My Unusual Attitude
Well, I thought I'd get ahead of the game a little by emailing Kary the day before our lesson and find out what, exactly, we'd be doing during the flight. His reply was quick and to the point:
hood work ----unusual attitude recovery --- and locating yourself --- flying with an instrument or two not working
Kary(It never occurred to me until now, how much double entendre there is in the flying vernacular.....but I digress)With this bit of information, I figured we'd have a pretty fun flight....and we did.
After
preflight and
startup, we managed to make it out to our practice area. Even though the winds were calm, we noticed a pretty strong wind pushing us to the
SouthWest once we got to about 500ft
agl. We climbed up to 2500(
ish) feet and he had me do a 180 degree standard rate turn....wow...1 minute on the dot...
thats cool.
Then we started doing some basic instrument work. Kary showed me how to do a good instrument scan and not fixate on one instrument. Then we started doing some basic maneuvering from just the instruments. He had me hold heading, slow the plane to 80mph and hold it there. Then make some turns while holding the 80 and altitude. Real quick I figured out that this was both fun and horrifying all at the same time. I feel like I did a pretty good job holding both altitude and speed, but the heading tends to get away from me (even when I'm looking out the window).
Then we did some descents and climbs while holding heading and speed. This is when I really started to feel like I was "getting" it. When I first started flying, I was terrified to move the throttle for some reason. Now, I found myself using the entire cockpit of controls to make the plane do what I wanted. I still wish they'd nail the rudder to the Horizontal Stabilizer, but other than that, it was very comforting to know that I was doing what needed to be done without really thinking about it.
Next, Kary covers the
DG (Directional Gyro....the thing that tells you which way you are going and is a bit more "Stable" than a whiskey compass). By doing this, I had to use the compass to navigate with. To be honest, I was amazed at how slow the thing responds. There are known issues where the compass will initially go the wrong way or will not do what it's supposed to, but it still just seemed awkward. Kary asked me to make a 360 degree turn and end up back at my starting heading. Well as slow as a compass is to keep up, I can't just "fly the compass". So, I remembered the whole 180 deg/min thing and made a standard rate turn for 2 minutes and viola! we got 360 degrees out of it.....
thats just cool.
Well, then comes the part that I think Kary had been waiting on all day. We're flying along straight and level at a heading dead on 90 deg (east). He says "turn to 60 degrees". So, I glance at the compass and 60 is to the right (dang thing is backwards from the
DG). My initial thought was....If I'm flying east, then 60 should be to my left. But, half the time, I get my math mixed up and thought, nope...it's to the right. So, about the time I start turning right, Kary does what all good teachers of history do...you know...Socrates, Plato, Mr Rogers.....they all would have done the same thing......belly laugh at the moron in the left seat!
I pick up my mistake as soon as the compass starts moving. I told him I was doing a "clearing turn", but I don't think he bought it.
Then Kary had me do some unusual attitude recoveries. This is where I close my eyes and he puts the plane in some....well....unusual attitude and expects me to fix it. The first couple were fairly easy. I closed my eyes for a few seconds and we were banked pretty good and diving or climbing. But the last one we did was a learning experience. I closed my eyes and he pushed and pulled, yanked and banked. From the "feel" of the plane, I just knew we were in a left bank and nose down. When he said "it's your plane", I opened my eyes and we were in a right turn and climbing..... Note to self: don't trust your inner ear.
By this time, we start heading back toward LUG. We work with the
VOR a bit more to pickup the heading we need to get back to the airport. As we get to the airport, we cross at 3000ft and the Kary calls on
CTAF to announce that we have a simulated engine out....joy.
I actually like doing these, but I have a terrible problem judging how fast our plane falls. At 3000ft over the airport, there is no "making the field". Now it's just a matter of putting it down on the 5000ft of asphalt. So, I turn what was really an upwind, then start a crosswind over the numbers. As I'm entering downwind, I'm still at 2500ft and Kary keeps saying "don't crowd it", meaning, don't get in so tight that I'll actually overfly the field. So, I inch out a bit more. Then as I'm turning base I drop about 10 deg of flaps and realize that I'm WAY high. As I turn a mile and a half final, we're still 800ft
agl. This plane just doesn't sink. (STOL kit on it really makes a difference).
So, Kary helps me slip it all the way down to the runway. We touchdown right at the halfway point of the runway and exit. Pretty cool flight.
Next, comes solo
ATC stuff...yea me.
YEEEEEEE HA!!!!!!!!!!
This week's flight was more fun than.....well....something that's a lot of fun. The goal of this lesson was to work more with VOR navigation and (more importantly) fly into my first controlled field. I feel very comfortable with the navigation part. There are times that I still have to really think about what Kary is asking me, but if I were out on my own, I'm confident I could find my way.
On a side note, I will say that I think my time spent flying in MS Flight Sim was well used. I've heard many "real" pilots knock MSFS as a game and dismiss it. From experience, I will tell you that my navigation and instrument understanding was helped IMMENSELY. There is still TONS to learn, but basic concepts were learned a long time ago when it didn't cost me $4/gal of gas. I even "invented" my own procedure for flying paralled to a VOR and timing a 5 degree change. Then by doing the math, I could figure out how far from the VOR I actually was. I thought I was cool, until someone told me that you have to know how to do something similar for your IFR ticket. So much for being a visionary :)
But back to Thursday morning. I arrived at LUG at 8:30 and Kary was ready to go. I went out and preflighted 51F before we sat down to discuss what we were about to do. Basically, the plan was to leave LUG, keep up with where we were using the VOR's and eventually pickup the radial that would carry us from Shelbyville (SYI) to Smyrna (MQY). From there we'd make the required radio contacts and land. Take a break then head out again. We reviewed the chart, got all my frequencies together (which was new...I thought the whole world operated off of 122.8) and headed to the plane.
We fired up, taxied out and took off...eh...."departed"...Lewisburg. As we were climbing out, it was actually pretty cool to realize that we were "going somewhere", albeit only 35 miles, it sure beats the pattern I've been relegated to (not that there's anything wrong with that!!!!). As we made our way NorthEast, Kary was quizzing me as to where we were and where the SYI VOR was, etc. We ended up picking up our MQY radial about 10 miles North of SYI. Apparently, we were inside someone else's practice are, because we got to fly some formation maneuvers with a Piper who liked our airspace. We safely snuck behind him, but I still don't think he ever saw us.
We picked up our radial (352 FROM SYI, i think), and headed for MQY. One cool part of this was that I've never flown over most of this area. The majority of my flying has been west and south of here, so, it was all new to me. We climbed on up to 2500(ish) to be sure that we were well above a nice little 2000ft tower in the area and made our way north. One thing that was new to me on this flight was simply keeping up with the frequency changes. I don't think I've ever changed frequencies in 51F, other than to go from the standby freq (always set to LUG's AWOS) and back to 122.8 (CTAF for most of the airports in the area). So, believe it or not, I had to figure out how to tune our own radio. Sad, but true.
As we got about 13 miles south of MQY, I made my first ever ATC radio call. I really wasn't nervous about doing this, like I thought I'd be. Kary had told me (and given me a example "script") what to expect and what to say, so now it was just a matter of doing it. It was kind of neat to realize that someone on the other end of the radio actually gave a crap about what I was saying. When talking in the pattern at LUG, your just blindly calling out where you are for others, but no one is speaking TO you or expecting you to understand them with great clarity.
MQY is in Class D Airspace, but part of it sits just under the edge of Nashville's Class C shelf. So, even though there isn't any reason for that to be a problem, it's still cool to realize that I've got to do it right (or Kary gets blamed!).
There wasn't too much traffic as we got closer, but we were told to find a Katana on an ILS approach and were cleared to land behind him once we did find him. Now this is where everything I ever learned about a pattern went out the window. Suddenly, we're turning a VERY wide base-to-final turn and trying to keep the Katana in sight. When I got lined up with the runway, we were all of 5 miles out. I suddenly knew what it was like to fly a Citation....except it was going to take me another 4 minutes to get there!
There was traffic behind us, so Kary told me to keep my speed up to about 90mph until we got in tighter, just to be nice (we later found out that the traffic behind us was a Blackhawk....I don't think he would have complained about us doing 80....he could have just hovered and waited :) ). About 1 mile out, I drop a few degrees of flaps and slow us down. Kary had warned me that this was a BIG runway and the depth perception might be a problem. I'll admit, the sight picture is definitely different, but expecting it, I was able to make a fairly good landing. We taxi to one of the FBO's and shutdown. Pretty cool experience.
After about a 20 minute break (and the obligitory coffee and free popcorn), we go back out and fire up. Contacting ground went just like Kary explained it would. As with all the radio comms, it's just a matter of knowing what you want to do, how to say it and then what to listen for. We taxied out to Rwy 1, did our runup, contacted the tower and left....eh....departed.
The trip back was pretty cool. I opted to fly the VOR all the way into SYI, did a touch and go there, dodged another Katana and flew home.
All together, we managed 1.6 hours in the air. And it was FUNNNN! Just going places....ANY places (even the break room of Smyrna Air) makes this whole thing that much more fun.
I know guys who did all their training at a Class C airport. ATC comms to them started on the first lesson. What's funny is listening to them talk about being intimidated about flying into an uncontrolled field. They think us Class G'rs are insane! :)
I'm starting to think I like this flying thing....but that "free" bag of popcorn just set me back $100. Welcome to General Aviation, Mr. Franks!
It's all good.
jf
Back at it
To catch up on my last few weeks-o-blogging, I thought I'd throw this post out here. After this, I will start blogging each lesson, like I was doing before. I've found is that it helps me "debrief" after a lesson to sit down the night after and re-live it. I tend to learn more from it and it helps me understand what happened even better.
So, for those of you who keep emailing me, sorry. I've been lazy on my story telling :)
But you should be able to see a new post at least once a week, now that I'm flying every Thursday morning to try to get this thing done!
Since I got my medical back on track, I've been flying at least once a week. About 2 weeks ago (after my 3rd lesson "back"), Kary (my trusty CFI) felt confident enough in me to re-solo me.
I have to say, the intensity of soloing wasn't quite as hefty as it was last year. I only had a few hours solo in my logbook, but when he got out of the plane this time, I was more excited than petrified (like last time). 3 takeoffs and 3 landings later, I'm official....I can fly a plane!.....well...at least in large rectangles in the sky when the wind isn't blowing.
I've since had 2 more lessons and an hour solo. One was a basic intro to some navigation/VOR work and the last one (this past Thursday) we actually left Lewisburg and WENT SOMEWHERE!??!!?!
Yes, you read that right. I, Jeff Franks, Master Student Pilot, left the confines of Marshall County, TN and flew all the way to Bedford County, TN. ok....only about 15 minutes, but it was still cool. The purpose of the flight was to do more work with the VORs, so we flew to Shelbyville while working with our OBS's to watch exactly where we were from Nashville and/or Shelbyville (note to Kary: Notice I said "FROM" Nashville and/or Shelbyville).
When we got to Shelbyville, there was a few planes reporting in the area (it's the only VOR in the area, so lots of training/transient traffic thru there). We overflew the VOR (to watch the OBS flags flip from FROM to TO) and then dropped down and entered the pattern for my first
ever, non-LUG landing.
The flight at 2500(ish) was smooooooth. Well, at 2300, it stopped being smoooooooth and got to be a bit bumpy. Nothing terrible, but I like my landings to work more like Flight Simulator than real life. No wind, No Bumps = Not much work.
Now, in my defense of the following account, I have told Kary that I need to land somewhere else, because I've caught myself using ground references for making my pattern turns. Basically, at Lewisburg, I know "when I'm over that highway, I should be turning base" or "Turn Crosswind around the School", etc. Well, the problem with that is that there isn't always going to be a highway or a school at other airports. So, I realized that I was doing it and have been trying to NOT to, but it's harder to push it out of my mind than you'd think.
So, we enter the downwind for SYI. I'm trying to judge my turns on the runway (and not look for the highway that isn't there). It goes pretty smooth. Downwind to base, base to final....all is well. Then it occurs to me. Everything looks different. The highway that leads to the airport isn't square with the runway. The fence around the airport isn't symmetrical. I'm 200ft off the ground, trying to land at an airport I've never landed at and WHY AM I LOOKING AT THE TREELINE?!?!?!
Ok, focus.....on the runway...150ft, slowing it down a bit, 100ft looking good, 75 ft......hrm....their centerline markers aren't as wide as the ones at LUG.....AH! I'm 25 ft off the ground...not 50! Ok, no big deal....start my flare and land...squirp.....we've arrived. Good landing (didn't even wake up Kary).
Power in, carb heat cold and off we go. Back to the smooth air at 2500(ish) feet and to LUG. We work the VOR a bit more to find the radial we need to get back to Lewisburg. Tune it in, set the radial you think you'll need on the OBS, turn to that heading and then fly the needle....easy enuf.
We get back to LUG, enter the pattern and land. Nice 1 hour lesson and, most impressive of all..........I got to make right turns!!!!!!!!
It's good to be back.
jf
