It's time to rake up some night hours! I was excited about this flight all day. I met the CFI at the airfield and he says we're going on a mini cross country. To Schole's Field in Galveston, then to Brazoria, then to Wolfe field. Nooo! He mentioned how he took someone up before on a night flight and they flew to Wolfe field, which is a grass field. He said they circled around it, and it was dark there. He said his other student was circling but getting higher instead of lower into the field like he wanted because his student was afraid of the black hole there. Well now it was my turn to enter the black hole. I put together a quick flight plan for the route he described, and went to www.aopa.org to download and print kneeboard formatted sheets for each airport. The CFI told me he was proud of me. He was always impressed that I did that without being told to. It goes back to when I did the practice cross-country on my flight sim to see what I needed on a xc flight, and that was something I found out I needed. That was re-inforced on the two xc flights I have done so it has become something that's just part of preparing for a xc flight.
CFI went over some things that would be different about a night flight. Including bring a flashlight. I hadn't even thought of that one. I figured there were lights in the plane. Apparently not enough, and he says it's a possibility they could go out. So I'll have to add a flashlight to my flight bag. As I taxi'd to the runway I started to turn on my GPS. CFI said I won't be using that tonight... aw man. I didn't plan it this way when I scheduled the flight, it just happened - there was a nearly full moon tonight, which looked awesome from the air, and of course helped with seeing. So I followed the Galveston VOR to Schole's field. I was hoping it was a controlled field so I could practice more at a controlled field in preparation for my long xc flight. But it turns out Schole's tower only operates from 6am - 6pm. My route took me right into final, and I was preparing for awkward maneuvering to enter the pattern 45 degrees towards the downwind leg. CFI said there's no one in the pattern so it's ok just to enter in on final. Interesting - I didn't know that. So then I descended to the runway outline of Schole's field. I came in a little slow, but it was a landing we could walk away from and use the plane again. We taxi'd off and went around to the start of the runway. There were barricades blocking my way onto the runway. I asked CFI about them. His strategy seemed to be to ignore them. We set up the VOR nav for the next leg, taxi'd around the barricades (if he says so...), entered the runway and took off into the wild black yonder. I could see what he mentioned earlier - that the ships in the ocean looked like stars and that it becomes hard to see the horizon. On this flight, however, with the moon out you could actually make out the horizon, and the real stars were not as bright as the ship lights.
We went on to Brazoria. There were not many landmarks I could use along the way. So it was good that I had the VOR to follow. I found that at night I seemed to want to yaw the plane to the left. I paid extra attention to the VOR, CDI, and the artificial horizon. I saw from the map that Brazoria was just a couple miles SW of Angleton. So I looked for Angleton when the time was came for me to be near there. I saw a mass of lights. CFI and I looked for the airport. But when it seemed we should be almost on top of it, we saw nothing. Then he spotted it about 5 miles to the right. Galveston's VOR should have led me right to it. I'm not sure I trust Galveston's VOR. See my previous post for the reason why. I'm not sure what the mass of lights was. It wasn't on the map. So we turned to Brazoria, which turned out to be a right hand pattern, and landed. I came to a full stop and took off again.
I would be using Houston Hobby's VOR to get to Wolfe field. At first I went east of my route to intercept the VOR heading. Then I turned to my planned compass heading, and soon found myself far to the right of the VOR heading. I went left of the heading for several minutes to intercept it again. What's up with that? Well we made it over to the black hole. Once CFI keyed the mic several times the runway lit up and it wasn't black anymore, and I didn't feel any fear of flying near it. I thought we were just going to fly around it. He wanted me to land there. He says it's alright I've been there before. Yeah - that was during the day. This is much different! We landed. Landing on a grass field just feels so odd. Especially with this field. It's raised in the center, which means you're tilting to the left if you're left of the center. Or maybe all grass fields are like this to keep the water off. We taxi'd back to the start of the runway, but instead of taking off again he wanted me to park the plane by the hangar. We both got out, and he pulled out some keys and opened the hangar. Apparently he comes here a lot. Inside there were many planes. It was a very cool feeling to see all these planes there in a dimly lit hangar at night with no one around. It was like that Nissan Enjoy the Ride commercial where this kid finds an underground garage full of an impressive array of cars. Only there was an impressive array of airplanes in here - including one of my favorites. A yellow biplane. I have always loved these planes and would kill to fly in one. Someday... someday... So then CFI opens up a C172 and starts trying to remove a GPS from its yoke. He says it's half his since he went in on it with someone else. Ohhhh... so that's what's going on. He wanted to come here and pick up the GPS and I'm his chauffeur LOL. Well that's fine. I'm having fun.
Then we get back into the plane and take off. I put a notch of flaps in for a short field take-off. We haven't built up much speed by the last half of the runway, and the plane is veeeerrrry slowly rising. I'm not even sure if it's completely off the ground. We're on the verge of stalling it when it does leave the ground. We milk the flaps up and are passing over houses just 50 feet above them. Finally this thing gets in the air. He says I can use my GPS now to get back to Pearland. So I turn it on, and fly towards it. We continue to follow the route on the GPS and seem to have difficulty spotting the runway. Then we think we see it, but it looks like there are 2 runways. Pearland just has one (well it has another one, but that's just a grass runway running parallel to the other one). I check the GPS again, and it says we are RIGHT OVER PEARLAND! I strain to look straight down and I see it in the dark. The airport we thought was Pearland was actually Ellington. I thought Pearland would have been a big enough airport that its runway lights would have been kept on, but apparently not. CFI keyed the mic several times and the lights came on. I landed on the runway, and CFI said I outdid myself on that landing.... Cool :)
That was 1.9 hours of fun. Flying at night was a bit more difficult than during the day (especially landing on grass fields) but it was so fun. I had a great time. For the remaining lessons towards my private pilot's license I will be landing at Houston Hobby (a big-ass Class B airspace airport) and Houston South West (a class C airport) in preparation for going to Easterwood airport (class C) in College Station for my long distance solo cross country flight. Then I have to do another night cross country (tonight's wasn't long enough to qualify, it was more to get used to flying at night), and rack up some instrument time. Then I will be ready for my written and oral test. Woohoo!!!
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Perma-Grin
Ahhh the joys of flying! I did my 1st solo cross country today to Palacios where I flew with my CFI a couple of days ago. When I was planning for this flight I wanted to be sure to avoid the thunderstorm situations I encountered with my CFI last time. So I looked at the weather forecast and today there was only a 10% chance of rain. Well I found out that 10% does not a clear sky make. It was really hazy with smog. I guess that still air (no winds) allows it to build up.
I called my CFI yesterday and told him I planned on doing the solo cross country to Palacios (a 71 nm trip). He asked if I was going to fly the same plan (and sounded like he expected me to update it after my last flight)... "uh.. no I was going to redo the plan". So I re-worked it going straight to the VOR near Palacios, with no BYY fly-over. I marked checkpoints at the point where I would be at cruising altitude, where I would pass the 3 lakes I saw before, where I passed Bay City, and where I would start my descent. He OK'd the plan, and this morning I woke up to go fly. When I got to the airport, I saw this awesome sunrise, and looked just in time to see the fiery orange sun rising above the clouds. It was a good moment.
I updated my weather info - not much wind to be found anywhere - and then called 800-WX-BRIEF to file my flight plan. After I filed my plan the operator asked if I wanted a weather briefing for my route. I wasn't expecting any adverse weather, but I said "sure" anyway just to hear it. OMG... he went on and on and on. Talking about weather everywhere from the Texas coast, to Dallas to Big Bend. These places (except for the Texas coast) are several hundred miles away! Like many people had told me, the report was useless. They did tell me though that my route was not VFR. That was unexpected because all the metars en route reported clear to mostly clear skies. I would see for myself. I had the airplane fueled up, and off I went.
Now I could see what they were talking about. It was smoggy as hell! So much smog on a clear day that conditions were barely VFR!
Environmental Soapbox: People, clean up this crap! Yes, I even mean you oil refineries, heavy duty trucks and buses that are exempt from many environmental restrictions, even though you are the cause of much of it. It looks ugly and we have to breath this crap. Cut it out!
I believed I still had enough visibility to see my land marks and to continue on. I dialed in the Palacios VOR, and put in my heading. I was puzzled why it said 'From'. The needle was also way to the left. I verified the morse code ident, and it checked out. Oh well, I continued navigating by pilotage. My times to each checkpoint was right on. I had to descend from my planned altitude of 2500' to 1500' though because of the haze. Then as I neared Palacios I had to descend down to 1000' because of clouds. I used other VORs to check my position along the route as well. It was about this time I realized my stupid mistake. I'm supposed to use the course TO the VOR, not FROM the VOR... Duh! Ok... little learning experience there. Now the Palacios VOR made sense!
So I announced my arrival at Palacios air space. Listening to the radio, I thought I entered another country. Is there a red-neck equivalent of ebonics? There should be! Geez lol. I landed at Palacios, taxied over to the start of the runway, closed my flight plan and re-activated it for the return trip, and took off again before I was captured and raised by a pack of wild shrimp boaters. Yee haw!
On the way back I decided to try something different, and fly above the cruddy smog and scattered clouds. After doing a few spirals while gaining altitude I reached 5500' and was able to fly above the clouds. Very nice view. It looked like the smog reached a hight of about 5000'-5500'. It was now even harder to see checkpoints on the ground, but I still could do it. I followed the Palacios VOR back home, and also used my GPS for navigation to become more familiar with that. The GPS HSI is a big help for navigating (and yes, I know it's only for back up and that I should be using the airplane's instruments even though the course direction indicator is only accurate for about 3-5 minutes in the airplane I'm flying, but it sure does a nice job!). After a while the GPS blinked a warning telling me I was approaching an airspace in 10 minutes. Ah, thank you very much... I lowered my altitude down to 3500' so I could slip under the 4000' Class B airspace around Houston Hobby. Then I lowered to 1500' to avoid the 2000' airspace around Houston Hobby. I was now in familiar territory and could see my airport. I checked the winds and they were out of 340 at 4 kts. So I planned on landing on runway 32. Then I listened to the traffic and people were using runway 14. I radioed and verified which runway I should use. They reported back 14. Ok, 14 it is. I landed quite nicely, and that was it. My first solo cross country was in the books :) It was a lot of fun, and the unexpected smog/cloudy conditions turned out to be minor obstacles during the trip. It was nice being able to get up above the clouds and enjoy the view - and the cooler temperatures!
I called my CFI yesterday and told him I planned on doing the solo cross country to Palacios (a 71 nm trip). He asked if I was going to fly the same plan (and sounded like he expected me to update it after my last flight)... "uh.. no I was going to redo the plan". So I re-worked it going straight to the VOR near Palacios, with no BYY fly-over. I marked checkpoints at the point where I would be at cruising altitude, where I would pass the 3 lakes I saw before, where I passed Bay City, and where I would start my descent. He OK'd the plan, and this morning I woke up to go fly. When I got to the airport, I saw this awesome sunrise, and looked just in time to see the fiery orange sun rising above the clouds. It was a good moment.
I updated my weather info - not much wind to be found anywhere - and then called 800-WX-BRIEF to file my flight plan. After I filed my plan the operator asked if I wanted a weather briefing for my route. I wasn't expecting any adverse weather, but I said "sure" anyway just to hear it. OMG... he went on and on and on. Talking about weather everywhere from the Texas coast, to Dallas to Big Bend. These places (except for the Texas coast) are several hundred miles away! Like many people had told me, the report was useless. They did tell me though that my route was not VFR. That was unexpected because all the metars en route reported clear to mostly clear skies. I would see for myself. I had the airplane fueled up, and off I went.
Now I could see what they were talking about. It was smoggy as hell! So much smog on a clear day that conditions were barely VFR!
Environmental Soapbox: People, clean up this crap! Yes, I even mean you oil refineries, heavy duty trucks and buses that are exempt from many environmental restrictions, even though you are the cause of much of it. It looks ugly and we have to breath this crap. Cut it out!
I believed I still had enough visibility to see my land marks and to continue on. I dialed in the Palacios VOR, and put in my heading. I was puzzled why it said 'From'. The needle was also way to the left. I verified the morse code ident, and it checked out. Oh well, I continued navigating by pilotage. My times to each checkpoint was right on. I had to descend from my planned altitude of 2500' to 1500' though because of the haze. Then as I neared Palacios I had to descend down to 1000' because of clouds. I used other VORs to check my position along the route as well. It was about this time I realized my stupid mistake. I'm supposed to use the course TO the VOR, not FROM the VOR... Duh! Ok... little learning experience there. Now the Palacios VOR made sense!
So I announced my arrival at Palacios air space. Listening to the radio, I thought I entered another country. Is there a red-neck equivalent of ebonics? There should be! Geez lol. I landed at Palacios, taxied over to the start of the runway, closed my flight plan and re-activated it for the return trip, and took off again before I was captured and raised by a pack of wild shrimp boaters. Yee haw!
On the way back I decided to try something different, and fly above the cruddy smog and scattered clouds. After doing a few spirals while gaining altitude I reached 5500' and was able to fly above the clouds. Very nice view. It looked like the smog reached a hight of about 5000'-5500'. It was now even harder to see checkpoints on the ground, but I still could do it. I followed the Palacios VOR back home, and also used my GPS for navigation to become more familiar with that. The GPS HSI is a big help for navigating (and yes, I know it's only for back up and that I should be using the airplane's instruments even though the course direction indicator is only accurate for about 3-5 minutes in the airplane I'm flying, but it sure does a nice job!). After a while the GPS blinked a warning telling me I was approaching an airspace in 10 minutes. Ah, thank you very much... I lowered my altitude down to 3500' so I could slip under the 4000' Class B airspace around Houston Hobby. Then I lowered to 1500' to avoid the 2000' airspace around Houston Hobby. I was now in familiar territory and could see my airport. I checked the winds and they were out of 340 at 4 kts. So I planned on landing on runway 32. Then I listened to the traffic and people were using runway 14. I radioed and verified which runway I should use. They reported back 14. Ok, 14 it is. I landed quite nicely, and that was it. My first solo cross country was in the books :) It was a lot of fun, and the unexpected smog/cloudy conditions turned out to be minor obstacles during the trip. It was nice being able to get up above the clouds and enjoy the view - and the cooler temperatures!
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Cross Country & Dodging Thunderstorms
My long awaited xc flight happened today. The weather, as usual around here, was iffy but good enough to fly. I planned routes to two different destinations over the past week so that if the weather was bad one way, I could go another direction. Then once I had every thing ready I tried flying one of the routes on my flight simulator for practice.
I wanted to see if I could do it with just what I had in my lap. It was difficult, and I could not use pilotage skills on the flight simulator because there is no real-world scenery I can use in my area - I don't blame them, Houston is not a scenic place! But it would be nice if someone would develop some Houston area scenery for those of us who are marooned here and working towards our pilot's license. So anyway, I had to use dead reckoning on the flight sim. I found that I needed a decent lapboard, and airport diagrams with all the necessary frequency info in an easy to access form. Also, I was using flight planning forms where I had figured out course info, and right before my virtual flight, I had gathered all the virtual weather info and adjusted the resulting heading I needed to fly and ground speeds after wind was factored in. I found that these forms were a headache because the airplane's airspeed indicator is in mph and everything else is usually in knots. Plus during the flight weather conditions change so the adjustments to headings will have to be easily recomputed during the flight. So the flight sim was really useful for identifying what I needed to bring to the real flight.
The first thing I did was to make a flight planning spreadsheet, which I could upload to my cellphone. I made one which I must say is pretty versatile. I enter the calibrated airspeed from the aircraft in mph, and it computes the true-airspeed in knots with the altitude tweak built in. Then everything else is in knots. Before flight, or during, I enter the wind direction and speed, and it computes true heading etc. So it turned out pretty well. The only drawback is the cell-phone sized display, but it worked out alright.
So I got to the airport about an hour before and made some last minute preparations. Then the CFI got there and we talked about the plan. He seemed impressed at how prepared I was, especially with the airport diagrams and information sheets I had ready which I downloaded from AOPA. We looked at the weather situation, and decided to go to Palacios - a distance of 81 miles from the airport (something clicked in my head saying "yeah the weather's ok to Palacious, but how is it going to be on the way back? Then the thought was replaced by other concerns.) The weather decided to put a spin on things and the wind was blowing from the north for a change. So for only my 2nd time, I took off from runway 32. With full tanks of gas and two adults, the C150 slowly climbed to 2500' and I began my first leg to Bay City. There were a group of 3 small lakes that I picked on the map as landmarks, and I found them pretty easy. It was cool seeing my flight plan in action. I re-verified the weather conditions at Bay City, and updated my flight plan with the changing wind data. After the group of 3 lakes, I easily picked out other landmarks along the way. Bay City airport was difficult to spot. I learned that if you're coming in at right angles to the airstrip it's hard to spot. But when I did find it, I was nearly on top of it. The CFI was happy about that... so was I! That was a 55 nautical mile leg. Then I turned to Palacios. During that leg, the instructor said "Ok, let's assume you are completely lost and need to find out where you are. How do you do that?" I picked 3 VORs on the map to use to pinpoint my position. I really only needed 2, but the CFI wanted me to use 3. Two of the VORs pointed right to my position. The 3rd one from Schole's Field was at least 20 degrees off! WTH? The CFI double checked that one and he got the same thing. Can anyone explain that? I'd really like to know why that one was off. I guess that's why you need 3 VORs. So we made our way to Palacious and landed. It was only after landing and taxiing that it hit me - I did it! I successfully got us all the way over here. Very cool :) So we taxied over to take off again.
On the way back the CFI wanted me to call FSS to have them do flight following. One thing I am a bit concerned about for when I do this on my own, is how the heck am I going to understand them? I relied on the CFI to interpret what they were saying. It's one thing to learn what to say and when, but I can't even understand half of what they're saying on the radio. We requested flight following back to the airport. They came back and advised against it because of deteriorating weather conditions... Doh! CFI said to tell them understood, but we would request flight following anyway. We then requested weather info for Bay City. They said to stand by, and after 2-3 minutes we got tired of waiting and just went ahead and pulled up ASOS for Bay City on the radio. It was fine. We decided to land there and check out the radar at the FBO. This was actually turning out to be really good training because I'm learning what to do when weather fouls up your way home. We landed at Bay City and went to the FBO. There were some nice people there who showed us everything they had - which wasn't much. Just a radar of Texas and a few surrounding states. Not really good enough for determining weather conditions beyond Bay City. So we decided to try and make it to South West airport, which is a bit north of the route back to Pearland, and see how the rest of the route looked from there. I went a head and used my GPS for this impromptu route planning. On the way to South West I looked at the direction back home and it looked possibly rainy, but ok - no thunderstorms that way. So we re-routed again and headed back towards Pearland. All this was really good training I thought. When I make the solo xc I'll go during absolute blissful weather, but it's good to know what to do if things start looking bad. We actually made it all the way back to Pearland without even rain. By the time we got there it was sunny skies. I guess the storms moved off to the south.
When we landed the CFI asked if I thought I was ready to do that flight on my own. It was all pretty straight forward, so I said "Yeah, I can do it". He ok'd me to do it whenever I'm ready. I'll have to look at my budget to see when I can make it happen. I'm really excited to have this xc under my belt and am looking forward to the solo. I'm going on vacation for a week and a half in August and was wondering how much I had left to do for my license. It would be really pushing it to get it done by then and would probably blow my budget anyway.
By the way. As I write this, there are thunderstorms with lightning striking all around me, and the wind is really picking up. It's great to watch... when you're on the ground!
Here's the ground track:
I wanted to see if I could do it with just what I had in my lap. It was difficult, and I could not use pilotage skills on the flight simulator because there is no real-world scenery I can use in my area - I don't blame them, Houston is not a scenic place! But it would be nice if someone would develop some Houston area scenery for those of us who are marooned here and working towards our pilot's license. So anyway, I had to use dead reckoning on the flight sim. I found that I needed a decent lapboard, and airport diagrams with all the necessary frequency info in an easy to access form. Also, I was using flight planning forms where I had figured out course info, and right before my virtual flight, I had gathered all the virtual weather info and adjusted the resulting heading I needed to fly and ground speeds after wind was factored in. I found that these forms were a headache because the airplane's airspeed indicator is in mph and everything else is usually in knots. Plus during the flight weather conditions change so the adjustments to headings will have to be easily recomputed during the flight. So the flight sim was really useful for identifying what I needed to bring to the real flight.
The first thing I did was to make a flight planning spreadsheet, which I could upload to my cellphone. I made one which I must say is pretty versatile. I enter the calibrated airspeed from the aircraft in mph, and it computes the true-airspeed in knots with the altitude tweak built in. Then everything else is in knots. Before flight, or during, I enter the wind direction and speed, and it computes true heading etc. So it turned out pretty well. The only drawback is the cell-phone sized display, but it worked out alright.
So I got to the airport about an hour before and made some last minute preparations. Then the CFI got there and we talked about the plan. He seemed impressed at how prepared I was, especially with the airport diagrams and information sheets I had ready which I downloaded from AOPA. We looked at the weather situation, and decided to go to Palacios - a distance of 81 miles from the airport (something clicked in my head saying "yeah the weather's ok to Palacious, but how is it going to be on the way back? Then the thought was replaced by other concerns.) The weather decided to put a spin on things and the wind was blowing from the north for a change. So for only my 2nd time, I took off from runway 32. With full tanks of gas and two adults, the C150 slowly climbed to 2500' and I began my first leg to Bay City. There were a group of 3 small lakes that I picked on the map as landmarks, and I found them pretty easy. It was cool seeing my flight plan in action. I re-verified the weather conditions at Bay City, and updated my flight plan with the changing wind data. After the group of 3 lakes, I easily picked out other landmarks along the way. Bay City airport was difficult to spot. I learned that if you're coming in at right angles to the airstrip it's hard to spot. But when I did find it, I was nearly on top of it. The CFI was happy about that... so was I! That was a 55 nautical mile leg. Then I turned to Palacios. During that leg, the instructor said "Ok, let's assume you are completely lost and need to find out where you are. How do you do that?" I picked 3 VORs on the map to use to pinpoint my position. I really only needed 2, but the CFI wanted me to use 3. Two of the VORs pointed right to my position. The 3rd one from Schole's Field was at least 20 degrees off! WTH? The CFI double checked that one and he got the same thing. Can anyone explain that? I'd really like to know why that one was off. I guess that's why you need 3 VORs. So we made our way to Palacious and landed. It was only after landing and taxiing that it hit me - I did it! I successfully got us all the way over here. Very cool :) So we taxied over to take off again.
On the way back the CFI wanted me to call FSS to have them do flight following. One thing I am a bit concerned about for when I do this on my own, is how the heck am I going to understand them? I relied on the CFI to interpret what they were saying. It's one thing to learn what to say and when, but I can't even understand half of what they're saying on the radio. We requested flight following back to the airport. They came back and advised against it because of deteriorating weather conditions... Doh! CFI said to tell them understood, but we would request flight following anyway. We then requested weather info for Bay City. They said to stand by, and after 2-3 minutes we got tired of waiting and just went ahead and pulled up ASOS for Bay City on the radio. It was fine. We decided to land there and check out the radar at the FBO. This was actually turning out to be really good training because I'm learning what to do when weather fouls up your way home. We landed at Bay City and went to the FBO. There were some nice people there who showed us everything they had - which wasn't much. Just a radar of Texas and a few surrounding states. Not really good enough for determining weather conditions beyond Bay City. So we decided to try and make it to South West airport, which is a bit north of the route back to Pearland, and see how the rest of the route looked from there. I went a head and used my GPS for this impromptu route planning. On the way to South West I looked at the direction back home and it looked possibly rainy, but ok - no thunderstorms that way. So we re-routed again and headed back towards Pearland. All this was really good training I thought. When I make the solo xc I'll go during absolute blissful weather, but it's good to know what to do if things start looking bad. We actually made it all the way back to Pearland without even rain. By the time we got there it was sunny skies. I guess the storms moved off to the south.
When we landed the CFI asked if I thought I was ready to do that flight on my own. It was all pretty straight forward, so I said "Yeah, I can do it". He ok'd me to do it whenever I'm ready. I'll have to look at my budget to see when I can make it happen. I'm really excited to have this xc under my belt and am looking forward to the solo. I'm going on vacation for a week and a half in August and was wondering how much I had left to do for my license. It would be really pushing it to get it done by then and would probably blow my budget anyway.
By the way. As I write this, there are thunderstorms with lightning striking all around me, and the wind is really picking up. It's great to watch... when you're on the ground!
Here's the ground track:
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Solo practice and photos
I was planning on flying solo this morning, but I only had an hour scheduled, and someone else had the plane right after that. So I rescheduled for tomorrow morning. Then this afternoon I saw the weather was so nice (except for being too hot of course) that I had to go fly, and the plane was available all afternoon. So I went at about 4pm to fly. And here's some of the pictures I promised:
I started off with a touch & go. The visibility was so nice. It was mostly clear and little haze. After that I was going to go to the usual practice area and do some stalls, but noticed there were some cumulus clouds there and some rain. So I stayed to the SE where I flew up to 3500' and did some stalls. Technically there's not much to them, and I can do the maneuvers fine. But I feel uncomfortable doing them as the plane stops generating lift and begins the fall. It's not a big deal, but just something where I can think of more fun things to be doing. Then I practiced turns and maintaining altitude, and stopping the turn at a pre-determined heading.
All that went well. I familiarized myself with a few more features on my GPSMAP 96c. It does help with navigating around airspaces which are plentiful around here. Did I mention the visibility was great!? Visibility was listed on the metar as 10sm. But I could see one of the large hotel buildings on Galveston island from at least 25 miles away. Clear Lake and Galveston Bay looked beautiful, and there were tons of sail boats out there.
Here's the view towards Galveston island. As I was flying around, I heard a lot of traffic on the KLVJ frequency. Looks like others had the same idea to take advantage of the weather. Speaking of the weather, I noticed that it had started getting hazier west towards the airport. It was getting late, so I decided to start heading back. I saw Ellington airfield and remembered it's a Class C airspace and tried to stay south of it. With the sun ahead of me, it was hard to see very well on my GPS where I was in relation to the airspace. But I had a map with me, and was able to stay south of it.
No, I'm not doing a nose dive in this picture. Note the wings are in a slight bank to the left. This is a view of Kemah and Clear Lake behind it. (btw, Clear Lake is not in any way clear). I headed back to the airport and the busy pattern to do a couple of landings. There was a slight cross wind and I managed to land fine anyway. I took off again, and heard someone approaching the airspace from the south. I didn't hear how far out they were, but soon saw them approach the downwind leg before I got there. I had to do a slight maneuver and entered the pattern behind them. By the time I came around to land again, there was an even stronger crosswind. Looking at the windsock, it must have been almost 15 kts. Probably about a 10 kt crosswind component. I dipped the crosswind side of the plane and applied opposite rudder, and the landing was pretty good.
After I turned to taxi off the runway, I looked up and saw this picture. My jaw dropped. It was almost clear for most of the flight. I hadn't even noticed this thunderhead building just to the west of me. The weather forecast forecasted clear skies but ASOS did mention some lightning to the west. I snapped this picture and stowed the plane. As I was tying it down I saw lightning. It was only 2 miles away! These storms sure can barrel their way in quickly. It was a very enjoyable flight, but I'm glad I made it back when I did.
I started off with a touch & go. The visibility was so nice. It was mostly clear and little haze. After that I was going to go to the usual practice area and do some stalls, but noticed there were some cumulus clouds there and some rain. So I stayed to the SE where I flew up to 3500' and did some stalls. Technically there's not much to them, and I can do the maneuvers fine. But I feel uncomfortable doing them as the plane stops generating lift and begins the fall. It's not a big deal, but just something where I can think of more fun things to be doing. Then I practiced turns and maintaining altitude, and stopping the turn at a pre-determined heading.
All that went well. I familiarized myself with a few more features on my GPSMAP 96c. It does help with navigating around airspaces which are plentiful around here. Did I mention the visibility was great!? Visibility was listed on the metar as 10sm. But I could see one of the large hotel buildings on Galveston island from at least 25 miles away. Clear Lake and Galveston Bay looked beautiful, and there were tons of sail boats out there. 
Here's the view towards Galveston island. As I was flying around, I heard a lot of traffic on the KLVJ frequency. Looks like others had the same idea to take advantage of the weather. Speaking of the weather, I noticed that it had started getting hazier west towards the airport. It was getting late, so I decided to start heading back. I saw Ellington airfield and remembered it's a Class C airspace and tried to stay south of it. With the sun ahead of me, it was hard to see very well on my GPS where I was in relation to the airspace. But I had a map with me, and was able to stay south of it.
No, I'm not doing a nose dive in this picture. Note the wings are in a slight bank to the left. This is a view of Kemah and Clear Lake behind it. (btw, Clear Lake is not in any way clear). I headed back to the airport and the busy pattern to do a couple of landings. There was a slight cross wind and I managed to land fine anyway. I took off again, and heard someone approaching the airspace from the south. I didn't hear how far out they were, but soon saw them approach the downwind leg before I got there. I had to do a slight maneuver and entered the pattern behind them. By the time I came around to land again, there was an even stronger crosswind. Looking at the windsock, it must have been almost 15 kts. Probably about a 10 kt crosswind component. I dipped the crosswind side of the plane and applied opposite rudder, and the landing was pretty good.
After I turned to taxi off the runway, I looked up and saw this picture. My jaw dropped. It was almost clear for most of the flight. I hadn't even noticed this thunderhead building just to the west of me. The weather forecast forecasted clear skies but ASOS did mention some lightning to the west. I snapped this picture and stowed the plane. As I was tying it down I saw lightning. It was only 2 miles away! These storms sure can barrel their way in quickly. It was a very enjoyable flight, but I'm glad I made it back when I did.
Sometimes you just gotta fly!
Some people say he's crazy, but it sounds like he planned his trip well. Way to get up there Kent Couch!
Aero-News.Net
I saw that Aero-News.Net did a write-up about my blog. Thanks guys, and welcome Aero-News.Net readers :)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Navigating clear skies
The rain finally seems to be over for a while. We had a clear sky with a few scattered clouds. I could actually see where I was going this time. And speaking of going somewhere, we started working on navigation today. It was a blast. After some stall practice at 3500', we headed from Wolfe field over towards Smith Point on the other side of Galveston Bay about 30 miles away. I had been using the VOR in my flight simulator at home, and it certainly helped when using the real thing. I had to hold an altitude of 1500' and a heading of 77 degrees. It became much easier once I had my trim set and found a point to aim to once the plane was pointed in the right direction. Which was good, because the trip over there was quite scenic. (I must remember to take pictures next time.) We flew over Galveston Bay which is a busy shipping lane into Houston. I was just taking in all the sights.
We got to Smith Point and I did see that little VOR which was making all the racket. I circled around it until I could get my nav configured for the flight to Schole's Field in Galveston. This was a Class D airport - my first controlled airport since my earlier flying days. I called in on the way over there and got an acknowledgment. I told them I wanted to do a touch and go but they said the pattern was too full and that I could do a full stop, come around and then take off again. Then they directed me to the base of runway 17. Apparently I have better eyes than my CFI because I saw the airport about 3 minutes before he did.
My mom came to visit last weekend and had seen me practicing landings at Schole's Field on my simulator. Galveston Island is basically a narrow strip of land that hugs the Texas coast. The airport is a large airport and takes up over half the width of the island. She saw me approaching the runway with water all around and got all excited. "One screw up and you'll land in the ocean!" "Mom... I just have to get down to the runway. If I can't land on the runway then I'm going to have difficulties no matter which airport I go to." Mothers... lol!
I asked the CFI if I was supposed to come into the downwind leg at a 45 degree angle like I was used to in my other pattern work. He said no, they said to fly right into base. So I did and radio'd my position as I did. The CFI said I didn't have to announce my position on final though - which is good because I have enough on my hands at that point. We made a good landing other than being left of center (and I managed to stay out of the ocean even!), and then the Tower said to go ahead and do a 180 back to the start of the runway and take off. I got about 200 yards from the foot & my CFI said that's good enough. So I turned around and prepared to take off. Tower called and said my Cessna didn't have enough room and to go back to the start of the runway LOL - would you two make up your mind?! So I went back to the start, turned around, and started to throttle up. CFI stopped me and said to tell them I'm ready. Doh! "Galveston, Cessna 593 ready to take off." "Cessna 593 you are cleared to take of." Thinking back, I knew the procedure because I read it. I need to put that into real world knowledge.
So we took off with a view of the ocean before us and waves crashing on the beaches to the right & left of us, entered a right hand pattern to exit, set up my nav equipment for a VOR heading of 330 away from Schole's Field, and flew to that heading. The VOR didn't seen to be responding at all. CFI said this can't be right. I double checked the map, and he looked at it too. Then he realized it should have been a heading of 300. Doh again! I had slapped together a flight plan with the wrong heading. So I corrected myself and we went looking for the 300 degree line from the VOR and flew back home.
There were significant crosswinds this time, so landing was a little sloppy. He had me go around again, and it was better that time. These things will take practice, which I need to do in my solo time.
We went over the trip back at the clubhouse and talked about what's coming next. Thursday I will solo again, and then sometime next week we will go on a cross country flight to Lake Livingston :) I had been camping there before, and it takes a while to drive there. It will be interesting flying there this time. Then after that comes the solo cross country. This is all so fun. I can't wait for more.
We got to Smith Point and I did see that little VOR which was making all the racket. I circled around it until I could get my nav configured for the flight to Schole's Field in Galveston. This was a Class D airport - my first controlled airport since my earlier flying days. I called in on the way over there and got an acknowledgment. I told them I wanted to do a touch and go but they said the pattern was too full and that I could do a full stop, come around and then take off again. Then they directed me to the base of runway 17. Apparently I have better eyes than my CFI because I saw the airport about 3 minutes before he did.
My mom came to visit last weekend and had seen me practicing landings at Schole's Field on my simulator. Galveston Island is basically a narrow strip of land that hugs the Texas coast. The airport is a large airport and takes up over half the width of the island. She saw me approaching the runway with water all around and got all excited. "One screw up and you'll land in the ocean!" "Mom... I just have to get down to the runway. If I can't land on the runway then I'm going to have difficulties no matter which airport I go to." Mothers... lol!
I asked the CFI if I was supposed to come into the downwind leg at a 45 degree angle like I was used to in my other pattern work. He said no, they said to fly right into base. So I did and radio'd my position as I did. The CFI said I didn't have to announce my position on final though - which is good because I have enough on my hands at that point. We made a good landing other than being left of center (and I managed to stay out of the ocean even!), and then the Tower said to go ahead and do a 180 back to the start of the runway and take off. I got about 200 yards from the foot & my CFI said that's good enough. So I turned around and prepared to take off. Tower called and said my Cessna didn't have enough room and to go back to the start of the runway LOL - would you two make up your mind?! So I went back to the start, turned around, and started to throttle up. CFI stopped me and said to tell them I'm ready. Doh! "Galveston, Cessna 593 ready to take off." "Cessna 593 you are cleared to take of." Thinking back, I knew the procedure because I read it. I need to put that into real world knowledge.
So we took off with a view of the ocean before us and waves crashing on the beaches to the right & left of us, entered a right hand pattern to exit, set up my nav equipment for a VOR heading of 330 away from Schole's Field, and flew to that heading. The VOR didn't seen to be responding at all. CFI said this can't be right. I double checked the map, and he looked at it too. Then he realized it should have been a heading of 300. Doh again! I had slapped together a flight plan with the wrong heading. So I corrected myself and we went looking for the 300 degree line from the VOR and flew back home.
There were significant crosswinds this time, so landing was a little sloppy. He had me go around again, and it was better that time. These things will take practice, which I need to do in my solo time.
We went over the trip back at the clubhouse and talked about what's coming next. Thursday I will solo again, and then sometime next week we will go on a cross country flight to Lake Livingston :) I had been camping there before, and it takes a while to drive there. It will be interesting flying there this time. Then after that comes the solo cross country. This is all so fun. I can't wait for more.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
On my own
Today I was scheduled to go up with the CFI to work on more ground reference maneuvers, which the CFI wanted me to go over again because there weren't much winds the last time I did them. The weather today was cloudy at about 1500-2000 ft and no winds. I called the CFI and said the weather didn't look good for any of the maneuvers we planned on doing. He agreed, but thought it was still a good opportunity for me to go solo and get more practice with the plane on my own. I was happy to do that.
I also mentioned that I had been going over a bunch of material on navigation. Yesterday I learned to use a flight computer, and solve navigation problems with it. I also told him I was working on my flight simulator to practice maneuvers, landings, radio, and navigation equipment. He seemed impressed and said that even rudimentary simulators have helped his students out a lot when they started learning about the navigation equipment. So I suggested that since we've been having a lot of low wind days that perhaps we could move on to cross country in the meantime and when a day came up with winds we would concentrate on ground reference maneuvers. He agreed. So it looks like next tuesday I will start with that :)
Now for today... I eagerly went to the airport over a long lunch break. The first solo flight is exciting, but the instructor is still with you in the plane for most of that lesson, and on the radio watching from the ground for your solo part. Today I am really on my own. I check the winds at the airport, and call the local ASOS for the weather report. Pre-flight the plane (the C-150 today). Power everything up, taxi out to the runway, do the pre-flight check list and take off... all on my own. I felt relaxed though and excited, even though the weather was crap - again. I'm not going to know what to do with myself when we get some clear skies!
So I'm up in the air now... now what? Where do I go? I had planned on going out to the usual practice area and practice my ground reference maneuvers, but instead I thought "Why not do the obligatory buzz-my-house maneuver" instead? I used my new GPSMAP 96C to navigate over to my house. I couldn't believe how fast I got there! It's normally about a 20 minute trip to the airport. But in the air it's only about 5 minutes due to traveling about twice the speed and no traffic - or traffic lights for that matter. Seriously... I am sick of traffic, traffic lights and speed limits! I just got a ticket the other day for going 48 in a 30. But not now. Now I am in a plane and if you go 30 you fall out of the sky. So I press on at 85-90. In the sky the only speed limit is Vne. So I fly over to my house, call my wife on the cell phone and say "Come out and look!". I see her and my 3 kids come out on the driveway and wave. I wave the wings and fly on. I do find a field though were I can fly ground reference maneuvers. The tricky part about them for me at this point, is maintaining my altitude while I circle around. I will have to work on that in upcoming solo flights. While flying over the field, I notice some other birds (seagulls I think) flying at about the same area at the same altitude I am. This concerns me. I hope they are watching out for me.
Then I fly back up north to the airport, and find it pretty easily. I do 2 touch & gos and a full stop landing. Put the plane away, secure it, file the paper work. It felt great to take the plane out for a spin today, and as always I look forward to the next time.
I also mentioned that I had been going over a bunch of material on navigation. Yesterday I learned to use a flight computer, and solve navigation problems with it. I also told him I was working on my flight simulator to practice maneuvers, landings, radio, and navigation equipment. He seemed impressed and said that even rudimentary simulators have helped his students out a lot when they started learning about the navigation equipment. So I suggested that since we've been having a lot of low wind days that perhaps we could move on to cross country in the meantime and when a day came up with winds we would concentrate on ground reference maneuvers. He agreed. So it looks like next tuesday I will start with that :)
Now for today... I eagerly went to the airport over a long lunch break. The first solo flight is exciting, but the instructor is still with you in the plane for most of that lesson, and on the radio watching from the ground for your solo part. Today I am really on my own. I check the winds at the airport, and call the local ASOS for the weather report. Pre-flight the plane (the C-150 today). Power everything up, taxi out to the runway, do the pre-flight check list and take off... all on my own. I felt relaxed though and excited, even though the weather was crap - again. I'm not going to know what to do with myself when we get some clear skies!
So I'm up in the air now... now what? Where do I go? I had planned on going out to the usual practice area and practice my ground reference maneuvers, but instead I thought "Why not do the obligatory buzz-my-house maneuver" instead? I used my new GPSMAP 96C to navigate over to my house. I couldn't believe how fast I got there! It's normally about a 20 minute trip to the airport. But in the air it's only about 5 minutes due to traveling about twice the speed and no traffic - or traffic lights for that matter. Seriously... I am sick of traffic, traffic lights and speed limits! I just got a ticket the other day for going 48 in a 30. But not now. Now I am in a plane and if you go 30 you fall out of the sky. So I press on at 85-90. In the sky the only speed limit is Vne. So I fly over to my house, call my wife on the cell phone and say "Come out and look!". I see her and my 3 kids come out on the driveway and wave. I wave the wings and fly on. I do find a field though were I can fly ground reference maneuvers. The tricky part about them for me at this point, is maintaining my altitude while I circle around. I will have to work on that in upcoming solo flights. While flying over the field, I notice some other birds (seagulls I think) flying at about the same area at the same altitude I am. This concerns me. I hope they are watching out for me.
Then I fly back up north to the airport, and find it pretty easily. I do 2 touch & gos and a full stop landing. Put the plane away, secure it, file the paper work. It felt great to take the plane out for a spin today, and as always I look forward to the next time.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
The Cessna 150
My plan for today was to get certified on the Cessna 150. I thought it might be a stretch to get both of us in the plane with only 400 lbs of weight for him and me, but I wanted to at least get certified so I could do my solos in the C150 which would be cheaper than the 172. I woke up to lots of rainy weather today, and the CFI called to tell me the bad news. This was not flying weather. I agreed. So I started looking at when I could do my next lesson, and checked the weather. I saw that today, afternoon, the rain would stop, the winds would be non existant, and the visibility & cloud ceiling would be improving. So called him back and we were back on for today - just a couple hours later than planned.
Before flight I had to fill out the airplane quiz on the V-speeds and other information about the plane. Then we got going. Now that I saw the C150 up close, I saw that it was in better condition than I thought it was. We started off doing a couple of landings. I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but it landed very nicely. Then we did the turn maneuvers again for the C150 checkout. And then the CFI cut off the power. I was about 1000 ft up. I set the proper glide slope and looked for a place to land. There were no obvious straight strip of road I could use, so I looked for a nice grass field and found one back behind my left shoulder. I did a 180 and lined up for a landing on a strip of grass that probably would have made a pretty good short grass runway. I was high though and after adding full flaps, decided my only option was to do a slip to drop some altitude. This is where you dip one wing and apply opposite rudder to crab the plane and drop altitude without increasing your airspeed. I had only read about them and hadn't done one, at least not successfully, before. This time it worked very well and 20 ft above ground CFI was happy with my almost-emergency-landing, so I pushed the throttle back to full and ascended again. I found my way back to the air port. We did some more landings and then the instructor told me to stop and let him out. So I was going to get certified in the C150 today then :) I breezed past my 3 landings and I was done. Again, I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but I really liked it. I told the CFI since the plane seems to handle us ok, that I would like to do the rest of my lessons in the C150.
He said he would like to do another lesson on the good ol' ground reference point maneuvers again (if we ever get some significant winds), and then I would start my solo practices. Then after that would be the cross country flights. I am really looking forward to those because it will take me beyond where I have been in my lessons from before when I first started flying. Then I'll feel like I truly am back on track for my private pilot's license. My next lesson is next thursday. I am hoping for some winds! (But not too much ;) lol)
Before flight I had to fill out the airplane quiz on the V-speeds and other information about the plane. Then we got going. Now that I saw the C150 up close, I saw that it was in better condition than I thought it was. We started off doing a couple of landings. I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but it landed very nicely. Then we did the turn maneuvers again for the C150 checkout. And then the CFI cut off the power. I was about 1000 ft up. I set the proper glide slope and looked for a place to land. There were no obvious straight strip of road I could use, so I looked for a nice grass field and found one back behind my left shoulder. I did a 180 and lined up for a landing on a strip of grass that probably would have made a pretty good short grass runway. I was high though and after adding full flaps, decided my only option was to do a slip to drop some altitude. This is where you dip one wing and apply opposite rudder to crab the plane and drop altitude without increasing your airspeed. I had only read about them and hadn't done one, at least not successfully, before. This time it worked very well and 20 ft above ground CFI was happy with my almost-emergency-landing, so I pushed the throttle back to full and ascended again. I found my way back to the air port. We did some more landings and then the instructor told me to stop and let him out. So I was going to get certified in the C150 today then :) I breezed past my 3 landings and I was done. Again, I don't know if it was the still air, or the plane, but I really liked it. I told the CFI since the plane seems to handle us ok, that I would like to do the rest of my lessons in the C150.
He said he would like to do another lesson on the good ol' ground reference point maneuvers again (if we ever get some significant winds), and then I would start my solo practices. Then after that would be the cross country flights. I am really looking forward to those because it will take me beyond where I have been in my lessons from before when I first started flying. Then I'll feel like I truly am back on track for my private pilot's license. My next lesson is next thursday. I am hoping for some winds! (But not too much ;) lol)
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