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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.

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.

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)

Ahhh that's better

Today's weather was pretty nice. The air was clearer for the first time, and the winds were only 4-5 knots 40 degrees left of the runway. We practiced landings some more. They went fine. Then we flew over to Wolf airfield, which is a grass strip, and landed, stopped and took off. Grass strips are fun :)

I found my way back to the airfield, and entered the pattern. I had some traffic today... there were 3 other planes in the pattern with me. We did a couple more landings and then the CFI asked me if I wanted to do a couple of landings solo. Wanting to redeem myself, I said yes. I know what I did wrong tuesday when I soloed. After studying short field landing procedures, I had them stuck in my head. So that's why I came in steep and slow. So I went around the pattern again (traffic and all) and the first landing was pretty good, and the second landing was great! I taxied over to the parking area and let out a WOOOOO!!!! That felt more like what my solo should have been.

I have next tuesday & thursday scheduled on the plane, but I've been bumped for it's annual maintenance. I asked the CFI if I could get checked off in the Cessna 150 so I could use that for solos for a cheaper rate. So I might do that next.

BTW... to update what happened yesterday, I ordered a CH Products Flight Yoke, and rudder peddles from New Egg. I eagerly went home after work yesterday to plug them in and try it on my simulator. I was very P.O.'d to see that New Egg only shipped the flight yoke. They charged me for both and only sent the yoke. I called and they said they were out of stock on the rudder peddles. Gee thanks for telling me. They refunded the money for that, and I went to Fry's to get Saitek rudder peddles there.

So anyway... After configuring all the aircraft controls for the yoke and rudder peddles it worked very well. All the jittering I experienced from my crappy joystick were gone. And using a yoke & rudder is a much more realistic way to interface with the sim. I was able to duplicate the weather conditions during my last solo and virtually fly at the same airport and practice over and over again. The one thing missing that I desperately need is a Track IR head tracking system. This is a relatively cheap way to track your head movements so when I'm flying in the pattern, I can turn my head to look at the runway without having to clumsily use keys to look around. (No, I don't need to turn my head 90 degrees - the head motion is scaled so you turn your head say 20 degrees left, and the view on the monitor rotates 90. This way you can still see the monitor while turning your head). Or if the strut between the front & left windows are in the way on base, I can just move my head to see the airport rather than turning the plane. See this video for a demonstration.

Can you tell I'm a gadget freak? :-b Actually I work on simulators for a living and appreciate the value of being able to try things out or build proficiency in the safety of a good simulator. And compared to the cost of renting a plane and gas these days it's actually a cost effective way to train.

Solo already??!

The last few days have been busy. Over the weekend I've been doing lots of reading. Yesterday I got my Class III medical, and gave it to my instructor this morning. The weather was clear except for a few scattered low clouds. We went out and did pre-flight and saw only 5 gallons in each wing. So I learned how to fill er up. Today there was some wind, so I practiced maneuvering around a point on the ground - something the CFI has mentioned wanting to do every time we met. We also did some instrument flying. I did pretty well at that, since I tend to over use the instruments anyway.

Then we entered the pattern of another local airstrip. I think this is one of those lessons I've read about in other blogs where you take a step or two backwards. There was a crosswind at this airport, and I ended up coming in steep and slow. But the landing was ok. The approach made me nervous because I'm coming in steep at low airspeed. To raise your airspeed you need to drop the nose down. But I'm already coming in steep, and close to the ground. My brain is going - Does not compute! We landed again for good measure. I explained because of the crosswind, I was trying to crab it a little. He reminded me not to do that with the flaps. Oh yeah... I did read that. There is a lot to absorb.

He asked if I could find my way back to our airport. I had a vague idea which direction I was from the airport, so I was able to get back into the general area. We got into the pattern and landed. The CFI told me to stop. I asked if the time was up. He said "no, you're going to try some landings by yourself". What??! I knew he said it was coming quickly but I really did not expect that today. Not with the winds being the way they were. But so far I've been doing ok. So he got out, and I took off. The first landing was a little short, but was ok. The 2nd and 3rd landings, I was having that same problem I was having before... too steep and too slow. They were ugly landings. I bounced the plane a few times. Ugh! CFI liked my first landing and suggested more speed and aim further down the runway. Usually I land just fine. But those last 2 landings took away from the thrill of my first solo in 19 years. As I found out later, there was a 14 knot wind 30 degrees off the runway. Not really ideal. Also, I think if I learn to aim for a point further up on the runway, and not so much flaps, I'll do better.

CFI & I will go flying again thursday to work on getting to know the area better, and then I'll go solo next week again.

Ground work

I've got the blues today. After flying for 2 days, I've been on the ground for 2 days and I miss it! Oh well... I used the time to start preparing for my FAA written exam. CFI gave me some homework, which was to read ch2 of the Gleim Private Pilot exam book: Aircraft Systems. I had a bit of learning to do in that section.

Last night I tried to practice some of the maneuvers on my flight simulator. It was very erratic. I have a typical joystick. It's ok for gaming sims of fast planes, but for accurate simming of a real plane like the C172, it sucks. As I moved it and twisted it (for rudder control) for smooth precision maneuvers the scene would shake around violently. I was really disappointed, because it would really be nice to practice everything I'm learning at home on my desktop away from my CFI at my leisure without aircraft & instructor rental, and then put it into practice in the air. So today I ordered a yoke & rudder from CH products. From the reviews I've read these 2 items make all the difference in the world. I will let you know how they turn out when they arrive next week.