Squawk1200

Ah, quite a week and another dry spell… Last weekend was a sort of perfect storm of aircraft issues, with 546 down with a rudder cable issue and 393 down with a nicked prop.  After hearing of the issues on Sunday, I waited to hear about the status of the aircraft through the week, until Scott asked if I was up for a Friday afternoon flight.  Well, I’m pretty much up for flying any time, so I agreed.  Prior to this particular flight, I’d amassed nearly 19 hours of time.  Time-wise, I still need 40 hours minimum overall time.  Additional requirements to be met are 10 hours of solo (I have .6 so far), of which 5 have to be cross-country, 3 hours of simulated instrument (I have a meager .3), and 3 hours of night.  As far as airmanship goes, one major point is soft- and short-field operations.  So the general idea in the short-term is to get soloed at PDK so I can go out and work on my solo time, and also work on those soft/short-field ops.

Friday afternoon, the weather was lovely.  Light wind, clear sky, just a haze layer to deal with.  It would have been a great day to solo, but unfortunately the airplane wasn’t up for it.  We were flying 546, which still was awaiting replacement of the pilot’s rudder pedal assembly.  The rudders were still functional, though they couldn’t be adjusted fore and aft. (Luckily for me, they were stuck in the Green Giant position)  The mechanic had OK’d the plane to fly for the time being, but recommended against soling from the left seat, just in case there was a failure.  So that pretty much put the kibosh on soling, but there was still the opportunity to do some short/soft-field work, as well as for me to redeem myself after last week’s spotty pattern work.

Since PDK was getting a bit busy, we elected to head over to FTY for the pattern work. We had previously briefed short/soft-field work, so we reviewed soft-field takeoff techniques as we taxied and ran the plane up.  Even better for me, AOPA’s Flight Training magazine had a nice article this month on soft-field ops, so I was feeling ready to give it a whirl.  The basic idea with soft-field ops is to limit drag on the airplane from the soft surface.  As such, general principles to follow on the ground are to keep the stick full back to reduce weight on the nosewheel, and not to stop unnecessarily.  For the takeoff, one taxis onto the runway without stopping and begins the takeoff roll with the stick still full back.  On a normal takeoff, one waits for 45 knots to begin rotating the airplane and then proceeds into the desired climb attitude.  But since we want to reduce drag on the soft-field takeoff, the objective is to get in the air as quickly as possible- so the stick is kept back through the roll until the nose comes up and the airplane starts flying.  All well and good, but we’re going too slow to climb out of ground effect, so the next step is to push the stick forward, level out a few feet above the runway, and accelerate to a good climb speed.  This is actually pretty fun- if I were less focused, I might have imagined I was a Blue Angel performing a low transition.  Heh.

So the soft-field takeoff went well, and the short stint over to FTY was over in no time.  The aforementioned haze made it difficult to pick out the airport, but we got there and got in the pattern.  Landing #1 was to be my first soft-field landing.  The objective here is to land as gently as possible- digging the gear into a soft surface would be uncomfortable at best.  So the approach goes fairly normally until just before touchdown, when a smidge of power is added and the stick kept back to keep the nosewheel up as long as possible.  I found this to be a fairly straightforward operation, though I don’t quite have the feel yet for holding the nose up- but that’s what more practice is for.

After a few soft-field landings, we moved on to short-field work.  Here, the idea is to clear an obstacle on final, touch down at a predetermined point, and get stopped quickly and safely.  Carrying too much speed into the flare and floating down the runway is, shall we say, undesirable when there’s not much runway to work with.  We need that space to get stopped.  I found short-field landings more challenging- correct practice calls for starting the approach higher than normal and then steepening after clearing the imaginary obstacle.  I found myself overdoing the “higher than normal” part, to the point where it was difficult to get rid of all that energy and still hit my touchdown point on-speed.  This would have been a good time for a forward slip, but it’s been some time since I practiced those, and I’m reluctant to refresh myself whilst on short final.  And while I never quite conquered that too-high tendency, I got to the point of doing pretty well at hitting my touchdown point, but some more practice is definitely in order.

After several more landings, the afternoon was still young.  Scott inquired as to whether I wanted to go back to PDK or maybe do some maneuvering.  Since it had been some time since I practiced any maneuvers, I took the second option.  We exited the pattern and proceeded northwest, initially skirting the nearby Dobbins ARB  airspace.  After a bit, Scott called up Dobbins and asked if we could transit their airspace.  We got permission, and I got the interesting experience of flying right over the base.  Got to see some C-130s, C-5s, and UH-60s on the ramp… was hoping to spot a freshly minted Raptor from the Lockheed plant, but no such luck there.

Clear of the airspace, I performed slow flight, power-off stalls, and steep turns at Scott’s request.  Power-off stalls were a bit subpar- I was pitching over too far on the recovery.  In retrospect, I think this is because I never retrimmed the airplane from a 110-knot cruise down to 40-knot stalls, so there was a lot of nose-down tendency.  I’m used to needing some forward pressure on the stick in the recovery, but in this case, a simple reduction of backpressure was sufficient.  Steep turns went well, though I threw in a bit of a climb at the beginning of my first one and wasn’t quite getting banked enough.  These are the kind of things I can get out and practice solo once we get that knocked out.

The flight back to and landing at PDK were uneventful.  Back at the ramp, I was beginning to pack up my stuff when Scott made a proposal: he had to take 546 back to LZU anyway for the repair, so why didn’t I tag along and get some more time plus a bit of a night introduction, and he’d drop me off at PDK afterwards?  I was agreeable, provided I could make a pit stop first, so that’s what we did.  So I was opened to a whole new world of flying… it might seem obvious to say that things look very different at night, but… well… they do!  We were on course to LZU, and Scott kept asking if I had the airport, while I kept looking in the direction it should be, trying to pick up the beacon… all I succeeded in doing was catching some departing traffic.  We were instructed to follow another aircraft on downwind, and I was stunned when I finally picked up the airport… almost off my right wing.  Jeez, that snuck up on me.  Pattern and approach went well… on short final, Scott reminded me to be aware of night illusions making it difficult to judge my height off the runway.  This was verified when I touched down about five seconds sooner than I expected- it was a genuine surprise to me when we hit the tarmac.  Taxiing proved to be challenging as well… that little taxi light on the left wing doesn’t do a whole lot.  In fact, I may never complain about the dim headlight on my motorcycle again.

So ended a good, productive day of flying.  I didn’t get my PDK solo in, but I did get lots of practice for techniques I’ll need for the exam, plus a night intro to boot.  We definitely did more than just make holes in the sky.  546 should be fixed early this week, so hopefully I can get in my solo either one afternoon this week or next weekend, and then head out to the practice area sometime to do some solo maneuvering and navigation.  Won’t be too long before I’m doing solo cross-country… for that matter, won’t be too long before I’m sweating inches away from an FAA examiner.  The pace has been a  bit slow the last few weeks due to the holidays and maintenance issues, but I’m hoping we can get back into a good groove now and get this thing knocked out.

The big hope for today’s flight was to get in a solo at PDK, but alas, that didn’t happen.  Conditions weren’t all that great to begin with- winds had been gusty in the morning, and were originally forecast to calm down in the afternoon.  But come 4:00 and my arrival at PDK, they were still gusting decently.  Still, thanks to PDK’s runway 34, it was still possible to fly in this and at least give it a college try.

Before heading out into the brisk January chill, Scott and I discussed generally the state of my training, things we had to cover, so forth and so on.  High on the list are short/soft-field takeoffs and landings; I’ve become fairly proficient at the standard variety, so it’s time to be thinking about and practicing the variations.  We moved to the whiteboard and briefly discussed the reasons and procedures for short/soft-field operations.   Most of this I was at least passingly familiar with, so it was in a way a review for me.  I just need to go put in into practice.

Out on the ramp, I ran my preflight, hopped in, and 546 fired up surprisingly easily considering the temperature.  After a brief battle between my headset cable and the seatbelt, plus some additional time to get the oil temp up, we were taxiing over to 34.  First order of the day: perform a short-field takeoff.  No problem- get lined up, come to a full stop, go up with the throttle while holding the brakes, brakes off, rotate about 10 knots later, and immediately get stuck on Vx.  Scott had already gotten me in the habit of climbing at Vx initially, so this was in my comfort zone.

Unfortunately, immediately after this, things got squirrelly and stayed that way.  On the climbout, I was twitching the plane all over the place; too much right rudder, let it off, unintentional left turn, level the wings, not enough right rudder… so on through the climb.  Continuing the theme, I cut my crosswind leg short and then drifted a bit towards the runway on downwind.  My pattern didn’t really have a base leg- just one continuous turn to final.  Then my speed control was iffy on final, and as I recall, I took a big bounce on landing.  Whatever it was, it was not pretty.  On the climb back up, I silently cursed my regression.  I’d essentially spent the entire pattern way behind the airplane.  Not good.

Things did get better from there, but never really great.  I had a few more bouncers, plenty more trouble with speed control in the pattern, and I topped it off by mostly clamming up on the radio- a really essential part to flying at PDK, given the frequent special instructions in the pattern.  While I don’t think I really crossed the boundary into unsafe territory, nobody needed to tell me that this wasn’t a pre-solo performance by any means.  In the end, it was just an hour or so of pattern work… which, in fairness, I could have used.  I hadn’t done any since mid-December, several weeks ago.

Once the plane was tied down, I had time to evaluate myself.  The primary problem, really, was a mental one.  From the moment I started overcontrolling the airplane in that first climbout, I was behind the airplane either a little or a lot.  That’s a tough hole to dig out of in the air, especially when you start on a low note.  I simply wasn’t mentally prepared before going in the air.  I can’t point to any particular source of distraction, but there was definitely something.  Perhaps I had visions of coming out, sticking three landings, tossing Scott out, sticking three more, returning to the ramp amid cheering onlookers, scoring a date with the supermodel who’d just happened to be watching from the observation park… you know, the usual perks that student pilots enjoy. 

In any case, it gives me something personally to work on in the future- mental preparation.  I actually used to do this before going to work on busy weekend nights- spend a few minutes clearing my mind and getting things lined up- and I found then that it made a marked difference in my performance.  Seems like this is a habit I ought to get into again.

In the meantime, I’m focused on surviving the blizzard conditions forecast for tomorrow night, and then getting back in the swing of things with a good flight this weekend.

I’ll give you all a moment to hum some Aerosmith and get that out of the way.

Yesterday I broke a horrendous 2+week no-flying streak.  Was out of town for Christmas, and then my first scheduled flight last Wednesday got canceled because the city of Atlanta decided to enforce the area I’d been parking for work for, oh, eight months.  Since they towed my vehicle, that made it a bit difficult to get out to PDK to fly.  But I had already scheduled a larger block for Saturday afternoon, a time to do my first cross-country flight.  This flight would also have a second purpose; to go up to Chattanooga, TN and deliver some Christmas presents for my niece, since my brother wasn’t home for Christmas.

First things first, it was COLD Saturday.  Below freezing all day long, and here I am with just my motorcycle to get around on.  Arrived at PDK a bit late, with some preliminary flight planning in hand.  I had planned a direct route to CHA, which was made easy since PDK has a VOR on-site and CHA has one nearby.  Simple matter of planning to fly a radial from Point A to Point B.  My plan still needed some tuneup- most notably, I’d neglected to account for magnetic variation.  Still, after 45 minutes or so, we had a presentable plan.  Scott then called while I listened in to file the flight plan and get a weather briefing.

Out on the ramp, I preflighted the airplane and then called my brother to let him know what time to expect us in CHA.  In the cockpit, 546 let it be known that she wasn’t a fan of the cold weather, but after a few tries, she fired up.  A quick taxi out, runup complete… well, oil temp is still low.  So we sat for a few minutes until the engine had warmed up sufficiently.  On takeoff, the stiff headwind made for an impressive climb rate, but a less-than-impressive groundspeed.  At my planned cruise altitude of 4500′, the air was substantially bumpy.  I fought it for some time, but eventually surrendered to Scott’s recommendation to climb to 6500′.  Up there, the air was far smoother, and the airplane much less work to fly.

Along the way, I also got an introduction to en route radar service.  Once we’d got clear of the PDK class D, we dialed up the Atlanta center frequency and requested flight following.  This is an elementary level of radar service- we still fly under VFR and navigate on our own, but the controller gives us traffic advisories.

The next new challenge for this flight was working in the class C airspace around Chattanooga.  Rules for entering are similar to class D- two-way radio comms are sufficient.  However, the size of the airspace is larger, and there’s an additional step between you and the tower- the Approach controller.  If we hadn’t been utilizing flight following, it would have been our responsibility to dial up Approach inside the outer area.  However, in this case, the Center controller simply gave us instructions to change to the Approach frequency at the proper time.

Approaching CHA, I was set up well to fly a nearly straight-in approach, and since there wasn’t any other traffic around, that was what I got.  It’s a bit challenging to know where to drop flaps for the straight-in; in a normal pattern, I start my descent abeam my touchdown point, but that reference is of course lost if I don’t fly a downwind leg.  But I flew the pattern fairly well, and made a nice landing.

My brother was waiting in the parking lot, so I let him in, introduced him to Scott, and we walked out to the plane to retrieve the gifts.  Back inside, after a short discussion, we elected to visit the nearby Rib & Loin for a small lunch.  This was good for me, as I’ve not yet found a decent BBQ place in Atlanta. (though I have some recommendations to check out)  Back at CHA, I paid for the top-off and ramp fee, we did a quick weather brief and some planning, and hopped back in the plane.

Here was another crash course- when I contacted ground, the instructions I got back were phrased differently from what I’d heard at PDK or LZU, and the controller admonished me for not reading them back correctly.  Scott informed me that this was because CHA did modified IFR clearances for departure, and thus the readback requirements were more stringent.  I then proceeded to get on the wrong taxiway, but we made it to the runway OK, and before long, we were headed home.

This time, the stiff headwind that slowed us down became a lovely tailwind, and once we were at altitude, we worked up to nearly 150 knots groundspeed.  As such, the trip home went quickly.  Along the way, Scott had me get out a sectional and attempt to figure out our location based on landmarks.  It took me a few minutes, but I got it narrowed down to a general area.  We proceeded on course to PDK- again, made easy thanks to the on-location VOR- and before long I was in the pattern for 34.  Here the wind got me, and I ended up way below slope at the end of my base turn, and I actually had to level out for a bit on final, but once I got back on slope, I came down for another decent landing.

Back in the (WARM) office, we debriefed the flight.  I still have to solo at PDK… maybe later this week will be the right time for this.  We’ll just have to see!

So today, it was time to set aside the solo afterglow and return to the dreary world of dual time.  Well, not that dreary, but sometimes I do surrender to the needs of poetic license around here.  Today was really the first decent day since I soloed Saturday morning- the last three days were filled with joys such as heavy rains and fog.  Today, however, was nice and sunny, though a bit breezy.  I excused myself from the office at 3 and made my way over to PDK.  Earlier, I’d gotten a text from Scott that 546 was sporting a shiny new battery and was back in service.  Good to know.

In the office, we busted out the ASA syllabus to figure out what to do today.  I still need to solo at PDK, but as I mentioned before, today was a bit breezy, and on top of that I need to step up my radio game a bit to handle the traffic.  Instead, Scott decided on some simulated instrument time, unusual attitude recovery, and general maneuvering practice.

Out on the ramp, after preflighting and firing the plane up, I handled the comms and got us out to the runup area at 2L.  Here was a rather impressive traffic jam; the Cessna exiting the runup area was #5 holding short, and after my runup, no one had yet left.  I had to exit the runup area back towards the ramp to swing around behind that Cessna.  Truth be told, with the long parallel runway closed, I’m surprised I haven’t seen a backup like this before.  Anyhoo, after some sitting, we were finally #1, and then cleared to takeoff.  In the air, I did a big no-no; winds were generally from the west, tending to push me off the centerline to my right… that is, towards the parallel.  Since it’s closed, this isn’t an immediate safety issue today, but other times, drifting over there after takeoff could have serious consequences.  Point taken; get a ground reference to maintain that course on takeoff.

I was climbing through about 2000′ when Scott brought out a wonderful gift: Foggles.  For those not in the know, the point of Foggles, as well as other “view-limiting devices,” is to make it difficult to see outside the airplane, thus forcing the hapless wearer to fly on instruments.  Flying off the instruments is quite a bit harder than one might think- for a left-brained guy like myself, I tend to think of it just in terms of data processing; if A, then B.  Which it really is, but there are multiple instruments to monitor, each one working the same way; look for deviation, maneuver to correct, scan other instruments, come back, detect deviation again, repeat, over and over.  It was surprising the tendency I had to put the plane into a turn.  Just completing the climbout and leveling at altitude was a challenge.

The Foggles stayed on long enough to do some basic maneuvers and to introduce standard-rate and timed turns.  By performing a standard rate turn, the airplane will complete a full circle in two minutes.  Standard rate turns are particularly useful in the case of a direction gyro failure; the magnetic compass is only really accurate in straight, unaccelerated flight, so attempting to turn to a heading based on the compass can be difficult.  Instead, one can use a timer and a standard rate turn to make a predefined heading change, and then refine with the compass as needed.

Eventually, the contraption came off my head, and I was perceptibly disoriented to have my visual reference back.  It was strange to see Lake Lanier off the nose, when the last time I saw the ground was just a few miles out of PDK.  Next we discussed “unusual attitudes,” which is a rather benign term for a serious issue.  Say I were to look down for a few seconds, checking a sectional or some such, and look up to find myself in an unintentional climb or descent.  It’s important to be able to recognize the state and recover assertively.  The way this is practiced is for the student (me) to close his eyes and think about bunnies or some such while the instructor takes the plane, yanks and banks a bit to disorient eh student as to what’s going on, and then have the student open his eyes and recover.

It was actually kind of fun.  Close my eyes, hum a show tune, open them… nothing but sky, cut power push the nose over, level the wings.  Not too bad. (though later I’ll have to do this under the hood)  The last one was a bit disturbing, though- I opened my eyes and saw nothing but earth under me.  Descending right turn, maneuver to correct, and I hope I never actually see that in flight. (unintentionally, at least)

I wrapped up with a power-off stall and a few steep turns, and then we headed back to PDK.  On the way, the Foggles came out again, while Scott vectored me into PDK.  I had no idea how far this was going to go, but they stayed on until I had entered the pattern and turned final.  Remember the disorientation when I took them off the first time?  It’s even better when you’re on approach.  Between the instrument-visual transition and the wind, I did a pretty ugly touch & go.  We stayed in the pattern for a few more, and then did the full-stop and went back to the ramp.

Sadly, with the holiday coming up, it’ll probably be almost two weeks before I can fly again.  I’m heading home for Christmas Saturday and staying through the next weekend, so I’ll have to work to retain everything when I come back.  Maybe then I can take care of the PDK solo and be ready to go out to the practice area on my own in January.  Cross-country solos will probably be here before I know it…

I mulled over a witty title for this post before deciding on the minimalist approach.  Bottom line: As I type this, it’s been just under two hours since I was in the plane, and I still break into a giant grin about every five minutes or so.  I can’t help it.  That sentence keeps hitting me like bolt of lightning… driving down the road, ho-hum… wait, I flew solo today.  *cackle*

It’s been an interesting week since last Monday’s breakthrough performance.  Given the choice, I would have gone out the next day, but the weather’s been iffy this week.  Thursday looked like the best chance, so I booked 546DC that afternoon.  But in the wake of heavy rains Tuesday, winds were brisk both Wednesday and into Thursday.  15 knots gusting to 25 isn’t great for anybody, much less a student with no help.  So we rescheduled for Friday afternoon.  I spent the workday Friday watching the clock like a hawk, until I got a call from Scott.  546DC was broken- apparently no juice from the battery at all.  Still, I decided to head out from work early and over to PDK to review my pre-solo written exam with Scott.  In the meantime, I was checking the schedule for the DA20 at Gwinnett.  It was free Sunday afternoon, but Sunday’s forecast called for lots and lots of rain.  However, she was free Saturday morning before 11:30.  Rain was expected to roll in Saturday afternoon, but I figured it was worth a shot, so I scheduled a 9 AM flight.  The pre-solo exam review went well; Scott was skeptical about the weather for Saturday, but agreed to give it a whirl.

I spent Friday evening watching the weather like a hawk, all the while chanting to myself, “The rain will hold off.  The rain will hold off.”  Got up this morning, and things were looking good.  Rain was looking to be arriving around noon; in the meantime, the clouds were high enough to fly under.  Winds were a bit stiff, but at least well-aligned with the runway at Gwinnett.  At 8:15 I headed east, willing the truck to hurry up and get warm before I developed frostbite.

I arrived at LZU a couple minutes ahead of Scott.  Up in the office, Bruce informed us he had put the charger on the plane to make sure it had juice to get the plane started, despite the near-freezing temps.  Right there in the office, Scott signed my logbook and medical certificate.  Now I just had to prove I was up to it in the air.

Actually, first we had to bring the plane to life, which proved to be no easy task.  We gave it a few tries, coming close a few times, but never getting it to catch.  We sought help from Bruce, who joined me in the plane and tried some more.  Same thing- every couple of tries, the engine would fire a few times, but never really catch.  Things were starting to look bleak, and I confronted the possibility of a third postponement, especially after the last start attempt, when the prop stopped.  The battery was nearly dead.  One more try- and then, like magic, she caught.  Bruce and I sat for about ten minutes to get the engine warm, and then he swapped with Scott.  This time, the engine fired right up, and it was go time.

In the runup area, things were iffy again.  On testing the mags, the engine ran noticeably bad on right only.  And again, I thought we might be a bust after all, but Scott told me about how excessive idling with the mixture full-rich could foul the plugs.  We ran the engine for a bit with the mixture leaned out, and it cleaned up satisfactorily.

In the air, my task was deceptively simple: show Scott three good full-stops in a row.  Working against me was the wind- it was well-aligned with the runway, so there was a minimal crosswind component, but still stiff at about 10 knots.  The first effect of the wind was a serious boost in climb performance.  Normally, at the 500′ AGL mark, I bring the flaps up and turn crosswind; I did this today, and Scott reminded me not to turn crosswind before reaching the end of the runway.  That’s the first time I’ve ever had to worry about that…

Things got off to a shaky start with the first landing.  Pattern was good, but I got way fast on short final; up near 80 knots instead of the proper 65.  Flare was ugly, and I took a hefty bounce…up with the power, we’re going around.  Not the performance I wanted today at all.  Doubt crept back in again… was I going back to the days of high flares and trampoline touchdowns?  I resolved to do better next time around… and I did.  Then I did it two more times.  As I rolled out on #3, Scott called the tower, and reality started to set in.

“Tower, 1JA, I’m going to solo my student, can I come up to the tower and watch from there”

“Sure thing.”

So I taxied down to the base of the tower.  Before getting out, Scott made sure I was OK.

“Ready for this?  Have any questions or concerns for me?”

“Oh, I’ve got plenty of concerns, but I think I’ll be OK.” (I probably would have failed a lie detector test on that one)

Just like that, I was lone.  In the airplane.  In the left seat.  With the engine running.  To my right, there was a cavernous space.  It seemed so… wrong.  I uttered a few things that would probably best not be repeated in mixed company, but there was no one to hear them but me.  There were a few moments of hesitation.  I had to do it; it was time, and I knew I was ready, even if my emotions strongly disagreed.  Finally, I got up the courage to call ground and get taxi instructions.  That broke the freeze; my right hand obeyed me and moved the throttle, and I was moving.  Alone.  Down at the runway, I keyed the mike.

“Tower, 1JA is holding short 7.”

“1JA, you’re still on the ground frequency.”

*slap*  OK, take 2.

“Tower, 1JA is holding short 7.”  No response.  That doubting part of my brain became convinced that the radio had just broken.  I think I was expecting some random problem to crop up and stop this madness.  After about 30 seconds, I repeated my call.

“1JA, hold short.”

I waited.  Then I waited some more.  Finally, tower called and informed me Scott was on his way up, so he was holding me for him.  I was OK with this, perhaps out of some malformed sense of procrastination.  After about five minutes, I thought back to the plug fouling issue earlier… I didn’t want that to happen again, so I made use of Scott’s info and leaned the plane while bringing the throttle up.  I waited like that a few more minutes before getting the takeoff clearance.

“1JA, fly left closed traffic, cleared for takeoff runway 7.”  A remarkably calm voice issued from my mouth and repeated the clearance.

And then I was sprinting down the runway, feeding in right rudder to maintain centerline.  45 knots came up fast, and I was flying.  Actually, I was FLYING.  Look, I’ve been a flying groupie for a while.  I’ve read plenty of first solo stories, all of which contained some reference to amazement at the improved performance with just one person on board.  Even though I understood this and expected it, I was unprepared for the magnitude of the change.  Between the light load and the headwind, I felt like I was climbing in an F-15.  If I had maintained Vx or even Vy, I would certainly have been at pattern altitude before even getting to the end of the runway.  As it was, I climbed at about 75-80 knots and still found myself pulling power on the crosswind turn to level at 2000′.

Landing #1 was one of my best yet.  I leveled out just right, flared nicely, and touched down gently.  This hits on another little nugget from the doubting part of my mind- I’d made good landings before, but that part of my brain suspected I was getting help from the right seat.  Obviously, this wasn’t true, or I never would have soloed- but still this was the first landing where there was no denying that I did the whole thing.

Back around for #2.  I still was stunned by the climb performance, and actually overshot pattern altitude by about 100′.  Abeam the touchdown point, power comes out, flaps to takeoff, start the descent.  This time, I got distracted by something- perhaps that still-bizarre sight of the empty right seat- and didn’t pay attention to my descent rate.  As I turned base, I glanced down and was alarmed to see I was still at pattern altitude!  OK, I can deal with this… drop the last notch of flaps early, get slow, pull power.  I was still a bit high turning final, but I got back on slope and things were looking good until the last second- I leveled a bit early, and then as I was flaring, the left wing dropped and the plane drifted left of centerline.  The idea of going around entered my head at the same time the left wheel touched down and the plane bounced a bit.  Going around was still on my mind, but I got the plane level, and put it down smoothly the second time.

One more to go.  This time, I kept a better eye on my descent rate, and maintained speed much better on final.  I leveled out high again, but recovered nicely for a decent landing.  A little rougher than I’d like, but not unsafe by any means.  Couple minutes later, I was picking Scott up for the trip back down to Advanced.  I didn’t really let myself grin until I saw him walking toward the plane.  It was like it was some kind of affirmation that I really had soloed.  I was in the plane, and he was on the ground.

As we taxied back to Advanced, we talked about… something.  I think I was making intelligent conversation, but I wouldn’t swear to it.  Up in the office, I made use of the heretofore-ignored “Pilot in Command” column of my logbook.  .6 hours solo, 3 landings.  Scott and I then headed over to the on-airport restaurant, the Flying Machine, where I enjoyed a post-solo cheesesteak and fries, which Scott generously paid for.  That random grinning thing was really taking hold here… eat a french fry, chew a bite of cheesesteak… wait, I just soloed.  *cackle*

So now it’s time to move beyond basic maneuvers and pattern work… there’s plenty to learn still.  For now, I still need Scott’s OK before any solo flights, and a logical next step is soloing out at PDK and then getting permission to do more than just tool around in the pattern.  It probably won’t be long before I’ll be doing solo cross-country work.  For that matter, it won’t be long before I’ll be going for the checkride.

*whew*

For the record, it was Scott who first suggested that magic pills may have been involved in today’s flight.  And before I go further: If anyone from the FAA happens to be reading this, the pills in question are strictly figurative.  Honestly.  Now about this whole flying thing… after a series of iffy landings Sunday, today’s flight was pretty much a total turnaround.  Neurons that had been previously groping aimlessly about in my head gathered to form useful bundles of knowledge and coordination.

Actually, to rewind a bit, the flight looked iffy for most of the day.  I arrived at work early to offset leaving at 3 for PDK, and as I kept an eye on the METAR throughout the day, things were questionable.  Most of the morning saw solid or broken clouds at about 1200 feet- too low to fly under safely.  But as 3 approached, I saw the reported clouds breaking up south of the city.  I stuck my head outside just before three, saw blue sky and sun off to the west, and decided to go for it.  I was rewarded with continued breaks in the clouds on the drive over to PDK.

Up in the Advanced office, Scott presented me with a take-home pre-solo exam.  I also have to do a shorter written exam in front of him before I’m good to solo, but that’ll be another day.  I tucked the exam in my bag and we trotted out to the plane.  Battery was a bit low, but it fired up and away we went.

Today’s practice was to be nothing but pattern work.  Instead of heading to our old haunt in Monroe, we took the short hop over to Fulton County. (KFTY)  It’s much closer than Monroe, and the only thing to watch out for is the Dobbins ARB airspace bordering FTY to the north.  Luckily, there’s a prominent smokestack of some kind that makes for a nice marker- stay south of it, and you’re A-OK.

Up in the air, the apparently clear skies belied the presence of a substantial haze starting around 2000′.  We briefly went up to 2500 before descending back down to pattern altitude at FTY.  Well, actually, I ended up at about pattern altitude +200; I hadn’t checked the field elevation and made the incorrect assumption it was nearly the same as PDK.  Perhaps as a result, as I made my turns to base and final, I found myself pretty high.  I was starting to think it was all going to begin again, but an odd thing happened: I got on slope, came over the numbers nicely, if a bit high, and the sun presented me with a nice visual aid- my own shadow to my left.  It made for a nice reinforcement of my height above the runway, and I leveled out, bled off some speed, and touched down nicely, maybe a bit hard, but no bounce.  Power up and go around for the next time.

The amazing part was that it wasn’t a fluke.  Next time around, I got pattern altitude right, and despite a looooong extended downwind from the tower, I came in nicely for another smooth one.  Probably my two best landings so far, back to back.  “How did that feel?”, Scott asked.  Well, pretty nice indeed.  #3 wasn’t quite so nice; I took a little bounce on it, but settled down nicely after that.  The next two were good ones, too.  I wasn’t sure what had happened to me.  24 hours saw me go from a big bounce and go-around to five passable landings in a row.

After #5, we pointed back east towards PDK.  I called up the tower and asked for one more touch & go followed by a full stop.  I got a 2-mile straight-in for 2L, but after a series of extended downwinds at FTY, I felt good about making it work… and I did.  then I wrapped up the day with my best yet- leveled out a few feet up, easing back on the stick, watching the airspeed drop out of the corner of my eye.  The stall horn started to buzz, I eased the back pressure a bit, and we were down, no drama at all.  Uncanny.

It was hard to stifle a grin afterward.  The last few flights had been frustrating; I wouldn’t go so far as saying I didn’t enjoy myself, but it was a near thing.  Those days, I’d come back to PDK feeling beat down, worn out… today, I would have happily stayed up for another hour if not for that pesky sunset issue.  It all came together and suddenly, it was tons of fun again.

There are other areas where I see myself improving, too.  It’s becoming less of a chore to hold left rudder in the climbout to stay coordinated.  Seemed like before, I was always glancing down, seeing the ball to the left… ok, more rudder…  Today, for the first time, I looked down and saw that I was putting too much left rudder.  I’m still far from perfect, but it’s starting to come to me.  I also stayed (mostly) on top of comms.  In the pattern at FTY, I dealt with long downwinds, waiting for the tower to call my base turns, getting a left 360 to let a jet land in front of me, etc.  I even kept the plane pretty much on centerline on the rollout at PDK.  Lesson learned; easy on the brakes.  They love to send the plane hither and yon if you let them.

So it looks like, conditions permitting, next time out could well be solo time.  I’m shooting for Thursday afternoon; I feel like I’m on a high and I don’t want to sit around for six days to go again. (Sunday is the next day where the weather looks tolerable)

Short version: 12.5 hours and no solo as of yet.  In the grand scheme of things, it’s not as if I’m way behind the curve or anything; but I suppose I had some odd (and highly unrealistic) fantasy that I would take to the stick and throttle like Art Scholl or something.  Heh.  Ok, I’m over myself now, let’s talk about the real world some more.

As the title alludes, the thing preventing me from soloing is that evil slice of time at the end of short final.  I’m getting better, but I’m still far from consistent- so today’s flight essentially consisted of going out to do some touch & gos and pattern work.  PDK being, well, PDK, this essentially requires going elsewhere; our chosen target was Monroe, GA. (D73)

My first concern going into today was the state of the airplane; I was actually supposed to fly this past Friday morning, but the battery was too low to get the engine started; then once we brought out the jumper cables (yes, they do exist for aircraft), the ignition switch proceeded to fail.  My concerns were not allayed when I arrived at PDK and noticed old 546DC with the canopy cover on- there had been reservation before me, and they would have left the cover off after their trip.  Up in the office, Scott confirmed that the previous folks hadn’t gone- the switch was replaced, but the battery was low again.  Out came the cables again; with the help of the other instructor on duty, we got the airplane started and the day was saved.

Taxi and takeoff were uneventful, save for a dude in a Baron who put a lot of effort into getting in front of us for the taxi and then proceeded to sit at the hold-short line for at least five minutes waiting on an IFR clearance.  Oh, and since the long parallel runway was closed for resurfacing, I had the somewhat odd experience of taking the runway with construction guys in hard hats about 75 feet away.  But before long, we were pointed east.

Since one thing offered today was a decent wind, I got to work on using trial-and-error to work out a wind correction angle.  Not following?  Well, unless you’re flying directly into or away from the wind, you’re not going to track a course identical to the aircraft’s heading; the wind pushes you off-course.  So in order to maintain a desired course, it’s necessary to point the nose into the wind slightly, and in order to evaluate the wind correction angle, some kind of reference is needed.  In this case, Scott set up the VOR receiver to track the course to D73, and I also had the course line on the GPS for extra guidance.  In fact, the line on the GPS gives a nice visual of the crab angle; I could look over and see the little airplane pointing to the right of the course line, yet tracking straight.  All in all, an enjoyable exercise.

Arriving at Monroe, we overflew the field, got a look at the windsock, and picked runway 3 for the day’s fun.  Alas, but the wind was abut 45 degrees of runway heading, so it was going to be a day of learning to deal with the crosswind.  Has to be done… I established my downwind, and flew a decent pattern.  I’ve got a pretty good handle on maintaining a good rectangular course and keeping my speed right in the pattern.  All was well until I turned final… whoa, that wind does a lot more than I expected.  I felt as if I was fighting it all the way down, but in the end I was over the numbers at a decent height.  It all went to crap from there… ugly flare, long float, and then a bounce that might have been impressive under conditions.  Scott reinforced my thoughts; that a go-around was in order.  Up with the throttle and flaps, and we’ll try again.  Second time around was better; good pattern, good final, pretty good flare, smooth touchdown, and we’re going again.  I was more prepared to deal with the wind this time, and wasn’t so far behind the airplane.

At this point, we took a quick break; a glider had been staging on the ground during our first two times around the pattern, and they asked to go after our second one.  No problem… we headed west and found a water tower so I could try turns around a point with some real wind.  Having just come from D73, and with the field still in sight, I had a good sensation of where the wind was coming from, and stayed on the tower fairly well, though I still have a tendency to gradually spiral in towards my point.  Scott also showed be a little cheat for the ground reference maneuvers- glancing at the ground speed readout on the GPS.  Since I’m (hopefully) not playing with the throttle in the turn, my airspeed should stay more or less constant; so checking the ground speed tells me whether I’m in head- or tailwind territory.  It was actually pretty impressive to watch; as I turned away from the wind, I watched the ground speed jump 10 knots in about 15 seconds.  Good tip.

Well, the glider and tow plane were clear of the field, so back to the pattern we went.  Since we were roughly parallel to the runway, we just flew a really wide downwind instead of angling in for a close pattern.  This required me to adjust my cues a bit, since we’d have a base leg about twice as long as normal.  This landing wasn’t bad, except that I floated way down the runway; as a precaution, Scott decreed a full-stop.  No problem, except there I go zigzagging across centerline on the rollout.  I really must stop trying to steer with the brakes on rollout.  There’s plenty or airspeed to use the rudder, and the brakes are sensitive enough that steering that way tends to become a losing battle and makes things get hairy in a hurry.  Nobody likes that, least of all me. (Scott may disagree on that point, though)

After taxiing back, we shot a couple more touch & gos, none of which were stellar, but then again there weren’t any go-arounds either.  After #2, the glider wanted to go up again, so we headed on back to PDK- my time block was starting to run out anyway.  On the cruise back, I was feeling frustrated.  It seems like the touch & go sessions always tax me near my limit, and just five or six times around the pattern can be pretty draining, especially with a crosswind like we had today.  I suppose what gets me about this is that it’s really the only thing that I feel isn’t coming to me easily at all.  Climbs, descents, turns, stalls, slow flight, ground reference- not bad at all.  If I bugger one of those up, I correct and go on.  Perhaps part of the thing with landing is that it’s not a constant thing I can correct and work with like flying straight and level.  Instead, it’s about 15 rapid seconds followed by five minutes to think about it.

Anyhoo, the cruise back was, in a way, a welcome relief, a respite from the concentration of pattern work, a time to get myself back under control and in control.  Scott asked if I wanted to do a touch & go or two back at PDK.  Actually, yes.  I always feel like that last landing of the day is a chance to redeem myself for my earlier transgressions, and I had felt like I left Monroe on a sour note.  PDK was a bit busy, but the tower controller was amenable to giving us a touch & go.  This one went much better, as did the following full-stop, though I did a bit of zigging again and even locked up a brake a couple times on the rollout.

Back at the ramp, as  I took off my headset, I had a revelation.  This was my first flight where I’d not once thought about how the headset was hurting my ears.  The reason was that I had my newly acquired Lightspeed set in hand, or maybe on head is a better term.  I’m not convinced the ANR on these does a lot, but then again, it is the bottom-tier model.  I’ll have to try switching the ANR on and off in flight to see how noticeable it is.  Regardless, the new set is worth it in sheer terms of comfort.

In the office, we debriefed, discussing flaring some more.  For my part, despite my issues, I felt a lot better at Monroe today with maintaining my glide slope by visual reference.  It was probably a questionable thing that I came into this knowing how to read a VASI or PAPI (glide slope indicators placed beside the runway), and I’d come to rely on them too much.  Since Monroe lacks these things, I’m forced to do without.  Last time out there, I actually felt lost on the slope a bit, but today I had a much better feel for the slope.

Sounds like next time, we might go west to Fulton County instead of Monroe.  The main benefit is that it’s far closer to PDK than Monroe, so there’s more time for pattern work and less time boring a hole in the sky.  And Lord knows I need more practice flying in the pattern than cruising.  The downside is that the FTY airspace borders the airspace around Dobbins ARB- better keep that pattern good and close! (Who knows, maybe I’ll see a Raptor fresh off the assembly line)

Next flight: Monday afternoon.

Normally I try to do these writeups fairly soon after going for a flight; otherwise details tend to vanish into the ether that is my decaying memory.  In this case, I’m roughly 30 hours behind the curve.  I kind of got lazy after coming home yesterday… well, that and a sort of random project distracted me.  I was adding the latest flight to my online logbook, and got to thinking that it would be nifty if I could display info from LogShare here in the blog, maybe in the sidebar.  Long story short, what started as a “I wonder if I can do this?” turned into a few hours of annoyance.  I’d elaborate, but after all, this is a blog about flying, not web development.  Hopefully I will get my Wordpress plugin done soon…

OK, about that whole flying thing… this flight was essentially another airborne review session.  The big goal now is, of course, the solo flight, and while my airborne maneuvers are going pretty well, good and consistent landings still elude me.  The day started with an unexpected change in plans.  The original plan was to fly out of LZU in 391JA and do pattern work at Monroe.  But I got a call just as I was about to leave my house for Gwinnett… 391JA had a mechanical issue.  Bummer.  On the other hand, my old standby 546DC was back at PDK and available.  Only issue was that Scott was with another student out of LZU, due back just before our planned start time of 1400, but now he’d have to make the drive from LZU to PDK to meet me.  I talked with Scott when he was back on the ground, and we agreed to meet at PDK at 3.

I beat Scott to PDK, so I got the keys and went on out to preflight the airplane.  The timing worked out pretty well, as he made it out to the airplane just after I’d completed my inspection- so it was pretty much just a jump-in-and-go situation.  In short order, we were airborne with the nose pointed east to Monroe.  En route, we did a bit of maneuvering- a stint in slow flight with a few turns, a couple of power-off stalls, and some steep turns.  My altitude control on the steep turns was much improved over my last attempts, though I still need to work on maintaining a correct bank angle.

We rolled out eastbound again for Monroe, and Scott dialed up CTAF and asked for an airport advisory.  The quick answer came from a King Air pilot who was dropping crazy people skydivers out.  This isn’t exactly conducive to tooling around the pattern, so up to Gwinnett we went.  Truth be told, LZU is a nice place to fly out of, but it is a towered airport, so things are a bit more structured than Monroe.  I’m OK with this, though.

We got a nonstandard left pattern entry for the first touch&go, and I thought I actually did pretty well on that first landing.  I’ve mostly conquered that early flaring tendency, but I still have a habit of floating a bit and pulling off bouncers.  But that first one was pretty smooth.  Second time around went pretty well also, but it went downhill from there.  I followed up with a couple bouncers, and on the fifth one, I jumped the gun on the power and unintentionally did my first go-around.  Hoo boy.  I got things back under control for the final one; it wasn’t stellar, but at least there were no bounces.

Back towards PDK, I got possibly my most convoluted approach so far.  I already suspect that there’s a chapter in the ATC manual stating that all inbound aircraft must have their landing instructions changed at least once, but this day was even better.  Initially, I was told to fly a 4-mile straight-in for 20L.  I was a few minutes away from turning to the runway when I was instructed to turn south (roughly parallel to the runways) due to an inbound jet.  I thought that was going to be a brief stint, but instead I was about midfield when I got instructions to turn, cross overhead, and enter right traffic for 20R.  Just for good measure, I was instructed to extend my downwind to clear landing traffic on 20L.  Oh, and just for good measure, that parallel traffic was instructed to cross my runway while I was on final, but he got clear before I felt compelled to make a decision about going around.

Back in the office, we debriefed some more.  Seems that my flaring issues are about the only thing keeping me from going solo.  There’s also a written pre-solo knowledge test to knock out; we discussed the subject matter of the test so I could get prepared.  I’d say that I knew about 50% or so of the subject matter well; the rest I need to brush up on, and not just for the test- this is stuff I need to know to fly in general, not just to squeak past some test.

Oh, and a final note about this flight- hopefully it’ll be my last one using the flight school’s loaner headset.  It gets the job done, but gets pretty uncomfortable after about a while.  After some looking and advice from Scott, I snagged a lightly used Lightspeed 15XLc off Ebay, and I should have it in hand in a day or two.  The 15XLc is Lightspeed’s entry-level (read: cheapest) ANR headset.  I’d originally been looking at David Clarks, but seeing that I could get an ANR set for about the same price as passive DCs, I went for the Lightspeed.  I’ll probably get a better ANR set in the future, but for the time being, I need something more comfortable- and unless this set is complete junk, I can just repurpose it as a spare set for passengers once I upgrade.  Look for more details on the headset in the near future…

“The time,” of course, being that moment when I’m sitting in a running airplane with just an empty seat beside me.  A time that I suspect will be some strange combination of “most excellent” and”wrong somehow.”  “Most excellent” should be pretty self-explanatory- after all, the whole reason I’m doing this is for the privilege to fly alone.  But the thought of glancing over at an empty seat just seems incorrect somehow.  Sort of like how I felt when I first got my motorcycle… when I was out riding, I always had this sort of gut feeling that I was getting away with something.  It was like some odd species of guilt over enjoying myself so much.

But I digress… today was pretty straightforward in the air.  Scott and I briefly discussed the impending solo flight, with a substantial portion of my willpower going towards keeping from grinning like an idiot at the thought.  The plan is for me to solo at D73 in Monrow, GA, about 30 miles east of PDK.  The benefits of D73 include being an uncontrolled field, not being too busy, and having a fairly long runway. (5000′)  In keeping with this decision, our flight for today took us out to D73 for some pattern work, plus some ground reference work along the way.

Side note: PDK was hopping today.  I got the feeling there was some kind of holiday or something that had a lot of people leaving town… but really, there was a bit more activity than I’m used to seeing out there.  We were third in line for takeoff on 20R after arriving at the runup area.  In the air, we proceeded east, skirting Stone Mountain, and then began searching for a suitable ground feature for flying a rectangular course.  The pickings were sort of slim, but eventually a future subdivision was chosen, and I flew a few circuits around it.  There were a few bobbles- notably a couple of early turns from one leg to another- but the reference wasn’t exactly the best in the world either.   Side note: I found that the best way to control my turns was to pick a “corner” point on the ground and treat it as 1/4 of a turn around a point.  Speaking of turns around a point, that was the next order of the day- a nearby water tower provided an excellent reference for this.  I learned that the smaller the circle flown, the tougher it is to maintain distance, though on wider circles it was also easier to cover the water tower with the wingtip and thus lose my reference.

Departing the tower, we pointed the nose toward D73, which was pretty close by this point.  Approaching the field, Scott spoke on the radio with a C172 which was also about to enter the pattern, and we coordinated on using the same runway.  My first pattern was sort of ugly.  I seem to be having trouble correctly judging my pattern entry; if I’m remaining in the pattern, with defined upwind/crosswind/base/final legs, I do OK, but that entry needs work.  Still, I rolled out on final a bit high, but not unmanageably so.  The tough thing here for me was the lack of a visual glide slope indicator.  All the other landings I’d done had involved a VASI or PAPI to refer to, and despite my attempts to fly of my sight picture, I’d been depending heavily on the indicators.  Here, I was forced to do it the right way.  This, of course, is why there’s an instructor in that right seat; Scott gave me good continuous feedback on how I was doing slope-wise.

Back to that first landing… it was a great opportunity for me to demonstrate my favorite vice: starting the flare too early.  This landing was a blue-ribbon winner in that department, but Scott was on top of things and stopped my madness.  Better yet, once the throttle came back up, I got way behind the airplane with the right rudder, resulting in some severe veering as I tried to get things back in line.

Second time around the pattern was better- I overdid my turn to downwind, and had to work to keep from drifting towards the runway.  As such, I ended up with a pretty short base, and started my approach high again.  This time, though, I controlled my early flare tendency, and made a decent touchdown. (though I suspected that some assistance was coming from my right)  I also better anticipated getting on the rudder once the power came back in, and kept things pretty straight.

The next few times got progressively better- I got a good ground reference for my downwind, and got to flying a pretty good parallel.  I even had a pretty good greaser at one point.  Then things got interesting.  I had just hit pattern altitude on downwind and pulled the power back when a very noticeable vibration developed, seemingly from the engine.  It remained until I pulled back further power to start my descent, and Scott decreed a full-stop landing this time to check things out.  Which brings me to another issue of mine: controlling the aircraft on rollout.  My full-stop looked great until I got on the brakes, and then I performed a rather impressive slalom maneuver down the runway- the kind of thing that you hope very few people were watching.  Eesh.

On the ramp, we shut down and walked around the plane.  Nothing was visibly out of place, nothing looked strange, nothing to indicate the source of the vibration.  Hmm.  Well, the engine had run OK for the landing, so we cranked back up and did a careful runup; everything seemed OK.  So I taxied down, took off, did one more touch & go, and then we headed back west to PDK.  Along the way, that vibration made another appearance at one point when I adjusted the power; not as noticeable as the first time, but still there.  Still, the plane flew OK all the way back to PDK, where things had heated up even more while we were gone.  One tower controller in particular was spitting out instructions like some sort of mad auctioneer.  But I did make sense of our instructions, which included what seems to be a PDK standard- your first landing instructions rarely survive until you get to the airport.  This time we initially got left traffic for 20L, but then it became right traffic for 20R, plus the later addition to extend our downwind… par for the course at PDK.  That’s why I won’t do my first solo here.  Flying the pattern is enough to worry about without the complications.  On landing, I performed yet another zigzag maneuver on rollout… got to work on that.  At least I don’t look like a drunkard when I taxi any more.

All in all, I can see myself improving.  I’m flying pretty good patterns now, though I still tend to get a little funky on the entry, and I also have a tendency not to let the nose drop at the tail end of my downwind and during my turn to base.  Airspeed control on final is good, though it needs a little work on downwind and base.  Flaring is getting better, but I still don’t think I really have a “feel” for it.  Ground handling during takeoff rolls is decent, but landing rollouts are horrid.  I’m thinking that some pattern work doing full-stops is going to be in order before I’m ready to solo- everything else, I feel, just needs some refinement and repetition, but the rollouts need serious work.

Next flight is Sunday; this time we’ll be taking the Eclipse from LZU instead of 546DC.  Given that odd vibration, this seems a good plan until someone can check out the plane to make sure everything is kosher.  Here’s hoping Sunday sees me get my ground handling problems reined in.

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.