Squawk1200

Yup, out with the student certificate and in with the private.  What can I say?  I’m riding on air now. Now, before I get into today’s events, I do want to take time out to paint a picture of sorts.  We start with a kid who grew out of being scared to death of fighter jets buzzing his childhood home and ended up fascinated by the sky.  For his 12th birthday, he got perhaps the coolest gift ever- a sightseeing trip in a 172 over the coast of North Carolina.  He could hardly see over the panel, but he still flew the plane (at least in a manner of speaking) for a bit.  Wonderful.  Then years went by, interests changed… probably like most any teenager.  The bug came back in his 20s… but by this time, there had been some subpar life choices… setbacks, if you will.  The next ten years were a constant rehash of the same tune… maybe next year, I can do it.  Then maybe the next, the next, and so on.  By the time that third decade was drawing to a close, he’d mostly quit believing even himself when that “maybe next year” junk came out.

So that’s pretty much where I was last fall when I got what would be described very inadequately as An Opportunity I Couldn’t Refuse.  In the space of six months, I’ve gone from somewhere in the neighborhood of mental surrender to sneaking peeks every few minutes at my new certificate.  So hopefully this illustrates the meaning of this achievement to me- it’s not just “something I always wantd to do,” it pretty much was the thing I wanted to do.  Anyways, I digress… I’d hate to bore anyone out of reading the rest of this missive.

When the alarm went off this morning, it seemed I’d just gotten to sleep- well, that pretty much was the case actually.  My plans for a 10 PM bedtime worked out to more like 1 or so… I kept finding a few more things I wanted to go over or be sure about.  Still, I didn’t really feel too tired- I knew what the day had in store, and it was still far enough out that I could feel anticipation instead of nervousness. (the latter condition usually only kicks in for me just before the event in question… interview, test, etc.)  As planned, I met Scott over at PDK at the ungodly hour of 7 AM.  Here, he bestowed upon me the final logbook endorsement… I was deemed ready for the practical test.  Preflight went like any other day… taxi out, airborne, turn north on course.  A bit of a tailwind got us to CHA in no time… in fact, we were 30 minutes early.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite enough time to make a breakfast run… besides, there was no one at the FBO to get us the courtesy car.

Before long, Ben showed up, and Scott introduced me.  After a bit of small talk, we migrated back to Ben’s office to get things under way.  The first order of business was to review my application and ensure everything was in order… check.  Ben then gave me a rundown of what was going to happen.  This speech did a lot to calm my nerves- the entire process was clearly laid out, and I began to feel (somewhat) at ease.  A few more record checks of my student certificate and logbook, and it was time to get down to the fun part.  What followed was a minor barrage of questions: show me the plane is airworthy and ready to fly, let’s look at your planned cross-country, what would be minimums to fly in Class G below 1200′ during the daytime, what about above 1200′, what about Class E, what equipment do you need to fly in Class C, etc.  I only bungled two questions here: the duration of my third-class medical (five years, not three!) and the required interval for transponder inspection. (24 months, not “unspecified blank look”)  Then it was on to the sectional… what’s this?  What does this mean?  Show me Class D airspace. What’s this funny gray line that says VR546?  What about this white line around Atlanta?  The final portion involved Ben showing me various weather products and making sure I knew what I was doing with weather checks.

All told, the oral was far less grueling than I had expected.  Those few bungles were rathr isolated- for the most part, I had all the answers ready to go, and only suffered a few brain farts.  But now it was on to the next phase- flying the airplane.  I gathered my junk and went out to the plane.  During my preflight, Ben would occasionally ask me a question… what’s that hole in the wing? (stall horn)  What about this triangular thing on the wing? (stall strip)  How do we know when the tires are unusable?  Do you know why the wingtips curve up slightly?

First takeoff was a normal one, after which I flew to the VOR and then turned on my initial course to Savannah.  I hadn’t gone far when (as expected) Ben told me to divert to Dalton.  I wasn’t sure if cheating- I mean using the GPS- was permissible, so I asked.  GPS was fine- ok, works for me.  Get the direct route to DNN and we were on our way.  This was where I’d perform my required takeoffs and landings.  Number 1 was to be my short-field, with a simulated obstacle at the beginning of the runway.  I selected the 1000′ markers as my touchdown point and got to work.  I still felt a bit iffy on short-fields, and was as worried about this as anything else, but I absolutely nailed it, dropping the mains right in the middle of the markers and making the first turnoff.  Short-field takeoff went great- nothing too hard about those, really.  Next time around was soft-field time, and here I bungled a bit.  I kept my approach speed under control, but flared a bit high… and as soon as I flared, the stall horn sounded.  This would be a good sound if I was just off the runway, but I wasn’t.  Putting in a bit of power would have been the right thing to do, but instead I tried to monkey the stick, and I ended up plunking the plane down much harder than I wanted.  I waited for Ben to call me on it, but there was no sound.  This would seem to indicate it was satisfactory, but I couldn’t help but doubt it.  Anyway, can’t dwell on it, got other stuff to do.  Next takeoff was a soft-field- I leveled out a bit higher than I wanted, but recovered nicely and departed the pattern to the north.

Next up was my ground reference maneuver- in this case, a turn around a point.  The point was at my discretion; an additional consideration was that I was going to have an engine failure just after completion, so a point with an adjacent field would be nice. (if only real-life engine failures came with such advanced notice!)  I first picked out a water tower, flew to it, and executed my clearing turns, but as I got closer, I saw that there was a ridge nearby with a tower on it.  Probably outside my turn radius, but I wasn’t comfortable with it, so I continued north in search of a better spot.  I settled on a rusty tin-roofed barn surrounded by farmland, and flew a nice circle around it.  Coming back ot my original course- oh no, my engine failed! (Surprise!)  “What are you going to do?”  Pitch for best glide, no time to run checklists at 1000′ AGL, that field over there looks good… ok, time to recover.  Far easier than I expected.

But ohh, now it was time for my favorite torture device, the foggles.  Been took the airplane while I donned the cursed things, and then I was instructed to climb on course to 3000′.  With the exception of accidentally leveling off at 2000′, this went fine.  Took me a few minutes to get my scan going right, but I did OK in the meantime.  Once I was at 3000′, I demonstrated two course reversals. (simulating turning to get out of the clouds I just flew into)  No problem here… time for unusual attitudes.  These were easy- both times, I picked my head up to find the airplane just in a steep bank with the nose on the horizon.

Oboy, slow flight!  Throttle back, flaps out, stick the plane down at about 55 knots.  Ben gave me a turn to the right, no problem, followed by a power-off stall, and then a power-on stall.  These went without a hitch.  Finally, it was time for those steep turns I’d practiced so much.  Dammit, I knew I was going to get these right!  Cleared the area for traffic, and then started my turn to the left.  Only problem was that about 1/4 of the way in, I realized I hadn’t noted my entry heading or picked out a landmark for the rollout.  So I used my best guess, which turned out to be about 30 degrees off.  I confessed my sin to Ben, then nailed my turn to the right- hardly any altitude drift, rollout right on heading.  Much better.

OK, now take out the sectional and show me where we are.  Witha little help from the Chattanooga VOR, I figured out the general area.  OK, now find me this airport.  That didn’t go quite as well as I planned, but I got in the vicinity and eventually spotted it over my left shoulder. (the runway was somewhat concealed by trees along the edges)  And that was it- get on course to CHA and take us home!  Too bad that last landing wasn’t my soft-field, because it was a squeaker.  A bit of a crosswind had kicked up, but I yawed the plane straight before putting the wheels down.

On the taxi back, I started wondering… I thought I’d done well overall, but was acutely aware that I hadn’t done so well on the steep turn and soft-field landing.  Ben had said that he’d make it clear if I failed any portion, but even the lack of that feedback didn’t quite convince me.  Ben headed inside with Scott while I secured the airplane.  He still hadn’t indicated whether or not I passed.  Once I got inside, I found Ben and Scott talking to a guy from the FBO.  All this small talk… I WANT AN ANSWER!  ARGH!!!  But then the conversation ended and Ben let out a wonderful sentence: “Let’s go back and get your certificate signed.”  And so we did.

Bottom line: I gather that I did much better than the average stundet, both in training and the practical.  Total flight time, including the checkride, comes out to 48.1 hours.  Now it’s time for new goals… first steps will probably be some endorsements (complex, high perf, tailwheel), and further down the road, an instrument rating.  Who knows where else I might go…

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.

Sunday afternoon was beautiful, a really wonderful day to fly.  That was great, but the unfortunate truth was that the flight I had in store was going to involve me spending a fair portion of the time not looking outside the plane… yep, plan of the day was to wrap up my hood time.  The secondary goal was to get myself some time in windy conditions- up until this point, almost all my flying has come on relatively calm days.  Sunday was quite different, though, with winds at about 10 knots gusting to 20 or so.  Well, got to get a feel for it some time, and better to have someon experienced up there with me.

This was really the first day I’d felt compelled to pay close attention to procedures for taxiing into the wind; with the gusts moving the plan about noticeably, it didn’t take much encouragement for me to hold the ailersons and elevators to help keep the plane pinned down.  The strong headwind on runway 34 made for a short roll and a nice rate of climb… but I scarcely got to enjoy it before Scott took the plane an instructed me to bring out the foggles.  The good thing was that my flying was vastly improved over the previous instrument outing; despite the gusty and bumpy conditions, I did a better job holding my altitude, course, and so on than before.  The climbout was a bit of a workout as Scott kept vectoring me to stay clear of clouds that I, of course, couldn’t see.

Soon, however, we were on course for Winder.  After a bit of basic flying, we had a go at unusual attitudes.  I’d done this before without the foggles, and recalled the procedures just fine.  Head down, let Scott fly all over the place, la-de-da, ok, heads up.  Climbing turn… full throttle, nose down, wings level.  Nothing to it. (though it’s fairly easy to anticipate what I’ll see when Scott’s flying ends with a big pull)  We pulled a few more- one of which I briefly boggled as I responded to nose-down with full throttle.  Nope, wrong answer- throttle to idle.

Next up were some simulated instrument failures.  Uh-oh, looks like the vacuum system has failed. (Common symptoms of vacuum failure include yellow Post-It notes appearing on the DG and AI)  Without these two instruments, the secondary instruments come into play.  Turn indicator gives an initial look at whether I’m turning, and the altimeter, VSI, and to a lesser extent, airspeed indicator give me an idea of pitch.  Direction falls back to the wonderful magnetic compass.  I did OK with some compass turns, though I had to deal with barely being able to see the thing- it’s located at the top of the panel, under the shroud, and I’m tall, which requieres me to sort of hunch down to eyeball the thing.  All told, I found it far less challenging than I expected to maintain attitude and altitude without the gyro instruments.

With that, we were nearly on top of Winder.  Off came the foggles, and my first challenge was to pick out the airport and get set up for landing.  I had a bit of trouble spotting it; I was used to seeing it from a different direction.  In the pattern, the wind had a rather negative effect upon my ground track- even though the crosswind component was small, the wind still played havoc with my base and final turns.  On final, the changing wind kept my glide slop constantly changing, and my first touchdown was a bit rough.  Scott advised me to keep the power in a bit longer than usual to kept counter the changing wind; this helped out a lot on my next few landings.  After a bit, we pulled a full-stop, with the intention of stopping in at the Spitfire Deli for some lunch.  Scott announced our taxi destination as we cleared the runway, only to hear a rather disheartening response on CTAF: ‘Restaurant is closed on Sunday.”  Well poop.  Guess we’ll taxi back and move on to other things.

“Other things,” in this case, meant more foggle time!  Yay!  Had to be done, though.  While I resumed concentrating on the instruments, Scott had me fly towards LZU for a bit more pattern work.  While Winder had a runway favorable to the wind conditions, Gwinnett would instead present nearly a direct crosswind.  This proved to be a pretty strenuous experience- I was keeping a pretty impressive (to me, at least) crab angle to stay aligned with the runway, and got blown all over the place during the flare. (I say “the flare” rather than “my flare” because Scott was doing most of the work while I turned into a quivering blob of Jell-O)  As if that wasn’t enough fun, once I stuck in power and got off the ground, a nice gust flipped the left wing up- not exactly a fun experience when you’re just off the ground.  On the downwind, I was amazed at how much wind correction I had dialed in to stay parallel to the runway.  Landing #2 was mostly my doing, but far from pretty.  Yup, gusty crosswinds make everything more fun.

Then it was back to PDK for (I think) my first experience landing on 34.  Despite knowing my position and where to expect the runway, I saw 9/27 off my wing first and had to fight my urge to line up with it- it was a rather tempting sight, but I knew better.  I wrapped up with a nice landing on 34 and a bobble when calling ground. (told them the wrong taxiway, but caught myself before I finished my transmission)

This flight wrapped up nearly all of my dual time requirements- the only thing remaining was a required 3 hours of practical review.  I need to log another hour and a half or so of solo time to get to the minimums.  All told, I’m getting pretty close to being ready for the checkride- but first I’ve got to stop procrastinating and get the written knocked out.  I’m hoping to work that in this coming weekend, and then I’ll be ready to schedule my checkride and maybe even become a real private pilot.  Somehow, Sunday’s flight made checkride time seem a lot more imminent than before…

Wait, I just wrote one of these posts… yeah, that’s what I get for procrastinating, I just end up with twice the work when I do get off my butt.  Anyhoo, when we last met about five minutes ago, I’d just wrapped up a rather challenging night + instrument flight.  Luckily, the follow-up to this was another milestone for me: my long solo cross-country flight.  Originally this was going to happen the previous weekend, but weather issues kept me from venturing off to parts unknown.  And since this flight, by its very nature, requires an extended block of time, the weekend was really my only option unless I wanted to use a personal day at work.  So Sunday the 21st became my new target date, and I spent the days prior eyeing the weather while simultaneously fingering a rabbit’s foot with crossed fingers and knocking on any wood object within a five-mile radius.  Whether due to my superstitious overload or not, the weekend turned out great- blue skies, calm winds, and temperatures in the 60s. (sadly, as I write this, we’ve plunged back below freezing again… Mother Nature is such a tease)

In the meantime, I was loosely planning out my flight.  I knew one of my destinations would be Chattanooga, TN; my parents were in town and I wanted to take my father out for a birthday dinner.  I decided not to go to CHA, the big airport, instead opting for the much smaller Dallas Bay Skypark, which was just a few miles from my parents’ house and thus much more convenient for them.  I was somewhat familiar with this airport, having lived in Chattanooga for about a year myself, but I’d certainly never flown into it.  The single runway measured a mere 3000′ x 50′, a fair bit smaller than the acres of asphalt I’ve become used to.

Sunday morning, after reviewing my flight plan with Scott, I headed out to the ramp to prep the plane, an experience that’s still pretty new.  As I mentioned before, the weather was beautiful, and I was by no means the only person at PDK taking advantage of it.  After I’d started the plane and taxied to the edge of the ramp, it took a full five minutes to get a word in on the ground frequency.  I could see no less than four planes in the runup area at 20R as I waited.  Busy, busy, busy.

Finally, I got permission to taxi, and it wasn’t long before I was airborne and turning northwest.  At altitude I found that I had a bit of a tailwind, despite the forecast seeming to indicate a headwind on the way up… but you can’t really argue with that.  The flight up went quickly, and before long I was turned over to Chattanooga Approach.  I was a bit curious how they’d vector me through the airspace, since 1A0 was about ten miles north of CHA.  As it turned out, they sent me a bit to the west of the airport, but also kept me at 5000′ until I was north of the airport- only then did they approve a descent at my discretion.  First bit of difficulty- I was only about six miles from 1A0, with a good 3500′ to lose.  I elected to fly out to the north a bit to get my altitude down.

I had previously reported having 1A0 in sight and been released from Approach, but once I got down near pattern altitude, I couldn’t see the airport any more!  And there wasn’t a bit of traffic to help me get my bearings, but luckily I did have the GPS, so I knew the direction to 1A0.  I was able to head back in on a course that would allow me to join the downwind for runway 5.  Winds were calm, so I could have chosen either direction, but 23 has a 700′ displaced threshold, and given a choice, I’d rather keep that runway ahead of me for an increased stopping margin.

As I turned final, I spotted the obstacle I’d seen mentioned on Airnav: a nice big oak tree maybe 1000′ from the end of the runway.  This was fairly easy to stay clear of, I just kept to the right of the centerline until I’d cleared it, and even then, I probably had adequate altitude to get over it.  Then I was down to the ground, and it was time to flare… and here, things went awry.  My best guess is that the narrow runway threw off my height estimate; whatever the reason, I touched down before really even getting into my flare.  Boing…boing…..boing…..BOING… yeah, this isn’t going to work at all, time to go around.  As I was retracting the flaps and getting into my climb, I noticed a man beside the runway pointing what looked like a camera at me.  Undoubtedly my father.  Good to know that that hideous landing was recorded for all to see later.  Circuit #2 was much better, and this time I pulled off a nice full-stall landing.  Got on the brakes hard, then quickly surmised that I had plenty of runway to get stopped.  After parking in the wrong place- blocking the gas pump, no less- we piled into the car and went off to a nice Italian lunch.

I had hoped to be able to spend a bit of time with the family, but between getting in the air later than expected at PDK and having a long lunch, there wasn’t much to do but troop back to the airport with my parents, my brother, his wife, and my niece in tow.  We sat for a bit on the nice benches outside the FBO, and watched a nice-looking Apache and a little single I couldn’t identify take off… and then it was time for me to get ready to leave.

The flight back was uneventful as well- I made my required second stop in Dalton, GA, on what looked like about ten miles of runway after Dallas Bay.  A quick restroom stop and then it was on south to PDK.  All told, I racked up an even 3 hours in the air, putting me over my required hours of solo cross-county- another requirement off the list.  Besides the requirement, it was nice to take a flight up to visit with family, even at the expense of my dignity- nothing like having the first landing your father sees be really ugly.  He claimed he thought I was showing off and doing a touch & go, but I’m not sure I believe him.  Heh.

It’s looking like I’m only a few flights away from going for my checkride!

Continuing with my theme of ridiculously procrastinating on updating this thing, I’m now actually two flights behind.  *sigh*  I’ll start by rolling the clock back a full week, to last Thursday evening.  For this particular session, the objective was to wrap up my night requirements and at least put a dent in simulated instrument time.  As such, I arrived at PDK a bit after 5 PM, muttering quietly to myself how glad I was that that route wasn’t part of my daily commute.

Before heading out, Scott and I spent a bit of time discussing my current status with respect to training standards, along with serious talks about getting the written exam out of the way.  I still needed to study up on some areas, particularly weather services, but outside of that I felt pretty good about my knowledge.  From there, we covered fundamentals of instrument flight; primary and secondary instruments for pitch and roll, keeping a proper scan going, looking out for instruments to disagree, etc.  A few minutes of this, and then we went out and got in the air.

Scott let me get about 1000′ up before taking the airplane while I put on the dreaded Foggles.  I’d worn these evil things before, but that didn’t make matters any better.  I settled into attempting to maintain my climb and heading.  Right away, I could tell I had little to no scan at all… rather than keeping an orderly watch of things, I was glancing here and there, with the result that I was chasing my tail, a lot.  Coupled with that was my body’s insistence that a slight turn to the left was really level flight.  I thought I did OK my first time out under the hood, but this time I was all over the place… constantly stopping that pesky left turn, oh, now I’m descending, stop the descent, back to the turn, argh…  As if this wasn’t enough work, Scott would occasionally have me work with the GPS and such, which would generally lead to even-worse deviations from my desired course and altitude.  Lesson of the day was definitely that instrument flying is a brain-intensive task, and it takes very little distraction to throw everything into disarray.

Oh, and that was just basic, straight-and-level flying with the occasional turn.  It was going to get better.  First and most fun might have been compass turns.  See, generally one turns while referring to the directional gyro (DG), which is immune to the errors the magnetic compass introduces.  To put it briefly the magnetic compass only reads correctly while flying straight-and-level at a constant speed.  Accelerate, decelerate, or make a turn, and errors come into play.  This is particularly true of turning… we’d discusses back on the ground how to estimate turning error in order to better make compass turns, but I apparently failed to internalize that.  I started my first turn, with Scott covering the DG and me eyeballing the compass.  I knew the error was there, but vastly underestimated it… when I rolled out on what was supposed to be a northerly heading, I watched the compass continue on over to about 020 or so.  A rather impressive display.  The next few times, I got it much better, having learned my lesson.

Then there were climbs and descents.  These come in two flavors: constant-airspeed and constant-vertical speed.  The former are fairly easy, the latter, not so much.  The reason for this is that the VSI has a bit of a lag to it, so while one can easily attain a constant-airspeed climb by eyeing the airspeed indicator, trying to do the same with the VSI results in a vicious sort of tail-chasing game.  Instead, one must select a pitch attitude while watching the AI, let the VSI stabilize, correct the pitch attitude, check the VSI, over and over again.  Even after I worked this out, I still had to stop myself from trying to fly off the VSI… the temptation is strong indeed.

By this time, we were getting close to RMG, where I could get in my last few required night landings.  In keeping with the instrument theme, though, Scott had me fly the ILS into RMG.  This isn’t a required task for a private pilot, but is still a good thing to know in case of an emergency.  Here, Scott played the role of a controller vectoring me onto the ILS, while I played the part of a really bad instrument pilot.  Finally, though, I was able to capture the runway heading and glide slope, and followed it down for a bit until Scott told me to take off the Foggles.

This, by the way, is a surprisingly disorienting transition.  Under the hood, my entire life was contained in about 36 square inches of instrument panel.  Looking outside the airplane again almost seemed like information overload.  Landing can be a bit of a busy time anyway, but doing so while fighting that disorientation is a real challenge.  In a way, it felt like I was starting the whole evolution about ten steps behind the airplane.  Still, I got it down safely, and proceeded to take few more runs around the pattern.  Of course, about the time I was getting comfortable again, it was time to head back towards PDK… and that meant that I got to put my favorite torture device back on.

Nothing really new happened here, except that I was getting better, particularly with my climbs and descents.  Still had trouble maintaining altitude, and a few times I exceeded a 100′ margin from my desired altitude- enough to fail me on the checkride.  Definitely got to get that in order in the near future.  I also flew a few simulated holding patterns; basically a timed turn followed by a timed straight stretch, all working out a nice little racetrack pattern in the sky.

The last bit of fun was getting into PDK.  Previously, when we flew to LZU, I though it was hard to pick the airport out.  I had no idea what hard was.  PDK sits right in the middle of a well-populated area NE of Atlanta.  I picked up the airport beacon immediately after removing the Foggles, but could not for the life of me pick out the runways.  About the best I could manage was a guess based on the beacon, the runway headings, and my heading.  I still hadn’t identified them when Scott told me to turn onto my downwind.  Finally, I picked out 2L and 2R, which was fine until it came time to make my base turn.  Once again, I had trouble picking them out… I saw what I thought was 2R, but didn’t catch 2L until I was turning final.  All in all, it was a truly challenging task.

This flight satisfied my night requirements, but still left me with more required instrument time… which is just as well, as I clearly need plenty more practice at that.  For the most part, I’ve enjoyed my training so far, but I suspect that terms like “fun” and “enjoy” probably wouldn’t apply quite so readily to working on an instrument rating.  It’s something I want to do eventually, if for no other reason than safety, but my bit of hood time sure does give me a critical perspective on that bit of fun.  I wouldn’t feel at all out of line to refer to instrument flying as Hard Work.

…updating the blog, that is.  I went on a solo flight Sunday afternoon, and yeah, I’m just now getting around to writing about it.

Plan A for Sunday had been to knock out my long cross-country.  I also had a bit of an ulterior motive with this; my parents were in town in Chattanooga and my dad had just had a birthday, so I figured on making a long stop and taking him out to lunch.  Alas, but the weather did not work out for me.  Saturday saw possible rain in the forecast for Atlanta, and near-certain rain and snow in Chattanooga.  I elected to postpone the cross-country another week… but since I had the plane reserved, I figured I’d at least go out and get some maneuver practice.

Things got a bit more interesting when I heard from Scott Saturday evening… seems 546 was still over at LZU.  I volunteered half-jokingly to finish my solo flight at PDK and get the airplane repositioned, but that was actually what happened.  Bruce was going to be at PDK anyway and was willing to run me back to LZU for my car after the flight.  Sounded like a plan to me.

Sunday morning, I showed up, got the airplane, had a relatively normal preflight and takeoff, and proceeded on up to Lake Lanier to work on some of my maneuvers.  I started off with a few steep turns, and ended up a bit dismayed… my turns to the left probably would have passed, but I wasn’t at all satisfied.  I kept letting the nose drop during my roll-in, with the result that I spent the rest of the turn chasing the nose in an attempt to stay within 100′ of my starting altitude.  Oddly enough, turns to the right were spot-on every time.

Another little detail that I wanted to work on was coordinating my turns.  I was pretty well into the habit of generally forgetting that the rudder pedals existed unless I was on the ground- passable for gentle turns, not so good to more aggressive entries and exits to my steep turns.  Without rudder input, there was a noticeable yaw at the beginning and end of my rollout.  So I spent a few minutes just working on constantly changing my bank angle and adding rudder such that I got rid of adverse yaw during the transitions.  It actually turned out to be much easier than I thought, and made my steep turns much friendlier as well.

I tossed in a few power-off stalls and turns around a point before pointing the nose towards PDK.  This would actually be my first time soloing into PDK- all my previous flights were out of LZU.  But I’d flown in and out enough to know what to do and expect, so it was no big deal at all.  I called up the tower about 8 miles out, asked to do some pattern work, and was vectored into a straight-in to 20R.  As I was setting up, I saw a large plane over in the vicinity of Stone Mountain, and remembered that the B-17 Liberty Belle was at PDK for the weekend.  Sure enough, that was her, taking some lucky folks for a nice flight. (side note: I wish I could use “Fortress” as my type when calling ATC.  Fortress 34R sounds way cooler than Diamond 6DC)

There was a bit of confusion in the pattern, as a Cirrus was in the vicinity with a similar callsign, ending in 6DC.  The tower controller accounted for this by referring to us by our type.  I probably would have gone for full callsigns instead… but hey, it got the job done.  Soon enough, I was on short final for my first solo landing at PDK… and it was a squeaker.  Nice way to get started.  Number 2 was another good one, but things got interesting as I was climbing out again… just off the end of 20R, I observed a white balloon up ahead and below; I passed about 50 feet above it before making my crosswind turn.  I didn’t think much of it, and thought even less as I was on my downwind.  A bit earlier, I’d heard someone call in and request an initial for 20L, and as I turned downwind, I realized that the calling airplane was none other than the B-17.  She was just making her break into the pattern as I made my turn to final, and as much as I wanted to watch her, I did have an airplane of my own to land.

Remember the balloons?  Yeah, that wasn’t the end of that story.  As I climbed out from the next touch & go, I saw two more red balloons, this time right at my altitude and dead ahead.  While I didn’t have any specific scenarios in mind, it seemed prudent to avoid colliding with them, so I turned a bit to ensure a miss.  The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that the other folks flying around ought to know about the balloons.  I had no idea if it was appropriate or not, but I went ahead and called the tower and let them know about the balloons, and they promised to send someone out to stop the madness.

Two more times around the pattern, and I felt it was time to wrap the day up.  Back up at the old familiar Clairemont ramp, I wedged in between a C152 and a Piper which was infringing on my space.  Good thing the DA-20’s low wing tucks under the Cessna’s eye-level airfoil.  Inside, I turned the plane over to Bruce, notified him that I’d found a nonfunctional nav light during my preflight, and then we headed back over to Lawrenceville.

My big conclusion for the day was that I definitely needed to get up with Scott and get a second set of eyes on my air work, particularly those left steep turns.  For that matter, I need to get in more short- and soft-field practice, in addition to a few other time requirements.  Tomorrow should see me wrap up my night and simulated instrument requirements, and then we can move on to test prep and refining my maneuvers.

Seems that my night dual time came even sooner than I thought- but hey, nothing wrong with flying two days in a row.  I had originally thought I’d be busy Monday evening, and tentatively was considering Wednesday night instead, but it turned out that Monday was free after all.  I was planning n asking Scott anyway when he sent me a text that sealed the deal- we’d both forgotten that he was going to Florida Wednesday, so any night dual this week would have to be on Monday.  Since that was what I was thinking anyway, it worked out great.

I knocked off work a bit early and spent some time planning my flight.  I decided to go with the same flight I’d planned for the previous night attempt- a hop out to Anderson, SC. (AND)  Anderson is about 70 nm from LZU, plenty in excess of the 50-mile minimum for a cross-country.  Another benefit is that there’s a VOR just a few miles from the airport, making navigation a snap.  Selecting checkpoints was a bit more difficult.  I tried to pick things that I thought would be easily visible at night- busy highways, well-lit towns, etc.  Before long, I was packing up and heading out to LZU.

Out on the ramp, 546 only had about 3/4 of a tank, so we called for the fuel truck.  Luckily- well, in a manner of speaking- I’d forgotten to bring my headset out, so we had to go up to the office.  Waiting in there for the fuel was much warmer than waiting on the ramp.  Back outside, I ran the preflight and we were ready to roll.

Taxiing was a bit of a challenge, particularly while turning- the taxi light on the DA-20 only illuminates a small area directly ahead, which isn’t much good for picking out the centerline if it’s not straight ahead.  The edge light at least give a sense of boundary, but I still prefer to follow the centerline instead of trying to judge my position between the lights.  Still, aside from coming close to turning early for the runup area and going in the grass, things were uneventful.  With no traffic around but us, there was no wait at the runway, and I was in the air and turning to the east in no time.

Night flying offers a sort of quiet calm that’s not always present during the day.  With far less traffic, the radio stays pretty quiet, and you’re treated to a view far different from what you’re used to.  The slight downside is that flight by visual reference is more difficult; the horizon can be tough to pick out, and so judging pitch and bank attitude requires more instrument reference than usual.  At altitude, I called up Atlanta Approach and got flight following- not that there was really any other traffic to worry about.  The cruise seemed to go pretty quickly, and before long I was descending towards Anderson.

As I crossed the VOR and turned toward the airport, Scott keyed the mike and turned on the lights at AND, which made it a lot easier for me to judge my pattern entry.  I deduced that at my descent rate, I’d still be a bit high at the airport, so I swung out to the south a bit to get down to pattern altitude.  The only voices on the CTAF were Scott’s and mine.  I crossed the runway at pattern altitude, made my downwind turn, and set about replicating my pattern knowledge in a decidedly unfamiliar environment.

The first bit of a hiccup came as I reduced power to start my descent.  I’d already had to beat the urge early on to hold up my descent here during the day… at night, with no real visual altitude cues, it’s even tougher to let the plane go down.  I rolled out on final high, chopped the power, and focused on getting on slope and controlling my speed.  On short final, speed control became tougher, simply because the bright approach lights killed my night vision and made it difficult to glance in and see my airspeed.  The landing, however, was one of my best yet… a nice smooth touchdown.  I then taxied back to do it again.  Meanwhile, Scott demonstrated how to control the intensity of the lights via radio; for subseqeunt landings, the medium setting was far more comfortable for me.

My requirements for night training include ten takeoffs and landings to a full-stop… no touch & goes here.  But full-stop doesn’t mean taxiing back is required, even though we did it the first time.  For the rest, since AND has a nice long runway, we simply did stop & goes- land, come to a stop, reconfigure the airplane, throttle up, do it again.  All in all, I got in six landings at AND, all of which were among my best.  Scott pointed out that this was a consequence of my good airspeed control.  Perhaps the relative lack of scenery at night makes it easier to concentrate on the basics… not sure, but something was clicking.

Finally, we turned back towards LZU.  For this approach, Scott had me do something a bit different- instead of the usual pattern entry and visual landing, he had me set up on the ILS and fly the needles, or at least try to.  I’d done this, in a manner of speaking, before on FSX, but that sure ain’t real life.  For one thing, I can’t switch off the wind in the real world… a few miles out, I transitioned back to flying visually and got in another great landing.  Totals for the night: 2.4 hours and eight landings.

I still need another few tenths of an hour at night, plus two more landings, so another (albeit shorter) night session will be in order soon.  I’m getting close to the end of my private training now; I’ve crossed the 30-hour mark, and besides the aforementioned night experience, the only other requirements left to meet are a few hours’ simulated instrument time and six hours of solo time, including my long cross-country.  I anticipate taking the knowledge test in a few weeks, and probably the checkride not long after.

After a lot of waiting to get here, it’s almost within my grasp.

Today was to be an interesting day.  The plan was for me to make my first solo cross-country flight, to RMG where I went with Scott last weekend.  So I spent some time this morning working up a flight plan from LZU to RMG in my old friend 546DC.  I’d previously spoken with Scott, who’d mentioned wanting to have me do some power-off landings, so I planned on a bit of dual time prior to my solo.

The first monkey wrench in the day’s plans came after I’d finished up my flight plan- I’d neglected to even check the weather at RMG.  I suppose I was subconsciously assuming it was the same as the clear blue skies here in Atlanta-a bad assumption.  The RMG METAR showed an overcast layer at 2300′- technically low enough for me to fly under and land, but I was uncomfortable with it.  I checked the satellite, and determined that the cloud cover might be burning off, so I decided to hope that the clouds cleared up in the couple of hours between then and the start of my flight.

Over at LZU, Scott was finishing up with his previous student, so I took the opportunity to recheck the RMG weather and the satellite.  Things hadn’t improved at all- in fact, the overcast layer had come down to 2100′.  Once Scott was done, I mentioned the weather situation, including my discomfort with flying in those conditions.  That turned out to be a moot point anyway- my solo endorsement specifies, among other conditions, a 3000′ minimum ceiling, so RMG was right out.  After reviewing the area weather, we decided on Thomson-McDuffie (HQU) instead.  I worked up a quick route, then put off finishing the plan until after we’d made our dual flight.

LZU was pretty busy, so instead of working in the pattern there, we headed a few miles east to Winder.  I’d watched Scott execute a power-off landing out last time out, so I had an idea what things should look like.  I also knew that this would be a real exercise in energy management; the DA-20 is perfectly capable of gliding the distance required to make it from downwind to the runway; in fact, there’s energy to spare.  The game becomes judging when to drop flaps and start bleeding off excess energy in order to come down in the selected touchdown zone.

It was easier than I thought, really.  I entered the downwind leg, and pulled the throttle to idle abeam my touchdown point.  Having seen how Scott kept the pattern in close, I started my base turn early.  I already felt I was plenty high, and Scott confirmed by advising me to drop the first notch of flaps.  I continued to come around, ending up on a short final.  Just before completing my lineup, I dropped the last notch of flaps and came in for a nice gentle touchdown; a bit long perhaps, but otherwise lovely.  I repeated this exercise twice more, with good results- on the second, I went out a bit further than necessary on my base turn, and had to delay dropping final flaps, but I still made it back with energy to spare.

After an uneventful trip back to LZU, we checked the weather again.  HQU was showing a 3200′ ceiling; enough room to fly under for an arrival.  After some thinking, I decided the trip was good to go, and set about finalizing my flight plan.  Scott saw that I was getting everything together, then signed my logbook and departed the area for home.  As I was getting my weather briefing, he called me with a thought… since HQU was 75+ miles away, if I stopped at another airport during my trip, this could count as my long solo cross-country. (150+ miles total distance, one leg +50 miles, three stops)  Sounded like a plan to me.

Before beginning my taxi, I set up the plane for my trip; rather than flying direct to HQU, I was going to make a slight north dogleg over Athens ans take advantage of the VOR there as a waypoint.  I dutifully tuned to the proper frequency and selected the appropriate radial, or so I thought. (more on this later)  Out and airborne, I got my first blow to my plan- it was clear I wasn’t going to be cruising at my planned altitude of 5500′.  The clouds over LZU had closed up a bit, and as I approached 3500′, I felt I was getting in the neighborhood of my minimum clearance.  There were holes that I could possibly have climbed through, but that was risky for both practical and legal reasons.  As such, I elected to cruise at 3500′ instead.

I settled about navigating to Athens.  The air was a bit bumpy, and the lower-than-expected clouds made me a bit nervous, so when I kept drifting off the radial to Athens, I figured those were responsible.  But as time went on, I couldn’t seem to intercept the radial- the needle would move left, I’d make a left turn… no change… repeat… so on.  (Astute readers, probably including at least one CFI, already know what’s going on)  I was wondering about all this oddness when I saw an unexpected sight on the GPS- Lake Lanier.  Now, Lanier is almost directly north of LZU, whereas Athens is almost directly east.  Alarm bells went off, and suddenly I knew exactly what I’d done.  I’d selected the reciprocal radial from the one I was supposed to be flying, with the consequence that if I’d wanted to correct my course without adjusting the VOR, I’d need to correct opposite to the needle deflections.  Argh.

So I spun the OBS to point the way to Athens, made a nearly 180-degree turn, and continued on my way.  The good news was that I was now flying the radial that I was going to take to HQU anyway; I’d just gone about 15 miles out of my way.  The rest of the trip to Athens was uneventful, save for the continuous sense that the clouds were continuing to lower.  By the time I’d gotten south of Athens, I was down to 3000′ to make sure I had sufficient cloud clearance.  At this point, I was really starting to get concerned that the clouds would continue to come down as I approached HQU.  About halfway between Athens and HQU, my path took me near Washington-Wilkes County (IIY), which I’d planned as a possible divert location if the weather at HQU degraded.  As I got near to IIY, I dialed up the HQU AWOS to see what the weather looked like.  I was a bit far out, and the transmission was a bit garbled, but I distinctly thought I heard a reported 1000′ ceiling.  Thus, with HQU weather sounding untenable, combined with my bit of nervousness about the clouds I was flying under, I elected to divert to IIY.

The place was dead.  If not for cars on the surrounding roads, it could have been a set for an apocalyptic movie.  I heard nothing but empty air as I sent my intentions over CTAF… approaching, entering the pattern, base, final, clear of the active.  I parked in front of a locked-up FBO building and hopped out to assess the situation.  First order of business, as learned from my last flight, was to call and cancel my flight plan.  No more ominous voicemails for me, thanks very much.  I attempted to use the flight briefer app on my phone to check the HQU weather, to no avail.  I had about the weakest signal possible, and data transmission just wasn’t happening.  Without any apparent way to get weather info for HQU, and seeing as how I had no particular need to try to press on, I decided to plan my flight back to LZU.  The flight to IIY and back would still count as a cross-country.

Alas, but here my phone betrayed me again.  I picked a direct track back to LZU, picked out a few visual waypoints, worked out the flight plan, then attempted to file the plan and get a weather brief.  Neither the briefer or I could understand the other.  I wandered all over the ramp looking for some kind of sweet spot, to no avail.  Well, I knew the winds aloft forecast from earlier was still good, and so I could use those numbers to work out the headings I needed to fly.  One more try for the briefer, no joy… well, no flight plan for the return trip then.  I took off from the still-dead airport and pointed the nose to the west.

For the return trip, I decided to take advantage of the GPS.  So far, for my cross-country flights, I’d intentionally avoided referring to the GPS in favor of learning to navigate by pilotage or radio aids, but given the number of kinks in the flight so far, it seemed wise to use all available resources.  Of course, first I had to remember how to enter a direct track in the thing.  A few minutes of fumbling and I had a nice purple line pointing the way to LZU.

The flight back was uneventful; the air seemed to have smoothed out, and holes were appearing in the clouds.  The sporadic shafts of sunlight peeking through made for a great view, and I found that as great as they looked on the ground, flying through them was even better.  I picked up all my waypoints and held the direct course with no fanfare.  Back at LZU, I shot a few touch & goes before making my full stop just ahead of the school’s other DA-20, wrapping the day up with 2.3 hours of solo cross-country time.  I also checked the AWOS history for HQU, and discovered that I’d apparently misheard the weather- at no time during my flight was the ceiling reported below 3200′.  Well, better safe than sorry, I suppose.

As I look back at the flight, I could have done some things differently.  Flight Watch is available for checking weather while in the air- instead of diverting to IIY based on a garbled radio transmission, I probably would have been better served calling them up and asking about the weather.  I should also really get myself an AFD;if I’d had one on hand, I might have been able to check the HQU weather from the ground at IIY via phone and determined that I could have pressed on.

All told, the flight went off OK, I learned some lessons, got to see some new scenery, and had a real-world experience diversion experience.  Since I didn’t get my long distance cross-country, I’ll keep with my original plan to make my long solo cross-country next weekend, weather permitting.  My parents are going to be in Chattanooga, and it’s my dad’s birthday, so it seems like a good opportunity to make it up north and take him out to dinner Sunday afternoon.  Hopefully Scott and I can get in some night flying this week as well.

Wow, only five days since my last flight… maybe the sporadic January days are truly behind me now.  Overall, I’m starting to get the feeling that I’m on the home stretch here… I’ve gone and soloed both in and out of the pattern, and after today, I’m all set to go do  a solo cross-country and work on getting that requirement knocked out. (”That requirement” being five hours of solo cross-country time)

For today’s flight, Scott instructed me to plan a flight to an airport of my choosing, at least 50 miles from PDK.  In a sense, this was a pleasant change; earlier portions of training were necessarily regimented to a certain degree; fly here, do pattern work, fly home, go to the practice area, perform three steep turns, etc.  Suddenly it was all up to me.  I decided that one additional self-imposed requirement would be that my destination be an uncontrolled field.  We’d performed a fair amount of pattern work earlier at small fields, but that was mostly before I got over my radio stage fright.  Since then, nearly all of my pattern work had been done at towered fields, and as a result, I felt it best that I go somewhere where I’d have to learn to talk in the blind.

I settled on KRMG in Rome, GA, slightly over 50 miles from PDK.  My flight path up there was made a bit more interesting thanks to Dobbins ARB in Marietta- flying straight from PDK to RMG would have run me through their airspace, and while that’s not a problem if one gains permission, I elected to challenge myself a bit by throwing in a dogleg around the airspace.  I’d previously flown to Chattanooga, but that was a simple direct-follow-the-VOR-needle flight.  This time, I was going to fly to RMG without the benefit of any fancy stuff- no VOR, no GPS.  I selected several checkpoints to check my progress, and even scouted the area on Google Earth to get an idea of what I’d be looking at.

Over at PDK, Scott and I reviewed my flight plan and the route I’d chosen, a conversation liberally sprinkled with questions about airspace rules, information found on the sectional, and other little tidbits that I’ll need to know.  My planning passed muster, and then I had my first experience filing a flight plan and getting a weather briefing. (that guy talked fast, even after I told him I was an idiot student)  Today’s weather could hardly have been better- clear skies all around, light winds, great visibility.

After an uneventful taxi (save for me trying to get taxi instructions on the tower freq), we were airborne and headed northwest.  By the time I reached my planned altitude of 6500′, I was already nearing my first checkpoint, a small private strip north of town.  I was unable to get it in sight- probably hiding under the nose- but I knew that I could expect to pass overhead when RYY was off my left wing, and my proximity and heading to Lake Alatoona confirmed this, so I made my turn towards RMG.  The rest of the flight was uneventful; I hit my checkpoints as expected, though a little late, as my cruising airspeed was lower than I’d planned.  Given the fact that I was navigating only by ground references, I was a bit surprised when RMG materialized almost directly off my nose- I was far more accurate than I’d expected.

The plan at RMG was to fly around in the pattern a bit and practice short- and soft-field landings, but first I had to get past an inexplicable return of radio stage fright.  Come on, just key the mike and talk already… eventually, I did get to the point where I made calls maybe about half as often as I should have… I need to do this more and get it ingrained.  Meanwhile, my first time around was ugly.  I got in too tight on downwind, and the resulting tight pattern had me end up way high turning final.  Despite pulling the power out, as I approached the runway it was clear that this one wasn’t going to work… time to go around.  This time I flew a bit further out, and though I again came in high, I was able to save it for a touch & go.  Next time around was high again, and as I powered up to go around, I realized that I hadn’t ever put in full flaps… ok, get it together.  Next time around was far better; I was on slope as I turned final, got a little low on short final, but ended up with a nice touchdown.  In a valiant attempt to pretend I was doing a soft-field, I flew down the runway with the nose in the air a bit before climbing out again.

Thereafter, things were much better.  I still wasn’t talking on the radio as much as I should have, but I quit coming in ridiculously high and was looking like I had some idea what I was doing again.  After a few more circuits, I headed for home.  I’d only gone a few miles before Scott sprung the (expected) surprise.. ye gods, PDK was closed and I needed to divert to Cherokee County!  I got a pretty good position cut from the Rome VOR, and from that I got a rough heading to 47A.  I did some quick mental calculations for estimated time and fuel to 47A, then set about fine-tuning my location and flight path using the sectional.  It was easier than I thought; I was able to identify landmarks every few minutes to monitor my progress, and I only faltered as I got close to 47A.  I got a little too sure of my heading and was carefully scouring the area ahead at the expense of either side.  As I continued squinting over the nose, Scott made a few nudging remarks until I noted that the airport was at about my 1:00 position.  There’s a good chance I would have flown past it had I been alone.

Satisfied with my ability to find my way around, Scott let me turn south for PDK.  As we approached the airport, he raised the idea of me going out for a few solo circuits at PDK; this sounded good to me, but given my subpar performance earlier, I decided to try a few times around with Scott before taking that leap.  Landing #1 was great, and things were looking good… but then, at about 600′ on the climbout, the engine seemed to cough a bit… uhh, yeah, let’s go for a full-stop on this one.  This time, Scott took over on the downwind so he could demonstrate a simulated engine-out landing.  It was really just as well… by the time I would have finished a few touch & gos, it would have been getting dark anyway.

Back in the office, Scott added a few endorsements for me to fly solo at PDK and FTY, and we discussed getting me on a solo cross-country maybe next weekend.  I may do my long cross-country the following weekend, most likely to Chattanooga and back.  I still feel I need to spend some more time at untowered fields to get in the groove of making my calls.  In the meantime, there’s the question of what ramifications that engine stumble might have… 546 will be getting checked out this week, and I hope she’s OK, because 393’s schedule is invariably crowded, especially on the weekends.  And I’ve got lots of work to do!

Oh, one final bit of information… as I was about to head home, I observed that I had a voicemail.  Upon listening to said voicemail, I heard the voice of a man with FSS, informing me that we were overdue and S&R procedures were about to be started.  We had indeed forgotten to close our flight plan, at least initially; Scott remembered as were were in the pattern at RMG and called up to cancel it, but presumably we were already overdue at that point.  I went ahead and called up just to make sure everything was kosher… I don’t want to get any fuel bills from the CAP in my mailbox.  So I guess that was my first experience with forgetting to close a flight plan.  Live and learn…

So ends another flightless period, and with a bang to boot. (more on that later)  Despite my expressed desire last time around to try to get back to flying more often, events continued to conspire against me.  It started with the repairs to 546 being more extensive than expected; originally, the left side rudder pedal assembly was scheduled to be replaced, but it turned out that the rudder cable had to be swapped as well.  This pretty much requires stripping the airplane behind the seats, so the maintenance downtime increased quite a bit.

Meanwhile, with 391 having been sold a few weeks ago, there was but one remaining DA-20, and as you might imagine, it was in high demand.  Between the plane being booked solid and a miniature rainy season striking metro Atlanta, today was the first time I got to fly again.  I had previously tried for last Friday morning- a rainy day- and yesterday- which featured low clouds from Sunday’s heavy rains and gusty conditions to boot.

But this morning dawned clear, if a bit cold.  I cocooned myself, mounted the bike, and headed out to scenic Lawrenceville to meet Scott.  We had already discussed the plan of the day, which was for me to fly solo out of LZU, head to the practice area, and pretty much do as I pleased.  Concerns for the day, on the other hand, were that the winds were forecast to pick up starting at about 9 AM or so- so my window of flight wasn’t that big.  Scott inquired if I wanted to go around the pattern a few times with him, but I felt confident working in the pattern at LZU, so this ended up being my first “all me” flight.

In many ways, it was a sort of emotional rehash of my first solo.  You just get used to doing things with someone else; preflighting the airplane, climbing in… just all the little things seem vastly different when you’re alone.  The plane took a few tries to start thanks to the temperature, but soon enough I was idling on the ramp, willing the heat to start working and the oil temp to come up.  Then I switched to willing myself to push the talk button and call ground.  As I taxied down to the runup area, it seemed as if someone had taken sandpaper to my senses.  Evey noise the plane made was amplified in my ears.  Every bump felt like an earthquake.  On the roll, I was again reminded of the vast difference in performance caused by a missing passenger.  Up, up, and away, turn to the north, got the lake in sight, keep an eye out for the tall tower to the east, boy, did 3500′ ever come up fast.

There I was, over the lake.  What to do now?  Well, I could just poke holes in the sky, but it *has* been a bit since I practiced my maneuvers, and I *am* in the practice area.  So I tooled about over water, doing steep turns, discovering that slow flight looks different with less load, throwing in a few power-off stalls for good measure.  OK, what now?  I did a few more steep turns, focusing on trying to better coordinate rudder with aileron on the roll-in and roll-out.  Still need to practice that some more.  I still wasn’t quite ready to head back to Gwinnett, and ATIS hadn’t been updated with the latest wind info, so I just flew around the perimeter of the lake a bit, taking in the sights on the ground.

Then it really was time to head back.  ATIS had now been updated, and winds were reported out of 250 at 15.  Stiff, but straight down the runway; should be OK.  I decided to stick with my Plan A and squeeze in a few touch & gos before parking the plane.  Got instructions from the tower to enter right base for 25.  I made a slight miscalculation here and started my descent too late, and ended up having to work to get down to pattern altitude, but I gt it done.  Meanwhile, I could feel that the winds were picking up, moving the plane around a bit.  I made a mental note to keep some extra speed on final to compensate.  Once I got on final, I realized I was in deeper waters than I had expected; the wind made it challenging to maintain a good glide slope.  Still, I managed to stay more or less on slope and in line, but in the flare, things got ugly.  Seemed as if I caught a gust just after leveling off, as the plane suddenly decided to climb up about five feet or so.  As I corrected for that, the wind dropped again and I ended up taking a really hard bounce.  There was no saving this at all, so I came up with the power and got back in the air.

Clearly, this was not a time for solo pattern work.  I requested a full-stop the next time around.  I was really rattled by the abortive touch & go, and it showed in a really ugly traffic pattern.  My confidence in my abilities had taken a big hit, and I was really concerned about getting the airplane safely on the ground.  But I was flying solo- nothing to do but quit worrying, concentrate that much harder, and get the plane down.  The wind continued to give me trouble- at one point on my base leg, I went from an 80-knot descent to hearing the stall horn blaring in an instant.  Stick the power, keep the plane flying, get it on the ground.  Final was the same story as the last time: varying winds keeping my descent rate changing.  I tried to keep extra speed, but the twitching airspeed needle made it difficult.  Then it was time to flare, and as if my magic, the wind seemed to stabilize, and I settled down for a rather gentle landing.

Taxiing back to the ramp was tough.  Apparently the adrenaline dump was affecting me; my legs were shaking and didn’t want to stop.  With the airplane parked and the engine killed, I breathed a sigh of relief.  On the one hand, I’d gotten rattled like never before in the air… but on the other hand, I’d worked through that, flown the plane, and come back safely.  All told, it was a bit of a sobering realization- soloing is great, but with the great feeling comes the undeniable fact that there’s no longer a security blanket riding along.  The buck really and truly stops with me, no dancing around it any more.

Back in the hangar with Scott, we debriefed my experience and then headed over to look at the many pieces of 546.  Since I’m a sucker for seeing how things worked, this was fascinating for me, following the cables from the pedals back towards the tails, seeing the pushrods from the stick, picking out all the familiar parts under the cowling… great educational finish to the day.

I know I already said this one time, but hopefully now I can get back to flying more frequently and get back on track.  Next scheduled flight is this Sunday afternoon.