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!