slipstreamsurfr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
slipstreamsurfr) wrote2006-10-09 06:56 pm
slipstreamsurfr) wrote2006-10-09 06:56 pm
Entry tags:
Prep Part 2 -- lesson 46
It's been a long day. It started early and has only recently ended.
The plan was to start at 9 this morning and fly for an hour or two, working on ironing out the last of the problems in my landings and then we'd take a break for lunch and then go do a mock checkride.
Mischa arrives but has to run back to the house for something he forgot so he gives me the keys to the plane and I run the preflight and settle in the cockpit with the POH and work on some flows. Engine restarts/outs and the like. Making the checklist in the POH work into some sort of logical flow that I can quickly run through. Mischa comes back and asks what I'm doing. Pretending to fly I tell him. He laughs and we get set up to go. Off to Midway and we start shooting landings.
The first two seem to go really well. My pitch corrections are in line now, everything has settled down nicely in the routine. A few weird things occur on the next couple of landings, flaring to high again, getting slow in the flare to high. Not holding the centerline like I should. I fight those demons away and go back to so so landings and we take a break and park at the terminal.
While we are there we run into Carol and introduce ourselves. She seems really nice. She walks out to look at Mischa's Cheetah, seems to like it. Said she's looking forward to our ride. We finish up there and head back out and we are off again to shoot more landings and things start to click. I find the right place to watch for things again and the flares even out. I manage to do a few nice ones and things are starting to click in place again. We head back to GKY.
At GKY I do a so so landing, still having some issues with the nose wanting to bob up on the rollout. We taxi to parking and I head off to grab some sandwiches for us. Once I get back we sit around the table eating lunch and he starts quizzing me with questions the DE would toss at me. Over all I have answers for all of them. Not to bad. We finish up and decide that we'll go back out to Midway and shoot some more landings, then head to Mesquite for some gas and on the way back do a mock checkride.
Back at JWY the landings seem to be still coming together. They seem really nice again. Hopefully we've finally nailed down what's causing the problem with them. I turn in some nice, high, tight ones that would qualify for short field over a 50 foot obstacle, turn in a few soft field ones that would have worked if I could get them back to the touchdown markers. Off to Mesquite for gas and out comes the hood. Instrument work, which at first I do really badly at, but get it settled down fairly fast.
I fly the rest of the way to Mesquite under the hood. Mischa feeding me headings, having me do some turns, climbs, descents. Nothing too bad once the initial jitters of going under the hood were worked out. He tells me to take off the hood and land please. I'm on a final, but off the centerline of Mesquite. I line things up and put in a nice landing, even if a bit long on the float and we turn off and pick up gas.
Back in the plane we take off and head towards Lancaster. The mock checkride starts then. It starts out okay. The climbs, holding my altitude, turns. We go into the slow-flight with full flaps and I start having some problems getting it set up without climbing. I get it handled and he calls for some turns. More having to juggle things that shouldn't be this hard and my excursions up and down are getting bad. I seem to be having problems with climbing again. I KNOW this plane likes to climb. I am usually MUCH better about trimming it off against it. He calls for for a stall, straight ahead. I pull the power back and the nose up for the stall and balloon the altitude. The plane stalls and I begin the recovery but that was pretty close to blowing a check ride. The plane won't come back up to speed. Full throttle and I'm still not turning in but 80 knots. Then I realize what I've done. I left the flaps in. Boom. This would have blown it. I let them out and we pick up speed. Mischa calls for a power on stall. I do one, but pick up too much altitude. I recover and he now calls for a turning stall power on to the left. I start the turn to the left with the power as the stall horn comes on and the plane almost immediately stalls. I wasn't expecting it that quick and I recover, badly. He calls for one to the right and I set it up and start the right and turn and the plane turns left as the power comes in. I'm already stalled on the wing and things are getting away from me. Recover. Mischa explains what I'd just done. I set it up again and do it better this time. Steep turns now he asks for. To the left, they are pretty good, to the right, not quite so good and I'm having a hard time holding it at 45 degrees. I keep slipping it back to 35 or 40 degrees. Not good enough. I get them to 45 and hold them for a few turns.
We call it quits and head back to GKY. I did abysmally on the maneuvers today. The landings are almost back to what I need them to be but the flying was pathetic. Far below what I am normally capable of, even in the Cheetah.
The last landing of the day at GKY was very nice. One of the better ones all day, or even for the week. On talking about it afterwards, we think I was just tired. I am usually FAR better on the maneuvers than I was this afternoon. But that's not real surprising, not counting the time we stood down for lunch and the like, I've put in 4 hours in the airplane today. Not quite ready for checkride sign off. Mischa wants to see me turn in the landings like the last one on a fresh day. And fly the mock check ride maneuvers the way that he knows I can. Then he'll sign me off. The book work is there. I know the answers. I've just got to stop over thinking my landings and let the training take hold and things will work.
I'm pretty frustrated with myself tonight. I'm going into these last few flights with too much pressure on myself. I just need to go to them to fly. If I do that, then maybe I won't get sloppy under the stress and goof on things that I shouldn't be goofing on by now. First thing is to get unangry at myself.
The next flight will be better.
--4.0 hours
--20 landings
The plan was to start at 9 this morning and fly for an hour or two, working on ironing out the last of the problems in my landings and then we'd take a break for lunch and then go do a mock checkride.
Mischa arrives but has to run back to the house for something he forgot so he gives me the keys to the plane and I run the preflight and settle in the cockpit with the POH and work on some flows. Engine restarts/outs and the like. Making the checklist in the POH work into some sort of logical flow that I can quickly run through. Mischa comes back and asks what I'm doing. Pretending to fly I tell him. He laughs and we get set up to go. Off to Midway and we start shooting landings.
The first two seem to go really well. My pitch corrections are in line now, everything has settled down nicely in the routine. A few weird things occur on the next couple of landings, flaring to high again, getting slow in the flare to high. Not holding the centerline like I should. I fight those demons away and go back to so so landings and we take a break and park at the terminal.
While we are there we run into Carol and introduce ourselves. She seems really nice. She walks out to look at Mischa's Cheetah, seems to like it. Said she's looking forward to our ride. We finish up there and head back out and we are off again to shoot more landings and things start to click. I find the right place to watch for things again and the flares even out. I manage to do a few nice ones and things are starting to click in place again. We head back to GKY.
At GKY I do a so so landing, still having some issues with the nose wanting to bob up on the rollout. We taxi to parking and I head off to grab some sandwiches for us. Once I get back we sit around the table eating lunch and he starts quizzing me with questions the DE would toss at me. Over all I have answers for all of them. Not to bad. We finish up and decide that we'll go back out to Midway and shoot some more landings, then head to Mesquite for some gas and on the way back do a mock checkride.
Back at JWY the landings seem to be still coming together. They seem really nice again. Hopefully we've finally nailed down what's causing the problem with them. I turn in some nice, high, tight ones that would qualify for short field over a 50 foot obstacle, turn in a few soft field ones that would have worked if I could get them back to the touchdown markers. Off to Mesquite for gas and out comes the hood. Instrument work, which at first I do really badly at, but get it settled down fairly fast.
I fly the rest of the way to Mesquite under the hood. Mischa feeding me headings, having me do some turns, climbs, descents. Nothing too bad once the initial jitters of going under the hood were worked out. He tells me to take off the hood and land please. I'm on a final, but off the centerline of Mesquite. I line things up and put in a nice landing, even if a bit long on the float and we turn off and pick up gas.
Back in the plane we take off and head towards Lancaster. The mock checkride starts then. It starts out okay. The climbs, holding my altitude, turns. We go into the slow-flight with full flaps and I start having some problems getting it set up without climbing. I get it handled and he calls for some turns. More having to juggle things that shouldn't be this hard and my excursions up and down are getting bad. I seem to be having problems with climbing again. I KNOW this plane likes to climb. I am usually MUCH better about trimming it off against it. He calls for for a stall, straight ahead. I pull the power back and the nose up for the stall and balloon the altitude. The plane stalls and I begin the recovery but that was pretty close to blowing a check ride. The plane won't come back up to speed. Full throttle and I'm still not turning in but 80 knots. Then I realize what I've done. I left the flaps in. Boom. This would have blown it. I let them out and we pick up speed. Mischa calls for a power on stall. I do one, but pick up too much altitude. I recover and he now calls for a turning stall power on to the left. I start the turn to the left with the power as the stall horn comes on and the plane almost immediately stalls. I wasn't expecting it that quick and I recover, badly. He calls for one to the right and I set it up and start the right and turn and the plane turns left as the power comes in. I'm already stalled on the wing and things are getting away from me. Recover. Mischa explains what I'd just done. I set it up again and do it better this time. Steep turns now he asks for. To the left, they are pretty good, to the right, not quite so good and I'm having a hard time holding it at 45 degrees. I keep slipping it back to 35 or 40 degrees. Not good enough. I get them to 45 and hold them for a few turns.
We call it quits and head back to GKY. I did abysmally on the maneuvers today. The landings are almost back to what I need them to be but the flying was pathetic. Far below what I am normally capable of, even in the Cheetah.
The last landing of the day at GKY was very nice. One of the better ones all day, or even for the week. On talking about it afterwards, we think I was just tired. I am usually FAR better on the maneuvers than I was this afternoon. But that's not real surprising, not counting the time we stood down for lunch and the like, I've put in 4 hours in the airplane today. Not quite ready for checkride sign off. Mischa wants to see me turn in the landings like the last one on a fresh day. And fly the mock check ride maneuvers the way that he knows I can. Then he'll sign me off. The book work is there. I know the answers. I've just got to stop over thinking my landings and let the training take hold and things will work.
I'm pretty frustrated with myself tonight. I'm going into these last few flights with too much pressure on myself. I just need to go to them to fly. If I do that, then maybe I won't get sloppy under the stress and goof on things that I shouldn't be goofing on by now. First thing is to get unangry at myself.
The next flight will be better.
--4.0 hours
--20 landings