Prep - Lesson 44
Oct. 7th, 2006 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipstreamsurfrI head to the airport this morning early. It's a beautiful day, the wind is out of the east at about 6 knots, so a nice crosswind to play with. The temps are nice, a bit of haze, so likely fairly smooth air this morning. I get to the airport and 296 is still locked and Mischa's not here yet, no matter, that's why the FAR/AIM is in the bag. More reading on airspace. I'll make use of the time.
Mischa arrives and we go in and pick up the book. Outside I unlock the canopy and slide it back, grab the fuel sampler and the dip gauge. That's a new little widget to play with. Preflight goes well, I dip the tank and I've got 8 gallons on one side, about 8.5 on the other. Enough for 2 hours in the air. Mischa asks if I've ever been to Mesquite (HQZ)? Nope. Great he says, their gas is cheaper than here. Let's go up, work on the maneuvers and then shoot a landing at HQZ and pick up some gas.
Sounds good to me. In we hop and run the checklist. She's started and we are taxing while I call for taxi clearance. They clear me to 16 and we go and do the run up. Things are better on the run up, the plane is a lot more familiar now than before. Run up is done and I'm taxing into position and calling the tower, ready for departure 16. We are cleared for take off and I'm off and rolling.
The first take off of the morning leaves a little to be desired. I kept her on the ground to long before rotation so she tried to skitter a little to the side before I was up and climbing. Climb performance today is really nice with only 2 people on board and light tanks. We are cleared for our east bound departure. Out I turn and we are heading over the dam of Joe Pool lake. I take a bit of a south east track to miss the corner of RBD's class D and we are soon out where we can play.
It's really nice today. Things are pretty smooth. One of the biggest things I'll have to work on is once I trim this plane I need to be VERY light with it. Otherwise she'll climb. I think part of the tendency to climb is due to the engine cowling giving one a VERY different sight picture. I start to learn the trick of keeping a glancing eye at the VSI and if I see it start the trend I release the back pressure. This gets things working a bit better. First up is a set of steep turns. I reduce the speed a little and take things into a left hand turn. This time I made note of my entry heading, 210 as I roll it into the turn. A little nose up, then down, a tiny bit of a chase but things stabilize very nicely early on. The altitude is hovering in around a plus or minus 25 feet. 210 is coming up so I roll it out and into an immediate right hand steep turn. The wings go level at about 205. A little more lead on the roll out and I'll have that nailed next time. BUMP That makes me grin. I LOVE it when I hit my own entry wake. Turns to the right waver a bit more, still learning where the horizon should be in that right hand turn, but responsive is this planes middle name. I hold the altitude with a minor excursion to maybe 50 feet below at one point, and roll out, again at about 205 to 210.
Mischa's grinning in the seat beside me. Slow flight please is the request. Power comes out, I walk the rudders to hold my heading as I slowly raise the nose. Flaps please, comes next. I run them in all the while slowing the plane and playing with my feet. A bit of a drift to the left before I catch it and I add some power to keep us hovering with the stall warning horn on and we seem to be barely moving this morning in the air. Nice he says, recover please. Power goes in and I push the nose down to stop the altitude gain and I work out the flaps. Slow flight is requested again, this time without flaps. The same game is played, but this time I'm more on top of the rudders and I don't get the drift. Stall us please, straight ahead. Power comes all the way out and I work the nose back, trading speed with time and holding our altitude. No climbs today in this routine. The cheetah has stall strips on the wing. It sets up a VERY pronounced buffet feel as it starts stalling from the inboard out on the wing. I hold it a bit too long in the stall trying to see what it would really do on a full stall but I'm starting to spill air on the wings and they are rocking. While I can catch it with the rudder, it's not what I'm here for so I recover. Pitch the nose a bit higher on the recovery I'm told. And while I LIKE falling leaf stalls, your DE probably won't, so recover when the buffet starts.
I feel a bit chastised, and explain what I was doing. Mischa's just grinning at me. We do another power off stall, recovering as soon as the first buffet is felt. Much better I'm told. Now turn to 090 and lets do a power on stall. The turn is made while I am slowing down again for the entry into the stall. 60 knots and the power goes in and the nose goes up, balancing things again to not gain altitude during this attempt. The nose tries to slip to the side but the feet are alive on the rudders and things stay where I want them. Buffet, and recover and back into a climb.
Outstanding airwork Mischa tells me. Let's go to Mesquite for some gas. Anything you'd like to work on? How about standard rate turns I say. He looks at me oddly, why standard rate turns? Well, we've done them, sort of, but never really called them such. I'd like to get a really good feel for the right way to set them up and get into and out of them without any trouble. He asked why would I want to perform a standard rate turn? It's a tool, to get me out of a cloud, if I somehow manage to blunder in. Standard rate turn, 60 seconds, fly out. Set's me 180 degree's from where I started. Mischa shakes his head, sounds like you've been reading again and he grins. We play with them a bit, entering them at different speeds, making note that different speeds will mean different levels of bank in order to get the standard rate turn. Nothing big here, just something I'd not played with much before. No problems and by now we've looped ourselves along and are close to Mesquite.
I had set the radio for Mesquite back before we started playing with the turns and pulled the winds, then made our call and entered the pattern. Very slow today, sure don't know why there weren't more people up flying this morning. It was a fantastic day to be in the air. I set up and fly a fairly decent pattern and the final is fair. I get a bit heavy handed on the controls in the flare and it wasn't a great landing. We pull off and Mischa can see by the look on my face that I'm replaying the landing and starting to beat up on myself about it. It wasn't BAD he tells me. It wasn't bad I said, but it wasn't good either. I keep forgetting, a light touch is called for in this plane. He nods. We pull up to the self serve pump and shut down. We refuel the plane and are back in getting ready to head out again.
We want to head straight back to GKY because we'd like a couple of landings so set up along I-20 for the flight back. I enter the frequencies for RBD and Mischa asks me what I'm doing. Setting the radio, we'll need to talk to them before we transition through their airspace. Good thinking he says. Radios set and swapped and I give them a call after a few minutes. They ask me to hit the ident on the transponder and clear my transition along I20. I fly along I20 until I'm past their centerline and then head towards the dam again on Joe Pool lake. RBD let's us go and I'm already swapping in the frequencies for the tower and weather on the radio. I pick up the winds then switch back to the tower frequency. Call them over the marina and and they ask me to report entering downwind.
I work the altitude down to traffic pattern, call them on entering the downwind and they ask if we've got the gyrocopter that just departed GPM in sight or not. We don't at first, then see him as he wings his way behind us overflying our field as he heads out. Those things sure look strange when they are in the air. I set up a landing, and again, it's not bad, the base leg is a bit sloppy for me, I let my sink get a bit away from me before I fixed it. I ran in full flaps and did a fairly nice landing, nothing to write home about. Flaps up, power in and I'm up and away again. A few more landings are shot, with varying levels of nicety. To me, they all had things that weren't great, to Mischa, he didn't have a LOT to complain about in them. Perhaps a bit tighter tolerance on the centerline, perhaps a bit smaller, finer control movements in the flare. The last one will be full stop, I work on keeping things small, tight on the control movements, holding the centerline tighter than I ever have, I see we are flat, so start the yoke back, but keeping things slow, and don't have nearly enough time to move that slow and we land. Pretty flat. We didn't bounce. But it was flat. I'm annoyed at myself for that, because it had been almost picture perfect, except that I hardly flared at the end. I start to brake far too late to make the standard turn off and have to go to the next. This annoys the tower. I keep the speed up and get off on the next taxiway and clear the runway. Clean up the plane, and contact ground to taxi to parking.
We talk a bit about the flat landing. I don't do them often anymore, but every once in a while, I turn one in. Cheetah, 172, doesn't matter. Usually it happens when I get tight on things, trying to finesse things. Got to remember to flare more though in those situations. The flat landings are almost gone. Also, planning ahead for the taxi way turn offs has been a weakness of mine. I tend to miss the first turn off. Why he asks. Well, I tell him, it's because I try to keep the speed up to get off for the tower, then I brake for it, but take it easy on the brakes because I don't want to overheat them or tear them up and I'm just not handling it quite right. I'll make the turn offs from now on. Mischa nods, yeah, it might be embarrassing a little if you miss your turn off with the DE.
Mischa says the flying was really good today. We'll do ground reference tomorrow, work on soft/short field work. Mock checkride on Monday. Then we'll see about calling Carol. He told me he's almost ready to sign me off to call her today.
wow....
--1.7 dual
--6 landings
the logbook has 'great airwork' written in :)
Mischa arrives and we go in and pick up the book. Outside I unlock the canopy and slide it back, grab the fuel sampler and the dip gauge. That's a new little widget to play with. Preflight goes well, I dip the tank and I've got 8 gallons on one side, about 8.5 on the other. Enough for 2 hours in the air. Mischa asks if I've ever been to Mesquite (HQZ)? Nope. Great he says, their gas is cheaper than here. Let's go up, work on the maneuvers and then shoot a landing at HQZ and pick up some gas.
Sounds good to me. In we hop and run the checklist. She's started and we are taxing while I call for taxi clearance. They clear me to 16 and we go and do the run up. Things are better on the run up, the plane is a lot more familiar now than before. Run up is done and I'm taxing into position and calling the tower, ready for departure 16. We are cleared for take off and I'm off and rolling.
The first take off of the morning leaves a little to be desired. I kept her on the ground to long before rotation so she tried to skitter a little to the side before I was up and climbing. Climb performance today is really nice with only 2 people on board and light tanks. We are cleared for our east bound departure. Out I turn and we are heading over the dam of Joe Pool lake. I take a bit of a south east track to miss the corner of RBD's class D and we are soon out where we can play.
It's really nice today. Things are pretty smooth. One of the biggest things I'll have to work on is once I trim this plane I need to be VERY light with it. Otherwise she'll climb. I think part of the tendency to climb is due to the engine cowling giving one a VERY different sight picture. I start to learn the trick of keeping a glancing eye at the VSI and if I see it start the trend I release the back pressure. This gets things working a bit better. First up is a set of steep turns. I reduce the speed a little and take things into a left hand turn. This time I made note of my entry heading, 210 as I roll it into the turn. A little nose up, then down, a tiny bit of a chase but things stabilize very nicely early on. The altitude is hovering in around a plus or minus 25 feet. 210 is coming up so I roll it out and into an immediate right hand steep turn. The wings go level at about 205. A little more lead on the roll out and I'll have that nailed next time. BUMP That makes me grin. I LOVE it when I hit my own entry wake. Turns to the right waver a bit more, still learning where the horizon should be in that right hand turn, but responsive is this planes middle name. I hold the altitude with a minor excursion to maybe 50 feet below at one point, and roll out, again at about 205 to 210.
Mischa's grinning in the seat beside me. Slow flight please is the request. Power comes out, I walk the rudders to hold my heading as I slowly raise the nose. Flaps please, comes next. I run them in all the while slowing the plane and playing with my feet. A bit of a drift to the left before I catch it and I add some power to keep us hovering with the stall warning horn on and we seem to be barely moving this morning in the air. Nice he says, recover please. Power goes in and I push the nose down to stop the altitude gain and I work out the flaps. Slow flight is requested again, this time without flaps. The same game is played, but this time I'm more on top of the rudders and I don't get the drift. Stall us please, straight ahead. Power comes all the way out and I work the nose back, trading speed with time and holding our altitude. No climbs today in this routine. The cheetah has stall strips on the wing. It sets up a VERY pronounced buffet feel as it starts stalling from the inboard out on the wing. I hold it a bit too long in the stall trying to see what it would really do on a full stall but I'm starting to spill air on the wings and they are rocking. While I can catch it with the rudder, it's not what I'm here for so I recover. Pitch the nose a bit higher on the recovery I'm told. And while I LIKE falling leaf stalls, your DE probably won't, so recover when the buffet starts.
I feel a bit chastised, and explain what I was doing. Mischa's just grinning at me. We do another power off stall, recovering as soon as the first buffet is felt. Much better I'm told. Now turn to 090 and lets do a power on stall. The turn is made while I am slowing down again for the entry into the stall. 60 knots and the power goes in and the nose goes up, balancing things again to not gain altitude during this attempt. The nose tries to slip to the side but the feet are alive on the rudders and things stay where I want them. Buffet, and recover and back into a climb.
Outstanding airwork Mischa tells me. Let's go to Mesquite for some gas. Anything you'd like to work on? How about standard rate turns I say. He looks at me oddly, why standard rate turns? Well, we've done them, sort of, but never really called them such. I'd like to get a really good feel for the right way to set them up and get into and out of them without any trouble. He asked why would I want to perform a standard rate turn? It's a tool, to get me out of a cloud, if I somehow manage to blunder in. Standard rate turn, 60 seconds, fly out. Set's me 180 degree's from where I started. Mischa shakes his head, sounds like you've been reading again and he grins. We play with them a bit, entering them at different speeds, making note that different speeds will mean different levels of bank in order to get the standard rate turn. Nothing big here, just something I'd not played with much before. No problems and by now we've looped ourselves along and are close to Mesquite.
I had set the radio for Mesquite back before we started playing with the turns and pulled the winds, then made our call and entered the pattern. Very slow today, sure don't know why there weren't more people up flying this morning. It was a fantastic day to be in the air. I set up and fly a fairly decent pattern and the final is fair. I get a bit heavy handed on the controls in the flare and it wasn't a great landing. We pull off and Mischa can see by the look on my face that I'm replaying the landing and starting to beat up on myself about it. It wasn't BAD he tells me. It wasn't bad I said, but it wasn't good either. I keep forgetting, a light touch is called for in this plane. He nods. We pull up to the self serve pump and shut down. We refuel the plane and are back in getting ready to head out again.
We want to head straight back to GKY because we'd like a couple of landings so set up along I-20 for the flight back. I enter the frequencies for RBD and Mischa asks me what I'm doing. Setting the radio, we'll need to talk to them before we transition through their airspace. Good thinking he says. Radios set and swapped and I give them a call after a few minutes. They ask me to hit the ident on the transponder and clear my transition along I20. I fly along I20 until I'm past their centerline and then head towards the dam again on Joe Pool lake. RBD let's us go and I'm already swapping in the frequencies for the tower and weather on the radio. I pick up the winds then switch back to the tower frequency. Call them over the marina and and they ask me to report entering downwind.
I work the altitude down to traffic pattern, call them on entering the downwind and they ask if we've got the gyrocopter that just departed GPM in sight or not. We don't at first, then see him as he wings his way behind us overflying our field as he heads out. Those things sure look strange when they are in the air. I set up a landing, and again, it's not bad, the base leg is a bit sloppy for me, I let my sink get a bit away from me before I fixed it. I ran in full flaps and did a fairly nice landing, nothing to write home about. Flaps up, power in and I'm up and away again. A few more landings are shot, with varying levels of nicety. To me, they all had things that weren't great, to Mischa, he didn't have a LOT to complain about in them. Perhaps a bit tighter tolerance on the centerline, perhaps a bit smaller, finer control movements in the flare. The last one will be full stop, I work on keeping things small, tight on the control movements, holding the centerline tighter than I ever have, I see we are flat, so start the yoke back, but keeping things slow, and don't have nearly enough time to move that slow and we land. Pretty flat. We didn't bounce. But it was flat. I'm annoyed at myself for that, because it had been almost picture perfect, except that I hardly flared at the end. I start to brake far too late to make the standard turn off and have to go to the next. This annoys the tower. I keep the speed up and get off on the next taxiway and clear the runway. Clean up the plane, and contact ground to taxi to parking.
We talk a bit about the flat landing. I don't do them often anymore, but every once in a while, I turn one in. Cheetah, 172, doesn't matter. Usually it happens when I get tight on things, trying to finesse things. Got to remember to flare more though in those situations. The flat landings are almost gone. Also, planning ahead for the taxi way turn offs has been a weakness of mine. I tend to miss the first turn off. Why he asks. Well, I tell him, it's because I try to keep the speed up to get off for the tower, then I brake for it, but take it easy on the brakes because I don't want to overheat them or tear them up and I'm just not handling it quite right. I'll make the turn offs from now on. Mischa nods, yeah, it might be embarrassing a little if you miss your turn off with the DE.
Mischa says the flying was really good today. We'll do ground reference tomorrow, work on soft/short field work. Mock checkride on Monday. Then we'll see about calling Carol. He told me he's almost ready to sign me off to call her today.
wow....
--1.7 dual
--6 landings
the logbook has 'great airwork' written in :)