Lesson 54 - First Solo

 

A student pilot's first solo is arguably the most significant milestone in one's journey to becoming a pilot, or at least one that does not involve passing the FAA's check ride. It is the first time you're truly on your own. There's no safety net of an instructor sitting next to you. Either you know it, or you figure it out really quickly. The student's first solo is in most cases the student flying a few circles in the patten with the instructor who then hops out and sending the student back into the pattern for a few more landings on his/her own. While it's usually a big deal on the emotional front, from a practical standpoint, it's a very simple outing. You basically never leave the airport. With my stage check out of the way two weeks previous, I just needed a day with sunny skies and calm winds to do my first solo. Last week was too windy. I checked the airport forecast for Wednesday. It looked good. Alright, I'm going to knock this one out. 

Except, they closed the parallel runway at Centennial. Don't know why, but that means no pattern work, so no solo at Centennial. I arrived at the airport not knowing if there was a plan B, or if we were just going to have to do something else. My instructor said we'd instead head out to Spaceport instead, because the winds, while higher than at Centennial, were still within minimums. I prepped the plane and we took off to the east. Once in the air, I contacted Spaceport. Their pattern was full. What's more, the winds had kicked up beyond the club limits for student solos, so that wasn't an option. My instructor checked his phone and says the winds are calm down in Colorado Springs. We turned south. At this point, I still don't know if I'm actually going to solo, but I figured we's see where this went. We call Denver Departure for flight following down to the Springs, and set the VOR to navigate to the airport. 

We arrive in Colorado Springs and land on the east runway (17 left). The approach to this runway took me directly over my in-laws' houses, which was cool. This runway is 150' wide and 13,000 long, so it would have been next to impossible to miss it. Still, my instructor was (rightly so) being a stickler for hitting the centerline. Between the glare from the noontime sun and the skid marks from landing jets, the centerline was difficult to make out, but that's a poor excuse. Centerline tracking is important. At this point, I wasn't sure if I was blowing my chance at soloing or not. On my forth touch-and-go, my instructor called the tower to inquire about landing to let him off. They had us fly and land on the west runway (17 right) so I could drop him off. After the gratuitous "first solo" photo of the empty seat next to me and my instructor on the tarmac taking my picture, I throttled up and headed back out to the taxiway. This was it. 

The plan was to do three or four landings, then pick up my instructor and head back north. Colorado Springs' traffic control is a bit different than Centennial in that the ground controller does not hand you off to the tower. You follow the ground controller's instructions up to the hold-short line on the runway, then you switch over to tower frequency and let them know you're ready. Nothing I couldn't handle, but a reminder that I didn't have the "home field advantage." I took off, having to confirm with the tower that they wanted me in a right pattern because I knew I asked, but I wasn't sure I remembered the answer. Nerves. I told them I was a student solo, and they said no worries. 

My first landing was pretty smooth. Not perfect, but on center and on speed. I lifted off again. On my next approach, I was following another student pilot from one of the bigger schools. They were doing a full stop landing, and decided to take their own sweet time getting off the runway. They were still on the runway when I was approaching the threshold, so ATC told me to sidestep to the right and go around. Kinda figured that was going to happen. Had I realized they were full stop when I was on my downwind, I would have extended to give them a bit more time, but oh well. Go-arounds happen, and that's why we practice them. My third landing was my worst of the day. For some reason, I floated down the runway in ground effect for what seemed like forever. I was at 65 knots and not slowing down or going down. I jiggled the throttle thinking maybe it wasn't at full idle. Maybe that was it, but whatever it was, I lost that last bit of airspeed and bounced on the runway before I was ready. On the second bounce, I decided that was enough of that nonsense, stuffed the throttle back to full and started climbing back out. My fourth landing, butter. Absolute butter. I was almost bummed that I was solo on that one because it was definitely worthy of sharing with someone. 

We flew back to Centennial, where ironically my instructor handled the landing because there was a corporate jet landing right behind us so we needed to do a high-speed approach. I know the theory, and goodness knows I've accidentally arrived at the runway threshold at 95 knots at more than a few points in my training, but the resulting landings were abysmal. I was happy to be along for the ride on this one, studying the steps so I can practice them later without a jet riding my rear end. Once on the ground and back in the terminal, I had a very brief moment for the ceremonial shirt tail cutting and photo with my instructor, but we were at this point already an hour late for his next student, who--thankfully--was in the same plane, and very patient.

Take-aways of the day. First, I did it. Not that I was worried, but I did it. That by itself is an achievement. Second, things went wrong (as they will) and I handled them well. ATC said "go around," and I was able to calmly do that. I bounced a landing, recognized the danger, and recovered for the go-around. And I re-grouped after that and absolutely nailed my last landing. Lastly, though completely unplanned and rather impromptu, I think flying down to Colorado Springs added something to the day. It made it a bigger event than just flying three loops in the pattern at the home field. I soloed at an airport I had never been to before. I don't know how big a deal that really is, but to me, it showed that I can enter an unfamiliar airspace and handle it quite well even under a bit of pressure. 

There seems to be two schools of thought on when student pilots solo. Some believe a student should learn how to land right out of the gate, thus get to solo stage between 10 and 20 hours, under the theory that soloing will sharpen those skills as the student pilot sorts things out for themselves. The other (the one embraced by my school) is that students should have a fairly firm grasp of many aspects of flying, including unusual circumstances prior to being given the keys to the sky. I think the former style puts the student in a "sink or swim" environment. Certainly the instructor has faith the student will do well enough or they wouldn't have signed off on it. But does the student? Yet, perhaps a student who completes his or her solo facing a lot of personal apprehension finds an amplified sense of accomplishment having completed the solo despite that apprehension, an "I didn't think I could, but I did!" mindset. There is something particularly rewarding there. 

When looking at my experience through that lens, my solo may be seen as somewhat anticlimactic. There was no "I didn't think I could" aspect of things. I knew I could. And I found the experience every bit as much of an accomplishment. For me, the solo wasn't so much a test as it was a graduation of sorts. A milestone for certain, but mile 20, and a chance to realize the importance of miles 1 through 19. As an added bonus, the flight to and from Colorado Springs provided a cool preview of the next 20 miles. 

Lesson 53 - Pre-solo Stage Check

 

Once my instructor put me in for my stage check, I got paired with another instructor from the school to fly with me and sign off that I was indeed ready to be turned loose on my own. A "second opinion" of sorts which needs to be done by someone who does not fly regularly with the student. This instructor/examiner called me to schedule a time to go. I had a plane booked the following week which matched his availability, so we agreed to meet then. After getting off the phone, I looked at the long range weather forecast. Beautiful weather every day except the day we scheduled. But you can't do anything about the weather, and neither of our schedules allowed sliding things one way or another. We figured we'd take our chances and see what happens. 

That day came, and so did the snow. No flying today. However, we agreed to take care of the written and oral portions of the process since both of us were free. The "written" test is a sheet of 40 questions which ask about airport operations, frequencies used, basic questions about the plane, club rules for flying as a student, etc. I had filled this out early on in my training, so this was more review than anything else. Aside from a few questions whose wording was a bit ambiguous, these were questions that if you couldn't answer after your first 10 lessons, you weren't paying attention. 

The oral portion was more in-depth, a good, though basic warm-up for the oral part of the final check ride. I had previously sat down with my instructor to go through a mock oral where he noted things I needed to brush up on, and I had taken that to heart. I met my examiner, and we essentially had a casual conversation for a few hours about flying, covering all the basic acronyms for required equipment and procedures (ARROW, ATOMATOFLAMES, NWKRAFT) and the like. We talked through some "what if..." scenarios and looked at what would need to have with me when the weather cooperated and we got up in the air. I did well on the oral, though I definitely need to remember those acronyms better. (Even as I type this, I'm trying to remember some of the letters.) 

The practical day would have to wait a bit, as I was going to be on vacation the following week. I had a plane booked two days the week I was to be back from vacation, and it worked out that my examiner would be available the second of those two days. I figured that would give me a "warm-up" day prior to the practical. I liked that idea as it would have been three weeks since my last flight and I was nervous about being a bit rusty, especially when you combine that with general nerves of being tested on things. Well, that "practice" day with my instructor arrived on 30 knot wind gusts, so nope. No flying. I would go into the stage check cold. But--hey--if I "need" a warm-up day to get back in the groove, am I really ready to fly by myself? Probably not. I hit the simulator pretty hard all week to keep fresh on procedures and flows. 

Friday arrived on the heels of an overnight snowfall. I got to the field to find the sun had melted most of the snow off of the plane already, but the side that was in the shade was still icy. (Typical Colorado.) My examiner met me, we spun the plane 180 degrees so the sun could melt the ice off the other side while we talked about preflight stuff and what we wanted to do. (As an aside, one advantage to flying low-wing aircraft--much easier to de-ice the wings.) I could feel the nerves today, not so much about the practical flying, but all the little details I knew I was bound to forget. At this stage check, they're not looking for perfection, just proficiency and safety. It's a progress report. 

We hopped in, started the plane (after my examiner reminded me to push the primer pump handle all the way in. Nerves), and headed out. The winds were calm so we took off on runway 10, which got us headed southeast towards the practice area. I got us down there without any trouble though I gained 200' of altitude when I was supposed to stay at 7500'. Again--nerves. My practice area radio calls were shockingly smooth. I normally get tongue-tied with those though I can talk to ATC all day long. 

We started with slow flight and stalls. I forgot to do my initial clearing turns which I knew I was going to forget. That will be my third sticky-note for my final check ride. "Left," "Right," "Clearing Turns." Those went well, though I didn't realize on power-off stalls there was supposed to be a limit of how much altitude you lose at the start. I always just pulled power, pointed the nose down for about 75 knots, counted to three, then pulled up. I lost about 300' doing that while my examiner was looking for less than 100' loss. Not a dealbreaker, just a lesson to me to make sure I'm aware of what the parameters are of any maneuver I'm being tested on. 

We did some steep turns, which while not required for this stage are always fun. These weren't as smooth as I would have liked, not for lack of mastery of the skill, but because in both cases my nerves got to me and I forgot to note the heading I started at, instead just relying on what I saw out the window, which I noted after I had started the turn. Naturally I overshot on both. That, and apparently my definition of "steep" and my examiner's definition were not the same. I was flying around 45 degrees of bank, he was looking for 60 degrees. Something to work on. We cleaned up from that process and did a simulated emergency landing. Fortunately there was a convenient field off my left wing, and it was easy to set up an approach and landing. Once I got lined up to where landing would be assured, I did a (fairly textbook) go-around, then headed back to the field for some touch-and-go landings.

If I could have started the day with landings, my nerves may have been a bit calmer through this process. Landings were what held up this process to begin with, and while I was more-or-less confident in them, I still had that little bit of uncomfortable doubt. This was (literally) where the rubber meets the runway and if I botched the landings, it was back to the drawing board. I would have much preferred to get the "hard stuff" out of the way first so I knew if I passed that the rest would be easy. Instead, we saved them for last (which made the most sense from a practical standpoint), and I flew with this little nugget of apprehension hanging in the back of my mind much of the time.

Our first approach was a straight-in approach. For whatever reason, I prefer straight-in approaches. Maybe it's because I don't have to worry about turns in the process and have a better gauge to how high or low I am. Despite the straight-in approach, I still ended up just a touch high on short final, but I adjusted and managed to land pretty much where I intended. I uttered a celebratory "YES!" on touching down, but immediately wondered if my examiner interpreted that as "holy crap, I actually did it." I figured I had a few more chances to prove it wasn't an anomaly.

Once I hit that first landing, I knew that monkey was officially off my back and I could relax a bit. We did three more landings in the pattern. I tended to be high on all of them, but that's typical for me. It's rare that I fly a "normal" 3-degree glide slope. Being above the normal glide slope is particularly common when I'm landing on runway 35 where the terrain rises to the south of the field and I'm very hesitant to loose any altitude on the downwind. CFIT (controlled flight into terrain) tends to result in a hard "fail" on stage checks. On the plus side, I dropped us into a slip to get us back on glide slope on one approach, which the examiner noted with "ooh, nice slip." Overall, my landings were pretty solid. My airspeed control was where it needed to be, and a lack of any kind of crosswind (phew!) made landing on the centerline of the runway (within a few feet) pretty easy. 

Our fourth landing would be our final one. The stage check was over (save for tying the plane down). I did it. It wasn't perfect. Flying seldom is, even for seasoned veterans. It was good enough to show that I can fly and land safely by myself. The examiner praised certain aspects and pointed out areas where there is lots of room for improvement. But--most importantly--I passed. I'm officially cleared to fly a plane solo, and move onto the next phase of my training. From here on out, it's not about learning how to fly a plane, it's about learning how to fly a plane well and for a given purpose. I'm not going to say the hard part is done, but my confidence has definitely been given a nice boost. 

Now, I hope for VFR conditions with little wind on a day when I have the plane booked. That's proving to be hard to come by lately. 

Lessons 51 and 52 - Crosswind Control

I was still flying pretty high when I showed up at the field for this lesson. I had flown 6 takeoffs and landings without my primary instructor doing anything the previous day, and he put me in for my pre-solo stage check. I was pretty stoked. Today's lesson was with my secondary instructor. He tends to be a bit more picky than my primary instructor, and I was admittedly a bit worried that I'd totally botch things up. I told him my primary instructor had put me in for stage check, so he suggested we go out and brush up on maneuvers then do some touch-and-goes in preparation for that. Sounded reasonable to me. 

My maneuvers were fine, though I was definitely rusty on steep turns. I hadn't done maneuvers by themselves as an exercise in a while, but in reality I had been doing them every time I flew in the pattern. We just didn't specifically call them "ground reference maneuvers," and the biggest mental roadblock seemed to be getting into them from straight-and-level. We also did some power-on stalls, which I had not done in forever (and--thankfully--have not done during pattern work). The Grumman can get quite nose-high before it stalls, which for a mere 150hp engine surprised me. 

After a short bit of that, we headed back to Centennial for touch-and-goes. My landings today were not as smooth as the previous day. That last few feet kept throwing me sideways and I'd be trying to correct and lose sight of my airspeed. They weren't "bad" landings, but after the previous day, I was hoping they'd be smoother. Midway through, ATC changed the direction of flow on the runways. Ordinarily, they'll just have us extend and loop around. This time, they kicked everyone out of the airspace for 10 minutes while they made this change. We flew west and did some more ground reference maneuvers while waiting for them to change runways. We came back, flew a few more touch-and-goes, and--still--things weren't where I wanted them to be. Off just that little bit to be annoying.

It wasn't until after we tied down that it dawned on me as to why. Crosswinds. They didn't enter my mind. I wasn't compensating for them. They were definitely there as evidenced by ATC changing runway directions midway through our lesson because they were shifting. But for whatever reason, my mind just totally ignored the crosswind component of landings because the wind speed wasn't all that high. Dumb. Totally dumb. Totally correctable, but that would have to wait until the next lesson. The day previous, the wind was pretty much straight down the runway so I didn't have to think about it. Of course, that's not the right attitude either. I should always be thinking about it, just that my compensation for it needs to adjust based on how much of a crosswind there is. Again--lesson learned. Always figure a crosswind component. 

Crosswind Landings, take 2:

A week later, my secondary instructor and I were back at it again. After my previous lesson, my instructor and I decided that I should work on better crosswind control, and today's winds favored this well. We decided to fly down to Meadow Lake, which is a small field just north of Colorado Springs. This would be a narrower runway, only 60' wide, so I'd have a smaller target to hit. The winds were gusty and out of the northeast, so I'd have a fairly significant crosswind component to contend with, about 6 to 8 knots we figured. I was a little unsure about the narrower runway, but my instructor had faith in me. Given that after our first few lessons together I was worried he thought I was hopeless, his faith that I could hit a 60' wide runway with a fairly hefty crosswind definitely boosted my confidence. 

It's about a 25 minute flight from Centennial to Meadow Lake, so I decided not to waste that time just looking at the scenery. Rather, I suggested we do just the opposite--put me "under the hood" and have me fly down there based solely on the instruments. You need 3 hours simulated instrument flying to qualify for your private license, so I figured this was a good chance to get my feet wet. We took off, got to cruise altitude, and I put on the "hood" which is essentially an oversized golf visor which shields your eyes from what's outside the window. "This'll be duck soup!" I thought. Just dial in the VOR frequency and track it. How hard could that possibly be? 

Yeah, I ain't ever made duck soup, so I don't really know if it's easy or not. This was a whole lot harder than it looks on paper. My ability to hold altitude and heading based solely on instruments made my first time taxiing a plane using rudder pedals look straight-up sober. Here's the thing. Airplane instruments are slow to respond to what's going on. They tell you what the plane was doing a few seconds ago. Some, like the vertical speed indicator are particularly laggy. When you're flying solely by the instruments, you have to make very small, very slow changes so the gauges can keep up with what you're doing. I didn't do that. I was flying "normally." When I'd turn to a given heading, I'd stop when the heading indicator showed I was there, but really I was about 5 - 10 degrees past it because it was lagging behind just that much. So I'd turn back the other way and get 5 - 10 degrees off the opposite direction. Same for altitude. Somehow, in spite of myself, I managed to get us to where we wanted to be to set up a visual approach to Meadow Lake. I was reassured after our flight that this was perfectly normal for a student's first time flying by instruments. I'm looking forward (pardon the pun) to my next time under the hood. 

Anyway, we turned west towards Meadow Lake. This is an untowered airport, so there's no air traffic controller telling us where to fly. You basically announce your position and intentions at various stages in the process and hope other planes in the area are listening and staying the heck out of your way. It's similar to what we do in our practice areas, except in this case we're taking off and landing, not just flying in literal circles in the sky. 

The purpose of this exercise was to get me used to compensating for crosswinds in landings. I've written in the past, ailerons into the wind, a bit of opposite rudder to keep the nose aligned with the runway. I've done it to varying degrees and with varying degrees of success in the past, but this was the first time I was dedicating a lesson specifically to somewhat crosswind correction. I have set up crosswind scenarios on my simulator to help with this, so even in practice this isn't a foreign concept. It's just that I have to work on the mental memory to remember to take it into account. To be truthful, I surprised myself at how well I did. I asked my instructor how much he was assisting, he said "not much." Given my experience with him on previous lessons where I felt like I was fighting him on the controls, I rarely (ever?) felt any control input on his part when getting things lined up for the runway. I felt pretty good about that.

In retrospect, however, I realize there was still plenty of room for improvement. When looking back on the tracks of my patterns, one thing is obvious. I did a pretty decent job of compensating for the crosswind on the final approach to the runway. That final approach is one of four legs of a good traffic pattern. My crosswind compensation on the other three left a whole lot to be desired. On the downwind leg, I'd be letting myself get blown sideways closer to the runway. This would shorten my base leg and I'd either overshoot or be too high making that turn to final because I hadn't given myself enough time to descend on the base leg. Same thing on the upwind leg. Once off the ground after landing, I'd be blown sideways and struggle to stay lined up with runway centerline. 

The solution to all of this is to pick a point on the ground that you can use to reference your traffic pattern points and fly to them, compensating for the wind while in the air. This was my first time flying to this airport, so I'm not going to beat myself up too much for not being familiar with it, but it's definitely something you want to make mental checks to do. 

We did a half dozen or so touch-and-goes, then decided to call it a day and head back home. We did a simulated emergency engine out on the way, then decided that was enough teaching for one day. The air was smooth and the sun was shining. It was a good chance to just fly for the sake of flying--a reminder of why it is I'm doing this. It's good to have those moments in the air where you can just sit back, relax, take it all in, and realize how unique this experience is.

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.