Short Field - Lesson 45
Oct. 8th, 2006 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipstreamsurfrToday we are going to work on short/soft field work. First things first though, Mischa shows up carrying Starbucks. We set up in the conference room and drag out the POH and start writing things down. All the V speeds, a full weight and balance is worked on the airplane. Review the POH on short/soft field procedures. We spend about an hour working on various book work this morning. He gives me a copy of the POH and tells me to read up on it tonight. We'll talk about it tomorrow. Get ready for the DE. Have all the speeds cold by the morning he tells me.
Out to the plane and I run a quick preflight. In we go and she's started and taxing to run up. It's a nice, cool morning. We ought to have a good flight. Run up is done and the tower clears us for take off and a south departure. Holding the centerline as we roll on takeoff fairly well we are off and climbing. Level outs today are fine, pay a bit of attention and retrim a few times and things like to flight right.
We get to Mid-way and I shoot my first try at a soft field landing. Pretty bad. We are off and shooting another and I am having a lot of problems at the low end of the speed range. I knew there would be problems. It couldn't just go on fine forever. I'm a bit behind the plane it seems at times. We are trying for soft field take offs and the Cheetah accelerates really fast. It's hard to unstick it at rotation and have any time in ground effect building speed to VX. By the time you get it off the ground you are just about always at VX and ready for a pitch up. Pitch up at VX in the Cheetah is VERY nose high too. Holding it in VX without slipping out to VY is tough because the nose high is very pronounced and just not a comfortable place for me to be. This will take some work.
My approaches are so so. Things stabilize pretty well on the finals, the final flare is being a problem today. We spend several turns around the pattern just flying low over the runway, holding centerline, and trying to keep it not climbing or descending in ground effect. Trying to get a good feel for how everything looks, feels, works. I shoot some of them with flaps, some with full slips. Some with both as the Cheetah isn't placarded against it. Another few landings and we are ready to go back to GKY. Mischa is comfortable with my centerline control and power/elevator/aileron management now.
I call the tower over the lake and he asks we report downwind. I call him when I get there and he clears me for a landing. What type Mischa asks? Short field I tell him, full stop. You have another student waiting. Mischa nods and lets me work it out. Power comes out, into the white arc and the first 1/3 of flaps are in at 80, turn base and added the second 1/3 and hold 70, hit the final and drop in the last of them and ride it down at 70 to keep it steep, slowing gradually to 65-61 knots just at the numbers and I have the last of the power out as I keep the nose down until the last moment and start to flare.
I don't flare enough and squat it in. It was firm. Not shake parts off firm, but firm. I should have touched the power just a bit to soften the landing. I am thinking short field and am pulling back on the yoke to maximize my aerodynamic braking but I'm a bit fast and it's wanting to lift the nose. A bit more attention on that trick is needed next time to ensure that the nose doesn't bob up. I start to apply the brakes, softly, slowing, then more and more firmer as the first turn off is coming up. I want to make the first turn off and hold the brakes harder than I ever have in the Cheetah to date. I'm not sure what it would take to lock them, but I don't want to find out, it felt like I was sure standing on them on the landing at the end. I keep things rolling though and we are slow and I take the turn off at a walking pace.
The tower sounds amused when they clear us to monitor ground and taxi to parking.
Mischa's comment was... Well, the braking was good. My jaw was already set. I knew it was a lousy landing. Flat again I told him. It wasn't bad he said, but ease up on the aerodynamic braking, we don't want to bob the nose up like that. Yeah I told him. And flare a bit too I said. Yeah he responded and asked me what I thought was going on with that.
We talked about it some after we had shut down the plane. I started out doing a fair impression of a balloon on my landings when I started flying. I've worked really hard to keep that nose down until the last moment and then start to bring it up. I've gone too far the other side. I keep the nose down to keep from ballooning, to keep the speed where I want it so I don't bleed speed off too early, to high. Today, I felt a bit behind things. On the last landing, I turned in a so so short field landing at the end, but it wasn't pretty, and it wasn't quite right.
Tomorrow morning we work on short/soft field again.
If it goes well, then in the afternoon we may do a mock checkride. We'll see.
I'm not feeling very confident in facing a DE right about now.
--1.3 dual
--6 landings
Out to the plane and I run a quick preflight. In we go and she's started and taxing to run up. It's a nice, cool morning. We ought to have a good flight. Run up is done and the tower clears us for take off and a south departure. Holding the centerline as we roll on takeoff fairly well we are off and climbing. Level outs today are fine, pay a bit of attention and retrim a few times and things like to flight right.
We get to Mid-way and I shoot my first try at a soft field landing. Pretty bad. We are off and shooting another and I am having a lot of problems at the low end of the speed range. I knew there would be problems. It couldn't just go on fine forever. I'm a bit behind the plane it seems at times. We are trying for soft field take offs and the Cheetah accelerates really fast. It's hard to unstick it at rotation and have any time in ground effect building speed to VX. By the time you get it off the ground you are just about always at VX and ready for a pitch up. Pitch up at VX in the Cheetah is VERY nose high too. Holding it in VX without slipping out to VY is tough because the nose high is very pronounced and just not a comfortable place for me to be. This will take some work.
My approaches are so so. Things stabilize pretty well on the finals, the final flare is being a problem today. We spend several turns around the pattern just flying low over the runway, holding centerline, and trying to keep it not climbing or descending in ground effect. Trying to get a good feel for how everything looks, feels, works. I shoot some of them with flaps, some with full slips. Some with both as the Cheetah isn't placarded against it. Another few landings and we are ready to go back to GKY. Mischa is comfortable with my centerline control and power/elevator/aileron management now.
I call the tower over the lake and he asks we report downwind. I call him when I get there and he clears me for a landing. What type Mischa asks? Short field I tell him, full stop. You have another student waiting. Mischa nods and lets me work it out. Power comes out, into the white arc and the first 1/3 of flaps are in at 80, turn base and added the second 1/3 and hold 70, hit the final and drop in the last of them and ride it down at 70 to keep it steep, slowing gradually to 65-61 knots just at the numbers and I have the last of the power out as I keep the nose down until the last moment and start to flare.
I don't flare enough and squat it in. It was firm. Not shake parts off firm, but firm. I should have touched the power just a bit to soften the landing. I am thinking short field and am pulling back on the yoke to maximize my aerodynamic braking but I'm a bit fast and it's wanting to lift the nose. A bit more attention on that trick is needed next time to ensure that the nose doesn't bob up. I start to apply the brakes, softly, slowing, then more and more firmer as the first turn off is coming up. I want to make the first turn off and hold the brakes harder than I ever have in the Cheetah to date. I'm not sure what it would take to lock them, but I don't want to find out, it felt like I was sure standing on them on the landing at the end. I keep things rolling though and we are slow and I take the turn off at a walking pace.
The tower sounds amused when they clear us to monitor ground and taxi to parking.
Mischa's comment was... Well, the braking was good. My jaw was already set. I knew it was a lousy landing. Flat again I told him. It wasn't bad he said, but ease up on the aerodynamic braking, we don't want to bob the nose up like that. Yeah I told him. And flare a bit too I said. Yeah he responded and asked me what I thought was going on with that.
We talked about it some after we had shut down the plane. I started out doing a fair impression of a balloon on my landings when I started flying. I've worked really hard to keep that nose down until the last moment and then start to bring it up. I've gone too far the other side. I keep the nose down to keep from ballooning, to keep the speed where I want it so I don't bleed speed off too early, to high. Today, I felt a bit behind things. On the last landing, I turned in a so so short field landing at the end, but it wasn't pretty, and it wasn't quite right.
Tomorrow morning we work on short/soft field again.
If it goes well, then in the afternoon we may do a mock checkride. We'll see.
I'm not feeling very confident in facing a DE right about now.
--1.3 dual
--6 landings