We go Up, We go Down, We go Up, We go Down......
I woke up this morning to a perfect flying day. AWOS was saying calm and 12 miles visibility (I don't think LUG's AWOS will go any higher than that). But, for such a perfect day, wouldn't you know it, my 6 year old woke up throwing up her toenails (and everything else). Most of the time, this wouldn't be an issue. My wife would simply take care of the situation and the flight would be on.
Well, you see, herein lies the problem. My wife (along with several of my friends' and relatives' wives) is one of these "Day After Thanksgiving Shoppers". I'm not talking about a group of women that decide to go browse the deals at the local mall. No, no. Your thinking way too small. Our group of gals starts planning for "T-day" MONTHS in advance. Then they spend all Thanksgiving afternoon flipping through sales bills and ads to determine the best plan of attack. They carb up, go to bed early and are out the door by 3:30am. Yep, you read that right...3:30 AM...as in "in the morning". They shop with a mission and God help any poor soul that might hinder their progress. You ever see Female Meercats on the Discovery Channel? How they can tear apart animals three times their size? .......... Wusses.
So, now that you know that, you understand this mornings predicament. After a few calls, I am able to swap flight times with my brother (have I mentioned he's working on his ticket as well?) so that rather than an 8:00 lesson, I'm on for 11:30ish. I work out a sitter for my kids (Thanks Mom!) and set out for the wild blue yonder.
(Meanwhile, back at the mall, Momma has learned that I would rather fly than clean up vomit.....I'm sure I'll get to post on that later.....with my good hand.)
Seriously, all was well, and after thinking that I was going to have to cancel, I got it all worked out and was able to come off looking like a caring dad that was only going through with this lesson to help out my poor, broke CFI that needed the money. :)
I arrived at LUG just as Kary and my brother (Scott) were returning from a flight into a local Class D airport and they dropped by our Dad's grass strip on the way back. Seemed to have a good flight and I think Scott enjoyed rubbing it in that he has seen what flying looks like from outside the pattern.
I preflight the plane, hop in, start up, call in on CTAF and start taxiing to runway 2 and then it hits me.....I just did all that without "thinking" about any of it. I'm starting to "get" this. What started out as a lot of stuff to learn has almost become common. I know I have loads to go, but hey, if you want to taxi around LUG with little fear of dying....I'm your man.
As we took the runway, I made a concious effort to "think" rudder. I've not had too much trouble with takeoff's as far as rudder goes. I'm still a little wiggly as I'm trying to learn how much I need and when, but for the most part it's there. We climb out and turn crosswind and lo and behold.....THE BALL IS CENTERED!!!! What the crap is going on here? I glance at Kary's feet, I look at the ball, I glance at my feet, I look at the ball, I give Kary a half smile, half smirk and sit upright with a full chest when he does it......"rudder" he says. DANGIT!!! I was there, I swear. There was a moment, albeit short, but there WAS a moment that the ball was between the little black lines. Oh well, thats a start.
The first circuit was a bit ugly. I was so intent on "thinking" rudder, I wasn't "feeling" the rudder. I also caught myself with a death grip on the yoke. So, by occasionally releasing my grip just to relax and to stop fighting the plane, I was able to cause much less problems for myself than I did last time. It's starting to click. We spent the entire lesson in and around the pattern doing Touch and Goes. We did exit the pattern a couple of times just enough to re-enter it. This gave me the chance to see things looking different than the normal rectangle of flying the pattern only.
Now, I'm going to gloat. In the course of the lesson, we did 8 landings. None of them would have caused major injury to pregnant women or patients with back injuries. In fact, one of them was "perfect". I can't tell you how I did it :), but it was nice to actually hear the tires squeak and not feel the thud in your butt.
One thing that I figured out between lessons was that I was carrying way too much speed into the flare. Kary was telling me this all along (He's kind of a know-it-all), but until I figured out what that meant and what that was doing to my landings, I didn't see it. So, today I told Kary at the beginning that I wanted to tighten up the amount of error he/I was allowing on the speed. If I need to be at 70, then 73 isn't good enough. And WOW what a difference that made. We had a small quartering crosswind that was pushing us very slightly (no real correction required), but once I started rounding out, it was a different world if I had my speed right. It was almost easy. But for the few that I was hot on, they were fixable, but nothing like "doing it right". I might need to start listening to Kary more often. I think he's done this before.
Eight landings in the books, some ok, some not so ok, one beautiful :). We taxi back, shutdown and we're done. Great lesson. More of the same, but even more needed.
Things I've noticed that I still need to work on---and no, Kary, this isn't an all inclusive list :) :
- Getting down out of Pattern Altitude sooner. I tend to be waaay high when turning final. It allows me the luxery of doing some way-cool slips, but I probably should fix it earlier in the process.
- Fast Taxing. I like to wiggle on the runway while cleaning up the airplane for the next go. Gotta get that right.
- Centerline. I guess since they went to the trouble of painting it all the way down the runway, I might as well use it.
- What was that last thing?....hrm.....oh yea! rudder.
jf
-Prologue:
I started this "blog" as a journal when I was starting my lessons a few months back. The main reason for it was so that I could review the lesson in my head as I typed what I had been through. After my first couple of entries, it was suggested that I setup a blog site, which, obviously, I did. And I'm glad I have, because the response has been tremendous. Thanks to everyone out there for stopping by and for the words of encouragement. I have at least 15 other student pilots reading this as they go through their training as well. I hope that it shows that we all suck and that we all are doing great. Please drop me a note by clicking on the comments at the bottom to let me know you were here!
jf
Landings---Not Just Part of a River
Lesson #6 started out quite well. I got a slightly later start than I wanted due to the fact that 51F was buried in the hangar behind several other planes. I meant to call last night to let them know we’d be there this morning, but forgot. I figured if I called ahead, they could stack the planes with our trusty 172 up front. But, no big deal. By waiting, I had time to start the preflight and then finished it up while they pre-heated the engine.
Out on the ramp, we buckled up, ran the pre-startup checklist and away we went with a basic run-up, and takeoff. I was attempting to consciously use the rudders better, but, alas, no. I don’t seem to have a problem in the “big” moments of rudder use (Take-off, go arounds, etc.). During those I feel like I come in with plenty, albeit a little late sometimes, but it is there.
Now, I will say (from my seat, Kary’s mileage may vary) that I did BETTER today with the rudder, but I’m a long way from where I need to be. What’s interesting to me is that if I go on “feel” alone, I’ll almost always be half a bubble out of coordinated flight. I can get it that close without looking, but once it’s there, I think I’ve got it….until my headset is lit up with the glorious sound of Kary’s voice saying “rudder”. I think it’s a fetish with him.
We did a couple of “normal” Touch&Go’s followed by a full-stop. After that we taxied back to runway 2 for a mix of soft field takeoff’s & landing. The landing was interesting in that as we touched down, we had to add just enough power to stop the decent so that we “kissed” the ground with the mains. Then we actually held the power in just enough to hold the nose wheel off the ground as long as possible. It was pretty neat and a good exercise for my feet.
We managed a couple of engine outs at the downwind/base turn. During the first one, I was well coached from the right seat. But the second was mostly me and, well, lets just say that a miracle of God started the engine up again on short final…..but just for a second. I guess if we’re truly going to prepare for all circumstances, we need to not only simulate emergencies, but we need to be prepared to accept divine intervention at the last moment :)
The weather today was great. It was in the low 40’s by the time we were going good and the wind was dead calm. But between my club feet and my white-knuckling the control yoke, you woulda thought that we had July thermals up there. You know your screwing it up when your CFI asks if there are barf bags on board and keeps saying things like “man it sure is hot in here”.
My landings today differed from last weeks in that I never really bounced one in. Today I had the problem of coming in a little hot and not bleeding the airspeed off, so I would balloon up and have to adjust for it. Again, I think it’s about learning to judge it with my butt. During one landing, Kary was quick to compliment me on recovering from a balloon correctly, but, he did inject that I could/should have added a touch of power to stabilize the landing when I ballooned. Funny, I know that this is expected (it’s in all the manuals, magazines, videos, etc), but the thought never occurred to me to bump the power at that point. Gotta keep that in mind.
I also executed my first official go-around today. On what was probably my best approach yet, Kary says something to the effect of “I see a deer on the runway, go around”. So I add full power, carb heat in and up we go…..and oh my gosh. You see there is this thing called elevator trim that really helps take the pressure off the control yoke while your flying. Well, on my approach I had put in a little too much back trim, so I was pushing jussstttt a littttlle on the yoke as we crossed the threshold. Now, suddenly I have to add full power to about 15 degrees of flaps and all that nose up trim…..YEEHA! My left arm is still sore from the amount of pressure I had to put on that yoke to keep the nose from flying up in the air. Note to self: Nose down trim is your friend.
On the last circuit, Kary said that he wasn’t going to say a word. The plan was for me to fly it “alone”. Actually, I think I figured out more on this one circuit than I have in the last 2 hours. I guess it’s a mental thing of knowing that I’m supposed to have (or create) the answer rather than expecting my instructor to tell it to me, or affirm that I’m doing the right thing. Now, I knew that he wasn’t going to let me do anything too stupid, but still, the idea was for me to figure it out on my own. In fact, I even told him on downwind that I felt like I had left something out. Kary just commented that it all looked good. Oh well, this flying thing aint’ so tough :) . I turned base, final and made an “acceptable” landing.
(I think the moral of the story is that if Kary would just shut-up, I’d be done with my training already……)
(Just joking Kary…..seriously……..sir)
After our last circuit, we taxied back and shutdown. 1.1 hours of sheer frustration and total exhilaration. Kary and I debrief a bit and then he asks if I think I’d be ready to solo in a couple more hours.........HOLY CRAP!!!! IS THIS MAN INSANE?!?!?! WAS HE NOT IN THE PLANE WITH ME JUST MINUTES AGO!??!??!
So, I say “sure”.
Kary was quick to point out that he was in no way rushing me to solo, but what the question did for me was make me realize that I was making progress. Now, I may not actually be ready to solo in 2 hours, it may be 10, but knowing that the thought is crossing his mind helps me realize that, bounced landings and all, I’m better today than I was last week. And that’s cool.
It was a good lesson. One other thing that I noticed was that most of the talking points that Kary had during our debrief were items that I had also noticed during the flight. Things like overcontrolling and causing the plane to have a less than smooth ride, still not centering the friggen ball ALL the time, etc.
So, hopefully that’s a sign that I’m picking up on some of the important stuff that I'm doing wrong and not just noting that cows look like ants from 2000ft.
jf
Let's talk about.....
Rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder..
....rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder..
..rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder..
.......rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder..
...rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder..
........rudder…..rudder…..rudder…..rudder….rudder
Today, I’d like to start off by talking about that pesky little flappy thing that is attached to the back of the vertical stabilizer, the bane of my existence, the thorn in my side, the Rhett to my Scarlet….yes, we’re talking about the rudder. Personally, I think it’s waaay over used and it’s importance is the subject of much hyperbole. Therefore, I have set out on a quest to ban, if not outlaw its use. I mean if the FAA *MAKES* me use it, then isn’t the government violating the First Amendment’s ban on establishment of a preferential control surface? After all, if we show partiality to coordinated flight, won’t uncoordinated flight become jealous?....So, I’m starting my own organization Pilots Against Rudder (PAR). I’m on mission. We can even have a flyin every year and the whole aviation community can come to my back yard and poor money into my pockets. You can call me "Jefferezny". Only Ercoupes and high dihedral airplanes allowed. Just a thought…..I’m sure the ACLU would spend money helping me…..Sorry.....on to the lesson.
We got off to a decent start today. I got there on time, forgot my keys (again), but with the backup set grabbed, we were good to go. I preflighted without missing anything worth Kary stopping me for. We ran the checklists again, started up (with a little cool weather coaxing) and we’re off. The main goal for today was take-offs and landings, so we taxi on out, and off we go. Did I mention I had to use the rudder during this part?
During the hour, we were able to get in about 6 or 7 take-offs and landings, some were touch-n-goes, some were full stop. All were a bit different than the last and I found myself actually getting comfortable with the idea of putting this thing on the ground.
The first couple of circuits were just normal T&G’s with me still trying to figure out this low, slow, nose in the air, high power, rudder combination. I finally figured out that my tendency was to try to push left rudder when I was turning left crosswind and left downwind. The problem with this is that we’re still at full throttle and 75ish, so we’ve got our nose stuck up in the air pretty good and the left turning tendencies are still very much evident at this point. So, left rudder isn’t required….just LESS right rudder than I’d been holding since we started rolling. Now, I figured this out on my own, so you’d think I’d be able to apply it on my own. Again, no. Seems every turn from crosswind to downwind came with a swooshing high-speed gust of wind that made the plane rock like a babies crib and the tail swoosh around (Kary said it was my feet….but I don’t think he was paying attention to the microbursts that I was seeing).
ARGH! I will get the hang of this!!!….I have to break the thought that left aileron always equals left rudder (and visa versa). They are 2 independent controls that should be used independently. Now, usually when you move one, you’ll move the other. But there is no fixed ratio that says “move the aileron X and the rudder will have to be moved Y”. It’s all about feel, and as Kary says “you push it “enough””. My calculator doesn’t have a button for “feel” or “enough”, so I have to make myself stop “thinking” about what I’m doing and just do it. Sounds easy…doesn’t it?
Rudders aside, we worked on soft and short field takeoff’s and soft-field landings. As I figured out during my last lesson, this whole flying thing is about understanding how much input is needed to get the desired result. Just like being 15 and learning how to judge how far you are from the white line on the highway, flying this plane is about how pulling a little on the yoke does this or pushing does that.
During a couple of my landings, Kary noted that I kept wanting to flare too high. I’m still working on judging my altitude over the runway, so left to my own devices, I probably would have flared too high. But, honestly, in both of these cases I didn’t MEAN to flare that high, I just eased back too hard on the yoke. If someone could invent a real-life VCR that would let you rewind to short final after every landing, you could get your license in an afternoon :)
If I could sum up my experience so far, it has been GREAT. Early on frustration came from not knowing when to do what or IF I was supposed to do something at all. For instance, I’m just now becoming comfortable with the idea that *I* have control over the throttle in the plane. Sounds funny, because Kary has always made me do it, but from the first lesson I was just the marionette to Kary’s puppet master. He'd tell me to add power, so I added power. The thing I’m starting to really enjoy is the strings are starting to be cut and some of the control falls on me.
A good example of this was today as we were turning from downwind to base during one circuit, I added a tad bit of power just to see what the plane would do and how it affected my speed and descent (I needed my nose down to stop my deceleration, but I didn’t want to dive at the ground). Of course, I was high when everything came together at the numbers, but hey….I figured out that it’s NOT what I need to do again. It makes it much more enjoyable (and I learn much more) when I’m not scared to touch things and if I have some idea of what I can do and not do without bending anything. I have to respect the fact that we’re 1000 ft in the air (or 10 ft), but can’t be afraid of the famous last words….”Hey, what’s this button do?”.
By the way, did I mention I need to work on my rudders?
jf
#4 and still alive!
Trying to keep work from interfering with my flying has become more and more difficult. Even my weekend appointments have gotten messed up with work related stuff.....so when I had a chance to get in the air this morning, I jumped at it. The ceiling was about 4500 overcast and we had a little wind (5 mph or so) quartering rwy 20. So, I figured what the heck. Let's get it going.
Preflight - You know...you do something enough times, it starts to make sense. The preflight has become less of a mental checklist of things to do and more of an look-over of the things I feel I need to check. What I mean is that the flow of the preflight is starting to make sense. I'm not checking things now just to mark them off the list, but because I know that I need/want to check them. It's a small, but important milestone.
Up until this point, I've felt that overwhelming sensation of "I'll never get this right". Now, by understanding the preflight, no matter how small that may seem, I have realized that it's just a matter of doing it "enough". Preflight "enough" and it gets easy, taxi "enough" and it gets easy, land "enough" and...well, we'll get to that one.
Startup and Taxi - We run the checklist for Pre-Startup and Startup. Kary has this saying that he's drilled into my head: "Needle up, flaps up". What he means by this, is to clean up the flaps when you have confirmed the oil pressure is up after starting the engine. I was ready for this one. I start the engine, idle it at 1000, watch the needle rise and say "needle up, flaps up". HA!...I beat him to it!
Of course, to accomplish this feat of aviation agility, I've been repeating this little saying everytime I started my car for the last 10 days. So, I'm sitting in the driveway, I start my Camry and say outloud "needle up, flaps up"............my kids just stare at me.......the car idles..........my kids look at each other.........I grin at them "they think I'm cool", I think...........my six year old makes an "L" (for "Loser") with her fingers and puts it on her forehead.............a dog barks in the distance.
Back in the cockpit, my mind is running the checklist. Everything ready, we start taxiing, check the brakes and keep on towards runway 20. I've *almost* exorcised the demon of Otis the drunk from my feet. I can keep the yellow line between the wheels now....and talk at the same time! yippee another milestone :)
Take-off - Before we started up, Kary told me that we'd be doing mostly pattern work today. Just touch-and-go after touch-and-go. This is the first time that we have really worked on landings in a concentrated manner, so I'm somewhat pumped about it......and somewhat nervous....and somewhat thinking I'll make a good passenger during this phase of training. We climb out, turn crosswind and downwind. Because the wind has picked up a bit, we've got a pretty good tailwind on downwind (of course, I guess your SUPPOSED to have a tailwind on downwind...hrm). And we go through the paces.
At the numbers, Mixture Rich, Carb Heat on, power back and start bringing in flaps. And did I mention that I'm supposed to do ALL that?!?!? Isn't that why we have co-pilots? Geez. Anyway, I figure out that Kary is trying to train me so that he doesn't have to do ANYTHING. I think he might be a tad lazy.
We turn Final, call it in and make a picture perfect carrier approach. I figure only wusses land with less than 1000 ft/min descent rates. Of course, Kary is on the controls all the way down and we manage a nice little thud. Clean it up, carb heat in and here we go again.
At this point, I come to terms with the fact that this whole "left turning tendancy" business that we've been training for is , in fact, true. And I start learning about how much right rudder it takes to correct for a diagonal departure. We climb out, hit pattern altitude and do it again.
After about three of these, I'm still fighting the rudders like I'm Michael Flatly. Kary takes the plane around the pattern once and lets me "feel" how he is doing it. Then I get it. I've been "under-over-controlling" (Kary just looked at me on this one too....I waited for the "loser" symbol, but he refrained). What I meant by that is that I have been waiting too long before putting in rudder (sometimes just fractions of a second), so that when I did put in rudder, I was having to put in a LOT of rudder and then it was often too much.
So, I figured out the best way for me to do it is to actually have both feet on the pedals and actually put light pressure on both at the same time. Pushing against myself. Not enough that will cause me to cramp up after landing, just enough to "feel" what the rudder is trying to do on its own. Then my adjustments came in smaller, quicker inputs. I like this. It's starting to make sense to me now.
We manage a few more landings, with the overcast coming down and the crosswind picking up a tad. With each approach, I was able to do a little more and a little more. The "feel" of what I'm doing with the plane is starting to happen. Like I mentioned in my last post, spending time in that 20 second window of short final/roundout/flare is where I'm learning the most.
After our last landing, we taxi back and debrief (notice I skipped saying anything about the taxi back??? I'm that good ;) ).
One thing that this lesson really rang my bell on was that I can control the plane down to the inches (or closer). I don't really know what my frame of thinking before was, but I had this idea that there was a realm of "uncontrollability" or a "margin of error" in how well you could make the plane do what you wanted. This may make no sense. I don't think I ever tried to put it in words or spent any time really thinking about it. But with this lesson, there was a sense of control that I never had before. Now, the amount of actual control I had is something Kary will have to share with you.
1 hour down and the fun is just starting....
Was a good lesson.
jf
