to do. Too high? Drop power and trust that it will drop. Too low, add just a bit of power. Not too much. In past lessons, I'd be troubleshooting each approach asking myself "what did I forget to do?" which caused the landing to not be so good. This lesson, it seemed it was more a matter of tweaking things a bit here and there but no major problems with technique. My patterns were not as tight as I would have liked, but I'll blame that on a lack of familiarity with the airport. At Centennial and Space Port, I have recognizable things on the ground which I use to set my downwind leg. At Metro, I didn't have that. Next time I'm out that way I'll look for something on the ground as a reference and they'll tighten up. I was also following other planes which may or may not have been as consistent in their downwind leg spacing either. (I know, excuses...) 

I'll be brutally honest, I didn't really make the connection that I was fighting a crosswind until after we landed at the end of the lesson. The weather report had winds at 5 knots at 50 degrees. 5 knots isn't that heavy of a wind, so in my mind I think I subconsciously discounted its effects. We were landing on runway 12, which is 120 degrees, meaning the wind was coming at about 70 degrees relative to our direction of travel. That makes it pretty much a full-on crosswind. It was probably blowing a bit harder than that from time to time. Regardless, I was working to hold centerline on my approach (with varying degrees of success and accuracy) but in my mind, that was just me keeping the plane on centerline, not fighting a crosswind. When it came time to touch down, I'd level the wings and straighten the nose, which meant I'd get blown sideways. Where'd that come from??? 

Takeaway? When you write down the weather info (including winds) take the time to make a mental note of wind direction relative to runway direction. They tell you that kind of stuff for a reason. Make it part of your weather briefing as you're setting up for your arrival. Get it in your head. Compensating for a light crosswind when landing is not necessarily difficult--simple enough apparently that I was doing it without really knowing I was doing it. I think had I made that connection that I was fighting a crosswind in addition to everything else, I would have been more successful. 

After 8 touch-and-goes, we headed back to Centennial. Again, smooth flight, I got radio and weather information, set us up for landing with a sense of confidence, and landed. I got a little sideways when braking for the runway exit, but that's inexperience with the braking on the Grumman as this is only the 4th time flying it. 

Only 5 days until my next lesson (weather permitting), so we'll see if this confidence carries over to my next outing. I sincerely hope so. 

Lessons 37 and 38 - A New Perspective

 

My instructor and I agreed that I needed to get up in the air more than once a month, so we brought in a second instructor whose schedule was a bit more open in the hopes that given the luck we'd been having with cancellations due to weather and maintenance, more dates booked would translate into more time in the air to hone my landing skills. I have read often through this process that going up with a new instructor once in a while is a good thing as it brings in fresh eyeballs on the process, perhaps being able to see things that are otherwise being missed. I was hoping that would be the case.

My "fresh set of eyes" has been teaching for four years, having retired from the medical appliance industry. We chatted on the phone prior to meeting in person, where he asked me what I had been doing in terms of training, etc., to get a feel for where I was at. (Logical.) I knew our first flight together was going to be as much "show me what you know" as it would be "teach you what you don't know," so I was ready to roll with however we wanted to progress. 

I meet the instructor at the field, and we sit down in a room to talk. One of his first questions - "How often do you use trim when landing?" To be honest, it's always been an afterthought. Once I get the plane stable, I'll add trim. If I'm working too hard to keep the plane stable, I don't add trim because I'm busy working to keep the plane stable. That wasn't quite what he was hoping to hear, but I had a sense he was leading somewhere with this. He also asked about forward slips. (This is where you bank the plane's wings one direction, but use opposite rudder to keep the nose pointed opposite to how the plane wants to turn.) I knew the theory, but it wasn't something my primary instructor and I had yet spent a whole lot of time on. These two things seemed to my new instructor to be significant, so a plan was hatched to address them. (None of this is to slight my primary instructor in any way, as he was anticipating this fresh perspective helping me.) 

We took off and headed southeast towards the practice areas. There were already planes in that area, so we continued further southeast to a small grass field in Calhan, CO. We weren't going to land there (club insurance rules prohibit landing on grass fields) but since it was untowered, we could buzz the runway at 50' and practice approaches, etc. On the way out, we did some slow flight and stalls so my instructor could get a sense of how I handled them. We then moved onto setting up slips so I could put theory into practice. They're not hard to do, but the biggest thing is to be 100% in synch when entering and exiting them so the nose of the airplane doesn't go crazy as you relax the rudders. That will take some finesse. 

As we approached the strip at Calhan, my instructor asked me again about how I used trim. He then explained that in a stable approach to landing, consistent airspeed is critical. He then said the easiest way to keep consistent airspeed is to use trim, so you're not having to constantly apply pressure to the yoke to maintain pitch. This made sense, but I was always so busy trying to maintain pitch with pressure that I never had the presence of mind to use trim. He had me do some exercises. First, we set a decent rate of 85 knots with 10 degrees of flaps, and trimmed off the pressure on the yoke. He had me then lower flaps to 20 degrees and watch what happened to the airspeed without doing anything to the yoke. It dropped to about 75 knots. He then had me add full flaps, again not adjusting the yoke, just letting the trim hold things. Airspeed dropped to about 65 knots. In essence, with power being constant and the plane trimmed properly, the addition of flaps will control your airspeed at each phase of the landing. This shouldn't have been a revelation to me, but it was the first time that I actually flew a practical demonstration of it. We proceeded to fly a handful of approaches to the grass strip at Calhan, and using trim, I found it easy to control my airspeed at each stage (downwind, base, final), ending up crossing the runway threshold at right about 65 knots. 

At this point, we decided to head back to Centennial to put this to the test actually touching down on the runway. I was expecting a full-stop landing, but we asked for touch-and-goes on our way in, and ATC obliged. Using trim definitely made my landing a bit more controlled, but my altitude control was rough, and when you make large adjustments in power, it also affects pitch, which affects airspeed, so things didn't go quite as smoothly as I had hoped. The landings weren't "bad," but the last 30' of vertical elevation was rough. We floated, bounced, all the fun things you're not supposed to do. Having said that, though, I felt something had changed just a bit mentally. I wasn't fighting the plane near as much as I had been. I could see where this would be of help.

Our next lesson was a week later. I was supposed to fly with my primary instructor one day, then my secondary instructor the next. Weather cancelled the first lesson, so my next lesson was again with my secondary instructor. This lesson would be more of the same, almost a duplicate of the previous lesson except that we did not fly all the way down to Calhan. We just flew to the southeast practice area to set up some work on slips (still need to work on that recovery), some slow flight, then back to Centennial for touch-and-goes. Things went pretty much the same as they did the previous week. My set-up was fine. I had pretty good control of my airspeed via the trim, but my power applications to control elevation induced more changes than ideal, thus my touchdowns were problematic. I suppose it didn't help that I was back in a Cessna for this as opposed to the Grumman I had been flying the previous few lessons. They handle similarly, but the Cessna is a bit more sluggish than the Grumman, so you have to be a bit more patient with changes to controls. Failure to do so leads to larger corrections than necessary, and then you're again playing catch-up. Too low, then too high, then a touch too fast as a result, so I floated... Almost, but only almost. Consistency was lacking. Still, there was something different. I felt I had a better handle on airspeed for the most part, it was just a matter of making smaller adjustments. That would take more repetition. 

Lesson 36 - Back in the Saddle Again

 

They say that the key to learning how to fly is to fly as often as you can. Twice a week or more if you can swing it. That way you retain more of what you learn from lesson to lesson, so less time is spent trying to figure out what you learned last time. Alas, most folks who work 40 hours a week are lucky to get up once a week, so we're already at something of a disadvantage. Then, there's the weather and other issues. It's June. Prior to today, I have flown a grand total of 4 times this year! That's not even once a month. February and May were "no-fly" months for me. Not exactly the repetition one would like for honing important skills (like, you know, landing?) No, you can't control the weather, but this was getting ridiculous. 

When today dawned with sunshine and no perceptible wind, I was jazzed. No weather cancellation today. No sir-ee-bob. We're getting up in the air and will hammer away at landing. Then I check Foreflight, which is the software I use to check airport conditions, navigate, log my lessons, and track my flights. Big red screen: NOTAM (Notice to Airmen) - Runway 17L/35R closed. Crap. This meant no touch-and-goes at Centennial, and everyone and their brother will be headed over to Space Port instead. Seriously??? I'm finally back in the air, and the universe has found another wrench to throw into my plans. 

My instructor and I decided to fly east and see if we could get in at Space Port anyway. If not, he'd put me through a mock stage-check to make sure I know all the other maneuvers. Better than nothing, but not working on what I need to work on. Having said that, I was in the Grumman today, and today was only my second time flying the Grumman so a little more time in the left seat of a new airframe wasn't going to be wasted time. I prepped the plane and we struck out east towards Space Port. 

As suspected, when I called Space Port, everybody and their brother had already beaten us there, so they did not have room for us in the pattern to practice landings. Okay, so much for that. Let's head south and work on maneuvers. Stalls and slow flight to get things started. We did a few of each, and I didn't have much trouble with them at all. My instructor suggested we check in again with Space Port and see if they could squeeze us into the pattern. As luck would have it, they could. I'd get my landings! We turned back north, and I got set up for a series of touch-and-goes.

I did 5 touch-and-goes at Space Port. They ran the gamut from pretty decent to abysmal. Flying the pattern worked well for me. The Grumman handles very nicely and I felt I was able to get lined up with the runway without much trouble, better than I have in the past. Granted we didn't have much wind, so that helped. I had two buggers to work out today, and both had everything to do with not having done repeated landings for a few months. 

First was altitude control on final. That's partly a "getting used to the plane" thing, and figuring out how much power to apply. If I was high, I found it relatively easy to add flaps, drop power, and get back on glide slope. Granted I shouldn't have been that high in the first place, but that was me trying to figure out landmarks on a 5-mile straight-in final to set my altitude. But that far out, you've got time to compensate for being high. Where I needed work today was the fine power applications on the last 100' of elevation to keep you on the glide slope. I'd add too much power then be a bit too high then pull out too much power and drop like a rock, and back and forth. I can't really blame that on flying a new type of plane since I have had the same issues in the Cessnas. It's just a finesse thing and comes with practice. 

The second thing to work on is the final flare, and that's a bit of a "feel" thing. I felt better about where I was flaring in terms of being the right height off the runway (at least mostly), but it was more a matter of controlling how much. I wasn't as smooth as I needed to be in transitioning from the nose-down decent to the nose-up touchdown. I wouldn't pull back enough and land flat, or I'd pull back too quickly and balloon up a bit before pushing the nose down to level off. I seriously bounced one attempt prompting my instructor to add power and just go around. But again--the last time I was in the pattern was three months ago! I'll take that. We left Space Port to return to Centennial. My landing there was pretty decent by today's standards. 

I will note that although I hadn't been up in the air flying touch-and-goes "for real" in three months, I have been flying a thousand or more landings on my home simulator. It is not the same, but it does help to keep the muscle memory from waning too much. How much of today's landings were the result of me working the simulator as hard as I have been versus a new airframe that may be simply easier for me to land versus just skills developing, I really can't say. All-in-all, I felt pretty satisfied with how I flew today.

Due to my instructor's desire to get me in the air more often, and his increasingly full schedule, I have signed on with a second instructor, with whom I will start flying next week (weather permitting). This way I can play the averages a bit better. Even with weather cancellations, if I book twice as many flights, I will hopefully be able to get airborne more than once every 4 or 5 weeks and I can get through this process sooner. Both instructors suggested that I pick one airframe or the other as I work through the solo stage check process. After today's flight, I opted to focus on flying the Grumman for the foreseeable future. The Grummans and Cessnas are very similar in many ways and I could have gone either way, but the majority of my scheduled lessons over the Summer months were already in the Grumman, so I switched the three or four that were in the Cessna over to the Grumman for consistency. I can always go back, and may opt for the Cessnas for my cross country stuff if they have better GPS navigation equipment. But--hey--green is my favorite color, so there's that.

Lesson 35 - The Cross-Country

Let me start off by saying today's lesson marked a milestone in my journey--the one year mark of me flying. So it was fitting (though entirely coincidental) that my lesson today would be another milestone--my first cross-country flight. The reality is that we were supposed to fly this trip three weeks ago, but my past three lessons have been cancelled due to high winds. 

The term "cross-country" conjures up images of family road trips to other states, but in the eyes of the FAA, "cross-country" merely means a flight to an airport 50 nautical miles or farther away. It's something that might sound cooler than it really is, but it's also far enough way to where the student pilot has to demonstrate the ability to plan a flight that may not be a direct straight line flight, choose waypoints along the way to keep you headed the right direction, determine fuel consumption, calculate wind course adjustments, and other things you'd need to do whether the airport was 50 miles or 500 miles away. This is the "logistics" aspect of flight training. 

My instructor told me after our last lesson to plan a flight to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport, which is 54 miles away from Centennial, just far enough to qualify for a cross-country flight. If you're driving, it's a straight shot up I-25. Easy enough. Ironically, flying isn't quite as direct. You see, the term "as the crow flies" applies only to birds. They don't have to follow FAA regulations. Planes do. So while crows can fly straight lines all day long, planes have to fly in ways that they do not interfere with other planes in the air. In this case, we have Denver International Airport to our northeast, a busy "Class B" airport that has a very large airspace surrounding it that we need to avoid, and also the Rocky Mountain Regional airport to our northwest, which like Centennial is a fairly busy Class D airport.

A quick note about airspace is in order here. The airspace surrounding airports is "controlled" airspace, meaning that where there is a tower present, you cannot fly in that airspace without talking to Air Traffic Control. Class D and Class E airspace looks like a large cylinder extending out 5 miles from the airport, and up a few thousand feet depending on the airport. Class B and C airspace surrounds larger, busier airports. Their airspace is similar, but (a) extends much higher, and has different layers, with each layer having a larger radius the higher you go. Think of an inverted wedding cake. You cannot fly into Class B airspace without the express permission of the controllers in that airspace, and because they're busy commercial airports, getting clearance into or through that airspace for general aviation pilots is rare. GA pilots can fly under the layers (called flying under the shelf) without issue, but must be careful not to accidentally climb into the class B (or class C) shelf that may be right above them. I keep 500' below the elevation of any shelf I'm flying beneath.

The upshot is that when planning a cross-country flight around areas with lots of airports, you should plan your route to make sure you fly around any airspace that you would otherwise need permission to enter. I guess you don't have to if it can't be avoided, but don't count on getting clearance through a class B airspace just because you want to shave a few minutes off of your flight. I plotted a course that took me northwest, then through a narrow corridor between Rocky Mountain's and DIA's airspaces before turning northward to get to Fort Collins. 

If you're "old school," you pull out paper charts, pencils, plotters, and calculators to figure out your course, time from waypoint to waypoint, fuel burn, etc. (And it's a good idea for pilots to at least know how to do this, even if they never actually do.) Most folks today use software to do this electronically. There are a number of platforms you can use. I have ForeFlight loaded on my phone, so that's what I use. You enter your start and end points, then add waypoints as needed. The software then calculates the time between each point, estimated fuel burn, and on the day of the flight, will factor in the wind forecast to give you heading and course correction information. This becomes the "official" flight plan that you would submit electronically to the FAA if you were going to file a formal flight plan for your excursion. (Not required for VFR flight.) My instructor liked my plan and bumped us over to a Cessna 172 which had a more user-friendly GPS than the one I was originally scheduled to fly in. This way we could transfer my flight plan into the GPS and use that as opposed to having to use my phone. 

The reality is that I really "should" be working on my landings. However, a few factors--again coincidentally--made today a better day to do cross country stuff. First, the primary runway was closed for repairs, so all traffic was using the secondary north/south runway. This meant no touch-and-goes at Centennial. Second, today felt like the first calm-wind day in a long time, so everyone and their brother decided to go flying today. This meant that Spaceport was already crowded with folks from Centennial trying to get in pattern work. So, yeah. Let's go to Fort Collins and get my feet wet in flying long-distances. 

We took off (after what seemed a long wait due to everyone using the same runway) and started climbing out. I started heading west (per ATC instructions) and began climbing to 7,500'. It wasn't too long before ATC told us to descend to 6,800' to avoid oncoming traffic. My instructor took us down quickly, while I looked for the oncoming traffic. It was there, about 200' directly above us. Did I mention that it seemed like everyone and their brother decided to fly today? Yeah. Once he passed overhead, we resumed our climb and turned towards the first waypoint, Mile High Stadium. (Sorry, er, "Empower Field.") I checked my time, and I was right on schedule. I turned north towards our next waypoint. My instructor worked the radio since this was my first cross country so I could get a feel for how to talk to the various controllers along the way as I had not done that before and had enough to do keeping track of waypoints, time, etc. 

We made our way up to the Fort Collins/Loveland airport and I began my descent. I was thrown for a loop because we took off to the north, so in my mind I had us also landing to the north, as the airport runway faces the same general direction. No. They had us landing to the south. "Expectation bias." Once I got my bearings straight, I got us lined up for a touch-and-go. We had a bit of a crosswind, so my instructor had me land with just 10 degrees of flaps as opposed to my usual 30. This meant I was going to land a bit faster than normal, but not too bad. I was more concerned with countering the crosswind, which has thrown me for loops in the past. I think I did a pretty decent job of it, but it was a team effort.

Once back in the air, we turned south. My instructor was going to have me fly to Rocky Mountain airport (southwest) and I started to get us set up for that. We couldn't head straight south because of DIA's class B airspace. ATC instead had us turn east for traffic. And more traffic, and more traffic. There were definitely a lot of folks flying today, and they kept having to have us make adjustments to avoid them. A few minutes later, we heard "three-niner-mike" (our callsign/tail number) "climb and maintain 8,500 direct to Centennial." This meant we were to fly pretty much straight south through DIA's airspace. This doesn't happen all that often, apparently, but due to the high volume of traffic, Denver's controllers figured it was easy to just have us fly straight through their airspace so they didn't have to worry about routing us around other traffic. The "big boys" were still going to be high enough above us as they approached DIA, so we were well out of their way, and at 8,500' and well within DIA's airspace, we were going to be clear of everyone else, too. We got some cool views of downtown from the east, which my instructor pointed out was a rare vantage point for GA pilots. 

I found Cherry Creek Reservoir through the haze, which is a landmark just north of Centennial Airport I use for approach. Winds had picked up and were gusting by the time we got there. We flew a wide loop to the east and lined up for runway 35L. Centennial ATC advised us of winds gusting to 17 knots, and because of the amount of traffic, told us to "keep our speed up." This meant flying the pattern at 100 knots instead of my usual 75 - 85, and no flaps due to the heavy wind gusts. Let me tell you, when you're used to the pace of flying an approach at 75 - 85 knots, all of a sudden doing it at 100 knots means things sneak up on you quickly. I was not used to this pace. After we landed, I quipped that I did not like no-flap landings. My instructor assured me that I'd learn to like them when it's gusty. He hasn't been wrong yet...

All in all, a very fun day in the air. I felt good about my flight plan to Fort Collins. I was able to stick to it, my estimated times were spot on, and I felt comfortable the entire time. I got a good feeling for the radio communications along the way, not so much what to say, but at least who to say it to. That will come with time. I felt with my landings, I was more doing what my instructor was telling me to do as opposed to feeling things out for myself, but given the adverse conditions, being told what to do and doing it is what gets you down safely. At least I was doing it. I'll take that for the win. 

Our next cross country will be out to Fort Morgan, which will be a lot less congested, though because it's in the middle of friggin' nowhere, finding visual waypoints may be a challenge. That will afford me the ability to ease into radio coms along the way, though, since it will not be quite so busy.

Lesson 34 - Highs and Lows (Wings)

There seems to be a raging debate among student pilots as to which type of plane is better to learn in, high or low wing. While it's not quite to the level of Ford vs. Chevy, the High vs. Low debate still stirs surprisingly strong emotions. For my part, I never gave it much thought. I had flown in my friend's Piper Warrior (low wing) and also his Pietenpol Air Camper (high wing) 20 years ago. Maybe it was because I was just too new to flying and the whole experience was so cool that I couldn't dissect the nuances between the two to form an opinion one way or the other. I was just thrilled to be in the air. I'm a photographer, so the high wing does make more sense for taking photos, but if I'm the one flying, I'm not the one taking photos so what do I care? 

When I first started training, I decided to stick to the Cessnas (high wing) because (a) I figured sticking to one type of plane for my early training would eliminate some variables from the equation, and (b) the Cessna 172s make up the vast majority of my school's fleet, so it would be easier to find an available plane. For the most part, my reasoning has proven solid, though it seems recently the school's maintenance department has determined which plane to pull for maintenance next based solely on which one I had reserved. Usually when my school pulls my plane for maintenance, they'll try to book me in another C172. Failing that, they'll move me to the simulator (in which my instructor sees little value) or a ground lesson. Such was the case with today's lesson. The Cessna I booked went in for maintenance, so I got bumped to ground. My instructor and I keep our eyes open to see if anything opens up last minute on the schedule when that happens. This time, I got a text from my instructor, "booked us in a Grumman." The Grummans are small low-wing trainers, a bit smaller than the Pipers the school also has. They look cool, though, which is always important. At this stage in my training (40+ hours), I was pretty confident I could adapt to the plane without much fuss. I was pretty stoked to try something new. 

Parallel to this, my birthday was at the beginning of this month, and my wife got me a yoke and rudder pedal set so I could set up a flight simulator on my computer. While I hadn't actually flown for real in a month, I had logged a whole lot of time on the simulator. You'll find similar debate among students and instructors as to the efficacy of simulators in training, especially at the private pilot level. As mentioned above, my instructor doesn't see a whole lot of benefit for early-on training. (Neither does the FAA, which is why you can only log 2.5 hours of sim time towards your required hours for private pilot.) Without question, the sim is different than the real thing. I agree with my instructor that in terms of teaching the basics, there's no substitute for the real thing. So much of what we learn is by "feel," and you don't get that on a sim. Having said that, I have found that one advantage of a home-based simulator is the ability to repeat things over and over again to build that mental and muscle memory. 

Take for example the "dance" between ailerons and rudder when lining up for landing. You get that wrong in the plane, you're 20' off the ground with little room for error. It's not the right time to have to mentally sort out rudder opposite aileron to stay on center. You get that backwards, and you're going sideways down the runway. (See previous blog entry.) On top of that, you have to be flying on a day when ATC is letting you do touch-and-goes to get more than one crack at it. On the sim, you can get 30+ simulated landings in an hour. You can set up a scenario and just fly it and fly it again and again and again to begin to sort things out in your mind. I think of it as chair flying with visual aids and props. You're not as task-saturated in the sim as you are in the plane, so it's easier to recognize things you didn't do when you don't get a good result. Many times in the plane after a bad approach, my instructor would ask "what happened?" I couldn't really figure out in that moment what went wrong because I was also flying the plane and concentrating on that. Here, when something goes wrong, you hit pause and evaluate what you did and did not do so you can correct it next time. And if you crash, you just hit "load flight" and go again. The FAA doesn't need to know you bent your virtual plane. 

Back to today's lesson. Having probably spent 30 hours on my home sim since I got it set up, I was anxious to put theory into actual practice. Hammering away on procedures (particularly landing procedures) trained my mind to keep track of visual cues as well as the instruments more consistently than I think I had been in the past. I wanted to apply that to an actual flight to make sure things translated well from one environment to the other. Flying a different type of plane added another layer of "let's see how it translates" to the process as well. I had something to prove to myself this flight. 

My instructor and I decided that since this was a new type of plane for me, we'd go out and fly some maneuvers to give me a good feel for the plane before heading to the airport for touch-and-goes. Alas, even without knowing what ATC was going to do, our plans for touch-and-goes was thwarted by a severely worn tire. We had called a mechanic out to put air in one that looked low, and as he was topping them all off, he asked "you doing touch-and-goes?" We said we were planning on it. He said it wasn't a good idea with the tire like that since one hard landing would leave us stuck on the runway. That happened to my instructor the previous week, and for some odd reason he had zero interest in repeating that scenario. We agreed that if we were going to do them, we'd do two or three at the most. With our plans for flying around first, that was probably all we'd be able to get in anyway.

The biggest difference between the Grumman and Cessna (besides the location of the wings) is that the Grumman relies solely on the differential left and right brakes for steering on the ground. The front wheel is just like a shopping cart wheel, there to keep the nose from hitting the ground. Of course, either I didn't entirely pick up on that nuanced difference or my feet were still in "Cessna mode" so I wasn't quite as smooth on the taxiing as I wanted. I kept wanting to steer with the rudder, not brakes. Next time, I'll do better.

Once in the air, though, the Grumman proved to be very easy to fly, surprisingly similar to the Cessna. The low wing certainly gives a lot more visibility. It was a little bumpy, and the Grumman being a smaller and lighter plane than the Cessna was a bit more susceptible to those bumps and I found myself needing to really stay on top of my altitude. I'd blink and I'd be up 200'. When you're flying under a class B airspace shelf, it's important to stay far enough below so not to make folks watching the radar screens nervous. We flew to the southeast practice areas where I did some slow flight and stalls, some steep turns, then we headed west across Castle Rock (which doesn't look nearly as imposing from 8500') then up to Chatfield Reservoir and our Southwest practice area. Once at Chatfield, I called ATC and asked for touch-and-goes. They said no, so--sadly--I would only have one shot at landing the Grumman today to see if my landing work on the sim translated to the real world. I do like being able to see the runway all the way through the downwind-base-final process, though even with that I still found myself just slightly askew from the centerline and needing to slide a bit further to get better lined up so is it really an advantage? The landing wasn't quite as good as I had hoped, but I've had lots worse, too. 

Today's flight was in many ways just flying for the fun of flying. The skies were clear, the scenery was cool, the atmosphere very relaxed. On one hand, I didn't feel like I was pushing myself very hard and some might say I wasn't using my time wisely. On the other hand, it was my first time in a different plane, and that I adapted so quickly and easily to it gave me a big confidence boost. The maneuvers I was doing felt natural to me. I didn't have to think from one step to the next, it all just kind of flowed. That and I could feel myself spending more time bouncing back and forth between looking outside and inside at the instruments, and keying off of what I was seeing outside the window to stay more on top of what the plane was doing in the air. (Thanks, simulator!) So maybe an easy day in the air isn't so much just taking it easy as it is recognizing how far I've come, and giving me confidence that the skills I'm still working hard to develop will--eventually--feel as natural as the rest of my flight today.

And I'm still in the "doesn't matter" camp when it comes to the high/low debate. I'll definitely be flying the Grumman again. Always good to have more options.