At long last, the battle to squeeze in that last hour or so of solo time has been won, and none to soon- checkride time is now a mere 3.5 days away. And what an interesting bit of flight it was… more on that later.
First, let’s wind the clock back to Sunday morning. This had been my original time I’d intended to go do my solo time… but the winds were a bit stiff. I knew Scott wanted to go up for a bit more dual to polish my short-field landings, so I kidnapped him and solo time turned into dual time. The flight started with a first for both Scott and I- using runway 27 at PDK. Winds were above 10 knots and almost straight out of the west, so 27 became the active for small folks like us. I actually had to get assistance from the ground controller to figure out how to get there.
The flight was relatively benign- we spent some time in the pattern for 27, pulling four or so short-field landings. With the exception of the first attempt, I put the airplane down fairly close to the numbers. After that, we requested to switch to 2L, the long runway, for some crosswind practice. After the last crosswind outing, I’d spent some time reading up on sideslipping and was ready to give it a try. So once I got established on final, I did what I remembered- step on the rudder to align the plane with the runway, and dip a wing to control sideways drift. The slip set up nicely… but the problem was that that added workload of maintaining the slip caused me to really lose control of my speed and slope. Within a few seconds, I’d tacked on an extra 10 knots and was getting close to exceeded Vfe. After a bit of struggling, I abandoned the slip in the interests of getting the plane down safely, but by this time I was way low, and was in danger of touching down in the displaced threshold. Not good. A bit of power carried me into the legal landing area, but a big ugly bounce and a go-around wrapped up that ugly approach.
Second time around, I decided to try those slipping fundamentals again, but to wait to apply them in the flare. This worked out much better for me, and while the landing wasn’t brag-worthy, it was safe. The next time around, I had Scott demonstrate a good sideslip for me… jeez, maybe I’ll be able to do that one day. I tried slipping earlier in the approach next time around, but once again my pitch control went to crap. I think I just need to practice this on a day with a gentle crosswind until I can maintain the slip without getting overloaded. In the meantime, I can at least fairly competently crab the airplane in and transition to the slip in the flare.
That brings us to today’s activities. 546 spent the morning over at LZU getting the radio looked at. I had the choice of either driving to LZU in the evening traffic (yuck), or else Scott could fly the plane to PDK and meet me there. His car would still be at LZU, but I’d planned on doing pattern work at LZU instead, so I offered to just run him back out there from PDK. After bailing out of work, I found he was running a bit behind, so I went out to the observation park and enjoyed the view until I spotted a familiar Diamond in the pattern.
Over on the ramp, we hoped in the plane and things started to go wrong. Got the plane started OK, flipped on the master, and went to put my headset on. First I pressed the power button on the headset’s control box, but the light wouldn’t come on. Crap, guess the batteries are dead. Well, it still works OK without the ANR, I’ll be OK. Then, as I put the set over my ears, a popping noise issued from the left side and I saw a couple bits of… something flying off the set. Closer look showed that a couple of screws had departed, and a test-fit demonstrated that the headset was not going to be usable until fixed. Crap again. I killed the engine and Scott ran inside the get the school’s loaner headset, nickname Brain Squeezer 5000. My favorite.
Dum de dum, taxi, takeoff, turn east… and now Scott is really getting in mock exam mode. During the taxi, he casually reached up and unlatched his side of the canopy, apparently just to check if I was payng attention. As for the airborne portion- well, I tend to fly with my hand always on the throttle, so I suspect Scott must have been waiting anxiously for me to scratch my nose or something. I don’t even remember what I was doing with my hand, but a movement out of the corner of my eye preceded a sudden decrease in engine noise. I was completely caught off-guard, and it took me a full fifteen seconds or so to get my brain working and start pitching for best glide. After that, I started looking outside the plane… I was at 2500′ in the suburbs of Atlanta. Landing spots were, to say the least, not plentiful. I-85 was nearby and probably would have been my best bet, but with evening traffic, even that probably wouldn’t have been pleasant. I had to be prompted to run the checklist and simulate other tasks like squawking 7700 and calling on 121.5. Not a great performance.
Some more oral quizzing followed during the remainder of the flight… electrical failure, flat tire or daamged main wheel, etc. Entering the pattern, Scott took the plane, ostensibly to take a look at the traffic he’d be fighting on the way back into town. That may or may not have been legit, but regardless, at the end of the downwind leg he pulled out the throttle again and looked at me. “OK, land it.” This I can do… got plenty of glide range, so first notch of flaps come out early. As I turned base and got sight of the runway, I felt I was quite a bit high and close in, so I dropped the last notch of flaps early. Closer to the ground, I started to regret that decision, but a glance at the airspeed conpared to my sight picture told me I could make it just past the numbers, and I did, though with a few bounces. Not my best… with the long runway at LZU, I could have left the flaps out a bit longer. Landing long beats landing in the grass.
After booting Scott out of the plane, it was time for me to get to work. My plan was to spend some time in the pattern at LZU practicing short-field landings, then head up to the lake for a few maneuvers just for the sake of staying in the pattern. As best I remember, the next few minutes went roughly like this:
“546DC, cleared for takeoff runway 25, make right closed traffic.”
I read back the instructions, performed a soft-field takeoff, and went about flying my pattern. The downwind leg went by without a peep from the tower, which should have alerted me. Got into my base leg, still hadn’t heard anything… should have alerted me, but I was busy thinking about making a nice short-field approach. I was about to turn final when the tower controller spoke in my ear about traffic off to my left… and this was no minor report. A Piper of some kind was maybe a quarter-mile away… he was on approach as well. Quick action by the tower had him go missed while I continued my approach. On short final, I got a stern reproach that I needed to call when making my base turn.
I’ve already alluded to what went wrong, and the core of it was me not thinking straight. I was thinking about making a glorious approach and plunking the Diamond down on the numbers. And while I hadn’t received any instructions contrary to continuing my pattern, nor had I heard any comms with the other aircraft on approach, alarm bells should have gone off when I hadn’t gotten a landing clearance prior to turning base. I still think the tower could have informed me a bit better of the traffic situation, but the fact remains that I am responsible for safe operation of the aircraft, and I didn’t do that. Luckily, the situation was resolved safely… when it comes to big, practical lessons, another airplane converging from about 1000′ away really does the trick.
That pretty much cast a pall on the rest of my flight. I made four circuits at LZU, flying passable but far from stellar patterns. I still got the airplane on or near the numbers on all but that first landing. And I by-God made sure to talk to the tower on downwind. After #4, I turned north towards the lake, pulled a few steep turns, and then decided that the sun was getting low enough that I needed to get back to PDK.
All in all, this wasn’t the flight I would have picked just before the checkride. The near-miss was a serious blow to my confidence; a necessary blow perhaps, but a blow nonetheless. Prior to today, I was confident about the checkride… there was always that little doubting voice in my mind, but I felt good. I think what got me about today was the way the aftereffects of the near-miss- anxiety, nerves, whatever you want to call it- had a negative effect on my flying. I can’t afford that on Saturday. Hopefully the cross-country to CHA will get me back in a positive state of mind.
