Up, Up and Away

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

posted by Jeff Franks @ 7:23 PM