January 2008 Archives

My flying has been put on hold for the time being. I had a lesson scheduled this past Wednesday, the 16th, but cancelled it because after successful PRK surgery, I had not recovered fully from the procedure, so I cancelled the lesson and rested my eyes.

Since the surgery, on the 11th, my eyes were fluctuating between 20/30 or 20/40 to 20/80 or 20/100, but as of this past weekend and today, I am happy to report that I am doing much better. As of today, I am seeing 20/20. That is not to say, it won't continue to fluctuate over the next several weeks, but that fluctuation should be within the 20/20 to 20/30 range.

Due to scheduling conflicts, my next lesson will not be until late next week (Thursday or Friday), I have some work and family commitments that make any sooner than that impossible.

The great news is that I'm seeing incredibly well, and at the end of the day, it feels weird because I don't have to remember to take contact lenses out of my eyes before I go to sleep.

So, stay tuned for more flying updates and keep on truckin'.

This lesson was a short one. We were only aloft for about 45 minutes. I had to get back to work and my CFI had a club board meeting to get to. In addition, we got started about a half hour late, because he was late getting back from another lesson.

One of the requirements for the private pilot certificate is to log 3 hours of IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) time. We don't have to wait for the weather to get bad to do this, instead, I went "under the hood". I wore a visor that obscured my view outside the cockpit, so all I could see was the instrument panel.

First we did a couple of touch and goes to keep my landing skills up, then I asked for a southeast departure and when I got to 3000', I put on the visor. While under the hood, we practiced turns, climbs, descents, straight and level flight, slow flight, and vectoring (this is, flying a heading to a point, then turning and flying a different heading to the next point, and so on). After my CFI asked me to descend and turned me to a few different headings, we hit 1000' and he said, "go ahead and take off the visor and land this thing." I took off the hood, and I was lined up with the runway on final approach. We landed and taxied back to parking and called it a day.

I have Laser Vision Surgery on Friday, so I won't be able to fly for about a week, so I hope my skills don't deteriorate too much in between.

Next lesson: Wednesday, January 16.

Time logged this lesson: 0.7 hrs

Total Time: 13.2 hrs

It was a nice warm day today, about 72°. The wind was coming from the south at about 15 knots with gusts of up to 22 knots. Since I have pretty much gotten landings down to a good level, we went to do some other maneuvers.

We started out in the pattern to practice a few touch and goes, but after my first one went really well, my CFI said, "Alright, this is boring, let's get out of here." So we called the tower and told them we wanted a southest departure and flew toward Wylie just west of Lake Lavon. Once we got out there, we found a water tower and I proceeded to turn around the water tower attempting to scribe a perfect circle around that point. The tricky part is, the wind was blowing from the south pretty hard, since that wind wants to push the plane to the north, I had to bank the plane much steeper when turning from the south to the north side of the water tower (going counter-clockwise) than when turning from the north side to the south side of the tower.

We did turns about a point several times then moved on to S-Turns. To perform S-Turns you pick a road perpendicular to the wind and scribe an S across the road. The top of each turn during S-Turns needs to be the same distance o either side of the road. We started out going south, into the wind and crossed the road with the wings parallel to the road. After crossing the road we banked right until we completed a 180° turn and the wings were parallel to the road plane was parallel to the road when I crossed it again. Immediately, upon crossing the road, I made a steep left bank so I could scribe another 180° arc to the north of the road about the same size as the previous arc.

Demonstrating turns about a point and s-turns effectively are important for passing the FAA checkride. One of the practical applications of these maneuvers is to be able to make good turns and to get the plane to a good altitude so that you can land in an emergency. If I were to lose my engine, I would have to be able to get the plane maneuvered to a landing field and get the plane down on the ground quickly and accurately the first time, since I wouldn't get a second chance. The other practical application is to demonstrate being able to maneuver the plane without being a danger to myself or anyone else (meaning maintaining altitude and control of the aircraft).

We did two S-Turns to the right and then came around and did two more to the left, then climbed to 3000 feet and flew across Lake Lavon and headed toward Rockwall Airport. When we got across the lake and close to the airport, we practiced some slow flight. I slowed the plane down to about 65 knots, while maintaining 3000 feet of altitude. We remained in slow flight over Rockwall and turned to the north, then my instructor said, "Pull out power all the way, you just lost your engine. Get me on the ground." I pulled in 20° of flaps and adjusted my airspeed to 65 knots (which is the best glide speed on the airplane I was flying) and looked around until I located the runway again. We were pretty much on top of the runway, so I actually had to fly out away from the runway a bit, then turned perpendicular and past the runway, finally turned back toward the runway to lineup with the centerline. I then applied full flaps and brought the plane down and did a touch and go and got into the pattern to do one more landing (this time, a normal one) just for fun. I made a another good landing and we took off and headed back to McKinney to finish for the day.

I got to make my first real tower call outside the pattern this time.

ME: McKinney Tower, Cessna Seven-Three-Three-November-Bravo at two-thousand five hundred, we're nine nautical miles to the southeast, inbound for landing full stop.
Tower: Cessna Three-November-Bravo, enter left downwind, runway one-seven, altimeter is two-niner-point-niner-zero.
ME: Roger, left downwind runway one-seven, Cessna Three-November-Bravo.

Basically, I told the tower I was inbound and wanted to land and quit for the day, and he replied back that I should enter the left traffic pattern for runway 17 on the downwind leg (parallel to the runway in the opposite direction of landing) and that the barometric pressure was 29.90 so that I could use that number to calibrate my altimeter prior to landing.

Once I got most of the way across lake lavon, I slowly decended to 1600 feet (the pattern altitude) and entered on the downwind, we got our clearance to land at that point, so I slowed the plane down, turned to base and brought it in for another good landing and we wrapped it up for the day.

It was a fun day. Two milestones were reached today. First, I completed filling in the first page of my logbook. Second, my instructor told me, "You're ready to solo, we just need to wait for your medical, so we'll keep working and practicing until then. But you're ready."

Next lesson: Wednesday, January 9.

Time logged this lesson: 1.0 hrs

Total Time: 12.5 hrs

Just about every landing was good. I did everything right, with very little interaction necessary from my instructor. He (and I) was very happy to see that the progress we made during the last lesson was not lost.

I made a enough good landings that he said that I would be ready to solo if I had my medical certificate. So, because I cannot solo right now, we moved on and made landings tough again. We started practicing "short field landings". So, for the rest of the time, I get to pretend there's a 50' tall object at the end of the runway that I have to clear, then get the plane on the ground in a hurry so that I can stop within 1000'. It's important for the FAA Practical Exam (my private pilot checkride). Also, there may be a time when I have to clear something on a short runway and stop the plane fast to avoid hitting another object.

Adding this wrinkle to my landings was almost like starting over. I had to apply full flaps, and get the speed of the plane to 60 knots.... and keep it there, but carry power until I cleared the imaginary 50' object, then cut the power and start flaring immediately (when you cut the power at full flaps the plane drops like a rock) to prevent a hard landing.

We did several short field landings, then came in for a normal landing, but just for fun, my CFI decided to have me do it with no flaps. This means that in order to slow down to a good landing speed (65-70 knots), I had to pitch the nose up more than normal and deal with the plane wanting to glide a lot further than normal. And... just as I was about to touch down, a gust of wind hit the right wind and pushed the plane to the left of the centerline, so I had to immediately apply left rudder to straighten the nose out at the last second. After we got onto the ground my CFI paid me a compliment by telling me that he felt like I was reacting well and "piloting" the plane rather than just letting things happen and that I should keep that up. In other words, I was able to correct for the situation instead of getting into the habit of doing the same thing every time when I land, when I get thrown a curveball, I'm able to deal with the curveball.

Next lesson: Saturday, January 5.

Time logged this lesson: 1.3 hrs

Total Time: 11.5 hrs