Letter to my wife...

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Floating in slowly

 

Hi sweet.Gee, I was tired this morning because of this cold I've got. I was struggling a bit on the drive up, but I wasn't worried about the flying - there's too much to think about to start to drift off. Maybe later when it all becomes routine? Dunno, but for now there's no hope of it just being routine. :)

 

Lovely calm, sunny (& cold) morning, so no thrashing around like last week. The lesson today was Glide Approaches, where the engine is cut somewhere in the circuit and you have to glide in to land. Obviously, you don't want to get too low before you get to the strip, but if you're too high then you run out of runway too. Given a choice, the latter is preferable to the former, because there are ways to loose height rapidly, but it's pretty hard to gain height without a motor!

 

After the normal morning rituals (pre-flight check, etc), I did a normal circuit to make sure that my brain was still functioning, then Fred demonstrated a glide approach and landing, and then I did one. I ended up a bit lower than I normally would be on approach, and it took a fair bit of resolve to not pull back on the stick as the trees slid by beneath me - a sure path to disaster, for reasons I'll try to explain. In level powered flight, the speed of the plane is dependent on the attitude and the power. If you decrease the power then you have to raise the nose to get more lift to keep it flying level (and vice versa). If you keep decreasing the power and pulling up the nose, eventually you stall the wings and your little bird starts to fly like a brick. That's a long-winded way of saying that you can't stay up there indefinitely with no engine. ;)

 

In the no-engine case, if you raise the nose to just short of stalling, then the plane descends at its slowest rate (in vertical ft/sec) but it also flies the slowest in the horizontal too - ie it covers the least ground towards a landing point. If you keep the nose down to fly faster (horizontally), then it also loses height more rapidly. There's a sweet spot somewhere in the middle of these two extremes which will get you the furthest distance from the point of failure. It's different for different planes, and is quoted in the pilot's handbook. In the Jab's case it's 70kt. Hence (to return to the concept of trees slipping by below my wheels), pulling back on the stick won't take me further from them, but rather will make me descend more rapidly towards them - particularly and disastrously if I pull back so far as to stall.

 

Anyhow, I was about to power up and take off again when Fred said "No, full stop. Let me out" (and no, that wasn't a cry of desperation in response to my piloting! ;) ). His parting words of wisdom were "Remember that it's only practice. If you're too low, just put on the power and go around. This is not for real, OK?". The rest of the lesson was solo, practising glide approaches from wherever I wanted in the circuit (well, from wherever in the downwind leg anyway - how to handle engine failure on climb-out is yet to come). There was a Cessna in the circuit with me which made things a bit more interesting because it was flying a wider circuit than me - particularly going deeper before turning to base so that final was longer than I would normally do. After a couple of circuits I was getting too close to it even though I was flying the downwind leg as slowly as possible, and so I had to abort a landing and fly down the 'dead' side of the circuit (the opposite side of the runway). At that point the Cessna came to a full stop anyhow so from then on I had the place to myself. I lost count of the number of circuits I did, chopping the power from all sorts of locations. Because I'm coming in at an angle from wherever instead of straight in, it meant that I was often doing my final turn near the edge of the landing field instead of 500-1000m away which made for some pretty interesting final approaches. I'm still not fantastic at putting the plane at exactly the place I want it to be coming out of a turn, so instead of having 500m to straighten things up, I was still getting things in line as the ground approached. Regardless, it all went well and every landing was quite acceptable, even if not perfect.

 

Next week we'll do some glides from the dead side of the circuit just to make life more difficult. The difficulty comes from a) not being used to turning and landing from that direction, and b) not having as good visibility in the turn. The pilot sits in the left hand seat, so she/he has a better view when turning to the left than the right (presumably, this is why the circuit at most strips is on the left of the runway). It'll be interesting to see what it's like coming in from the 'wrong side of the tracks', so to speak.

 

Love you.

[Powerin]

Thanks for the training chronology...a great inspiration to those of us yet to take the plunge!

 

But I have a couple stupid questions....one of your late downwind checks was if there was enough fuel for a go-around, so I was wondering:

 

1. Is any aircraft fuel gauge accurate enough to tell if there is the 5-10 mins of fuel left for a go-around?

 

2. With the above fuel gauge accuracy in mind, if you think there is not enough fuel what do you do? You have to get down somehow...and soon! If a landing goes pear shaped do you just put it down and make the best of a known bad situation or do you risk a go-around which has perhaps a 50-50 chance of putting you in a better situation?

 

It just seemed to me a bit of a pointless check that should have been done long before the circuit.

 

Peter

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Peter,

 

Good question, and one that I'm probably not able to answer well. The Jab has sight glass gauges on each wing root, and I'd guess that accuracy is not their strong suit. It's more a case of a glance to see that there's plenty left rather than checking that there's just enough. Bear in mind that this is in the context of seemingly endless circuits, so I think that it is just one of those good-habits-to-get-in-to. On cross country, fuel management is an important part of navigating, but I imagine that on circuits it would be really easy to forget to check until it's too late.

 

If, heaven forbid, one of these days I look at the gauges and they're empty then I guess I'll be taking the short way home and be doing my damnedest to not have it go pear shaped. Knowledge is power, as they say! :)

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Bouncy, bouncy :-)

 

Hi beautiful! Gotta get straight into the work so this'll be a short one. Pretty much worst case cross winds (direction, that is, not speed. If the winds were too fast I wouldn't have been flying) so the whole lesson was simple circuit practice - with lots of bumps thrown in for good measure. I think I did three circuits with Fred and then just short of an hour by myself. The extended lesson was accidental. I watched the clock and came in on the half hour, but I didn't realise that we'd started early. No hassles, it's all good practice and Fred and the next student didn't seem to be in any hurry (more of that in a moment).

 

Fred suggested doing a couple of glide approaches amongst the other circuits, but after screwing the first one up by losing height too rapidly and then landing the second (but not overly well), I decided to focus on just getting the landings-in-the-presence-of-turbulence as right as possible. The problem with the turbulence and the cross wind is that the attitude and the direction of the plane jump around all over the place, so you're constantly correcting to keep everything on track. However, if you correct too often, then you end up chasing your tail a little, so it becomes counter-productive. Imagine if you will, driving down the street and having our driveway randomly moving left and right, and you have to pick the time to turn in just right - and then multiply it by two more dimensions...

 

That makes it sound a bit like a chore, but it was actually quite fun. I'm not sure if that's really the right word. Maybe 'challenging' is a better one, but in a very positive sense. A couple of the landings were a little hard, but some of them were absolute greasers too. It's nice when that happens, and may there be many more of them.

 

The strip was fairly active this morning, including a larger charter plane that parked itself (engines off) in the middle of the taxiway and totally blocked access. I'm not sure that the radio was necessary - I think that their ears would have been burning at Fred's voluble descriptions of their parentage, sexual proclivities and sanitary habits even without it! :)

 

I finished with a less-than-exemplary landing and when Fred walked over the the plane I said "I hope you weren't watching too closely" (which isn't true - I hope he was watching very closely!). He noted that the last one was pretty ordinary, but that the others looked ok. Later, when I was leaving, I was chatting to the next student and remarked that it was good to be learning to land in that sort of weather. She agreed - though I know she doesn't like it when it's bumpy - but then she added "I just have to get them really smooth like you do". Nice to hear no doubt, and rather a boost to the ego, but all I could think was that she must have only looked at the good ones.

 

When I'd finished and before she started, Fred showed us the remains of a Jab that had been damaged quite some time back. Fred's lessons-to-be-learned were a) be careful, lest ye go the same route, and b) it's remarkable how resilient the little plane is. The key now is to learn from example, not experience!

 

Love you!

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Off into the Wild Blue Yonder

 

Totally gorgeous day today (a bit like you) - perfect spring morning, even though it isn't spring yet. Dead calm, ~11deg, sunny. Lovely. I assumed that I'd be on circuit duty again, probably practising glide approaches from the dead side of the strip - we always turn left in the circuit, so we need to practise an engine-out approach from the other side where you have to turn to the right because there's no time when there's no engine to worry about following the normal conventions :)

Anyhow, Fred greeted me with "You've got a beaut day, so we'll do something different", led me into a room where he could scribble on a whiteboard and proceeded to draw the training area. The new plan for the day was for me to do my first area solo and to practice my circuit departures and entries by flying out to the training area, coming back in from different directions, joining the circuit, doing a touch and go, and heading out again. So, no couple-of-circuits-with-Fred-on-board to get my hand in. He just showed me some things that he'd changed during the week and wandered off and I was on my own.

 

I think that I did the pre-flight checks and in-cabin preparations a little more slowly than normal, just to be sure to be sure. In a departure from my normal practice, I wore my reading glasses down my nose (together with my sunnies, so I'm glad I was in there alone! ). It makes such a difference when you can actually read the instruments instead of just noting where the needles are pointing. Actually, it turned out to be a particular blessing because, when I gave my inbound call from the training area, I was able to read the distance to the strip from the glass panel instead of just guessing (sorry, I'll read that again... instead of using local knowledge...). On the basis of today's experience, I'm definitely going to get prescription sunnies.

 

This is the first time that I've been back to the training area since the second or third week, and obviously it's the first time that I've been there alone. I wanted to go sight-seeing, but as the whole point of the lesson was the exits and entries to the circuit, it would have been a waste of time to stray too far from home. I have to admit, though, that I spent a reasonable mount of time peering down on the earth below me. One of those days that you'd just love to bottle! Maybe it was because of the good weather, but I've never seen the air so full of planes as today. Apart from a few Cessnas in the circuit, there were planes departing to parts anon and others arriving from thereabouts and yet others overflying, all of which I had to avoid. If part of the purpose was for Fred to judge my radio technique, then he picked a good day to do it.

 

Strangely, given that the air was dead still and the plane felt like it was riding on rails, the air on approach was all over the place like a mad woman's breakfast. I presume that it was thermal activity as the sun heated up the paddocks, and it made the turn to final quite difficult. It also meant that my approaches were higher than normal because of the rising air. Combine the two, and you get some pretty ordinary landings - off line, too high, and consequently a bit too fast. After three sorties and returns, I had about 10 minutes left, so I decided to throw in a couple of circuits and concentrate on getting the landings a bit more under control. The second last one was ok, and the last one was an absolute greaser! :)

 

In the debrief, Fred corrected the wording of my departure calls - I got the information across ok but I'd forgotten the standard phraseology - and then commented on the landings as being "a bit fast, but the last one was really good", so all up, 'twas a very pleasing day. Next week we will be back to dual again for instruction on something new, though exactly what that will be depends on what the weather decides to do. I'll probably do my radio exam next week too, so make sure that I finish off my studies this week, won't you? :)

 

Love you

[Guest Gomer]

One step forward, two steps back...

 

After a week's lay-off due to the weather, 'twas time to take up the reins again...

 

Hi Honey.

Do you ever have one of those days where everything is going to be perfect, and then it all rears up and bites you in the nether regions? Well, I had one today. No disasters or anything like that. Just everything totally unco. The morning was fine, so there wasn't going to be any weather issues to worry about. We discussed what we were up to while I was doing the pre-flights and decided that it would be Glide Approaches from the dead side. "But of course" says Fred, "do one circuit first..." Famous last words.

 

That first landing was all over the place. Off to one side, not square with the strip, rounded out too high. You name it, I did it. I wasn't going to kill anyone, but it wasn't what you'd class as good stuff. "Hmmm" says Fred. "Better go again". 2nd attempt? No better. 3rd? Nup. Something was just wired up wrong in my brain today. After a few more, Fred either got bored with my lack of progress or he decided that things were good enough, so we turned to the right and did a few glide approaches from the right hand (dead) side while there was no one else around. After 15 hours of turning left, it was a weird sensation. I was assuming that I'd get one powered approach from that side just to get a handle on it, but nup; Fred just pulled the throttle back and away I went. As a glide approach, both of them were reasonable(ish); as landings, they were just as ordinary as the others.

 

We followed those with some low level circuits - 500ft as opposed to the normal 1000ft - the purpose of which, I presume, is just to keep presenting new & different landing approaches. As an aside, I think that this need for adaptability is one of my biggest issues. When the kids were younger and I'd play video games with them, remember how they'd get frustrated because I'd want to keep playing the same course over and over and over until I got it right while they wanted to keep doing new things? I've found that on any given day with a particular set of variables (wind, thermals, aircraft balance, course, etc) I can settle down to fly it reasonably, but when one of those variable changes, I'm not yet quick to react and accommodate it. Hence, today when the wind was coming from a different direction to normal, it took most of the session before I was lining up final correctly because instead of turning at the right time according to the conditions, I was turning according to what works for me 'normally'. I guess (hope?) that this is just an experience thing, because right now it's the one thing that makes me wonder if I'm ever going to be confident of my capabilities. I mean really gut-confident, not just of-course-I'll-be-alright head-confident.

 

Actually, as an example of that lack of confidence, Fred took over for the first low level approach and purposely put the plane in totally the wrong place, coming over the trees in line but way off to one side. "Look", he said, and proceeded to do a bunch of low level manoeuvres to put it in the right spot, and all I could think was that there was no way that I would ever trust myself to turn that close to the ground. Maybe I should have started this when I was a kid - I don't recall ever having problems with sliding a Mini around a dirt corner in a full four-wheel drift with a large earth bank - or even a larger drop-off - right beside me. I have to stop being so damn tentative!

 

Anyhow, after a couple of low-level circuits, Fred said to stop so he could hop out and for me to do a couple more by myself "to get my confidence back". I told him (with a laugh) that I was a helluva lot more confident with him in there than out, but I did as I was bid. As it eventuated, those last two circuits were far and away the best that I'd done all day. Go figure? I can't. The funny part was that there were a couple of blokes near the rooms when I walked back, and one of them said "hey, we stopped crossing our fingers for you after the first one. It was so good, you obviously didn't need it. Was that your first?". They'd seen Fred hop out near the end of the lesson and assumed that it was my first solo, but it was kinda nice to have a bit of a compliment after beating myself up for the last hour. :)

 

Oh, and I did the radio exam, so that's done and dusted.

 

Love you!

[Tomo]

As usual, Good Work Gomer

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Thanks Rod. I'd forgotten about taking the photo of the panel. Not that it helped one day when doing solo circuits; the day warmed up and I didn't know how to turn the heater off... :D (I do now!)

 

p.s. sadly, no new installment this week. :(

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Now that's a bit more like it!

 

Sweet,

Hopefully you haven't noticed because you've been sleeping soundly, but I've had the odd few restless nights since last lesson. I've just been going over and over it in my head. What was I doing that I shouldn't have? What wasn't I doing that I should have? Why wasn't it just coming naturally to me like things like this always have? Added to that, the weather forecasts for the last few days have been suggesting a reasonably fresh cross wind coming over the hills, so not only would it be a cross wind, it was going to be bumpy too. So, I had the wonderful situation of a really difficult circumstance, coupled with a significant lack of confidence. When I walked into the office, Fred looked at me and said "It's pretty ugly. We might go up high and do some other stuff today", which made me feel a bit better because I wouldn't mucking around near ground level and simultaneously a bit worse because he obviously thought that I wasn't up to it... (did I mention that I've been fighting some mental battles? ).

 

We had a bit of a chat before we got going. One of the problems that Fred's been hammering me about is letting the plane get at a bit of an angle to the strip just as we're touching down. It's not as if I don't know how to steer, but I never seem to get it right to his satisfaction. During one of my late-night think sessions, I realised that as we flare (raising the nose of the plane just prior to touching down), I lose all forward vision and thus any form of directional indication. No wonder I was skewing. Imagine driving along at 100kph and suddenly not being able to see over the front of the bonnet - it wouldn't take too long to start to drift. Fred's about the same height as me, so he wouldn't be able to see any better than I could, so how did he know whether or not we were going straight? It turns out that he makes sure that things are all square as the flare is reached, and then basically looks out the side at the edge of the strip to keep it aligned during the 'blind' period (which only lasts a few seconds). That made sense, so off we went.

 

We headed off to the training area, bouncing and bumping like nobody's business. I figured that we'd get clear of the turbulence by 2000ft or so, but even as we were passing through 2500', a nice big hole opened up in the air and the plane just dropped in! Luckily, there was plenty of air below it to catch us. :) Things got much smoother after that, and we spent most of the time up above 3000'. The lesson was steep turns, stalls in turns, tight turns and recovery from bad attitudes (the plane's that is, not mine ). Remembering back to the first one or two lessons, I remember pulling back into my seat whenever Fred demonstrated a wing drop or nose down. It was a real fear reaction, even though I knew what he was about to do and I had plenty of time to prepare for it. This time, we were probably getting into far more extreme attitudes, but it didn't bother me one iota. The tight turns were really interesting. It's a technique you'd probably only use in a critical situation when for instance you were caught between mountains at the end of a valley or something like that because you have to prepare for it - it's not something you'd do on the spur of the moment for object avoidance. Slow up to the point where you can deploy full flaps, apply full power and (what felt like) stand the plane on its wing tip with a fair bit of up elevator. It was unbelievable how fast it came around!

 

There was still time for some obligatory circuits, and it appears that the week of sleepless nights served their purpose. The approach was really tough, with not only the cross wind and the turbulence but quite strong areas of lift and sink as well, so I had to keep really alert all the way in. On the first few landings, I focussed totally on getting the direction right - with the cross wind, you have to actually fly pointing a little into the wind so that you're actually crabbing along slightly sideways - and with my mind dedicated to that, I managed to round out too high again. Damn! Still, gradually, landing by landing, I got it to a passable standard again. Every one is a new experience and every one gets me a step closer to qualified. :)

 

Speaking of qualified, I only got one mistake in the Radio exam last week, and it was the one question that I was 50/50 on. I have three more exams to do - Basic Aeronautical Knowledge (BAK), Flight Legislation and Human Factors - and Fred suggested that it was time I got them out of the way. Consequently, when I say that I have to study and then proceed to read the paper or watch tv, could you please give me a prod? I think I'm up to about 18 hours, so it'd be nice to think that even if I'm not up to the end game yet, I'm at least starting the final quarter...

 

Love you.

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Flapless

 

Hi Beautiful!Reached a new milestone this morning, though I'll bet it's not any one that you may be imagining. For the first time in five months (yes, it's been five months yesterday since my first flight - wow, time flies much more than I do), anyhow, for the first time in five months the wind was actually blowing straight down the strip, not 90deg to it like it normally is. The low cloud base (estimated from the ground at maybe 1500', but found to be a bit lower than that when we got up there) meant that circuits were the only option for the day. There was definitely not going to be any winging off into the wild white yonder.

 

The significance of the low cloud base is that that happens to be getting down near circuit height, so if it got any lower then we'd be grounded, and if there were any 'bumps' in the base then it would be very easy to fly into a white-out (out of which it is also very easy to fly, generally up side down and pointing at the ground). Much like skiing near trees, it's mainly a matter of keeping a careful eye out - the difference being that the trees don't move...

 

The plan for the day was flapless landings. There's actually two sets of control surfaces on the wings - the ailerons out towards the wing tips, which work in opposition (when one goes up, the other goes down) to roll the aircraft to one side or the other, and the flaps, which move up and down together. When they are up, they are in line with the rest of the wing and so are essentially just a part of it. As they are lowered, they start to increase the lift of the wing, enabling the plane to fly more slowly without stalling. They also increase the drag, so you want them tucked up out of the way when cruising, but the slower stall speed makes them your friend when landing or taking off.

 

Now, that's all well and good, but what happens if you're in the circuit and preparing for landing and you find that the flaps are stubbornly stuck-up? That means you have to land at a higher speed, because it's best to keep your landing speed roughly 1.4 times the stall speed, and without flaps, the stall speed is higher. Also, when you have full flaps on, the drag is greatly increased so you sink much more rapidly, so without them you have to approach the strip at a much flatter angle. Summary? Faster, meaning that you'll run out of strip more rapidly, and flatter, meaning that you're more likely to touch down further down the strip because you still have to make it over the trees to start with. Definitely something worth practising! :big_grin:

 

Regardless of the abominations of a couple of weeks ago, I was reasonably confident that things would go ok - I think I've got that picture back in my mind of what the world is supposed to look like during the final approach - and that's how it turned out. One circuit to make sure that I'd brought my brain with me, then Fred demonstrated a flapless approach, and then it was my turn. Apart from being a bit low over the trees on the first landing - I wasn't going to pick up leaves in the wheel spats or anything like that, but I was eating into the safety margin so a sudden bit of sink would have made things interesting - they all went ok, so Fred hopped out and left me to practice. His instructions were to do a few more flapless, and then mix it up with normal landings so that I was getting a variety. That way, I'd have to think about each one rather than just getting into a new 'habit', so to speak. He also said to "Take as long as you like", so presumably there was no student after me.

 

I was quite pleased with how it all went. I felt like the first approach was too high and hence went around, although I think that it was merely 'first time' caution, because I brought it in from exactly the same aspect a couple of times later on. After a couple more, I started alternating between normal and flapless, and then once for good measure, I chopped the motor and threw in a glide approach. Do you ever have something that you know you need to practice but you just don't want to do it? It took all the willpower I could muster to shut that throttle off! Of course, as soon as I had done it, the world was still the right way up and everything was fine. I turned final a bit further from the strip than I should have and hence was a fraction lower than optimal, but apart from touching down on the grass just short of the strip, it was still ok. One more normal landing as icing on the cake and I was done for the day. Oh, I should have mentioned that the wind was trending around so I was getting an increased crosswind component during the course of the morning too. It wasn't enormously significant, but it was enough to practice the slight crabbing required on approach. All up, top stuff! :thumb_up:

 

Love you

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Engines? Who needs engines??

 

Hi sweet. Got up there early as intended, and it was just beautiful. The lesson today was the dreaded EFOTs - Engine Failure On Take-off. When you have some height, you also have some time to find the best place to put down, but when you're 200ft off the ground, the choices are pretty limited. Essentially, in the early stages of take-off you can't turn because you lose height when turning, so it's roughly straight ahead or nothing.

 

We started with the obligatory circuit, so of course by the time I was taking off the second time I'd completely forgotten about the purpose of the lesson... When Fred shut the throttle just as we were clearing the trees, my first thought was "What the hell is he doing??", followed shortly thereafter by "Oh, yeah. That's right". By the time I recovered, we probably wouldn't have cleared the trees and got into the paddock behind them, so that was a salutary lesson. Always be aware during take-off.

 

We followed that with a glide approach from about 2000ft on the upwind dead side. That was no big deal, except that there were two Cessnas in the circuit, one of which was doing glide approaches from 2 or 3000ft, so instead of just needing to watch out for planes in the normal circuit, I had to watch out for a Cessna gliding around out of pattern, just like I was. (Add to that the helicopter that came through at 1500ft without giving a single radio call - mumble, grumble, mumble - plus the normal through traffic who do have the good grace to tell you where they are). Next take-off, Fred killed the throttle again and this time, although I wasn't 'ready' for it, I reacted quickly and flew it 45deg right over to the lowest tree line, and then back around 180deg left into line with the longest length of the paddock. I was pretty happy with that one, but I was even happier when Fred pushed the throttle back in!

 

The next glide was from 3000ft on the downwind side. I picked a path, and when Fred said "well, where are you going?" and I explained, the non-committal response I got made me think that I hadn't picked the best option. Quizzed, Fred just said "well, you're going that way now", so I was stuck with making the best of it. By some stroke of unfortunate luck, the Cessna with a very low-hours student was on final just as the Cessna doing glide was coming in on a short base just as I was doing likewise, so we were all heading for the same piece of real estate at the same time. I was in a position where I had to give way (in a real emergency I would have had right of way of course), so I had to extend my base leg (no engine, remember, so this is taking me further from the strip) and at the same time reassure the other Cessnas that we had them in sight and that we would be going around... The upshot was that I still made it over the trees even with the extended glide, and I had the brief experience of flying with two other planes within a reasonably short (but still legal) distance. It was kinda nice to be all floating along together, even if the low-hours student was probably having conniptions.

 

That's enough. Back to work. Oh, and I passed the Air Legislation exam ok.

 

Love you

[Tomo]

Good work Gomer! Yes those EFOT's certainly wake you up and really make you concentrate on what your doing on take off from then on!

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Not quite what they mean by a Cross Country Endorsement

 

Hi Sweet. I went to head out to the plane when I got there, but Fred appeared with a sheaf of papers and beckoned me to a table. One was a copy of the syllabus, which we went through point by point, ticking off all that were covered, and covering a couple of paperwork-type things at the same time (hence the rest of the papers & books). There's not too much more to do, so, skill allowing (more of that later), we may be getting towards the end of this first stage. One of the elements not yet covered was Precautionary Search & Landing. This is used where you must land even though there is no airstrip, but you still have time, power and control (ie the motor is still running, the wings are still attached and there's no flames licking the sides of the fuselage... :ah_oh: ).

 

The basic idea is to overfly the proposed landing area (paddock, road, beach, etc) once at ~200 ft to look for power cables and other obstructions that may not be visible from higher up. Power cables in particular are insidious - they are really hard to see at the best of times, and in the country they may well be strung wherever a farmer felt like he needed them, without the normal number of poles to at least give you hint that they're there. All looking well, you climb again to 500ft, perform a normal, low level circuit, and repeat the flypast, this time at ~30ft. This time, you're looking for the quality of the landing surface. Are there boulders or channels or other obstructions in inconvenient places? The fun here is that while you're looking intently at the ground, you still have to keep flying the plane - I don't think that maintaining height and direction are too difficult, but I imagine that it's pretty easy to let the air speed drop, and 30ft is horribly close to the ground if you let it stall. Again, all being well, you do another circuit and land on your new-minted airstrip.

 

We did one full set of three circuits, and apart from the fact that we had more fuel on board (thus heavier) and it was a warm day (thus the air is less dense) and so the climb rate was the slowest that I've seen, everything was fine. Fred hopped out and left me to practice a few sets on my own, which also went ok. However...

 

On the landing to conclude the 3rd set, I managed to get a fraction sideways just as the wheels touched down so that instead of heading down the strip, I started to drift off onto the grass. Although it was meant to be a touch and go, I immediately aborted and started to apply the brakes, and that's where things got a bit wonky. It only took a few seconds and mostly only my pride was damaged, but basically, the plane and I went bush! When you apply the brakes, inertia forces a heavier load onto the front wheel and the plane may start to swing to one side or the other, so you keep the stick back to lift the nose and hold as much weight off it as possible. That's all ok, but I think (from trying to reconstruct things in my mind later) that in a natural driver reaction, I slammed my feet on the brake & clutch pedals. Of course, the plane doesn't have those pedals - it has steering pedals - so even though we were slowing down, we're now starting to swing quite hard to the left (bearing mind mind that you push the clutch much harder than the brake).

 

In this process, I bumped the throttle a bit with my arm, so I let go of the brake and pulled the throttle off. Correction - I meant to pull the throttle off, but I actually pushed it on instead, so now I'm heading across the grass towards a dip, still turning left because I've still got my feet on the "brakes" and now the plane is starting to lift the nose because I have power on and the stick full back. Thankfully, rational thought processes kicked in about this time and so (a) the power came straight off, (b) I worked out that I was going left because I was steering left, and © with the plane now rolling in a straight line in grass, it stopped in no time.

 

Deep breath. Another deep breath. Everything seems to be in one piece, so I taxi back to the office where Fred is waiting, wondering what the blazes I've just done. As it turned out, everything was OK. The good point was that I got it all under control pretty quickly and the only real danger was from the ever-decreasing radius of the turn as I "pushed on the pedals", but it just all happened so fast. Somehow I have to learn how to unlearn 33 years of driving reactions. Hmmm... :confused:

 

Finished off the morning with the Basic Aeronautical Knowledge (BAK) exam. It went ok. Can't loose 'em all! :)

 

Still all in one piece, even if I'm feeling a bit blah at the moment. Love you.

[Tomo]

:thumb_up:

 

 

[Yenn]

It took me a while to get used to forward for more power as I spent many years driving farm tractors, in fact most of my flying could be described as agricultural.

 

 

[facthunter]

Alternative.

 

If you are not in a tractor you would have to be in a pusher. Seriously the years of tractor driving are not a help to throttle operation. The other thing is a history of billycart driving. With your feet you operate in the opposite sense to a tractor or a bulldozer or an aircraft. Nev.

 

 

[Powerin]

I guess the aircraft equivalent to a Fendt Vario (computer controlled throttle and transmission) would be FADEC?? :big_grin:

 

 

[GraemeK]

Gomer, a thousand thanks for that!

 

For several weeks I've suffered a great depression because I thought I was the only person ever to do that, and I was so embarrassed.

 

Now I know that at least one other person has screwed up a badly as I did, so hopefully I can get off my medication ....

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Gomer, a thousand thanks for that!For several weeks I've suffered a great depression because I thought I was the only person ever to do that, and I was so embarrassed.

 

Now I know that at least one other person has screwed up a badly as I did, so hopefully I can get off my medication ....

Hey Graeme, glad to be of service. Sometimes I try to comfort myself with the thought that there is nothing stupid that I can do that hasn't been done a hundred times by others, but I still I live in fear that one day my instructor is going to look at me and say those magic words - Well, I've never seen anyone do that before... :hittinghead:

 

 

[stanzahero]

I did a similar thing...

 

I took my foot off the "accelerator" and wondered why the engine didn't slow down.

 

Turns out I had my foot on right-rudder (as normal in a take-off run), so then the little J120 decided to head left.

 

I regained control of my brain before I ran out of runway width.

 

Scared the hell out of me... I had plenty of time to analyze because it was on my last solo X-country.

 

Stanzahero

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Strangely dispiriting

 

A warning before I launch into this week's instalment. I've though fairly long and hard about whether to post this or not. I was in a bit of a blue funk when I wrote it so it's a tad raw. Still, I said at the beginning that these letters were all 'as written', so I guess there's no reason to change now. Prepare to be depressed...

 

Hi Beautiful.

I'm feeling a bit flat right now. Nothing went terribly wrong. Nothing went terribly right. Nothing went terribly anything. I just feel like I didn't make any progress today at all. Sometimes I wonder if I fly better when Fred isn't in the plane, and then sometimes I think I fly just the same, and I'm just not aware of what I'm doing wrong when he's not telling me. Hrumph. Dunno. Let's start at the beginning.

 

Day was ok. Broken cloud, and although the wind was still at ground level, the movement of the lower clouds indicated that there was a reasonable northerly up top. Fred had a student before me - I think he started early to try and give her some quiet air - but we still got away on time. For reasons that I don't know (and didn't enquire about), he wanted to revisit flapless landings. Was it because of my little excursion last week and he wanted to see me do some circuits in dual mode? I can't think of any other reason, because I didn't have any problems at all with flapless when we did them last time. Maybe he just forgot. Dunno.

 

Anyhow, I noted as we were starting that the northerly was picking up, which meant that we were getting a tailwind. Not excessive, but there. The first landing was a bit all over the place - not bad, but I was making lots of corrections all the way down - so Fred said "let's do it again". Second one wasn't much better. The tail wind was clearly having a significant effect, particularly on the climb-out where we have to be aware of a local built-up area and the wind was carrying us closer to them than normal. I think that I handled the difference ok on approach, although the landing speed was definitely higher than normal which made things just a bit more touchy. At this point, the only other plane in the circuit stopped, so we took the executive decision to switch directions so that we were landing into the wind. As the other direction is the default and is thus what everyone is expecting if they approach from elsewhere, I put great emphasis on the runway number in all my radio calls for the rest of the lesson! Last thing I wanted was to find some inattentive soul heading straight for us half way through a T&G. In fact, I was just turning to final at one stage when a helicopter that had stopped for fuel declared its intention to take off on the reciprocal runway. A quick reiteration of my position sorted things, but it makes you kinda glad Mr Marconi was born! :)

 

The next couple of landings were ordinary - one off to one side and the next too slow on the approach and rounding out too high - and I think that Fred was starting to get a bit frustrated. I acknowledged that I'd got it wrong, and I don't know if my tone was too conversational or what, because he said something along the lines of "Well, don't accept it! You can't do that. You can't make those mistakes". It's so frustrating. What I focus on, I get right, but then there's always something else that I get a bit wrong. I know that I'm so much better than I was, so maybe he's just raising the bar as we go, and I know that I have to keep practising until I can do all the things right all the time, but I seem to have reached a plateau and I can't see an end to it. Am I any closer to qualification now than I was 12 hours ago? I can't see it.

 

As you may have noticed, the flaps stayed firmly in operation all day and we just kept doing good old circuits. I guess that the good news was that things started to come together after that and the last 3 or 4 were pretty good, but will they still be pretty good next week? If I have to land 5 times before I land properly every week, then I'm headed for a pretty short aviation career.

 

Sorry, I'm being a bit grumpy, aren't I? I promise to cheer up before I get home. :) I passed the 'Human Factors" exam today, so that's all the written stuff out of the way. (Actually, to return to grumpy mode for a moment - parts of the Human Factors course and the exam are really stupid. The information that they are trying to get across is very good and very useful, but there's sections of both the course and the exam that are just focussed on learning jargon which is only useful if you're going to become an academic in the field. For the pilot - or anybody else for that matter, because risk assessment and behavioural analysis applies to many walks of life - the important thing is that you understand the concepts and how they affect what you do, not that you can remember what the specific name for some thought process is. Ah well. Grumpy mode off again...

 

Love you.

[GraemeK]

Gomer - I had the exact same thing a couple of weeks ago. I just couldn't do anything right for some reason, even things I'm normally good at. Well "right" is maybe not the word - I was just feeling very frustrated that I wasn't making any progress, that I should have been seeing some improvement and I wasn't.

 

And like you, the instructor's tone was showing his frustration, he was much more terse and similar comments to yours. So I felt really down after the lesson, and wondered if I'd ever master the bastard.

 

Before the next lesson, I discussed it with my instructor - he actually though the last lesson wasn't too bad, so maybe it was just a case of raising the bar a bit. The good news is the next lesson was one of my best, and I felt really satisfied as I walked back from the plane.

 

Anyway, gotta go flying now ......

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

...So I felt really down after the lesson, and wondered if I'd ever master the bastard...

Now is that the plane or your instructor you're referring to...

Feeling much better now. Just have to wait and see what next week brings.

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Slip sliding away...

 

After the last couple of sessions, it's nice to be able to report a good one. Long may they continue... :thumb_up:

 

Hi Sweet.Lest you be worried about any negative connotations in the title, I had a good day today - definitely a confidence booster after the last few weeks. Beautiful spring morning - warm and still, soft bird calls in the distance, all that sort of stuff. Of course, you don't get something for nothing. The price you pay for warm, still mornings is that

 

a. the air is less dense and thus the plane climbs more slowly, and

 

b. as the ground warms up, lots of thermals pop up too. Thermals may be the glider pilot's friend, but they're a pain in the proverbial when you're on final approach and your trusty steed starts dancing around. :)

 

As there was very little breeze at ground level, it was a good day to learn short field landings and take-offs, but before we got into that, we headed out to the training area for some side slipping. Having spent the last 6 months learning how to keep the plane on the straight and narrow - essentially keeping the body of the plan pointing into the air stream to minimise drag and thus fly as efficiently as possible - today was all about getting it all skew-whiff and still going wherever it was that you wanted to go. There's two main circumstances where you'd want to do this. One is when you're too high on approach and need to lose height quickly. The other is when landing with a cross wind where you need to keep the plane lined up with the runway even though the wind is trying to push you off-line.

 

Going back to the earliest days, if you just pull the stick to one side, then the plane will roll (the primary effect) but it will also start to yaw and dive (secondary effects). Likewise, if you just push the pedals to one side, you'll yaw, but then you'll also start to roll & dive. In a coordinated turn, you combine the two so that as you roll (and thus start to turn), you use a bit of rudder to keep the plane in line with the turn. If, on the other hand, you start to roll but then push the rudder the opposite direction (aka cross-controlling) then the primary effect of the rudder counteracts the secondary effect of the ailerons and vice versa, and thus the plane is rolled to one side and at an angle to the direction of travel, but it keeps going in that direction instead of turning. As you can imagine, with the plane presenting some of its side to the airflow, the drag increases greatly and thus the plane will descend at a much increased rate (or, to look at it another way, you'd have to pour on the power in order to keep it flying level - though why you'd want to side-slip and keep on the level I can't imagine!).

 

It's a very odd feeling. The plane is rolled to one side but it is not turning, and the nose is off to one side from the direction you're heading. If you think about it, the nose being off to one side from the direction you're travelling is exactly what you want for a cross-wind landing too. There, the plane is pointed straight down the strip, but you're heading a bit into the breeze, which of course is pushing you across so that the total effect is to also travel in line with the strip too. Bear in mind, though, that when you do this, the plane is rolled to one side so that you actually land on one wheel, not two. That's a skill that have yet to master. :)

 

Anyhow, after descending in this odd manner and climbing back up a number of times, we returned to the strip for some short field stuff. Under normal circumstances, you want to keep a nice margin between your speed and stalling speed, but to minimise the landing distance requires as low a speed as possible. Keeping a little power on (but raising the nose to keep the speed down) gives a little more safety margin, but it means that you come in with virtually no flare at all. Fred demonstrated once, and then it was my turn. He kept a light hand on the stick through my first attempt, but he was totally hands off after that. We stopped after each landing so we could also practice short take-offs. Starting just off the end of the runway, you hold the stick right back, the brakes hard on and throttle up full. When you can't hold it against the prop any longer, release the brakes, but continue to hold the stick back. The nose will come up very quickly, so then you let the stick go forward until the nose is still raised off the ground, but not rising any further. In this attitude, as soon as the plane has enough speed, it will fly itself off the ground, and then it's a matter of keeping it at the best climb angle until you get over any obstructions. As soon as you've cleared whatever, you can flatten the climb, get the speed up and start to breathe again! I only did it 2 or three times, but I was quite happy each time I was able to get it to a safer climb speed. If it was not a calm day, then the chances of copping a wind shear, stalling, and being dumped back into those obstacles you were trying to climb over are not good. Definitely another case of knowing not only what you and the plane are capable of, but also when you and it are so capable.

 

We had a bit of time up our sleeves (we'd both got there a little early) so I dropped Fred off and did a few circuits on my own. Even one ballooned landing attempt and the consequent go-around was a net-positive as the go-around was the right (safe) option in the circumstance and it was well executed to boot. All up, a very successful morning.

 

We definitely are getting into the end game. Fred reckons that I should have my certificate in the next 5 weeks or so; a couple more syllabus elements to cover, then a run through of everything, and then...... the test... Geez. I feel like a teenager again. After that, I can get a few more hours up (needed for the passenger endorsement anyhow) and then I can start on cross-country. Can't wait!

 

Love you.

[Guest Gomer]

Subject: Practising scales

 

Yay! Another good one. Is it tempting fate to say that I might finally be getting the hang of all this??

 

Hi beautiful.

This is going back a few years, but the day that I got my drivers licence was stinking hot and I was so focussed on the test that I didn't notice that both the examiner and I were sweating like pigs - until, of course, he suggested that we open some windows about half way through. Why am I telling you this? Because I think that I'll have finally settled into this piloting caper the day that I notice while I'm flying that I'm getting sweaty and actually open the air vents. Today wasn't that day. i_dunno

 

Regardless of getting a bit warm, it was a pretty good day (yay!). I was hoping for some cross wind, but in its typically contrary manner, the wind - what little there was of it - insisted in blowing straight down the strip. (Hmmm. Maybe that's the secret to getting favourable winds; desire unfavourable ones... :) ). Not surprisingly after the last few weeks, Fred decided that I could do with some time doing 'drills and scales'. I know what to do and when to do it, but I still have to get it all burned into my subconscious. His parting words before wandering off were "practice whatever you want, but get those feet working properly".

 

I may not be the fastest on the uptake, but one thing I have in my favour is that I don't mind practising over and over to get things right, so an hour (a bit more as it turned out) of solo circuits sounded like just what the doctor ordered. With the morning being quite calm I expected the ride to be smooth, but it only took until about 200ft to be disabused of that notion. It was just one of those days where the air was in desperate need of a grader to smooth out the pot holes. All good practice, so no big deal.

 

I can't say how many circuits I ended up doing (oops, don't let CASA hear me say that - I'm supposed to note the exact number of landings in the plane's log book! ), but apart from one landing where I dropped off the edge of the table with a bit of a bump, they were all reasonably successful. On the first I rounded out way too high and so just went around, on a few I started to balloon but got it under control and on one I absolutely greased it - the only way to know that I was on the ground was the noise from the wheels. Love it! :thumb_up: Most importantly, my directional control was ok, although I still tend to over-correct a little so there's a slight tendency to weave.

 

Whilst the focus of circuits appears to be solely on the landing, there's plenty to do (and plenty to get wrong) on the other legs too. One of the things that Fred's caught me doing a couple of times lately is to settle into the climb, and not notice that the air speed is starting to drop. Another was starting to shortcut some of my pre-landing checks (hey, I'm doing them every few minutes; what could have changed? Of course, that's not the point. Yes, if the doors were secure last time and the fuel was healthy last time and the harnesses were firm last time then they're still going to be right this time, but one of these days I'll be coming in from a long cross country flight and maybe those things won't be right and then I mustn't forget the checks). Anyhow, today I just made sure to talk myself through everything - speed, coordinated flight, height & track accuracy, all the checks - and it was all good. I was also able to practice a little bit of last week's side slipping as well, so all up it was a pretty busy (and satisfying) lesson.

 

What's more, on the trip home I was driving on a cambered bit of road where you have to hold the wheel against the tendency to drift and I reached for the trim control! Maybe there really is a pilot buried away in my head after all.

 

Love you.