Lessons 20-23 and the Cross Country Flight

Well, I have let this logbook / diary get away from me again, so this is my attempt to get all caught up at once. The last few lessons have been mainly practicing the maneuvers I had learned throughout my training, with one really fun exception, "Unusual Attitude Recovery".

The idea behind Unusual Attitude Recovery is that if you get disoriented flying through a cloud, and can't really tell which way the aircraft is pointed, you can usually trust the Attitude Indicator to help get you back to straight and level flight. As an added bonus, we did these with the IFR Training glasses on, so all I could see was the instruments, and not out the windows.

We got out to the practice area at 3500 feet, Bob took the controls and handed me the glasses. I had been instructed that in order to further disorient myself I should hold my head down and to the left with my eyes closed. Bob would fly the plane through some turns, climbs and dives, and with the plane in some random "unusual attitude" would return control to me, and I would have to get us back to straight and level flight. If the nose was pointed up, I should apply full throttle, lower the nose, then roll to wings level. If the nose was pointed down, I should pull the throttle to idle, roll wings level, pull up to level flight, and push the throttle back to cruise power.

The first one was pretty gentle, what felt like a shallow dive followed by a climb and a turn to the right, I was given the command to recover. The Attitude Indicator was showing a climb with about 20 degrees right bank, so I pulled the throttle out, quickly realized my mistake and shoved it full in, lowered the nose and rolled to wings level. The next one was a bit more maneuvering, and we ended up nose down in a left banked turn. The 3rd recovery felt like a roller coaster ride (which I really enjoy) and left us in an almost 45 degree dive rolled to the right. I was able to recover quickly and we continued to other maneuvers.

Wednesday the 8th, Bob and I got together and planned out the Cross Country trip, We would leave Tulsa, fly direct to Fayetteville Arkansas, up to Joplin Missouri and back to Tulsa. I learned how to file a flight plan through Lockheed Martin's Flight Following Service, we figured out the waypoints I would be looking for to aid in navigation, and got everything marked down on my sectional chart. When I got home I plugged it all in to the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) flight planner, which confirmed the math Bob and I had done, as well as figuring for actual wind conditions for the time of the flight. We were set to leave on Saturday the 11th around 1pm. I got a call Thursday night, Bob had a scheduled charter flight had been moved up, and was it OK to go Sunday morning instead? Sure no problem. Sunday morning rolled around, and I had a voicemail from Bob, he had come down sick overnight after getting back from his charter flight, so we would reschedule for the following weekend.

Melodie and I arrived at Riverside Airport just after noon on Saturday the 18th, I had scheduled the flight schools Cessna 170, 724PG for the whole afternoon. Melodie had bundled up warm and brought a blanket as the back seats get pretty chilly in the wintertime. I performed the pre-flight inspections and printed out the navigation logs with the latest weather information. When Bob arrived we got the fuel tanks topped all the way up, 25 gallons per side, which would put us right at maximum takeoff weight, but also give us just over 6 hours of flight time. We filed the flight plans, and at about 1:45 taxied out to runway 1 left.

I pushed in full power, and the plane started rolling down the runway, the 172 needs more right rudder to compensate for the additional power compared to the 152, so I drifted left on the runway before I got it compensated for. We climbed into the early afternoon air, got our flight plan opened and headed east at 5500 feet, under an overcast cloud layer at 7000 feet.

The air was as smooth as glass, the previous week had seen winds gusting to 25 or 30 knots, but on the 18th, it was reporting calm with a 6+ mile visibility, and light haze close to the ground.

I soon spotted my first waypoint, a small river almost perpendicular to our flight path, followed a few minutes later by my second waypoint, a lake. We had planned to tune into a VOR (Very high frequency Omni-directional Radio) and use it to plot out location for our next few waypoints, but it turned out to be too far away, and the signal too weak to be of any use. Fortunately Bob had brought a GPS, and the plane had a course tracking GPS in the instrument panel that we had set up for the flight. I still tracked our location on the map by highways and other landmarks as we flew overhead.

About 50 minutes later we were approaching Drake Field in Fayetteville, it took me a minute to locate the airport, as we had drifted south, I was expecting to see it on my right, but eventually found the runway off to my left. We had started our descent to pattern altitude (1000 feet above the ground) several miles out, and were given clearance to land. The wind was still fairly calm, so we were a bit high on the approach as it hadn't helped slow us down, but squeaked in a fairly decent landing, and taxied to the parking area, and with the engine still running Bob called the Flight Service Station to close our first flight plan, and open our second to Joplin.

We got permission to taxi out to the runway, took off, and headed North. We were flying over some very hilly terrain at 4500 feet on the way up to Joplin, it was really neat to see the patches of evergreens scattered through the forests of other trees that had already shed their leaves for winter. We arrived at Joplin Regional about 40 minutes later, and once again taxied to the parking area. We had decided that we would try to find something to eat, as it was almost 5pm. We were marshalled into a parking spot by a very chilled looking ground crewman, who suggested a local BBQ place called Woodys that was just down the street. We borrowed the FBO's courtesy car, a Scion XB, and got some dinner.

By the time we got back to the airport it was starting to get dark. We filed our flight plan back to Tulsa, figuring it would take about an hour, got the plane ready to go, and checked our course on the GPS. As it was about 100 miles to home, this would count as my night cross country requirement too, awesome! Two lessons checked out of the syllabus on one flight!

Flying cross country at night was really a lot of fun, Bob said that a lot of people will avoid night flying, but I found it easier to find the small towns and highways that were all lit up at night. As a bonus, we got to see a lot of Christmas lights from 4500 feet on the way home.

Soon after we took off out of Joplin, Bob directed our attention off to the left, as there was some light snow or rain off in the distance, which he could see as a haze around the city lights. We were soon up to altitude and headed southwest, our course paralleling Interstate 44.

Bob and I talked about the differences in emergency procedures at night, and what to do if we lost electrical power. If for some reason the alternator on the engine stopped working, we would have a few minutes of battery power for the lights and radios, but it would have been better to shut everything off except 1 radio and the engine, we could follow the highway lights all the way to Tulsa. Fortunately this conversation remained theory only, as the plane purred smoothly on through the night air.

About halfway home, Bob asked me to turn on the landing light out on the wing, we were flying through snow! I turned on the Pitot Heat, just in case, but the snow wasn't heavy, and nothing accumulated on the windshield, so it was just scenic and not worrying.

We soon arrived back in Tulsa, having seen the glow on the horizon almost all the way home. There were several helicopters running Christmas light tours, so we were asked to head out to the south a bit, then turn straight west toward Riverside airport, this worked out really well, as we were able to fly over the Rhema Bible College, and see their impressive annual display of lights.

Once we got back to Riverside airport we were given clearance to land, but were told to extend out to the south as a light tour helicopter was about to take off. The tower controller let us know when we could make the turn back to the airport. As I had to make two landings for the Night Cross Country requirements, we did a short field approach to a full stop on runway 1 Right, followed by a short field takeoff, then once around the pattern to runway 1 Left, where we landed and taxied to the parking area.

Due to the air traffic controllers assigning us courses instead of being able to take a straight route in, were were a little late closing our flight plan, but the Flight Following Service had contacted Riverside tower to see if we were in the area, so they knew we were safe. By the time we got the airplane shut down and parked it was just after 7:30PM, and I had logged 3.8 hours of flying time, with 1.6 of that at night. Bob also let me know that as I had picked up the ideas behind navigation, he felt good about letting me plan a solo cross country, which will take me to Shawnee and Stillwater in Oklahoma.

If I can get the Written Exam behind me, which I am still studying for, I might be able to get my checkride done sometime next month!

Lesson Twenty: More Maneuvering

Wednesday's lesson last week was canceled again due to the weather, but Saturday was beautiful. The wind was almost dead calm when I arrived at the airport just before my 9 AM lesson, but it was pretty chilly, I need to start taking some gloves to wear for the pre-flight inspection. We had plenty of fuel and oil, and everything else checked out, so we got the lesson plan and decided to head northwest for some more maneuvering practice.

We climbed out of Riverside and headed for the practice area. Once we got up to 2500 feet we started with some steep turns, at 45 degrees all the way around to the right, then back around to the left. Then did some stall practice, we did an approach to land stall, with full flaps down, then a departure stall, where you slow down to 50 knots then push in full power and pull back to simulate a too-steep take off.

With stalls successfully completed, we did some slow flight and slow turns, as the wind was so calm I performed by best slow turns to date, nice and smooth and maintained altitude and speed just about perfectly.

After that we started looking for some ground points for ground reference maneuvers, we found a road and did some S-Turns over it, then found an oil pump out in a field to do turns-around-a-point around. The wind was starting to pick up a little, but not really enough to blow us off course very quickly, so the ground reference maneuvers (which are supposed to counteract wind drift) were a little useless, but still good practice for the theory part.

We headed back to Riverside and did a soft field landing, then got the plane tied down and headed inside to talk about the lesson.

Soon we will be planning a cross-country trip, probably to Fayetteville in Arkansas, then up to Joplin in Missouri before coming back to Riverside. Bob tells me that it should take about 4 hours actual flight time for the whole excursion, and as we will be taking the Cessna 172, my wife Melodie can come along for the ride!

More to come!
-Gareth

Lesson Nineteen

I have managed to fall behind in keeping this up to date, so this entry is for November 20th.

I had scheduled a lesson from 8 to 10 am, as the Flight School was hosting an Open House from 10 to whenever, which I had volunteered to help with.  I got to the airport a few minutes before 8, and chatted with some pilots who were also going to volunteer, but they were going to be working with the EAA's (Experimental Aircraft Association) touring B-17 bomber "Aluminum Overcast".

Michael arrived and let me into the flight school office to get the Pilots Handbook for 69212 so I could start the pre-flight inspections.  The previous Wednesdays lesson had been called off due to a weather front coming through the area, which had produced winds gusting past 30 knots.  I got the Cessna checked out as Bob arrived, it had been parked across a slope, with one wing slightly lower that the other, which allowed fuel to run from the uphill tank to the downhill tank, so we had 10 gallons in one and 4 in the other.  As the engine fuel is supplied from the tanks by gravity, it would naturally drain more from the heavier tank at first, so we would be fine.

I got clearance from Riverside tower and taxied past the parked B-17 to the run-up area, then we were cleared for a takeoff to the southeast.

We flew up through the bumpy air, which smoothed a little by the time we reached 2,500 feet.  The wind was still too strong for our planned ground reference maneuvers, so we did some stalls and slow flight.

As I dropped the flaps down for the "dirty" slow-flight I noticed Bob peering down out of the window.  I had the plane pointed 180 degrees South, almost straight into the wind, with the airspeed indicator right at 35 knots.  Bob asked me to adjust course to the right by 20 degrees to 200, then after a minute, asked me to go back left a little to 190 degrees.

He had been trying to gauge our ground speed, he decided that we were definitely hovering, or flying at an indicated 35 knots straight into a 35 knot headwind, he had been hoping we could actually go backward, but the wind just wasn't quite strong enough.

We got the fresh weather information and turned back around to the airport when he pulled the throttle out and told me the engine had stopped.  I ran through the checklist, determined that the engine was windmilling in this simulation, and picked a field to land in.  Down we went.  The wind closer to the ground had picked up so we were really getting bumped around.  I would have successfully landed, so we performed a go-around, full power and flaps retracted as we went back up.  At this point I decided that maybe McDonalds breakfast and orange juice aren't the best combination for rough weather flying.  I wasn't nauseous, but I was more aware of my stomach than usual and was glad to reach the relatively smoother air above.

We returned to Riverside with no further incident, when we landed we had to taxi through a parking area, as the B-17 had started its 4 huge radial engines, and we didn't want to risk taxiing too closely behind it.

We got the plane tied down and I tracked down Michael to see where I would be needed for the fly-in.
The flight school had recently purchased a Diamond DA-20 Katana as a low-wing trainer, so I was fed some pertinent facts and posted next to it to answer any questions that prospective students might have.  Fortunately the DA-20 was parked out in the main fly-in area, so I got to see the B-17 start its engines and take off, as well as a P51 Mustang and F4F Wildcat that were doing some low level formation fly-by's.

After they had landed we walked back to the Flight School building where Michael was grilling some hamburgers and hot-dogs, so I helped out there where I could, got something to eat, and called it a day.

Here are some videos of the B-17 Aluminum Overcast that I shot while at the open house:


Engines Starting, with a cameo by the P51 Miracle Maker.



Take Off with the Wildcat taxiing in the foreground.


Landing and taxiing back to parking.

Lesson Eighteen, back on schedule

I got to Riverside Airport Saturday afternoon just before my scheduled 1pm lesson.  The Directional Gyro had been replaced in the 152 a day or two earlier, so we would be flying it.

I completed the pre-flight checks and we looked at the lesson plan for the day, we would be flying to the west practice area to work on slow flight, stalls, turns and emergency procedures, working to get the maneuvers closer to check-ride tolerances.

The airport was very busy, as there was a Beechcraft fly-in, I got the weather report from ATIS and received clearance to taxi to runway 1 left.  As soon as we pulled out into the taxiway, we were stuck behind a couple of pilots in Beechcraft who had pulled up to the airport's controlled area marker before calling for any clearance, which is legal but a bit thoughtless.  They eventually got finished with whatever they were doing, but we had to cancel our taxi while we waited for them.  There were so many Beechcraft calling ground control that at one point the controller called out "Beechcraft one-zero.. uh, sorry, Piper one-zero-three..."

We got a new taxi clearance, completed the run-up checklist and were assigned number four in line to take off.  We got to witness what was technically a runway incursion, as someone had rolled to a stop with the nose gear just past the runway edge markings before getting clearance from the tower, but nothing was reported.

Finally we were number one to takeoff, and Bob called for a soft field take-off, so I dropped in ten degrees of flaps, and held the controls back as I pushed the throttle to full, to keep the weight off the nose wheel.  After rotating at 50 knots, I immediately leveled off while still in the ground effect area, increased speed to 67 knots, then raised the flaps and climbed out as normal.

We were quickly given instructions to make our turn to the west so as to get us out of the way of faster planes taking off behind us.

On Saturday I had spent some time looking out the windows at the trees that were turning yellow and red for autumn, this time out there was a lot more brown visible as the leaves were starting to fall.

We climbed to 2500 feet and headed to the practice area, where I performed some stalls and slow flight, then Bob pulled the throttle to idle and we went through the emergency procedures for a failed engine and forced landing.  After deciding that we could land in the field I had picked out, we did a go-around, engine to full power and climbed back to altitude.

After some steep turns we got the fresh weather report and headed back to Riverside.  The airport was still pretty busy, so we were given a hurry-up request and cleared straight in to land.

Next lesson is Wednesday, which will be night time flying again, so probably more maneuvers and pattern work to knock the remaining rust off of my flying. 
Soon I will have to start deciding where to fly for cross country navigation lessons!

Back in the Saddle

Soon after getting the official go-ahead from the TSA, I scheduled my normal Wednesday night 6pm to 8pm lesson in the flight school's Cessna 152.  About a day later I got the news that the Directional Gyro had been steadily getting worse since the last time I flew, and it was decided that it was time for a replacement.  The gyro is still under warranty, but we have no spare while it's being rebuilt.  As a result, the 152 is down for maintenance until some time next week. 

Fortunately Michael took pity on me, and offered me a discount rate on the larger Cessna 172.  I immediately agreed.  Bob and I had talked about getting me checked out on the 172 so we could use it for the cross country lessons, as it's faster, and has better range than the 152.  Wednesday afternoon Bob called and said he had a spot open for a 4pm to 6pm lesson if I could make it, I got permission from work, and at 3:30 headed for the airfield.

I have to admit I was nervous as I really wasn't sure how much I had forgotten in the two months of bureaucratic shenanigans since my last flight. 

Michael met me at the flight school, and had a new checklist for the 172 that he wanted me to try out, so we both went out to the plane, tail number 370JA, and started through the checks.  There were a couple of corrections we found to simplify the flow a little, such as "Fuel Shut-Off In" instead of "Fuel Shut-Off Off".

As we continued around the plane, I really got a feel for how much larger than the 152 a 172 really is.

Cessna 152

Bob and I got in the plane, and we got the weather report.  Winds were light out of the North, and the temperature was about 70f on the ground.  The airport was very busy due to the nice weather, lots of pilots enjoying the last of the warmth before winter really sets in.  I got clearance to taxi from ground control, and after the run-up checklist was complete, I was number 2 to take off on runway 1 left.

Cessna 172

Bob and I had gone over all the appropriate speeds, most of which were just 5 knots faster than in the 152, rotate at 55 knots, climb at 74 knots.

We were cleared to take off, and given instructions to maintain a heading of 300 degrees, north west.

The largest flying difference between the planes is that the 172 model we were in is really sensitive to Pitch inputs, so I had some difficulty maintaining my proper altitude until I got used to it.  The other difference is the power, we were buzzing around at 120 knots, and hit 140 at one point, the 152 has to work hard to reach 100 knots straight and level.

The plan for the day was just to see how much I had retained, so we did slow flight, stalls, turns, and steep turns, then headed back to Riverside for a couple of Touch-and-Go landings before calling it a day. 

By the time we got back to Riverside it was getting dark, but the airport was still pretty busy, we completed two touch-and-go's on runway 1 right, then asked for a full stop landing on runway 1 left, so we would be closer to the flight school's parking area.

We got the plane tied down and went back inside to discuss the lesson, Bob told me I had done really well, and we could start the syllabus lesson plan on our next lesson. The whole flight had been a great confidence booster, but I can really understand the importance of staying current in your airplane, one of the requirements to carry passengers is that you have had at least 3 take off and landings within the previous 90 days.

I have another lesson scheduled in 370JA on Saturday, and 69212 should be flight-worthy again by next Wednesday.  I really enjoyed flying the 172, but I am a lot more comfortable in the 152 that I have been flying since the beginning.

More to Come!
-Gareth

Reach for the Sky!

I got an email from the TSA this morning, they have acknowledged receipt of  my fingerprints, and I am allowed to fly again!  The email from the TSA arrived in my email in-box at 6:34 AM, and at just after 7am, I got another from Bob, he had received the good news as well.  I have already scheduled a lesson for tonight from 7:00 to 9:00pm.  It's been getting dark earlier lately, so it will probably be night hours for me!

The trip to Will Rogers airport in Oklahoma City to get fingerprinted took about 2 hours by car, we had joked during ground school about just making it an unofficial cross country flight, but decided to err on the side of caution.  My wife Melodie and I both took the friday afternoon off of work to make the trip, and we arrived shortly before my appointed time of 3:00pm.

The fingerprinting location was at a jet charter company, where we met the guy that would be taking my fingerprints.  The fingerprinting machine used a pink ink and thick paper fingerprinting cards.  After all the pink prints were taken, the card was heated in the machine to cure the ink, which turned black when it was done cooking.  While we chatted, I learned that I was actually his first Alien Flight Student Program customer, and that he had purchased the fingerprinting equipment to help his charter company air crews pass their security checks.

Twenty minutes after we arrived, and with two separate sets of fingerprints completed, we were done, and so went to visit my sister, Rachel, who lives in Oklahoma City.  While we were at her house, I got a phone call letting me know that the fingerprints had been successfully uploaded.

All I had to do then, was wait for today's email.

Stay Tuned! More to come, hopefully more often that over the last couple of months!

Still Alive

I finally heard back from the TSA's Alien Flight Student Program last week, they have finished my background checks and approved my training request!  The next step is to submit my fingerprints for their records, so I checked online for the closest approved fingerprinting office, which is two hours away.  I called them and set an appointment for this Friday the 22nd, I was told that they use an ink-pad fingerprinting system, but they then scan them and digitally upload the images to the Transportation Security Clearinghouse, which forwards them on to the TSA.  After that, I have to wait another (up to) seven business days for the TSA to acknowledge receipt of the fingerprints.

I finished Ground School on Monday of last week, and ended up getting a 93% on the final exam, so I am pretty pleased with that.  When I am ready to go and take the FAA Written Test I can go back to the Flight School and take another refresher quiz, then they will get me registered so I can take the test at a testing center on the other side of the airport.

I am really impatient to get up in the air again, I had a rather disturbing dream last night that I was trying to fly, and the plane just wouldn't stay in the air no matter what I did, so I ended up bouncing along the ground in short hops until we got back to the airport.  The plane itself looked fine, so I guess my subconscious just doesn't have a very good grasp of the physics involved...

I have been playing with Microsoft Flight Simulator, which I hope will keep me from regressing too much until I can fly again.

More to come! (Hopefully soon!)

-Gareth

Hooray for the TSA

I haven't posted on here in a little while, because I haven't been flying in a little while.  I am taking the ground school portion of my training at the minute, which while very important, isn't actually very interesting.  Well, It's interesting to me, because I want to learn this stuff so I can pass my written test and actually become a pilot some day.  We have been learning about regulations and the theories behind why an airplane actually flies, Newtons laws of motion, Bernoulli's principle and things of that sort.  The last lesson was about Weather and how it is formed and how it relates to how we fly.  Which basically boils down to stay away from the clouds.

In other news though, apparently the Transport Safety Authority has an Alien Flight Student Program, and neither I or anybody at the Flight School had heard of it, so Michael was very surprised when he got a call from the TSA after submitting my paperwork saying I had soloed.  Fortunately they waived the $2500 fine, as this was the first time it had come up, and I had given them copies of all the paperwork the TSA would have requested anyway.

Bob had to sign up with this AFSP program as a training provider, which he did this week, and I had to submit a "Training Request" through their website.  Currently I am waiting for an email with further instructions of how to pay the $130 processing fee, and where I need to go to get my fingerprints taken.  The downside is that I am effectively grounded until this is all sorted out.

Fortunately with Ground School from 6 to 9 three nights a week, I was going to be cutting down my actual flight time anyway, so this all happened at the best time possible really.

Stay Tuned for more (probably sporadic) information!
-Gareth

Lesson Seventeen, Short Field and Soft Field Landings, and Clouds

Saturday morning was nice and cool, I arrived at Riverside airport just before my scheduled lesson time of 8am.  The Cessna 152 was a little low on fuel, and someone had tightened the oil dipstick until we needed a wrench to get it out, but everything else checked out, so after getting about five gallons from the fuel truck, Bob and I went inside to discuss the days lesson plan.

I had a choice, the syllabus we are using called for more stall and ground reference maneuver practice, followed by short field and soft field takeoff and landings.  Bob told me that we would probably only have time to do one or the other this time, and finish up later, so I chose to do the takeoff and landing work.

We got in the plane to fly to Tulsa International, they have a longer runway so we can do full-stop landings without having to taxi off and back to the end of the runway.  

Bob explained the theory behind the short and soft field operations, and said we would be doing a short field takeoff first.  A short field takeoff assumes that you have to get off the ground quickly, and get above an object past the end of the runway.  Once we got the clearance to taxi onto the runway, we headed right for the edge of the tarmac, so as to have the most possible runway ahead of us, got the plane lined up on the runway center line and dropped down one notch of flaps.

Holding the plane in place with the wheel brakes, I pushed in the throttle and waited for the revs to climb to maximum, while checking the oil pressure at the same time.  Once the engine had stabilized at about 2300 rpm, I released the wheel brakes, and started the takeoff roll.  As soon as we hit 50 knots, our rotate speed, I pulled back on the controls, but brought the nose up to maintain 54 knots, instead of the usual 67.  54 knots is this planes "Vx" or best angle of climb speed, whereas 67 knots is "Vy" our best rate of climb speed.  The "V" section of my Pilots Handbook of Aviation Knowledge glossary is very crowded with all these V-whatever speed definitions.

Once we had cleared our imaginary fifty foot obstacle, I lowered the nose for 67 knots, raised the flaps, and we climbed up to 2000 feet, headed north east.

We were given clearance to land straight in on runway 36L at Tulsa International, and Bob told me we would do a short field landing.  It's the same as a normal landing, but assumes a short runway, so you have to get stopped fast once you are down.  I got lined up on the runway and brought the plane down for a passable landing.  As soon as the wheels had fully settled onto the tarmac, we raised the flaps completely, stood on the brakes and pulled back hard on the controls.  This brought the plane to a not-quite screeching halt, as locking up the brakes on a wheel is to be avoided.  Pulling the control yoke back raises the elevator, which takes a bit of pressure off of the nose gear, but also acts as an air brake at the lower speed after landing.

We got everything reset, dropped down 10 degrees of flaps, and did a Soft Field takeoff.  Soft field takeoffs are just what they sound like, if you are operating off a grass or dirt runway, you have to do things a little differently to avoid digging the nose gear into the turf.

I gave the engine full power, and immediately pulled back on the controls, the idea is to keep as much weight off of the nose gear as possible.  We took off at 50 knots, then leveled off ten or twenty feet above the ground, still in the Ground Effect area of increased lift.  Once we reached 67 knots, we started a normal climb, raised the flaps, and turned for a left traffic pattern.

Next up was a Soft Field landing.  Again, it's a normal landing approach, but once the main gear tires touch down, as gently as possible, you keep the pressure back on the controls to keep weight off of the nose gear for as long as possible, and just let the plane roll to a stop without using the brakes.

The next few laps around the pattern were alternating soft and short field operations. 

However, the fun for the day was just starting!  The temperature and dew point on the ground were within a degree of each other, so as the air rose and cooled, small wispy clouds were starting to form at about 1500 feet.  Our pattern altitude is 1700 feet.

As the 152 is not certified for "Instrument Flight Rules" or IFR flight, and I am certainly not rated for IFR, we are not allowed to fly through any "visible moisture", but Bob explained that flying around the clouds is fine, as long as we give them some leeway.  There was a light breeze from the west, which was blowing more clouds over Tulsa from Keystone lake.  This meant that on each lap of the pattern, we had to move in closer and closer to the airport to stay out of the clouds, until on the downwind leg, we had to fly around one, at which point we decided to call it a day and head back to Riverside.

We climbed up through a gap between a few clouds, until we were above them at 2500 feet.  This was my first time seeing clouds from above in a small plane, and they are a beautiful sight.  As a VFR (Visual Flight Rules) student pilot, I am allowed to fly above clouds, as long as there are gaps between so I can still see the ground.

We flew back to Riverside at 2400RPM, as we were just ahead of another student and instructor in a faster Cessna 172, and wanted to beat them home for bragging rights, although it later turned out that they had had to reduce power to keep from running us over.

With the wind behind us on the base leg of the pattern, we were still fairly high on the turn to the final approach.  Bob said we could probably land somewhere in the middle of the runway, and suggested a forward slip.  I pushed in full right rudder, counteracted with left ailerons, and held the slip almost all the way to the ground.  We touched down just past the runway number markings.

I will be starting on Ground School this week, it's 6-9PM Monday, Wednesday and Friday until October 8th, so I will probably only being flying on Saturdays.

Talk to you soon!

Gareth

Lesson Sixteen, More Maneuvers

Bob called me Wednesday afternoon to let me know that his 6PM lesson had been cancelled, and would I like to fly then instead of at 8PM?  Sure!

Melodie and I ate a quick dinner, and I hit the road, arriving at the airport just as Bob finished up with his 4-6 lesson.  I pre-flighted the plane, which had just had its Annual Inspection, and we decided to head to the west practice area.

After getting taxi clearance, we headed to the end of 19 Left, performed the run-up checklist, then took off to the south, turning west once we climbed 500 feet above the ground.  Bob told me to climb straight out west to 3,500 feet, and handed me the IFR Practice glasses, which are just black plastic glasses that block your view out of the windows, but still allow you to see the instrument panel.  I continued the climb, when we got up to 3,500 Bob told me to make a right turn to the north, then left back to west, so I did.

With the IFR Training complete for the day, we did some slow flight practice, making right and left turns with the plane at 40 knots, just above a stall, then lowered the flaps, and did it again at 35 knots.  We got back to normal flying setup, then did some practice stalls.

When we finished the stall practice, we headed back to Riverside airport for a little pattern work before calling it a day.  The wind was straight out of the east at around 10 knots, so it made for good crosswind practice.

After getting the plane tied down we went back inside to talk about Cross Country trips, I need to start thinking about where I want to go, but Bob suggested Stillwater, as we can take the airport's courtesy car to Eskimo Joes, a popular local restaurant, or some other airports that had Italian or Mexican restaurants close by.  The other option is to head up north to Independence Kansas, where we might be able to get a look at the Cessna Manufacturing plant, which would be really neat.

We did decide that we would take the larger Cessna 172 on the cross country trips, as it has better range, better top speed, and Melodie can come along for the trip in the back seat!

Bob also let me know, that as I am taking to flying so well, I might be finished with my training as soon as Thanksgiving!

That would be really cool, Can I have an airplane for Christmas? :D

-Gareth

First Solo!

I woke up Sunday Morning wondering why the alarm was going off when it was still dark outside, then I remembered, Today would be the day (again)!

As I was getting ready and making a cup of tea, Melodies mother Jan pulled into the driveway, she had decided to come and watch today's attempt.  We eventually hit the road around 6:40 AM and headed to Riverside airport.  As you might imagine, traffic was pretty light, so we made good time. 

The sun was just rising over the horizon as I finished the pre-flight inspection, the plan for the day was to do a few trips around the pattern to get warmed up and any final kinks worked out, then drop Bob off at the viewing area where Melodie, Jan and Mike were waiting to watch my flight.  

We got the Cessna 152 fired up, and taxied toward the sunrise, we had the airport to ourselves as we completed the run-up and got lined up on runway 19 Right.  We were given clearance to make a left turn into a left traffic pattern so we could do our work on the parallel runway, 19 Left. 

The sky was clear, and the winds just starting to blow gently from the southeast as we completed our pattern practice, when I noticed Bob pull my Medical Certificate / Students Pilot License out of my log book, he was signing me off for Solo flight!  He radioed the tower saying "We're going to do a taxi-back on this landing so we can drop off the Instructor for a students first solo"  

I didn't even try to keep the grin off of my face.

I landed the plane, exited the runway, and taxied to the run-up area in front of the viewing pavilion.  Bob asked me if I had any last questions, I said no, and he climbed out.  Just before he closed the door, he told me "Good luck, and have fun!" then I was alone in the plane.

As I eased in the throttle to taxi back to the runway, I thought to myself "Why am I not scared right now? Why should I be? I want to do this!"  I got to the holding area at the end of 19L, and waited, Bob had told me that I shouldn't have to ask for clearance, as the tower would be watching anyway, so I waited a bit more.

After about a minute, I decided heck with it, "Riverside Tower, Cessna 69212 is holding short of 19 Left for close pattern work"  Maybe that was a part of the test, because I was immediately cleared onto the runway and given the go-ahead for a left pattern.  I lined up on the runway centerline, gave everything a quick check, then pushed in the throttle.  As I reached 50 knots I eased back on the controls, and the plane lifted off the runway.

"This is it," I thought, "now I Have to land."

Without Bob in the right seat, the plane climbed much faster, so I was at pattern altitude before I even made my turn on to the downwind leg.  I ran through the after takeoff checklist, then I was abeam the numbers, so I got set for the descent.  I came in high on the first landing, and landed a little long, but still had room to get slowed down before my runway exit came up.  



"That's one of three done!" I thought to myself.  The tower controller told me to exit the runway, taxi back to the start of 19 Left, and that I was cleared to take off.

As I was taxiing back to the runway, some small birds were flying around right in front of the plane, sometimes landing on the taxiway right in front of me, I was worried about running them over, but I guess they are used to the airplanes, so they stayed just barely out of the way.  I got back to the runway, pushed in the throttle and took off again. 

My second landing was a little low on the approach, so I waited before dropping in full flaps, and kept the engine RPMs up until I was back on the proper approach path, showed by the red and white lights next to the runway.The landing itself was pretty good, as I was starting to get used to the way the now lighter plane was flying without Bob next to me.
 





"Two down, one to go"

Again I was given clearance to taxi back around and immediately take off.  I told myself that the third landing needed to be perfect, I had done high and low approaches, so this one should be the Goldilocks version, Just Right.

I made the turn from base to final just a little early, so I had to make a small correction to get lined up on the runway, but I was showing one red, and one white, so I was at the correct altitude.  I dropped in full flaps, pitched the nose down to maintain 60 knots, and absolutely greased the landing, I was so pleased with myself.

I exited the runway and taxied back to the viewing pavilion, Melodie was grinning and waving, Bob and Mike came over to the plane and congratulated me on my first solo.

Bob climbed back in and as we were on the other side of the airport from our flight schools parking area, we took back off, did a right turn pattern, and Bob explained that we would try a "soft field landing" and walked me through it.  The idea is to keep the plane airborne above the runway and ease it down, while keeping the nose high and holding the nose gear off the ground for as long as possible.  When we touched down, it was a little rough when the main gears hit, but we still kept the nose up for practice on that part.

We got the plane tied down, and talked about the flight, now it's time to start thinking about Cross-Country trips, and more practice maneuvers. 

First Solo Complete! Still a lot to learn!

Hooray!

-Gareth

Lesson Fifteen, Cross Wind Landings

Saturday morning was absolutely perfect, clear skies, light winds from the south, cool temperatures.  I arrived at Riverside airport just before Noon with butterflies in my stomach, today was going to be the day I would solo!  Melodie and her Mother met me at the Roadhouse Aviation flight school building, and I showed off the Cessna 152 that I am training in as I did the pre-flight inspection.  Bob was already out by the plane, getting a couple of gallons of fuel added to the tanks.

As we got the latest ATIS information, we learned that the wind had shifted to the south east, and picked up to about 8 knots.  I got the plane started up, and got clearance to Taxi to runway 19L.  After the run-up checks were completed we got onto the runway and took off.  The wind was starting to pick up even more, the wind sock was showing at least 10 knots, and still swinging around from south to east. 

I took off, and got clearance from the tower for a landing on 19R, with the option.  As we climbed through the pattern, the wind conditions continued to deteriorate, to the point that I overshot my turn from base to final quite badly due to the tailwind on the base leg.  Compensating for the wind, I landed the plane, but didn't apply enough right rudder at the touchdown, so it was a bit rough. 

We did another several patterns, getting blown around by the wind the whole time, until Bob asked me "Well, it's up to you, we can call it quits, we can just keep going for crosswind practice, or I can get out and you can solo."  I thought for a minute about what I wanted to do, the wind was still getting rougher, and my last few landings hadn't been very good, calling it quits was coming rapidly to the top of the list. 

Then I thought, if I give up for the day now, then I will have ended in a bad mood, with a bad landing, and without having figured out how exactly to handle this kind of wind.

I told Bob that although I didn't feel comfortable solo-ing in these conditions, if it was OK with him, we could continue to do pattern work until I got some acceptable landings done. He agreed with my decision, and up we went again.

By this time, the wind had swung so far around to the east, that it was giving us a slight tailwind on Final, Bob suggested that I try the approach using 20 degrees of flaps, instead of 30, and an airspeed of 65 instead of 60, that way we would have a little less resistance and shouldn't get blown around quite so much.

I got us lined up on Final, with the wind still trying to push us away to the west, lowered the second notch of flaps, and tried to keep us lined up on the runway.  Bob had explained that as we approached the runway, I should use the rudder to get the nose of the plane pointed straight down the runway, and use opposite ailerons to prevent the plane from being blown sideways.  This time, I managed to get the plane down nice and gently.  We decided to do another landing before calling it a day, and that one went just as well.

So although I didn't solo again, I still ended the lesson on a high-ish note.  Bob told me after we got the plane tied down, that delaying the solo again was the right call for me to make, as conditions really weren't very hospitable.

I have booked a flight tomorrow morning, Sunday the 29th, from 7am to 9am, when the winds should be gentler, so maybe I will finally get to solo tomorrow.
Wish me Luck!
-Gareth

Lesson Fourteen: Night Pattern Practice

Wednesday Evening was clear and calm, I arrived at Riverside Airport just before 8pm and started the pre-flight inspection while there was still some light.  Everything checked out ok, and we had plenty of fuel for the lesson, so I went back inside to find out the plan for the evening.  Bob told me that we could either fly up to Tulsa International and practice pattern work, or stay at Riverside and practice pattern work.  I figured we could probably get a landing done in the time it would take to get up to International, so I elected to stay at Riverside.

We got the plane started up, and taxxiied to the FBO before radioing our intentions to the Ground controller.  There was a new student pilot trying to talk on the radio, I thought back to my first fumbling attempts, and felt a bit bad for him, while at the same time feeling happy that I was now a little more comfortable talking to Air Traffic Control.

We got clearance to taxi to runway 1 left, so we headed to the run-up area, performed the run-up checklist, got the clearance from the tower for takeoff, and headed out onto the runway.

I got the plane lined up on the runway center line, and gave it full throttle, we accelerated up to 50 knots on the airspeed indicator, I eased back on the controls and we gently lifted into the air.  The tower gave us clearance for a right turn to make right traffic patterns as we would be working from the parallel runway, 1 right.  At 1100 feet I started the first turn while continuing the climb up to pattern altitude.

We levelled off at 1700 feet, and performed the after takeoff checklist, Fuel on, Undercarriage check, Mixture rich, Power as required, Seats and Seatbelts adjusted.  By the time we were done with that, we were almost "abeam the numbers" or parallel to the runway end markings, so I pulled on the carb heat, reduced throttle to 1500 rpm, dropped in the first notch of flaps, and put the nose down to maintain 80 knots.  After about 200 feet of descent, I turned onto the base leg, dropping in the 2nd notch of flaps and pitching the nose to maintain 70 knots.

I turned onto final a little early, because I mistook some ground lights on the hangars for the runway as I was glancing out the side windows, once I started the turn I realized my mistake and extended the turn until we were pointed at the runway.  I dropped in the last notch of flaps and pitched to maintain 60 knots.  We were above the ideal approach slope at first, as indicated by the two white approach lights, but as we continued toward the runway the top one started to get a pinkish hue, so we were pretty close to where we needed to be.  The ideal approach is to maintain one red and one white light all the way to the runway.

I managed a pretty good landing, reset the flaps and carb heat, pushed in full throttle and we went up and around again.

On the fourth takeoff, as we were climbing out off the runway, I saw a brief flicker in the darkness ahead of the plane, then WHAM, something hit the windshield right in front of my face, slid off to the left side, and disappeared under the wing.  We had hit a bird.  Bob told me that he had seen it a split second or so before it hit, and it was a good sized bird, not something small like a sparrow.  I kept an eye on the engine temperature and oil pressure as we completed the pattern to make sure nothing had been damaged other than our nerves for a minute or so, but everything looked fine.

We got in another four laps around the airport before deciding to call it a night.  We got the plane parked and tied down, and I looked for any damage, but I couldn't see anything obvious, as it was pretty dark by that time, and I was using the red-lensed flashlight that is part of my night flying equipment.

We had done Nine landings in 9/10ths of an hour for the logbook.  Bob told me that if I can run the pattern that well on Saturday, that I would solo for sure.

Next Lesson: Solo? Hopefully!
-Gareth

Lesson Thirteen: Pattern Work

Saturday morning I woke up to overcast skies, with the lowest clouds around 1,200 feet.  Fortunately the sky started to clear shortly before my lesson scheduled for noon.  Melodie and I got to Riverside airport several minutes early, she had come to watch if I soloed.  I had just started the pre-flight inspection of the 152 when my dad arrived for the same reason.  I finished the pre-flight, as Bob finished the previous students lesson.

Today's lesson would be traffic pattern practice, the wind was variable, swinging from west to north at about nine knots on the ground.  We got the clearance to take off to the north and headed to Tulsa International, the wind was a little rough on the ground, but as we climbed it got rougher.  We bounced and jostled our way north and east to Tulsa International where we were given clearance for a landing on runway 1 left, "with the option" which means that we can do whatever we want, go-around, touch and go, full stop or pretty much anything, and we don't have to contact the tower for any extra permission.

We ran through the traffic pattern several times, working on getting everything just right, but the wind was still misbehaving, which wasn't very helpful when I was trying to maintain a perfect heading or airspeed.  We did get to watch another Southwest jet land though, it came in on runway 8, passing below and behind us as we were on a downwind leg.

I was pretty consistently high on my approach onto final, so we practiced some forward slips and a go-around as well.  After a couple more landings, we headed back to Riverside.  

I was given clearance to land number two behind a Beechcraft Bonanza that was coming straight in from the other direction, he landed while we were on the beginning of our downwind leg, so the tower requested a short turn onto base and final.  As we were coming down on our final approach, they gave another Cessna permission to taxi across the end of the runway we were about to land on, we had plenty of room to get over it, or perform a go-around if necessary, but it was disconcerting to see him pull out in front of us.

I extended the approach a little further down the runway, just to be sure, but I forgot to add power to keep my airspeed at 60 knots, so by the time I was easing back on the controls in the flare, we dropped faster than Bob or I would like, and landed pretty hard.  I am not sure if we bounced or not, but if we did, it wasn't far.  We had already decided that I wasn't going to solo today due to the weather, but as we taxied back to the parking area, it felt like everyone was watching me after that horrible landing.

We got the 152 parked and tied down, and went back inside to go over the days events.  Wednesdays lesson will be from eight to ten again, so I should get some more night landings taken care of, and we'll probably practice turns and stalls again.  If the weather cooperates, maybe I will solo next saturday.

I went to meet Dad and Melodie at the viewing area on the other side of the airport, I hadn't been over there yet, it's pretty nice, a large covered gazebo with a fireplace in the center, but it's open to the air, and not cooled other than with shade, so they were sitting in the air conditioned car taking pictures of the different planes that were flying in and out that day.

We headed to our respective homes for lunch.

Next lesson - More Night Flying!
-Gareth

Lesson Twelve: Night Flying is Fun!

As I had scheduled my lesson from 8:00pm to 10:00pm, I had a little bit of downtime at home before leaving for the airport. It was nice not having to rush through dinner, especially as Melodie's mom had brought over a really tasty pasta salad! I left for the airport just after 7:30, and arrived twenty minutes later, still daylight out, but definitely cooler than it had been in the afternoon. I inspected the airplane while Bob finished up with his previous student, they had taken the Cessna 172 out, so the 152 was nice and cool. Everything checked out just fine, although the horizontal stabilizer had ants exploring it, so they came along for the ride.

By the time we were ready to taxi out, the sun was almost touching the horizon, and the air was dead calm. During the time from Sunset to Sunrise, the FAA wants the airplane's Navigation Lights and Beacon Lights lit at all times, so we had to turn them on before even starting the engine.

In the run-up area, Bob called the tower and asked for the Light Gun signals, which the controller in the tower provided. As the tower was between us and the sunset, we could watch his silhouette as he got out of his chair and retrieved the light gun, which was hanging from the ceiling. We got the Green, Red and White lights, thanked him for the assistance, and declared that we were run-up complete.

Once we were given clearance to the west departing from runway 1 Left, we took off, climbed to 1100 feet, and turned into the sunset. The sun had slipped below the horizon, so as we climbed, the ground was all dark black, but the Arkansas River and Keystone Lake were ahead, and reflecting the sunset, it was quite a sight!

We continued to the west, climbing up to 2,500 feet. When we were south of Sand Springs Pogue airport, Bob showed me how to operate their radio controlled landing lights by tuning to the airport tower frequency, and just clicking the transmit button seven times in five seconds. The Runway Approach Indicator Lights (RAIL) lit up and started flashing, we could adjust their intensity by transmitting clicks again.

We climbed up to 3,500 feet and did some stalls and steep turns, my best to date! Then an emergency descent followed by an emergency landing approach due to simulated engine failure. When we were done with those, we headed back to the airport for some pattern work, and as it was completely dark by this time, we decided to knock out some of the ten required full-stop night landings.

I was given clearance to land on 1 Left, using a left traffic pattern, it took me a little while to pick out the runway lights from the highway and building lights in the area, but they're easy enough to find once you know what to look for. The first landing went well, except that the approach indicator lights at the airport were either off, or not working, Bob called the tower to ask, and they flipped the switch off and on, and the lights were working again.

After coming to a complete stop on the runway, we reset everything, gave it a full serving of beans, and took back off. The second landing approach I turned onto final a little late, and so had to turn further around to get the runway lined up properly. Bob explained how to perform a Short Field Landing, by raising the flaps immediately after the touchdown, hard on the brakes, and pull back on the controls for extra drag. After coming to a rapid stop, we took off and went back around.

The Third landing went well, but I flared a little too early on the fourth landing, so it touched down a bit roughly. As the Control Tower closed at 10:00pm, and the night landings have to be at a tower controlled airport to count, we decided to call it a night.

After getting the Cessna parked, Mike and Kenzie walked up, they had been listening in on the radio, and had arrived in time to see my final landing.

We all went back into the Flight School building, where Bob and I went over the lesson, and talked about what we would do on Saturday. The plan is to do some more pattern work, then if I feel up to it, and Bob thinks I have done well in the pattern, he will exit the aircraft (on the ground) and I will solo!

I have to get my pre-solo written exam done today or tomorrow, and take it with me on Saturday, so I had better get to work on that!

More to Come!
-Gareth

Lesson Eleven: Practice Practice Practice!

I was a little late to my Saturday morning lesson, partly due to road repair detours, but mainly due to my less-than-amazing navigational skills. Interstate 44 that runs through Tulsa has been under repair for what seems like years now, and that's the easiest way for me to get to Riverside airport. After braving construction traffic, I took the Highway 75 exit ramp, only to be deposited immediately back onto I-44 headed the way I had come. Apparently they're starting work on HW75 now as well. I took the first exit, and headed in the general direction of the airport, only to find that someone had dumped a large industrial complex right where I needed to drive, how thoughtless!

At any rate, I found my way back to roads I recognized, and made it to Riverside Airport about ten minutes after my lesson was due to start. Bob was in the flight school building chatting with another instructor and a student pilot, so I grabbed the documentation for our Cessna 152 and went out to do the pre-flight inspection.

As the Oklahoma Highway Patrol was buzzing the highways in their Cessna 172, looking for speeders, we chose to head to the south practice area. After getting everything in the airplane situated, we tuned the radio for the latest weather, called Riverside Ground for taxi clearance, and headed to the run-up area. During the magneto checks, the engine spluttered a little, so I raised the RPMs to 2000, and leaned the fuel mixture to burn the spark plugs clean. With run-up complete, we were given clearance to take off to the south, and climb to 4,500 feet.

We climbed through the bumpy air to about 3,000 feet where it started to smooth out, at 4,500 we leveled off and flew southeast at Tulsa Air Traffic Control's request, before turning back south. The day's lesson plan was to practice all the stall procedures and do some steep turns. Everything was going well until the second steep turn, I didn't pull back on the controls enough to maintain our altitude, so we lost about three hundred feet as we went all the way around. I got us back up to 4,500, and tried again. It went much better the second time.

As it was time to head back to the airport, Bob had me do an emergency descent, full flaps and nose down to maintain 85 knots. We leveled off at 2,500 feet and told ATC that we were inbound for close pattern work. Back down under 3,000 feet it was still really bumpy, as we approached the airport, we were given clearance for a full stop landing on runway 19 left.

The final approach was quite a ride, we had a slight crosswind that I had to compensate for, as well as the moderate turbulence still knocking us about. I somehow managed to get the plane down just left of the runway center line. As the nose gear touched down, the whole plane started shuddering, Bob pulled back on the controls to ease the weight back up off of the nose, and the shuddering stopped. As we slowed down, the nose gear took the weight of the plane smoothly, and we taxied back to the parking area. Bob explained that the shuddering was nose gear vibration, probably caused by some side load to the wheel when we touched down.

My next few Wednesday lessons will be from 8:00 to 10:00 PM, so I will get to experience some night flying!

Talk to you soon!
-Gareth

Lesson Ten, Touch and Go's Galore!

Wednesday lunch time I went home from work with an upset stomach, I dosed myself up with the usual anti-nausea stuff and went to sleep, figuring I would see how it went, and cancel my lesson if necessary. By the time I was supposed to be hitting the road for the airport I decided I was well enough to go flying.

I got to the airport a few minutes early, but the 152 was still out flying, so I sat on the couch and went over my checklists. It turned out that the previous lesson had started a few minutes late, so when they got back out to the airport, instead of taxiing to the tie-downs, they just parked right in front of the flight school building so I could start the pre-flight inspection for my lesson.

As I was checking the fuel level in the tanks, the plane started slowly rolling across the concrete, so I hopped down, opened the door, and with my leg braced against the landing gear, pulled the knob marked "Parking Brake" which promptly came off in my hand. Fortunately Bob came out of the flight school building at that point, and got a wheel chock from the hangar. I put the knob back on, completed the pre-flight, got the weather information, and we headed to Tulsa International Airport for traffic pattern work.

Bob told me that part of the lesson was also how to deal with strange requests from air traffic controllers, most of the time they won't give you anything weird, but not to worry, he would just request something for me when the time came.

We flew into the traffic pattern at Tulsa International, and were cleared for landing on 19 right, with the option to take off again after touchdown. We did several laps in a right traffic pattern, when Bob made our first strange request, a left turn after take off, and a left traffic pattern to the parallel runway 19 Left. Air Traffic Control gave us the go-ahead, so after climbing back above 500 feet above the ground, we made the left turn and went around the other way.


Bob asked the tower for some Light Gun signals, but we couldn't see them, as it was still daylight. The Light Gun is basically a huge flashlight that shines white, green or red, that the Air Traffic Controllers can use to signal airplanes that have had radio failures.

After our take off on 19 Left, Bob had another "strange request" ready, a right turn after the end of the runway, followed by another right turn, which would take us back north between the runways, for a left turn short approach back onto 19 right. The Air Traffic Controllers were fine with that, as long as we stayed east of 19 Right, and west of the control tower at mid-field. There was a Southwest Airlines 737 coming in to land on 19 Left as we were flying over the northern end of the airport. Watching from above as the jet touched down was a really neat sight!
I made the left turn and the short landing, using a forward slip to lose altitude quickly. After touchdown, we raised the flaps, hit the power, and headed home to Riverside Airport, where we were given clearance for a straight in landing behind another Cessna.

I logged eight landings and 1.2 hours on this lesson, that solo flight is really getting close now, I can hardly wait!
-Gareth

Lesson Nine - More Ground Reference Maneuvers

I had scheduled my Saturday Morning lesson for 9:30am. As my wife and I were having breakfast, I got a call from Bob, he had just been on an introduction flight that was cut short due to weather. There was a layer of broken clouds at 1200 feet, and a line of bad weather headed our way, so we decided to wait for it to pass through and re-scheduled for 1:00pm.

By 1pm the low clouds had pushed off to the south east far enough for us to reach our practice area for ground reference maneuvers. I did the pre-flight checks on the Cessna 152, I could certainly tell a difference when I checked the rudder for free movement, it used to swing all the way to the stops with a light push, but the new tensioning springs were returning it to center very nicely. We had plenty of fuel, due to the aborted flight earlier, and everything else checked out fine, so I headed back inside for a little ground school before the flight.

Bob and I went over how the different cockpit instruments actually get their information, using outside air pressure for the Vertical Speed Indicator and Altimeter, air flow for the Airspeed Indicator, vacuum powered gyroscopes for the Directional Gyro and Artificial Horizon, and an electrically powered gyro for the Turn Coordinator. We talked about compass deviation, how magnetic north is drifting toward the west 1/10th of a degree per year, how the different electronics in the aircraft might cause the compass to read incorrectly, and having to compensate for lag when using the compass to turn to a heading. We also went over the basics of how the engine operates.

We went back outside to the Cessna, got the latest weather information, got the airplane started and got taxi clearance to the runway.

Everything checked out during the run-up checks, so we got to the runway, got the takeoff clearance and headed to the south. We did an engine failure simulation on the way to the practice area. I wonder how many of the homeowners in the countryside south of the airport are used to getting buzzed by student pilots, I guess if they want us to leave them alone, they should make their nicely mowed fields less attractive.

After the go-around for the emergency landing, we climbed back up to 1500 feet and started looking for a convenient road intersection for our turns-around-a-point. We soon found one, and as the wind was coming from the south, we flew past, then turned back around to the north as the maneuver requires a downwind start. We did two left turn circles around the intersection, using the bank angle of the wings to compensate for the wind trying to blow us away to the north, then turned back around to the south so we could use the same road for our S-Turns.

After four or five passes back and forth over the road Bob told me to head back toward Riverside Airport. We tuned back to ATIS for the latest weather, and got handed back to the Riverside tower controllers. When you first talk to a controller on approach, all you need to tell them is who you are, where you are, and that you are inbound. For whatever reason, I told them I was inbound for 19L, which isn't the runway we wanted to use anyway. Fortunately as we were approaching the airport they re-directed us to 19R. I guess they must be used to students messing up on the radio, but its still annoying to me to be saying the wrong things.

As I turned around toward the runway on Final, the wind was really knocking us around, I had to crab in toward the runway, and Bob had to remind me to keep the nose over or we would land long, I eventually got the plane where I wanted it, and squeaked a reasonable touchdown at the last moment.

We taxiied back to the parking area, got the plane shut down, and heard the unmistakable sound of a large radial engine, times two. The hanger just across one of the access roads was open, and parked outside with both engines idling was a B-25!

I really need to start taking my camera with me, hopefully I can get a picture of it some time, I found this one of the actual airplane on Flickr though, so it will do for now.

More to come!
-Gareth

Lesson Eight - Stalls, Slow Flight, and a Radio Mistake

Well, it turns out that the "new" Tensioning springs that the Flight Schools A&P Mechanic sourced from who-knows-where were broken when they arrived, so still no 152 available at Roadhouse Aviation.

There's a pretty good sized airplane rental place on Riverside Airport, run by Christiansen Aviation, and they have two or three Cessna 152's available, so I met Bob there on Wednesday evening, and we checked out 340SX.

The plane was in pretty nice shape, and it had a Garmin GPS in the radio stack, which I hadn't had a chance to play with before, but it's not a Sparrowhawk 152 like our usual ride apparently is. Sparrowhawk is an engine upgrade that boosts horsepower from 110 to 125 by using the higher compression pistons from a different engine.

As I had missed a few lessons, I was nervous about all the things I might have forgotten, but once we got to the airplane, I started feeling more comfortable. Christiansen doesn't keep fuelhawks or fuel testers in their airplanes, so I went back into the FBO and bought them for myself. The fuel tanks were a little low, so Bob called for the fuel truck and they put in another three or four gallons per side as I finished up the pre-flight checks. We tuned the radio to ATIS to get the weather report, got taxi clearance from ground control, and headed to the run-up area.

I guess every airplane has its own little quirks, the first one I noticed for 340SX is that if you want to turn left while taxiing, the rudder pedals will work fine, but for turning right, you have to use differential braking to help it along. The control surfaces all move freely and as far as they're supposed to though, so it was nothing to actually worry about. With run-up complete, we got clearance to the runway, using a taxiway intersection instead of rolling all the way down to the end.

We rolled out on to the runway, and I gave it full throttle, eased back on the controls at 50 knots and we were airborne. I set the trim to help me maintain a 67 knot climb, but with the temperature, weight of the aircraft, and being short 15 horsepower, we were only climbing between 200 and 300 feet per minute, with the Garmin showing a groundspeed of 60 knots.

It took us 12 miles to climb up to 4500 feet, but once we got there, the air was a lovely 80 degrees fahrenheit, much more comfortable.

I performed the clearing turns to the west and back to south, then we did some slow flight, followed up by stalls. This 152 stalls really gently, barely a buffet and the warning horn to let you know whats going on. For the Landing configuration stall, with the flaps down, it tried to roll out to the right even when I could swear that the turn coordinator was perfectly centered. Oh well, it's good practice anyway.

We turned to head back to the airport, with a quick detour for an engine failure simulation.

As we were cruising back toward Riverside I noticed a quiet beeping coming through my headset, I mentioned it to Bob, but he said he didn't hear it. I increased the throttle and the pitch of the beeping went up with it, I said something along the lines of "Hey, that weird beeping goes to a higher pitch with the throttle" and looked over to see Bob waving his hands at me. Oh No! I had been holding the radio button down! Riverside tower called us up to re-confirm our landing clearance, I was so embarrased! Bob told me that everyone does that at some point, so hopefully that's mine out of the way. Note to Self - Intercom does not require the button!

As we had been given clearance to land on runway 19 right, we flew past the west side of the airport as our downwind leg, then dropped in the first notch of flaps, and started our descent, turning on to Base and Final, then landing nice and gently and almost on the runway centerline.

We got 340SX shut down and parked, then went back over to the Roadhouse Aviation hanger to see what was going on with our usual 152. Michael Schield was there talking to another student pilot. Michael told us that the owner of the Flight School had given authorization to order two brand new tensioners, at $1800 each!

The 152 will be ready for the Saturday Morning lesson, hooray!