When I originally reserved the airplane for Saturday morning, the weather looked iffy, but luckily, as the weekend drew closer, things turned out to be pretty nice. The forecast rain kept moving back until finally it was going to be an overnight start. This, of course, was good news for me, and I smiled at the blue skies as I drove over to PDK. Over at Advanced Scott and I discussed the plan of the day. We had another ground lesson to review, and then we’d go take advantage of the weather. We’d head out to a field for some pattern work, review stalls and slow flight along the way, and throw in slips and ground reference maneuvers as well. Sounded like a great day of learning to me.
The ground lesson went pretty quickly- we were talking about airplane systems. Between being a car guy and having a long-term interest in aviation, I was pretty familiar with almost everything here, so it ended up basically being a review. We then briefly discussed the “theory” behind the new maneuvers for the day’s flight: a discussion if why ground-reference maneuvers were important, how wind would affect the airplane’s track, and how to correct for it. We also talked about forward slips, why they were useful, and what they entailed, and wrapped things up with procedures for handling an engine failure and subsequent forced landing. Then it was time to head out to the airplane.
Scott had to get a few things out of his car, so I went on out, opened the plane, and started my preflight. No surprises there, and we were shortly in the plane with the engine running. At the edge of the ramp, with Scott’s prompting, I gathered my wherewithal and called ground. In spite of my odd species of stage fright, I didn’t say anything stupid, and we headed out to 2L. After my wandering takeoff from Thursday, I was determined to do better, and I did… though there was still an inordinate amount of bobbing and weaving after I was airborne.
In the air, we initially headed east out to Winder, but then turned northwest towards Cherokee County instead- listening to the radio, Winder sounded pretty busy. Seems there’s a pretty popular $100 hamburger destination out there. Anyhoo, onc we got clear of populated areas, Scott had me configure the airplane for slow flight. I got the airspeed down to about 50 knots uneventfully, and was feeling pretty good about myself until I tried a few turns. I overcontrolled, ended up banking more than I intended, and overshot my target heading. Flying the airplane that slow reminds me of an ancient Plymouth Volare that my cousin “inherited” when he turned 16- seemed like whenever you turned the steering wheel, there would be about a one-second delay before the car actually turned. In either case, it’s important not to mistake that bit of delay for complete unresponsiveness.
From slow flight, we went right into a few power-off stalls. This time, the situation was complicated a bit by adding a turn during the stall. Truth be told, this didn’t really make the maneuver much more difficult- you just level the wings as you nose over for the recovery. Of course, I say that, but the first one I did, I got distracted and only put the throttle in about halfway…
A bit later I had my first experience with a simulated engine failure. This wasn’t a surprise this time; I knew we were going to run through the procedures during this flight. I selected a decent-looking landing spot, pitched for best glide speed, and trimmed the airplane, or so I thought. Out came the checklist, and as I started through the items, Scott made a casual remark about my airspeed. Sure enough, I’d crept about 10 knots over glide speed while the checklist was distracting me. After retrimming, I finished simulating an engine restart, and we recovered at a safe altitude. Doing this was a pretty good confidence builder; I saw how well the airplane glided, and understood that I’d have time to take corrective steps before resorting to an off-airport landing. Of course, I also had the benefit of knowing that it wasn’t for real…
Next up were forward slips. Scott demonstrated one first, and it was a good thing- if I hadn’t watched him do one, I would have really underdone it my first time. After hours of learning to fly the plane with light control pressure and small adjustments, it seems mildly obscene to fly the plane with full right rudder. Before the demo, I think I’d had the picture of just gently cross-controlling and getting a slightly better descent rate. I wasn’t expecting to find myself resting against the cockpit wall while watching the VSI go past -1500 fpm! Still, I think I acquitted myself well, picking a reference point on the ground and maintaining a more-or-less straight track in the slip.
We had hoped to try flying rectangular track before going to 47A, but doing so requires some kind of rectangular reference on the ground, and the area we were in seemed completely devoid of any straight roads. After a bit of searching, we gave up and headed towards 47A. Along the way, there was some sort of traffic circle-looking thing on the ground, maybe a subdivision under construction or some such. Anyway, Scott thought it would make a good reference for turns around a point if I was up for it… which I was. This wasn’t too bad, though as usual, I had to work on dividing my attention to remain safe. My first couple times around, I kept tightening my turn until it became necessary to back off and start again. After that, I maintained my distance fairly well- but I also lost about 150′ of altitude while I was concentrating on my ground reference. Lots to think about…
Over at 47A, I got my first try at flying a left traffic pattern. This was good for my visibility, but not so good for Scott’s… and the first time around was pretty ugly. I established a good distance from the runway on my downwind, but then kept angling into the runway. By the time I tuned base, it was evident we were ridiculously high. Scott took over and put the plane into a slip before electing to go around. The next few times were incrementally better, but still not great- one attempt saw us go around again. I did, however, do at least passably on the third and final landing.
Back towards PDK, I continued to work on using the radio, but when I initially contacted the tower, I was thrown off a bit; rather than asking me to report five miles out, he asked to report abeam something-or-other. I couldn’t make sense of what he said, but Scott understood. I was to report abeam the King and Queen, a pair of prominent buildings in Sandy Springs. Since I’m fairly new to Atlanta, landmark references like this aren’t intuitive to me at all. But after clearing the confusion, I was good to go. I contacted the tower again, got clearance to land on 2L, and redeemed myself from my 47A performance by flying a good pattern and approach. Still got to work on not flaring too soon, though.
All in all, it was a packed flight; lots of new things, some new scenery, and a reminder that despite doing great in the pattern at LZU before, I still had plenty to learn.
