wow... - lesson 25

[slipstreamsurfr]

Today was to be my first solo flight where I come in, pick up the book, preflight, take off, shoot landings, go fly the practice area, sight-see, just me and the airplane. :)

I woke this morning to MVFR weather. At one point the ceilings were reporting down to 900 feet at Arlington.

Who ordered clouds in Texas in July?!?!

Ah well, the 10 o'clock flight was scrubbed. I called Mischa to let him know that I had called it off because of the clouds. He said it was a good call on my part. Ceilings were too low at 1500 feet. I figured it would probably be a wash today because as the day gets later, the wind will get stronger. About 1 though it was looking pretty good. A check on AWOS for GKY and things WERE looking good. I called 1800WXBRIEF and pick up a standard briefing. What do you know, things ARE better.

I check the system and the plan is available until 3. Great! I schedule from 1:30 to 3 and I'm out the door.

I call Mischa on the way out to the airport, he said the weather was looking pretty good where he was, was I calling to tell him I was going up? I told him yes, he asked me what the standard briefing had told me, I read it back to him and I could tell he was happy that I'd done my homework and called on it before walking out the door. He made me promise to wake my feet up. I told him I'd been stretching them all day. ;) He laughed.

I got to the airport, pulled the book on the plane and walked out to the gate. It was a funny feeling to know that Mischa wasn't going to be following behind me through the same gate in a few minutes. I really was out here all by myself today.

I preflighted the plane, organized my stuff in the cockpit. 508 seemed VERY roomy today without Mischa sitting next to me. I ran my engine start checklist, yelled clear and she started on 2 blades. It seems that even 508 wants to go flying today. A brake test and I'm off and taxing to 16. A runup is done, one last check on the winds to make sure I'm still okay to be going up, a radio call is made. And I taxi to the runway for take off.

(gulp) looks long from where I'm sitting. I advance the power, feeding the rudder to hold the centerline and we are off. 508 is extra responsive today, the temp is only in the mid 80's as opposed to the upper 90's, and she's got one less person on board. She wants to climb today. I get about 100 feet off the ground and I find the wind, it pushes my ground track off a bit on the runway but not too bad. I make my turn for crosswind, my radio call and it's all looking good, next turn, next call and I'm at pattern altitude. Nose 508 over and she still wants to climb, the thermals are starting already. It's a little bumpy in the pattern. I pull my power, establish my 70 knots and turn on base, then final and I line it up. The wind has picked up, we've got a cross wind on the runway now, so I work it out and line up on the centerline, working it down, then get hit with a gust that kicks the tail to the right. Correct that and it's time to be flaring but I'm to the right of the centerline, maybe 5 feet. I bleed off the speed, set her down with the nose up, no side loads. I lower the nose, then release the cross wind correction. Will I ever learn? The wind causes the veer, not bad, but not what I want. I put in the correction again and put myself back on the centerline for a take off and she's off and ready to go for another circuit.

The first landing, while good, to me stunk because I didn't get the centerline and I dropped the cross wind correction out. I worked the pattern around again lined up on final. This time the wind was straight down the runway, I remembered the burble that I had hit the last time that shoved my tail to the right and waited to see if it would happen again. Sure enough it shoved the tail but I was ready for it this time. I corrected for it, kept myself lined up, and greased it on the centerline with the nose up. I let the nose down gently, kept the cross wind correction in, then powered up again to take off.

Now that I'd proven to myself that I could land it to MY specifications it was time to go fly out of the pattern on my own for the first time. Mischa had suggested I head over to Lake Arlington, do some turns, just sight-see a bit the first time out. I called my departure from the pattern to the south west. I flew that way a bit, until I just after I crossed 287 and then turned north and headed for Lake Arlington. 2500 feet, and was enjoying the flight. The thermals were really starting to kick things up a bit, even with only one person in the plane, there is no way that 508 is suppose to climb at 1000fpm ;) I flew out over the lake, did some clearing turns and gave steep turns to the left and right a couple of tries. To the right today seemed to be better than to the left for some reason. Odd that the good ones have reversed themselves like that. I need to think about that one some more. After a little bit though I just started to fly the plane. First down one end of the lake, then across and down the other. I'm not afraid to admit that I had a huge grin on my face. I looked at my watch and checked the time. I wanted to get back with plenty of time to shoot some more landings before I turned the plane back in.

I turn east and head back to GKY. I decide that I'll try to do a correct 'standard entry' into the pattern and overfly the field 500 feet above pattern altitude at a 90 degree angle to the runway, make my turn and spool down into the pattern. The only problem is, I didn't go far enough out before I started my turn. So instead of coming in at a 45 degree angle to the downwind leg, I ended up spooling in pretty flat into a close in downwind. No one in the pattern though, so no harm done, but something to keep working on. I know what to do differently next time now though. I'll get these figured out yet.

I'm rather close to the runway on the downwind which sets me up a bit high on my final, I slip to the flare, then bring it out and get nailed by the crosswind. I touch down, just right of the centerline again. I keep the crosswind correction in during the roll, power up, and I'm off to go again. Not real happy with the landing, first off I was right of the centerline again and second, when I pushed the power forward I didn't use quite enough right rudder and it swerved a little. I can do better.

The next time around I'm looking a little low, so a bit of power, ride it down final, find that strange gust again that's kicking the tail to the right about every other time now and line it up. I ease it on, first let wheel, then right, then I ease the nose down. Nice. Power forward and we are off again.

I shoot a handful more landings, some I had to slip in. The next to the last one was really high because I had turned early on base. I put in a nice long slip and let it out right over the threshold and had myself lined up nicely. An easy left, right, nose and 508 was down again. I wanted to shoot one last one because I wanted to prove to myself I could fly the pattern and not have to touch the power, or rely on the slip in order to get myself down on the touch down markers. It worked out for me this time, I got hit by that weird side gust again, this time I didn't quite get myself back to the centerline, but was only off by about 2 feet. Close enough for the last one. The left wheel touches, the right, the nose is held off, then gently lowered. I brake for the taxiway and turn off, cleared the runway, clean up the plane and taxi for parking.

I shut her down, turned off the master, popped open the door, pushed the seat back and just sat there a few minutes. I'd just spent 1.1 hours, in sole control of the airplane. Every take off, every landing, every turn, every climb and descent, every decision to be made, was mine and mine alone. Wow.... :)

--1.1 solo
--7 landings, all mine

Comments

[smallerdemon.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it was a damn fine day flying sir. :) Very cool. Good that you got the landings you wanted. And congrats on the solo time.