Something Besides Landings

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