Squawk1200

…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.

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*