A Review - Stalls, Landings - 9th Lesson
Jun. 8th, 2006 01:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipstreamsurfrThis was a fun morning. Light winds from 060 meant for a departure on runway 34 today. Our time was short this morning because I swapped into 501 because 508 is still down for a new window. So a short lesson post today.
My CFI demonstrated a soft field takeoff today. All sorts of good things in there. I can't wait to practice those a bit. We flew out just south and west of the plant with the shiny dome and set up for our power on/off stalls. For a change I seemed to get them. I performed them well, recovered fairly well, and kept my drift to a fair minimum. I still am tending to drop my left wing as I pull the nose up and through the stall. But I'm starting to be able to see it off the side of the nose a bit easier, so hopefully I'll figure out how to STOP me from doing it. My only problem with the stall recovery is that I'm not leaving the nose down quite long enough to build enough speed. I tend to break the stall, then pull the nose back up when my speed is still too slow. The stall warning horn sounds far too long on recovery. The easy fix is to leave the nose down just a bit longer to build a little more speed. My altitude loss/gain was pretty good this time. They are tightening up a bit.
We headed back to GKY and I was still thinking patterns for 16 so headed towards the wrong side of the field to do the 45. By the time we caught it it was a bit late, but traffic was light so we called a straight in landing for 35 as there wasn't anybody else in the pattern.
I more or less got it lined up on the runway, I 'lost' my engine so it was to be a landing with no dragging it in. I put in the aileron and started working it in. first 10 degree's of flaps, then 20, then full. Runway was made easily and we were still too high. My CFI called for a slip and I started to fumble it but corrected and we sank it like a rock while keeping the speed where we wanted it. I pulled out the slip and started feeling for the runway. I transitioned my sight picture from the runway markers in front of me farther down the runway at the right time this time and it was feeling good. Ease into the flare, a bit much, catch it, work it. we started to drift to the left from the crosswind, a bit more aileron and I got that stopped. We touched it down with almost NO side load this time. I held the nose off, then eased it down. Got us back to the centerline with far too much rudder and we cleaned up, powered up and went on around on the touch-n-go.
I performed my cardinal sin on climb out in letting my airspeed getting to low again. 65 knots isn't what I'm going for, I'm pitching too aggressively on takeoff's. Especially in touch-n-go's.. We worked the pattern around again and knew that this would be our last landing as the plane had to be back. On downwind I was asked, what does the rudder do.. Align the plane to the runway heading. What does the ailerons do.. Move us left and right to correct the crosswind. My CFI said good, right answers. Live it, love it, do it, and it'll always work out.
I 'lost' my engine again(pesky thing, who does the maintenance on it?!), this time abeam the numbers and I had the plane. I turned base and started to square it up when I was reminded that I didn't have an engine, it was more important to make the field than fly a square pattern. So I turned it into a fairly gentle bank to get me to roll out on the runway heading when I was done. I ran the engine out checklist and wasn't allowed a restart so I rolled out and things were pretty well aligned again and I started working it. I noticed that my CFI was watching again, not far from the controls but not touching anything (he' been doing that more and more lately). The field was made, we were in about the right glide path so I didn't worry about the flaps and I transitioned my sight picture again like last time and started working the approach/flare to touchdown again. This time I put it on with NO side load at all. It was beautiful, until I leveled the ailerons on rollout and started to be pushed sideways a bit by the crosswind.
I taxied off the runway, cleaned up the plane and took it back and parked it.
Things felt really good today in the plane. I was ahead of things. The sight picture is starting to work out for me, the crosswind corrections are starting to come together.
I've been told that I fix the climb out pitch up problem, work on leaving the ailerons down after touching down on the runway, and I'm golden. I've been told I'm flaring it much better now, and my side load problems seem to be going away. I've been advised how we do the pre-solo test at our flight school. Another lesson or two and I think I'm getting my wings again.
-- .7 hours
-- 2 landings
My CFI demonstrated a soft field takeoff today. All sorts of good things in there. I can't wait to practice those a bit. We flew out just south and west of the plant with the shiny dome and set up for our power on/off stalls. For a change I seemed to get them. I performed them well, recovered fairly well, and kept my drift to a fair minimum. I still am tending to drop my left wing as I pull the nose up and through the stall. But I'm starting to be able to see it off the side of the nose a bit easier, so hopefully I'll figure out how to STOP me from doing it. My only problem with the stall recovery is that I'm not leaving the nose down quite long enough to build enough speed. I tend to break the stall, then pull the nose back up when my speed is still too slow. The stall warning horn sounds far too long on recovery. The easy fix is to leave the nose down just a bit longer to build a little more speed. My altitude loss/gain was pretty good this time. They are tightening up a bit.
We headed back to GKY and I was still thinking patterns for 16 so headed towards the wrong side of the field to do the 45. By the time we caught it it was a bit late, but traffic was light so we called a straight in landing for 35 as there wasn't anybody else in the pattern.
I more or less got it lined up on the runway, I 'lost' my engine so it was to be a landing with no dragging it in. I put in the aileron and started working it in. first 10 degree's of flaps, then 20, then full. Runway was made easily and we were still too high. My CFI called for a slip and I started to fumble it but corrected and we sank it like a rock while keeping the speed where we wanted it. I pulled out the slip and started feeling for the runway. I transitioned my sight picture from the runway markers in front of me farther down the runway at the right time this time and it was feeling good. Ease into the flare, a bit much, catch it, work it. we started to drift to the left from the crosswind, a bit more aileron and I got that stopped. We touched it down with almost NO side load this time. I held the nose off, then eased it down. Got us back to the centerline with far too much rudder and we cleaned up, powered up and went on around on the touch-n-go.
I performed my cardinal sin on climb out in letting my airspeed getting to low again. 65 knots isn't what I'm going for, I'm pitching too aggressively on takeoff's. Especially in touch-n-go's.. We worked the pattern around again and knew that this would be our last landing as the plane had to be back. On downwind I was asked, what does the rudder do.. Align the plane to the runway heading. What does the ailerons do.. Move us left and right to correct the crosswind. My CFI said good, right answers. Live it, love it, do it, and it'll always work out.
I 'lost' my engine again(pesky thing, who does the maintenance on it?!), this time abeam the numbers and I had the plane. I turned base and started to square it up when I was reminded that I didn't have an engine, it was more important to make the field than fly a square pattern. So I turned it into a fairly gentle bank to get me to roll out on the runway heading when I was done. I ran the engine out checklist and wasn't allowed a restart so I rolled out and things were pretty well aligned again and I started working it. I noticed that my CFI was watching again, not far from the controls but not touching anything (he' been doing that more and more lately). The field was made, we were in about the right glide path so I didn't worry about the flaps and I transitioned my sight picture again like last time and started working the approach/flare to touchdown again. This time I put it on with NO side load at all. It was beautiful, until I leveled the ailerons on rollout and started to be pushed sideways a bit by the crosswind.
I taxied off the runway, cleaned up the plane and took it back and parked it.
Things felt really good today in the plane. I was ahead of things. The sight picture is starting to work out for me, the crosswind corrections are starting to come together.
I've been told that I fix the climb out pitch up problem, work on leaving the ailerons down after touching down on the runway, and I'm golden. I've been told I'm flaring it much better now, and my side load problems seem to be going away. I've been advised how we do the pre-solo test at our flight school. Another lesson or two and I think I'm getting my wings again.
-- .7 hours
-- 2 landings