Back in the saddle

After 2 full weeks of no flying (the first because the plane needed its 100 hour inspection, the second because I was out of town), I finally got back in the air. The lesson was scheduled for 8:00, but by 8:30, Richard hadn’t shown. I paged him, and he apologized for the confusion and headed over. By 9:00 we were ready to go.

This lesson was primarily to review emergency procedures aloft and emergency landings. We did a few simulated engine failures, and approaches to land on some roads. Pretty easy, of course – when you actually HAVE a working engine. Hopefully I’ll be that calm and focused in a REAL emergency. Come to think of it, hopefully I will never HAVE a real emergency like that – much better that way. A few turns around a point (need to work on that altitude control) and then back to Van Nuys for 5 touch and goes. Interesting day in the pattern with lots of traffic, extended downwinds, immediate turns after takeoff, and changed runways. Very educational, as always. My landings were nothing short of lousy, but I chalk that up to laying off for two weeks. Hopefully THAT will never happen again.

After we debriefed, Richard gave me his pre-solo written test to take, and asked about the status of my medical so I could solo. I told him that the FAA was still sitting on it, and that I would get it as quickly as possible. Might be time to get AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) involved to help me out.

1.5 hours/17.6 total

Out for a spin!

Today I decided to do my spin training as required by my CFI prior to solo. One word: WOW!

I went up with a CFI from a flight school on the field near my flying clubs planes (more on that in a moment). We took a Citabria 150, a tandem (meaning the CFI sat behind me, not next to me) taildragger. Good experience, to be sure – but certainly different from the 172. We flew out to the aerobatic training area, up to 5000′, and got started. Pretty simple, really. All that needs to happen is to stall the plane with the throttle back as usual, and then just as the stall breaks – kick in full rudder one way or the other. We started to the left, and he did the first one. Incredible. In about 1 second you are pointed right at the ground, spinning. Recovery is easy – neutralize ailerons, full opposite rudder, and let the stick back forward. Turns out the only part that is hard on the body is the recovery from the dive itself – lots of positive G’s pulling the brain into the neck.

I did 3 each way, and with a throbbing headache headed back to the airport. GREAT training. Never again will stalls bother me.

1.0 hours/16.1 total

Ground school, solo prep

It was just a matter of time before my good luck with the weather faded, and today was it. By the time I finished preflighting 2257E, the weather was VERY marginal VFR, and FSS was not recommending it. I found Richard, and he thought it was just out of the question for the emergency procedures we were planning. He suggested I go button up the plane (argh!) and we do some ground school and preparation for solo. Not nearly as good as flying, but better than nothing.

We started with some discussion about my taking the FAA written PRIOR to my solo. I told him I would prefer to take it later, since I’ve taken several practice tests and passed (suggesting that I have the knowledge he wants me to have), but would prefer to study more before taking it for keeps. My reasoning is that I’ve heard that the DE (designated examiner) will spend a lot of time drilling a student during the oral part of the exam on the items they missed on the written. He said that would be fine.

Next he drilled me on various areas of engine operations, emergencies, regulations, etc. I passed with flying colors. We then discussed what was left for me to solo. A tour of the tower at Van Nuys was required, so I scheduled that for immediately after we were done. I also needed spin training, and Richard suggested I do that at a training school on the field in a properly rated plane. I scheduled that for Friday. The only items left were crosswind landings (I’ve done crosswind landings, but nothing substantial), and emergency landings outside the pattern. In addition, Richard wants me to do a phase check with another CFI, so I’ll schedule that for next week. Other that those items, I’m ready to solo.

Emergency procedures in the pattern – and feeling comfortable.

Today must have been the best weather yet. Clear skies, 68 degrees, no wind. Richard arrived at around 8:15, and off we went.

Today was for emergency procedures. First were aborted takeoffs. We taxied to the hold line and requested an aborted takeoff procedure. The tower had us hold for about 3 minutes, and then cleared us out. Richard did the first one. Piece of cake. Once you lose the engine, just pitch the nose down, put in full flaps and land the thing! It gets a bit more difficult of course if you run out of runway, but Van Nuys has a golf course (2, actually) directly on the usual runway heading. #18 at Woodley lakes would make for a fine landing area. Plus I’ve birdied that hold several times.

Next up was partial panel. Flying and landing without an airspeed indicator was most interesting. Then a full flap takeoff, and some touch and goes. My landings were MUCH better today – all minimum 7’s, a couple of 8’s. Another lesson tomorrow, and then nothing until Monday – unless the plane becomes available. I’m getting close to solo now – I can feel it.

1.5 hours/15.1 total

Last of the stalls, some landings, and good news.

Afternoon flight. Absolutely perfect weather. We plan was to finish up the stalls (accelerated and cross control) and then do some no-flaps landings. Sounds good to me – but then again, just sitting around at the airport sounds good to me.

Accelerated stalls were pretty wild. The trick is to keep the engine at around 2200 RPM, put the plane in a 45 degree bank (we did them both left and right) and then ABRUPTLY pull back on the yoke. The plane stall very quickly, but not very dramatically, thanks to the high speed. The idea is to show that the plane can be stalled at any attitude, and at any speed. Easy, and fun. Next were cross control stalls (out of a slip). Weird, but easy to get, once again. Then it was back to Van Nuys for some slips to landing without flaps – to simulate a loss of flaps. Hard to get at first, but once you have the slip concept nailed, it all falls into place. The trick for me was getting the plane lined up with the runway after coming out of the slip. We did a few of those, slipping to both sides, and then did a couple of regular touch and goes the normal way – with flaps. A couple were not pretty (5’s at best) but a couple were respectable 8’s. Getting better! A couple hundred more, and I should have it nailed.

After the lesson, I asked Richard when I might be looking to solo. Not because I’m overly anxious (yeah, right), but because of my travel requirements with the job, I don’t want to be real close to solo, and then have to leave for a week or 10 days. That might actually KILL me. I showed him his list of requirements prior to solo, and he said that I was very close. He requires his students to have passed the FAA written exam before soloing, so he said I should get that out of the way as soon as possible.

I scheduled 5 more flights between now and next Friday, since I’m leaving for New Orleans (ouch) that next Saturday for a week. Maybe I can solo before that?

1.6 hours/13.6 total

More stalls, maneuvers, and an emergency! (Drill that is.)

9:00am flight – scheduled for just the right day. The 23rd and 24th (my last two lessons) were in perfect weather, the 25th was lousy overcast, and today was perfect again. Wind was calm, 10 miles visibility – very nice.

Today we worked on more stalls – specifically power on stalls, to simulate stalling the plane just after takeoff or during a go around. Very cool. On the first one, the nose dropped pretty sharply, nearly the entry to a spin. My response was simply “Oh shit”, but I recovered OK. No real danger I was told, so I relaxed after that. A few stalls later it did the same thing, and that one was kinda FUN. I imagine that they’d be a lot less fun if they were unintentional or close to the ground – so I’ll be very careful.

Next up was some ground reference maneuvers. Turns around a point first – we found a water tower, and turned around it both left and right. Easy to understand, just needs practice. Next was S turns across a road. Again – just needs practice.

After that, Richard demonstrated a complete engine failure. Pulled the throttle all the way back, trimmed for best glide, and then found a spot. Circled down until we were on final for a small road, then recovered. Cool.

Back to Van Nuys for another OK landing (a 5 on a 1-10 scale, I think I’ll rate them all that way from now on), and taxi home.

1.5 hours/12.0 total

Quit ‘yer stallin!

Flight was scheduled for 3:00, but the plane had to be back by 5:00, so I got to the airport early to preflight and get weather information before Richard showed. This would give us the most time in the air. He arrived right on time, and we headed for the plane. On the way, he suggested that we fly out to the practice area with Flight Following, do some stalls, and come back for touch and goes. Sounded good to me!

Radioed Clearance Delivery before Ground this time, to get our clearance and squawk code for FF. As easy I as expected, and we were off. A good solid takeoff started a great lesson. Out to the practice area at 4500, a few 360’s to clear the area (and practice 360’s, of course) and then a bunch of stalls. Power off, with and without flaps, straight, left and right. Much more comfortable with these now – even liking them. Back to Van Nuys, where there was a TON of traffic, cleared for TnG’s on 16L. Had to do a go-around on the first one (WAY too high) and then got the next two down fine. Last one was a full stop. Had to wait about 5 minutes behind a LearJet before we could cross the active runway – kinda interesting.

Next flight – Friday to do some different kinds of stalls. As usual, I can’t wait.

1.6 hours/10.5 total – Hey! Double digits!

Getting down

Today was my first flight with Richard Mend from a flight school (AV8) at Van Nuys. Richard is a professional CFI – meaning that ALL he does is teach people to fly. I was hoping I would get a bit more structure and support than I had been getting in the past. Turns out I got a WHOLE lot more than I even expected.

I showed up right at 9:00 and met Richard. We talked a bit about exactly what I had done thus far in my training. He explained the way he does things – more or less from a structured syllabus – and then asked if I had checked the weather. I told him I got the ATIS on the way over, but he wanted a full briefing. We called a Flight Service Station (FSS) and asked for a standard briefing from Van Nuys to Camarillo (even though we were just going to stay around Van Nuys). Very educational. He suggested we just do some pattern work to sort of “check each other out”, and I agreed. He watched me preflight the plane, giving me good tips along the way, and then off we went.

Right away I knew things were going to be different. From the hold line, I radioed the tower to let them know we were ready to go, and got “Cessna 2257 Echo, cleared for immediate takeoff on runway 34 left – expedite for incoming jet traffic.” Oh mercy. I got the plane started out onto the runway, and said sheepishly “He wants us to expedite – do you want to take this?”. Richard said “Nope – you should be fine”. I pushed the throttle to the firewall and just kept it on the centerline. 55 kts, rotate, airborne. No sweat! Around the pattern was no biggie – just watch the airspeed, altitude, radio calls, other traffic. Turned base, kicked in flaps, pulled power. Put on my sheep-face again and said “I haven’t done many landings” – to which he replied “You look good right now – just get us down”. Keeping in mind that down could mean in smoldering wreckage, I kept focused on where I wanted to land. Airspeed at 60, watching the numbers, just short of the runway pull all the power, round out, flare, SQUEEK! Beauty! Taxied off, and back for another takeoff.

We did 6 takeoff’s and landings, all to a full stop and taxi back, and Richard never touched the controls ONCE. Even on the two landings that could only be described as BONE JARRING, but that was fine with me. I got to FEEL what causes those. Back to parking, and we debriefed about the flight. A check, a handshake and a scheduled flight tomorrow. Today I feel like a PILOT.

1.6 hours/8.9 total

Wind is fun

The Nissan Open golf tournament is in town this weekend, so like a good golfer I had to get up at 5:00am to head out to Riviera Country Club to watch the pros. Stayed until about noon, when I got a call from Kent saying that the plane was available. Figuring that any flying is better than no flying, I hightailed it home, watched the end of the tournament on TV (Ernie Els beat Tiger Woods by one) and headed to the airport.

ATIS was reporting wind from 330 (runway 34 would be in use) at 17 gusting to 30! I called Kent just to be sure we were still on, and he said “Sure – it’ll be fun for you”. Yeah. OK. Preflighted and headed to the practice area, with moderate to severe turbulence the whole way. It calmed a BIT once we got over Simi Valley, but not much. Kent seemed to be enjoying this. I, however, was sweating profusely. We did some climbing turns, descents with and without flaps, steep turns (I seem to have no problem with those) and then some power off stalls. Still not comfortable with those, but I’m getting better.

Headed back to VNY, with instructions to make left traffic for 34L. Just as we started to turn downwind, the tower told us to fly directly across the runway and start a right downwind for 34R. No problem – just surprising. Thought about doing a touch and go, but the wind was too hairy. Put it down a bit hard, but in one piece.

1.0 hours/7.3 total

Finally, something substatial

Kent called this morning and said he had a cancellation in the afternoon – was I interested? With .3 hours in the last 8 days, I had to say YES.

He’d been flying all day (giving rides to kids all day for an EAA group he works with), so a full preflight was not required. I did the basics, and off we went. To the practice area first for some maneuvers, including slow flight, power off stalls and departure (power on) stalls. The departure stalls were interesting, because you just pull the nose up (and I mean WAY up) until the stall horn starts blaring, and then wait for the break. On the first one, I tried to steer a bit too much with the yoke, which has a tendency to stall one wing more than the other. What this results in (I soon found out) is the quick drop of the wing, and (if you’re not careful) a SPIRAL DIVE. No problem – just level the wings, keep the nose lowered, pull your heart out of your throat, stop screaming and recover. Piece of cake.

Back to the pattern for some touch n’ goes. The very first one I did, I did all by myself, and pretty good, too. Kent said that I was flaring a bit early, and landing harder than I needed to. The plane was on the ground, no damage, no injuries – sounds PERFECT to me. Fine – let’s do some more. We did 4 more before we can back in, learning something on all of them.

I’ve some to a point in my training where I think I really need to settle on a CFI – this back and forth between Kent and Marv is getting to be counter-productive. In an effort to make the BEST decision, I’ve scheduled a lesson on Tuesday with yet ANOTHER CFI from a nearby school – Richard Mend. Of the three he is the only professional instructor (the other guys have regular jobs) and comes highly recommended. By Tuesday noon, I’ll have made my decision.

1.3 hours/6.3 total