The Start

About 9 years ago I lived in Sacramento with three other Irish guys. One of our addictions (among many) was flying Chuck Yeager’s Flight Trainer on my Apple Mac. At the time I swore that once I got settled down I would learn to fly for real. I forgot this until recently when I was watching of all things a TV program about safety issues in General Aviation. Lots of stories about people in small planes getting killed. Perversely this reminded me of my promise to myself back in Sacramento. Just to be sure the bug was still there, I bought MS Flight Simulator 2002 (and boy had flight simulators changed in 9 years!). The fun of actually flying over the Bay Area in the simulator, landing in San Jose International and various other airports in the area convinced me I had to go do this for real. I searched on the web to find a flight school that operated out of Reid-Hillview Airport. This is a small controlled airport in East San Jose that I had seen a lot of small airplanes flying around. I didn’t want to fly out of San Jose International because I would rather not have to contend with commercial jets while I was trying to learn. I found a company called Tradewinds Aviation that offered a cheap demo flight for $99. I told my friends I was going to start flying (they didn’t believe me) and on Friday evening after I got home from work I called Tradewinds and as luck would have it they had a slot available at 12pm the next day. This is a log of how my training went/will go/whatever, I read a few of these on the web and thought what a cool idea.

Saturday July 27th 2002, 12pm, N4754D, 0.9H

The weather was beautiful (as usual for the Bay Area in July), clear, sunny and warm. I arrived 30 minutes early (eager to do it, afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the school). My instructor turned out to be a girl from Co. Mayo in Ireland called Grainne Gilvarry (which was a surprise as I am also from Ireland, small world, my brother lives in Mayo). We spent about 15minutes looking at a map of California that showed all the airports with the various types of airspace (Class B, C, D etc) and talking about flying South of the airport to try some simple stuff. Then it was out to the tarmac to a rather worn looking small plane (which I now know is a Cessna 172). Grainne walked me through the preflight checks which to my regret was not just kicking the tires. We got some fuel from the nice tanker guy and then got ready to go. At this point I was actually sitting in the pilots seat in this dinky little airplane trying not to touch anything. Grainne was starting the engine and listing to someone called ATIS. Then before I knew it we were on the end of the runway (13R I know from FS2002) and we were off. Before we were very far into the air (it seemed to me) Grainne says “your airplane” and I actually started to fly the thing (badly). The air was bumpy and it seemed that the plane wanted to go anywhere but smoothly upwards (like in FS2002). I managed to keep it flying more or less in the right direction (I think because I stopped moving the yoke). And then things calmed down because we got a little higher. We flew south a few miles to over Morgan Hill and did a few simple turns, which felt much more like the simulator. A couple of 360’s, a descent, a climbing turn then headed back towards Reid-Hillview. Grainne, told me to just aim the plane at Lake Cunningham which is just East of the airport. A couple of miles away we started to descend again and then Grainne took over as we flew over the lake. We watched for the runway to move to 45° behind my left shoulder, turned left, turned left again and as if by magic the runway was right in front of us. We landed and taxied off the end of 13L at which point Grainne asked me to steer the plane with my feet. I think she had been secretly working the rudder when I was flying because I sure wasn’t - FS2002 has an auto-rudder feature, real planes have a flight instructor. Now, rudder peddles work exactly the opposite way you expect them to. Imagine the front wheel has handle bars and you rest one foot on each side and steer - this is the way it doesn’t work, its opposite. It is stupidly simple (press the left peddle to go left, right for right, duh!) and completely non-intuitive. Needless to say I did a great impression of a fish swimming upstream, weaving from side to side up the taxi way. We (finally) got to our parking space and parked the plane and locked it up. My first flight for real - what a rush, wait wasn’t I supposed to look outside the windows. Mostly I remember being glued to the instruments. Next time I’ll look outside more.

Sunday July 28th 2002, 6pm, N739YE, 0.9H

My second flight and my first “real” lesson. Again the weather was great, wind was blowing from the North like it usually does in the evening, sunny, warm with just a little haze. I arrived just before 6pm and Grainne was waiting for me. She gave me (I’ll pay later I’m sure) a checklist card and it was out to a different Cessna 172. This time I did all the pre-flight checks from the card. It turned out that the plane only showed quarter full on each fuel tank. Grainne is paranoid about fuel so we called for the nice tanker guy again (he had gone home) and Grainne went to see if another plane was available (it wasn’t) so we actually measured it and both were actually half full. Grainne decided that this was enough for a 1 hour flight with the required reserve. I got covered in oil checking the dip-stick which requires a feat of gymnastics worthy of the Chinese Olympic team. With everything good on the outside we got inside and did another couple of checklists. I actually started the engine, we did the pre-taxi checklist, listened to ATIS (I listened, Grainne actually heard something useful). Then we pulled out of the parking space and I got to do my fish impression with the nose wheel all over again (even worse than the first time). Finally at the end of the runway we did the run-up checklist. Grainne taxied over to in between 30L and 30R and we watched two Cessna’s land either side of us at almost the same time. Then it was onto 30L and take-off. Grainne gave me the plane just a little after leaving the ground and told me to do 90 degree left turn. She then proceed to explain that highway 101 marked the boundary of Class C airspace for San Jose airport. We had a great view of the highway because we were flying right at it. I figured I should make another left turn without being told before we crossed. We climbed on up to about 4500’. It was supposed to be 4000’ but Grainne was explaining why I had to keep my foot on the right rudder when we were at full power and by the time I looked at the altimeter again we were on our way past 4200‘. We leveled off and did some shallow turns - this time the auto-rudder feature didn’t work and I had to push the damn things myself. I discovered that pushing the left rudder way to much while making a left turn puts the plane into rather an alarming nose down position. Grainne calmly told me a little less left rudder (I took my foot right off it) and things returned to a more normal attitude. More turns and I learned I could almost ignore the rudder in shallow turns (to my relief). This time I have resolved not to spend too much time looking at the instruments and tried to immitate Grainne scanning all over the sky looking for traffic (other airplanes), I even saw one before her but I don’t think it counts because it was about 3000’ lower than us on my side of the plane. We did another descent and a few more turns some climbing and some descending. Then it was time to head back to the airport. This time we had a stright in approach to 30L. We left it a little late to start descending (I knew this from FS2002, because the VASI was white-white and we came in very steep). I also screwed up the flaps, the first plane I flew in had a notch that stopped the flap switch at 10 degrees, you had to push it sideways to go beyond 10. This is a safety so you don’t put the flaps down too far while flying too fast and damage them. I was lazy, I assumed the notch was there and just pressed the lever. There was no notch and it went all the way down to 40 degrees. Grainne jumped to push it back to 10. I learned a good lesson about not assuming things, just concentrate and do it right. Grainne took over at about 1000’ and made a really nice landing (I thought), we even got to hear the stall horn just as we touched down (the best place to hear it I believe). I got to embarss myself again trying to taxi back to the parking spot, but slightly better than the last attempt.

Tuesday July 30th 2002

I picked up the Cessna Pilot Center kit from Tradewinds ($299 for a bunch of CDROMs and some books including my shinny new pilots log book). This kit will be the ground school part of my training. Then I stopped by Fry’s Electronics and shelled out $130 on a set of rudder peddles for FS2002 - I will practice swimming a plane up a taxi-way in the privacy of my own home until I swim no longer. Next lesson is booked for Thursday at 6pm.

Wednesday July 31st 2002

I got my medical certificate second class and student pilot certificate at lunch time today. I was a little nervous going to see the doctor, who knows what he would find. But in the event it was a breeze. A urine sample (I guess to check for diabetes), eyesight check with and without my glasses, peripheral vision check using a coat hanger that he waved behind my ears, a hearing check which was simply repeating numbers he said while standing behind me, standing on one leg with my eyes closed and then listening to my heart and lungs and a final blood pressure check. All that and $80 and I got a little yellow card that is my certificate to learn to fly.

Thursday August 1st 2002, 6pm, N4754D, 1.1H (0.3H Night)

Wow! What a great flight. A beautiful sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, light breeze out of the North as usual. I left work at 5pm for the drive down to Reid-Hillview, the traffic sucked. I got to the airport about 5:40pm and stopped at the Airport Shoppe (stupid name) and purchased a Lightspeed QFR Solo headset for $145 (is anyone adding the dollars up, I’m scared to). I spent a little time online and this headset seemed to be the best value - the lightest, quietest passive headset available. Passive means its doesn’t need batteries to drive fancy noise reduction electronics, the review I read said that this headset was as good as some of the medium priced NR headsets for a lot less money. I was sold anyway. I really am starting to look the part, got my headset in its bag along with my new log book and my medical cert. Next thing I need is the big f**k off watch I believe pilots are required to have. I read a joke somewhere online “What do you get if you cross a pilot with a monkey? A monkey with a big watch”.

I met Grainne just before 6pm and we got the computer setup to read in my floppy disk from the CPC kit. She went through the checklists for the first two flights I’ve done and we made sure we had covered everything we were supposed to do (actually only missed gliding which we’ll do today). Then it was out to the airplane and I started the preflight checks. Only bumped my head once today (I had made a habit of checking the strength of the wings with my head the last time). Grainne had me taxi down Zulu taxiway (which is the one closest to the plane parking spaces) and wonder of wonders I did a pretty good job. Got the plane turned into the wind and did the run-up checklist, then taxied over to the hold area in front of runway 30R. Again watched two Cessna’s land together . Grainne did all the radio work. Then out onto runway 30L and takeoff - all on my own. The plane wavered around a bit as we took off, but not the disaster I was expecting. Did a climbing turn to the left and then another to fly the downwind leg of the pattern (notice the pilot lingo creeping in) and a nice steady climb up to 5000’ heading more or less South to the training area. Grainne had me practice some easy turns on the way up to check for traffic. The air was unbelievably clear - we could see high mountains so far South that neither of new what they were and all the way over to the Monterey Peninsula. The marine layer fog was spread out like a gray carpet all the way from Monterey to the nearest hills where it was just spilling over the top. There was a light haze low down over San Jose which I guess is mostly pollution - though I never noticed it when I was on the ground. We started off with a couple of 360 turns, this time I was a lot less intimidated by the rudder (having got an understanding of what it was supposed to do in the ground classes). The plane turned nicely just like it was supposed to without much adverse yaw (the nose going the wrong way at the start of a turn). Then we tried some gliding - just reduce the power to idle and let the plane glide down while keeping the nose at a pitch to maintain the best glide speed (65 knots for the C172). We practiced some slow flying and then a simulated “Go-Around”. This is when you are descending to land and a dog runs out on the runway and you have to quickly change to a climb to go around and try to land again. This went pretty well. Then some more slow flying just to get the feel of the plane at that speed - it gets really sluggish and wants to bounce around. I even got to make the stall warning sound which is easy at the slow speed (my first stall - I’m all misty eyed). At this stage it became the crowded skies. I think we saw at least four other planes around us over the next 10minutes, two of which I spotted before Grainne. Then we turned North for RHV. The haze was very thick over the airport but Lake Cunningham is still pretty easy to pick out even when you can’t see the airport. Started descending a few miles out and got lined up for a straight in approach to 30L. The next call from the tower changed that to 30R without explanation. We were a little high (again) and I was still flying the airplane. I have a tendency to “dive to the ground” and she had to keep reminding me to keep the nose up. We were just passed Eastridge Mall and I expected Grainne to take over at some point, she didn’t. She told me to level off and bump we were down (I think she helped a little at the very end). My first landing was a great surprise to me - I had actually done just about everything on my own and we got down. The landing was a little hard but still reasonable. I think if she had told me I was going to land I would have been much more nervous. I managed to steer down the runway and off onto the taxiway then do the post-landing checklist and actually taxi back to the parking space. This flight really boosted my confidence. I was a little depressed after the last flight because my control of the plane was poor, I think this was mainly due to not understanding the rudder and exactly how to use the ailerons to make turns. This flight was much better. Grainne is off this weekend so my next lesson is Wednesday next week.

Wednesday August 7th 2002, 6pm, N4754D, 1.6H (0.2H Night)

Tonight was not so much fun. I came away from the plane exhausted and stressed out. The weather was “clear” but very hazy. It was hot (30C) and windy 13 knots blowing about 30 degrees off the right side of the runway. Grainne had another student when I arrived so she sent me out to start the preflight check. No problems, the fuel tanks were full and everything looked ok. I was just finished the checklist when Grainne showed up. Got the plane started and listened to ATIS, then started to taxi. Right away I had problems again, now I can more or less go in a straight line but corners are a mess, I was pressing down hard on the rudder but the plane just didn’t want to turn. I’m doing something wrong but I’m not sure what. We taxied to the run-up area and Grainne took care of turning the plane into the wind because of the problems I was having. I was nervous and my leg muscles decided to shake making it hard to hold the nose wheel steady. I had wanted to correctly practice the control surface setting for the crosswind conditions, but in the event I was way to busy just driving the plane in the required direction. I got us onto the 30R and took off. The climb was really bumpy because of the strong headwind. There was another plane that took off beside us on 30R. As we reached about 500’ Grainne grabbed the yoke and made a right turn. She may have been worried that I was going to turn left into the other planes path, because we have always made a left turn after takeoff up to now. We turned downwind and headed Southeast, climbing to 5000’ with a few S-turns to look for traffic. Near South County Airport ee did some clearing turns (90 degrees one way then 90 degrees the other) to check the area for traffic and started practicing stalls. First came power-off stalls which are relatively benign. The engine is at idle power, you are flying very slowly (45 knots or so) and you just pull back on the yoke. The plane pitches up, looses airspeed and stalls, then gently the nose falls down, you gain some airspeed and just pull the nose back to level flight. This was easy stuff. The we started the power-on stalls. For these you slow the plane down to about 60 knots. Apply full engine power and just pull the nose up and up and up until you stall. Grainne showed me one first and it was scary. If like me you are a seasoned traveler used to many hours on commercial flights then you kind of forget that planes do anything other than fly nice and smooth with a little turbulence now and then to keep things interesting. Well today I learned that they do a great impression of a roller coaster. With full power the plane just pulled way up then when it stalled its nose dropped way down and my stomach headed for my mouth. I got a real fright. Then it was my turn to try it. First we tried a few without full power and boy it just feels like the plane falls out from under you. It also has an alarming tendency to dive to the left or right. The first stall I tried dipped a long way right (Grainne said I must have started it with the ailerons ). We ended you on a heading almost 90 degrees from the one we started on once I got leveled out. Controlling the rudder is really important because its the only way you have to keep the plane going in the right direction. I tried three stalls without full power and then a couple with full power. By the last one I was recovering fairly well. But it feels real unnatural to put the plane into the stall. The we headed for Hollister Airport to practice flying the pattern. The FBO (Fixed Base Operator - just some guy who works at the airport) gave us an advisory on what runway to use (24). Its really hard to actually see the numbers painted on the runways and I had a hard time making sure I knew which runway was 24. We were at about 4000’ after the stalls so we spiraled down with three 360 degree turns to come in on a 45 degree entry to the downwind leg of the pattern. You enter the pattern at 1000” above ground level, fly parallel to the runway your going to land on. Then make a 90 degree left turn onto the base leg and shortly thereafter another onto the final leg which has you lined up with the runway. This worked great. I asked Grainne were we going to land and she said she wasn’t sure, just keep flying the approach. In the end we made a touch and go landing (you just touch the wheels on the runway and then take off again) with Grainne working the power and me driving the rest of the plane. It went well. Then it was back up to 4000’ and we headed back towards Reid Hillview. We did some climbing turns on the way up and then I did some rudder practice to try and get a feel for the adverse yaw you experience when banking into a turn. It was so hazy we really couldn’t see far, this gave me a chance to check the GPS receiver I had brought along for the trip. It was a Christmas present from my brother and I hope that flying will finally be something useful I can do with it. I spent about 3 hours last night getting the FAA aviation database loaded into it. It worked great, I just set RHV as the “goto” point and it pointed up in exactly the right direction. About 5 miles from the airport Grainne decided that it was time for my debut on the radio. She told me what to say: “Reid Hillview tower, Cessna N4754D at UTC, 4000‘, to land, with Oscar”. I said it perfectly (and remembered to press the push to talk button). No reply from the tower and Grainne said she hadn’t heard me over the intercom (I didn’t hear my voice on the intercom either). So I tried again, same result. So Grainne made the call and they heard us. Cleared to land on 31L straight in. Go figure, my first time to talk to Air Traffic Control and the radio doesn’t work. We started our descent and then Grainne showed me something called forward slipping. Basically you bank the plane one way and apply full rudder the other. Amazingly the plane flies in a straight line but descends really quickly. I tried it and it worked just fine, you just have to be careful coming out of the slip to coordinate the runner and ailerons back to their more normal positions. Again we landed with Grainne tweaking the power while I steered. It was really bumpy close to the ground. We landed fairly well and I somehow managed to steer us more or less off the runway. It was then that we had the fire in the cockpit. Well not really a fire, just a puff of smoke, an electrical insulation burning smell and one of the radios died. We quickly switched everything else off, there wasn’t any more smoke but the second radio didn’t seem to be working either (it transmitted a carrier but no voice so we couldn’t talk to ground control). We just kind of gingerly taxied back to our parking spot trying to make the radio work. I really glad that it decided to break when we were on the ground rather than trying to get setup to land. We completed the final checklists and then filled out the squawk sheet (which is just a description of what went wrong with the plane).

With my initial nervousness and problem steering on the taxiway, the sudden right turn on take-off, the surprise of the power-on stalls, and then the electrics frying it was a stressful lesson. I was exhausted and not really in a good mood afterwards. A big contrast to the elation I felt on the last flight. I hope the next lesson on Saturday goes better.

Saturday August 10th 2002, 12pm, N739YE, 1.3H (0.3H Simulated Instrument)

Another hot and sunny California day. It was about 30C and a little hazy, a “spare the air day” in the Bay Area. Winds were variable 6knots. We started by reviewing my progress on the CPC classes and updating the database with my last flight. Then it was out to the plane where I did the standard pre-flight check, everything looked good. Grainne had being coaching me on the radio calls and I made my first call (that worked) to Reid Hillview Ground to request permission to taxi, “Reid Hillview Ground, Cessna 739YE, at Discovery, ready to taxi , downwind departure, with alpha”. I messed up when I repeated the instructions back, I said “39L” for the runway when it is actually 31L, I guess I confused it with the 39 in the aircraft call-sign. I completed the start-up checklist and nervously eased the plane out of its parking space. This time I used some left brakes and the plane turned more or less correctly. No problems taxing in a straight line. And I turned into the run-up area reasonably well. During the run-up the engine tachometer bounced around a lot, jumping a couple of hundred RPM up and down. The check of the magneto’s was difficult, but Grainne got the tachometer to settle down and we completed the check. The throttle would not really pull all the way back to idle, it wanted to pull back in about 1/8” after you pulled it out. This meant that the RPM was high for idle (about 1000rmp rather than 750). I was not really happy about the way it was behaving, but Grainne believed that plane was safe to fly. The engine itself sounded fine, it was only the tachometer and the throttle that seemed to be the problem. Either way, I taxied over to the hold line for runway 31R. I was about the radio the tower for take-off clearance when he told us to make an expedited departure (just takeoff right now). Grainne took over and taxied us onto 31L (I would have been much slower) and we took off. No problems, climbed to 500’ , turned left, left again before freeway 101 and flew the downwind leg. We climbed up to 5000’ and leveled off. Grainne had brought along a pair of “foggles”. These are like clear plastic wrap around sunglasses with the top half gray and opaque. When you put the on you can see the instruments but not outside the plane, except for a little peripheral vision on the left side. They are used to simulate what it would be like if you mistakenly flew into a cloud or otherwise got into “non-visual” flying conditions. Grainne took over the plane and I put on the foggles. Then it was my first try at instrument flying. Grainne, just told me to keep constant airspeed and make various turns different headings. We did a 180 degree turn (to get out of the “cloud”), flew for a bit, did a couple of 90 degree turns, then climbed to 6000” doing a couple of turns on the way. None of this was as hard as I had believed it would be. I guess I’m somewhat used to looking at the instruments on FS2002 and as an Engineer I’m genetically inclined to believe gauges are telling me the truth. I didn’t experience any of the disorientation I was expecting when your body tells you one thing and the instruments tell you another. The only thing is to keep scanning all the instruments, rather than just fixing on one (an easy trap to fall into). Off came the foggles and we flew Southwest towards South County Airport to practice some pattern flying. I made the radio call to ask for a traffic advisory, but there was no answer. We decided to over-fly the airport and check the wind-sock. At this point two other planes also started calling and asking for a traffic advisory and things started to get real busy on the radio. Basically there were two other planes making for South County as the same time as us and we couldn’t see either of them. Grainne, took over the flying and we circled over the airport. I could see the windsock, but I couldn’t workout what wind direction that translated into. Grainne just asked me to tell here the right runway to us. This was easy, as there is just one so you only need to decide from what direction to land on it - and that is into whatever direction the wind is mostly coming from., the answer was runway 32. We started flying North away from the airport to setup for a 45 degree entry into a right traffic pattern. It was then that we saw the one of the two planes. He was flying Northeast and was more or less straight ahead of us. Grainne told him we would “follow him in” so we did a wide circle to the left that brought us onto a heading for the 45 degree pattern entry and behind that first plane. Grainne gave me back the plane and I flew onto the downwind leg, started descending abeam the numbers, turned onto the base leg and then went too far or turned too wide to get lined up with the runway on final. With all the planes in the air, the radio babble and the wind which had picked up a bit we were too high, too fast and offline. We decided to do a “go around” and set full power. I guess I didn’t give nearly enough right rudder when we applied the power because we veered off to the left quite badly as we climbed out. Having had enough of South County we headed North to practice some gliding on the way home. We never did see the third plane. Grainne had me flying above a valley just a little North of the UTC buildings when she pulled the engine to idle and asked me what I should do. There is an sequence called ABC for engine failure, its Airspeed, Best field and Cockpit. First, set the airspeed to the best glide speed for the plane, about 65 knots (a little less is the plane is not fully loaded). Then look for someplace to land. I was trying to work out if we could glide to Reid Hillview or South County (by trying to calculate the glide distance from our altitude of 4000’. At this point Grainne, put here hand over the altimeter and told me to just look outside for a spot to land. Remember, I said we were flying into a valley, so it was just mountains ahead and on both sides. However, as Grainne pointed out there was a nice flat plowed field right in from of us that I had not noticed, it would not be a nice landing but you would probably walk away from it. A good example of thinking too hard, and not looking for the obvious right under your nose (literally). I bet Grainne brings all her students into that valley for the same lesson. Then I radioed Reid Hillview Tower to tell them we were inbound to land and we headed back toward home. The straight in approach to 31L when without problem and I got lined up on the runway without problems. The landing was uneventful, taxied off 31L, across 31R and called Ground Control who told us to take the inner taxiway (a new one for me) to the parking space. All the taxi turns went well and I pretty much stayed on the yellow line. Grainne parked the plane.

All in all a good flight, other than the messed-up approach to South County. There were just too many things happening at the same time to keep concentration on all of them. I think, that as controlling the plane become more natural to me, my mind will have the bandwidth to focus on all the other stuff going on around the pattern. So I’m not too worried about it, it will just come with practice. I’m much happier about driving the plane on the ground and that was the real problem the last day. I think the radio work will be easy as well, I had a radio license in Ireland and used CB a lot when I was a teenager so I’m not mic-shy. Looking forward to flying tomorrow.

Sunday August 11th 2002, 10am, N9552A, 1.3H (0.3H Simulated Instrument)

Another beautiful California day, A 10am flight so it wasn’t too hot yet and not a whisper of wind stirring the wind-sock. Blue sky, not a cloud in sight. Yes, its an expensive place to live. Yes, the traffic sucks. But days like this more than make up for it all. I was supposed to fly N74754D, but it was down for maintenance so I was given N9552A which is a 1999 Cessna 172, almost new (20 years younger than 54D). Grainne turned up right on time and we went to pre-flight the plane. Other than fact that the new Skyhawk (i.e. Cessna 172) has 11 fuel drains, each one of which has to be checked, the pre-flight is much the same. The oil is much easier to check, you don‘t need to reach the top of the engine. Yesterday, I burnt my fingers on the dip stick on N739YE, the engine was hot and you have to do a gymnastic exercise to check the oil. Lovely leather seats in the cockpit. The instrument panel had a different layout from the older planes, but all the familiar gauges were there. If I say so myself, I did a great job of taxiing today. Grainne never had to help me and I did the radio talking to Ground Control and the Tower. We were told to “hold in position on 31L”, I got the plane stopped right on the center line. Then we were cleared for take off and we were off. We did our usual downwind departure and climbed to 5000’ which we reached just Northwest of Anderson Reservoir. First up was power-off & power-on stall practice. Grainne had given me a written procedure to follow an thankfully, I remembered it. First, clearing turns 90 degrees left, 90 degrees right to make sure the sky was free of planes. Then the maneuvering checklist, fuel tanks on both, mixture full rich, landing light on, engine on 2200RPM, speed less than Va (95knots), oil pressure & temp in the green, emergency landing spot picked out (South County). Power-off stalls are what can happen as you come into land, did a couple of them and they went great. I didn’t lose much altitude, though I gained a bit of altitude getting setup for the first one. Then my least favorite, power-on stalls - these are a roller coaster ride. I did three, the first and last were reasonable, though both times I ended up about 30 degrees off my original heading. The second one however was really bad. Once the plane stalls there really is no control over the wings, the plane can roll one way of the other. This time it rolled a long way left and you start to feel as if the plane will go into a spin (a very bad thing). We recovered, but ended up pointing in a completely different direction (at least 120 degrees off heading), plus I got a fright when the wing just seemed to want to head for the ground. Grainne said that even a little imbalance between the wings when you stall can cause one wing to stall more than the other causing it to drop (the other wing still has some lift I guess). Either way, its all about getting the correct rudder control as the plane stalls and then recovering quickly. This is really practice for a sudden emergency, if you do this on take-off you are seriously close to the ground and you don’t have a couple of hundred feet to recover. I guess I will practice these until the recovery becomes almost automatic, I hope the fear factor subsides with time as well. We then did some more forward slip practice. This was not as easy as the first time. I did not keep the nose down and the plane proved impossible to keep going in a straight line. One thing we both noticed was how much more sensitive the rudder was in this plane compared to the older planes. I had to think far more about rudder control than before, and a couple of times I way over compensated with right rudder. Finally, I got the forward slip working, by mostly keeping the nose down where it was supposed to be. Then we did some more simulated instruments with the foggles. It went well, turns, climbs and climbing turns at constant speed - no problems. Back over UTC we did a couple of 360 descending turns to get to a lower altitude before beginning our approach to Reid Hillview. I did the radio again, but stumbled on the call sign a bit when I repeated the landing instructions back to the tower. He got confused and decided we were “Trinidad 532A”, instead of “Cessna 552A”. We didn’t figure he was talking to us when he used the Trinidad call sign. Finally, he just said “will the plane 5 miles Southeast state their call sign”, so I did. We were cleared to land on 31L and everything was going fine except we were again too high and too fast coming in. We did another go-around the left traffic pattern. The turn onto final was good, but we were again a little high, this time however we got down if a little steeply. I swerved a bit on landing (over control of the right rudder again), but generally handled the taxiing ok including pissing of ground control by asking to repeat the instructions again (he sounded pissed to me). This time I even turned the plane in front of the parking space by myself for the first time.

One thing I’m starting to notice is that Grainne is giving me less and less step by step instructions (I’m sure this is intentional). She simply tells me the maneuver or expects me to know what to do (like actually take off when you get the clearance). This forces me to take more control or ownership of the situation. When you are a little scared or nervous about you abilities its very tempting to “let the expert take over”, but this is not really learning. Eventually, you’ve got to do this yourself so the sooner you start the sooner the confidence that you can do it will build. Feeling good about flying again after the weekend , ready to do it again. My next lesson is scheduled for Thursday night.

Monday August 12th 2002, 6pm, N8276E, 1.5H (0.2H Night)

I’m going on vacation soon so I decided to try and get as much flying in as possible before I go. Grainne is off next weekend so I scheduled an extra lesson today at the last minute. A Monday evening and nobody else seems to be flying. The parking lot at Tradewinds is almost empty. The weather is good, it seems cooler than the weekend, but ATIS says its 30C. Wind is 10knots from 300 which is almost parallel to the runway. Normal preflight on a plane that I haven’t flown before. We go from riches to rags, yesterday’s plane was only a couple of years old, today’s seems to be the oldest and most worn so far. A real problem is that the cockpit doesn’t have pockets where I can put my checklist, pen and paper. Grainne, suggests I get a kneeboard even though I won’t really need it until I start my cross-country flights. Still, I could have used it today. Also the plane is facing the opposite way in the parking area, so I’ll have to taxi out the long way round the ramp. I call ground control and they don’t seem to hear me (again!), the Grainne says that she can’t hear herself in her headphones, and she starts turning knobs and buttons all over the place. A comedy of “can you hear me now?, no, and now I can’t hear myself” conversation followed as we twisted and turned everything in sight. Finally, it seemed to work and I said “I can hear you”, followed by ground control on the radio saying “we all can hear you”. Somehow we got a mic button stuck open in the process and broadcast our conversation to the whole world. This was funny in an embarrassing sort of way, we couldn’t work out how we got an open mic, both buttons appeared to be working. We tested it a few times just to make sure. Good taxiing down to the run-up area, got the last couple of checklists done and taxied over to 31R hold line and called the tower. They cleared us for takeoff and I got onto the runway and did a passable job of taking off. Much less serving compared to yesterday. Started the climb out and I had some trouble achieving the best rate of climb speed (73knots) then plane just didn’t seem to want to accelerate. Then Grainne noticed that I didn’t have the throttle in all the way. I had had my hand on it until 500’ so she didn’t see until I took my hand off. You keep your hand on the throttle up to 500’ in case it try’s to slip out in the critical climb off the ground. Right turn onto the crosswind leg and another onto the downwind and a climb up to 3500’. Today we are heading down to Hollister to do some ground maneuvers. It is quite a long way, but we will be flying in circles at 1000’ so we have to find an area without much population to do it. I guess we are both in a lazy frame of mind so we just enjoyed the flight down. The only event along the way was another plan flying towards us at the same altitude. He passed us about 3 miles on the left. We were flying Southeast at 3500’, so technically he was at the wrong altitude. Planes flying VFR on courses north to south (0~179 degrees) are supposed to fly at old thousands of feet +500 (eg. 1500,3500,5500 etc). Planes flying 180~359 degrees should fly even thousands +500 (2500,4500,6500 etc). A few miles north of Frazier Lake airstrip (a grass strip along side a water strip for sea planes), we started descending in a glide to try and work out the surface wind direction. You look for smoke or dust blowing in the wind, or the surface of a lake, the windward side has a calm area along the shore. In the end we cheated and over-flew the windsock at Frazier Lake. The wind was more or less blowing from the Southeast. We found a useful railway line about 3 miles east of Frazier Lake and Grainne showed me flying S-turns along the track. The whole trick here is compensating for the crosswind. Another trick is finding a straight line on the ground that is perpendicular to the wind. Its all about varying the bank angle as you turn to account for the wind. Shallow banks when you fly into the wind, steep banks when you fly with the wind. No violent maneuvers, just fun turns trying to finely control the airplane. Grainne did a couple of turns and then I took over. Not very neat, but not totally bad either. The we went a little North and found some tanks laying in a field. Grainne circled it once and then I tried to circle it twice. The circling is easy, keeping a constant radius on the circle is the hard bit. You can checkout the GPS ground track to see how I did. Then a climb back up and back home to RHV. I did the radio, no problems this time. We started descending at the right rate and the right time and actually made a pretty good landing just as the sun was falling below the horizon. I felt that I was mostly in control with Grainne just helping a little bit. As we pulled off the runway the tower cleared us to taxi back to the parking area.

This was a nice easy flight. Plenty of time to enjoy the view and just enjoy flying without stressing out doing stalls or instrument work. The kind of flight that reminds you how much fun this can be and why you doing all the hard work. I think you need one of these flights every so often. Its also amazing how quickly you get better at things. Only yesterday I was swerving all over the runway during take off with way too much right rudder. Today it was almost passable. Yesterday we had to do a go-around on the landing, today was great. This is the third day in a row that I have flown and it really helps you see the progress you make. Looking forward to Thursday night.

Thursday August 15th 2002, 6pm, N5766J, 1.1H (0.2H Night)

Great fight, really relaxing. Another fairly clear California evening. But a lot of haze apparently from fires that are burning in Oregon. The wind was 10knots at heading 300 (I now have the RHV ATIS telephone number programmed in my cell phone and I check it on my way to the airport - that way I know what to expect when I hear it on the radio). Temperature was 28C, 7 miles visibility and clear . This seems to be the standard weather for RHV in the summer. Its certainly nice flying weather.

Grainne decided we should try flying to a different airport this time to practice pattern flying and landing and do some steep turns along the way. Our choices were Livermore or Watsonville. I figured that as Watsonville is near the coast it would be fogged in (as anywhere near the coast is in the summer time here). Grainne called the ASOS which is something like ATIS. Sure enough there was broken cloud cover, so we decided to head for Livermore. This was great because it means I get to fly more or less right over my house for the first time. I went ahead on out to pre-flight N4754D, no problems there. Grainne arrived (and as usual rechecked some of the really critical stuff herself), then we started the pre-taxi checklist. I tried to call, Ground Control to get clearance to taxi and they never heard me. Grainne tried and they didn’t hear her either. Now you may remember that N4754D was the plane we flew that had the radio short circuit just after landing last week. It looks like the combination of me, radio and this plane are fated not to work. The log showed the plane had being flown earlier that day, we assume with no problems. Either way after trying both radios all the mics (mine, Grainne’s and the cabin mic) we decided that we weren’t going to fly 54D today. Back to the office, Grainne looked for another plane and I filled out a squawk sheet for the radio. The out to N5766J which is an old Cessna Skyhawk II. It seemed a little bigger than the other Skyhawks and certainly had bigger seats. We split the pre-flight checks between us and got on our way. In the rush to get flying I forgot to turn on my GPS so that’s why there is no GPS track for today’s flight.

Oh how things change, Grainne actually told me to slow down as I taxied down Zulu. Got all the turns done pretty well, did the radio and ran through the run-up checklist without problems. We were cleared for takeoff on 31R, I got the plane lined up and we took off without a problem. I now seem to have the rudder under control during the takeoff and Grainne actually told me “good takeoff”. This time we were flying more or less North, so its about a 45 degree turn off the runway heading (310 degrees). The Tower has to clear you to make the turn, which needs to happen before you reach interstate 680 - this the boundary of San Jose International Airport Class C airspace. We got clearance and turned for the hills just behind my house on course to pass over Calaveras Reservoir. A nice simple climb up to 4000’ which we reached over the lake. The smoke layer was sitting right at 3000’ and was only about 100’ thick - a light gray horizontal layer just hanging above the tops of the hills. Once you got above it really cut the visibility to the ground in the distance, but didn’t really effect the area close by.

I did a couple of clearing turns and the maneuvering checklist and then Grainne showed me how to make steep turns. These are basically 45 degree turns and they are fun. You bank the plane about 30 degrees, then add a little power (100 rpm) and increase the bank to 45 degrees. You have to apply a reasonable amount of back pressure to keep the nose up and not lose altitude. I did a couple of 360 turns to the left and a couple to the right. I was using the setting Sun as my start finish reference for the turn. After we came out of the second turn lined up with the Sun we were seeing it directly through the smoke layer. It was a deep red and a huge sunspot was clearly visible on the eastern limb. I usually check out the “solar weather” on the web every lunch time. I live in hope of seeing the Northern Lights someday (without a trip to Alaska). I missed them July last year when there was a huge solar storm that pushed them as far South as the Bay Area (I was watching TV and didn’t hear about until after it was over). Anyway, I knew that this was sunspot number 69 and it is the largest one on the Sun’s face at the moment. It was really cool to see it flying an airplane over the Sunol Valley.

After the steep turns we headed for Livermore. I contacted the tower and we did a couple of 360 turns to lose altitude in order to enter the traffic pattern at 1400’ MSL (that is Mean Sea Level). We were cleared to land on 25L with left traffic. I did a good 45 degree entry to the pattern, a turn onto the downwind leg, a turn to base and then a turn to final and I was pretty well lined up with the runway. Livermore has a big runway and a little one, 25L is the little one. We did a touch and go which went without a problem. I controlled the steering and the power until just near the end and Grainne took care of the Go part once our wheels touched the ground. We did a crosswind departure (a left turn once we reached 800’) and climbed back to 3500’ for the flight home. I called RHV tower over the Calaveras Reservoir and were given right traffic for runway 31R. Then began the comedy of trying to find the airport through the smoke. I mistook Capitol Expressway for I680 and was looking in completely the wrong place. I’m saying “I can’t see the airport” and Grainne is saying “are you sure, I can see it fine”. I finally looked at her and there was the airport right in front of the right wing clear as a day with all its lights and beacons flashing. I felt a bit stupid. I did another reasonable 45 degree entry into the downwind leg, starting descending abeam the numbers and then a right turn to base and another fairly quickly onto final. I actually turned a bit early onto final and we had to fly a “dog leg” (what Grainne called it), which amounted to flying a bit to the left and then completing the turn onto final lined up with the runway. We were a little high, but not much and the landing was smooth. Grainne is still helping with the flare but I’m really starting to get the feel of it. I’m looking forward to practicing landings. We left the plane run down the runway until the last taxiway exit. This saves on the brakes and it gave me a chance to practice even breaking when the plane is not traveling too fast. We were cleared to taxi directly to the parking area and again I had no problems parking the plane. This taxiing is starting to almost become routine.

Tonight was a lovely flight to spite the problems with the radio’s in 54D. I’m really starting to see my skill progress and starting to gain confidence in my ability to make the plane do what I want. Grainne is off this weekend so I won’t be able to fly until at least next Monday - I can’t wait.

Wednesday August 21st 2002, 6pm, N5766J, 1.3H

I couldn’t get a schedule slot until today, Grainne took Monday and Tuesday nights off. The weather over the last few days has been a little cooler, ATIS gave a temp of 28C with winds 290 degrees and 10 knots. Sunny and clear, but quite hazy. It looked yesterday like the smoke had finally gone away, but today I’m not so sure. I was about 15 minutes early and was sitting in the lounge when Grainne appeared. We discussed the flight, basically practicing emergency procedures, mostly engine failure. I got the key-book and headed out to pre-flight the plane. All standard stuff. I had booked N5766J again because I’m really getting to like this plane, it been mean to me yet (like the rough engine in N739YE, the radio’s in N4754D - twice and the lack of seat pockets and general beat up nature of N8276E). Grainne appeared as I finished the preflight and we ran through the usual stuff all now becoming routine. The taxi is no longer a problem. I made a nice take-off from 31R, straight and smooth down the run-way center line. You know, its really very very cool seating in the pilots seat, at the starting end of a runway, your planes noise wheel right on the center line, then just pushing in all the power and barreling down the line before lifting off the ground. Its not quite Battlestar Galactica but its pretty good. We turned through right traffic and headed south climbing to 4000’.

On the way up we simulated an electrical failure. There is a charge meter in the plane that indicates that current is flowing into or out of the battery. It should usually read 0 which means that the engines alternator is powering the plane. If it reads significantly positive or negative you have a problem. Negative means that the battery is powering the plane, this is not good, because the battery is really only for starting up the engine and as an emergency back-up if the alternator fails. If the meter reads positive then you possibly have an alternator that is generating too much current or voltage, this is a bad thing because it can damage the battery, the planes’s electronics or even cause an electrical fire. We pretended that we had a negative reading, and then ran through the emergency checklist for this failure. At this stage you may get the impression that there is a checklist for everything, and you’d be right. Never trust your memory, when you can have a trusty checklist to make sure. In this case, you switch the alternator on and off once to see will it recover, if not the you switch off everything electrical and make for the nearest safe landing. You need power to extend the flaps, so if you battery runs out before you manage to land then you have to land with no flaps. This is not fatal, but its not easy and generally seen as poor taste, and other pilots laugh behind you back.

Once up to cruse altitude Grainne showed me what to do in an engine failure emergency. Contrary to popular belief, the plane does not fall out of the sky when the engine stops. It just transforms itself into a glider. You simulate an engine failure by just setting the engine on idle, its still running, but not really providing any significant power to the plane. The trick with flying without an engine is to set the plane up as the best glider it can be, this means slowing it to its best glide speed, which is 65 knots in the Cessna 172. Then work out where your going to land, a runway would be nice, but any level ground will do in a pinch. lastly, you try and restart the engine. Engines are actually the one of the most reliable parts of planes. In most cases they only stop because they have run out of fuel which is of course the pilots fault, not the engines. So the first things to check are everything to do with making sure you have fuel and it can get to the engine. As we were simulating this, we pretended that we were unable to restart the engine and we headed for South Country Airport. Needless to say Grainne brought us in on a perfect approach to the runway and we could have easily landed. Instead, we did a go-around (full power, flaps up to 10 degrees, keep the nose from shooting up to far, start a climb at best climb rate and remove the last of the flaps once the climb has started). I flew back up to 3500’ and then it was my turn. No problem setting the best glide speed. I picked a nice flat field down below, but decided I was too high to get down safely and elected to do a 360 turn to loose altitude. I now realize that when you have no engine altitude is actually your very best friend. I came out of the 360 about 1000’ lower and then saw a landing strip off the end of the field I had picked to land in. This should be no surprise, Grainne has set me up to be over a landing strip called Frazier Lake, I just hadn’t realized it. Now I decided that I could make the landing strip but really didn’t have enough altitude to do it easily. I actually got lined up on the final with the runway in front of me, but we would have landed short of the runway and had a very bad day if we really had no engine. So another go-around and a climb up to 3500’. The marine layer clouds was just starting to cross the valley as we left Frazier Lake, its amazing how bumpy it gets if you even begin to get close to the clouds, I guess this is just their way of reminding you that they are a no go area for VFR student pilot.

Grainne was just asking me if I could see South County Airport when she cut the engine power. This time, I just headed straight for the 45 degree entry to the downwind leg of the pattern and decided if I was too high I would simply extend the downwind leg to loose the height. In the event I passed through the 1000’ point when I was abeam the numbers (pilot talk for passing the end of the runway as you fly past). This basically is right where you want to be for a normal approach so I decided to just fly the base leg and final as normal. Turned left, and then left again and was beautifully lined up with the runway. Made a fine approach and I could easily have landed. Altogether a much better attempt this time. I did the go around and we turned for home.

Over UTC, I contacted the Tower and headed for a straight in approach for 31L. This time I drove the plane and took care of he engine power. All in all a great approach, even through the Tower changed our runway to 31R less than a mile out after he had already given us clearance for 31L. This was no problem, just slide on over to line up on the parallel runway. The landing was OK, if just a little high, I had a full 40 degrees of flaps and idle power as we went into the flare so the plane just set itself down a little firmly on the ground. This time I turned off the runway onto taxiway D which is in about the middle, evidence that my even breaking has much improved. After yet another mix-up talking to ground control we were cleared to taxi to our parking space. This seems to be a recurring theme, I guess I so buzzed having just landed that I just lose it talking on the radio. I forgot to tell ground control where I was so his reply was “if your the plane at delta, then taxi to parking”. I didn’t really hear what he said then confused the “delta” in his message with my planes call sign and claimed to be “six six delta” instead of “six sis Juliet”. Oh well, I sure he’s familiar with student pilots by now.

This was a really nice flight and it was the first time I felt like I landed all on my own. Wow.

Thursday August 21st 2002, 6pm, N5766J, 1.0H

Nice sunny day, light winds, standard summer weather. Today we decided to do pattern work, which is basically practicing landings and working close to the airport in the standard traffic pattern. I hoped that by doing the pattern work on a week night we would mostly have the airport to ourselves - how wrong that turned out to be. We started with some time on the white board while Grainne explained what had to get done as we flew the pattern. There is a lot to do in a short time while handling the close proximity of other planes, relatively close to the ground in bumpy air while talking to the control tower. It was nice to go over it before getting into the plane.

The airport traffic pattern is a rectangular course around the airport, with one of the long sides of the rectangle being the runway you are using. If you go around the rectangle making left turns its called left traffic and right turns are right traffic. Left traffic patterns are more common, mainly because the pilot has more visibility from the left seat, its also easier to turn the plane left as it wants to go that way anyway (at least for me). The basic sequence around the patterns after take-off is as follows. Climb to above 500’ on the outbound leg, make a turn to the crosswind leg. Then make another turn to the downwind leg about which time you will be reaching pattern altitude of 1000’ above the ground (AGL) which is the pattern altitude in RHV. Level off and complete the pre-landing checklist as you fly parallel to the runway about 0.5~1 mile away. This is where the plane starts to get ahead of you, at the start your still trying to remember everything on the checklist as you reach the end of the run-way, otherwise known as abeam the numbers (meaning the big white numbers painted on the end of the runway). At this point hopefully the checklist is complete and you start descending by putting on carburetor heat, bringing the engine back to 1500 RPM and putting in 10 degrees of flaps. You should get a descent rate of about 500 FPM and you can trim the airplane for this rate. As the end of the runway passes about 45 degrees over your shoulder you start the turn onto the base leg. You have to be watching your airspeed and descent rate to make sure your not going too fast or descending too fast or too slow. You can see the end of the runway out the left window, its hard to describe when you start the turn onto the final leg, but you basically want to make a 90 degree turn and end up pointed down the runway your going to land on. At this point your putting in more flaps, and reducing the power to slow the plane down. You need to be at 65 knots before your wheels touch the ground. With engine power, pitch and flaps you control speed and descent rate and rudder to keep the planes nose pointing down the centerline to get the plane about 20’ off the ground moving in the right direction. Then gently (no really I mean gently) you level the plane out and then even more gently keep pulling back to make the flare. If you do it right the plane just decides to stop flying a few inches above the ground and you touch down like a feather. Well enough of the theory, it was out to N5766J to see if I could do it for real.

I did a standard pre-flight, run-up and take-off. This is all becoming routine by now. We had requested runway 31L so we could use left-traffic. We were cleared to cross 31R and takeoff on 31L. My takeoffs are fairly smooth and down the center line of the runway, I just need to be carefully about drifting left during the initial climb. Drifting like this is a bad thing because with two parallel runways someone else can be taking off beside you, thought a left drift not really bad if your already on the left runway.

Now I’d like to give my usual detailed account of the next hour of flying time, but frankly its just a blur of landings, take-offs and trying to remember everything at the right time. I didn’t even know how many landings we did until I counted them on the GPS track. My theory that we would have the airport to ourselves turned out to be totally wrong. More and more planes just started to appear in the pattern. There was always one to three planes in the pattern with us, and there were always another couple of planes in right-traffic as well. Even Grainne commented that this was about as busy as it gets. At one point a Citabria (according to Grainne a very slow type of tail dragger plane) just appeared to want to use our runway to land even though it was on right base (we were on left base). It just totally overshot its turn to right final. We got out of the way and did a go around, that is the GPS track the turns to the left in the middle of the runway. We saw the same plane a few minutes later screwing up its turn from outbound to crosswind. It was following a Cessna that was only just beginning its turn onto crosswind, when it also started to turn. This is pretty bad because it sets up the planes to collide. We heard the tower warning the Cessna what had happened. We did a bunch of landings and touch and goes. The landings to a full stop give you a chance to catch your breath and catch up with the plane. The last take-off was on 31R to try the right traffic pattern. We did a practice emergency landing when Grainne pulled out the throttle just as we were abeam the numbers. That landing was actually pretty good, probably because I didn’t have to worry about engine power (it was supposed to be broken).

Mostly, I think I did OK. I kept forgetting to turn on carb heat before reducing engine power, forgetting to turn on my landing light and transponder before takeoff and generally not being in full control on the final leg. Just way to many things to handle in a short space of time. We had no really bad landings that I remember in particular. But I never felt like I got the feel of exactly how I should do the landing flare. I strongly suspect that my definition of a good landing (plane and people on the ground undamaged) will change and I will become a landing snob, it won’t be good unless its so gentle that you have to get out of the plane to convince yourself your actually on the ground. For now I’m happy and I’m sure I’ll improve with practice, practice and then some more practice. I was pretty tired and ready for a cigarette by the time we parked the plane.

Saturday August 24th 2002, 10:30am, N5766J, 1.3H

I woke up this morning and the weather was cold and gray. The marine layer fog was firmly over San Jose. When I called RHV ATIS about 9am the visibility was just 2 miles with a overcast ceiling at 1300’. This is not VFR flying weather. I was even unsure if I should go to the airport, I thought I’d look pretty silly turning up expecting to fly when the weather was so obviously bad. However, I figured it might burn off by the time I got there, it didn’t. I was early and waiting for Grainne and the clouds were unchanged. Grainne arrived just before 10:30am and told me that we wouldn’t be able to do the planned stalls, slow flight and hood work we had intended, but that we could do some more pattern work because this was low and close to the airport. I got the key book and headed out to the plane which was parked beside the Tradewinds maintenance shop (first time I’ll drive a plane from this part of the airport). Sure enough as I was doing the pre-flight checks the clouds started to break and by the time Grainne came out the sky was mostly blue. By the time we got to the runway it was almost all blue, but still hazy so we kept with the plan to do the pattern work. That’s summer weather in the Bay Area, if you could just predict exactly when the burn-off will happen it would be perfect.

This time I took off from 31R so we would be using the right traffic pattern. The turns are a little more difficult because you can’t see out that side of the plane as well and you really need to use the right rudder to make the plane turn (the plane will turn left if you just take your feet of the rudder). The first landing attempt was terrible, we were way too high and had to do a go around. I think I got a little ground shy on final and was going too fast anyway. Again, everything became a blur of takeoffs, checklists, turns and landings. I got better with the checklists and I didn’t forget the carb heat or transponder as much. Again it started to get busy with a lot of planes landing and flying the pattern. We did more landings to a full stop today rather than touch and goes this really helps slow the pace and helps you keep up with the plane. At one point we were told to line up and hold while a plane took off directly in front of us. He was climbing away when we were cleared to takeoff. So we took off following right on the guys tail. It was the first time I have been so close behind an another plane flying the same way. We had to wait for him to pass us on the downwind before we could turn to the crosswind and we were nearly over I680 before we were cleared to turn (I680 is the boundary of Class C airspace for San Jose International). At this point two (count them - two) planes joined the downwind leg at its mid point so now there were four planes all flying the downwind leg, the first guy was just turning onto base, the other two spaced along the field and us having just turned from crosswind. The GPS track that goes way outside the others was this trip through the pattern. We were told to extend our downwind to allow all three planes to land. So this time we did not start to descend until we turned onto final.

All in all today was not a stressful as last Thursday, I was more ahead of the plane and there was some incremental improvement in the landings and the control on final. Sill a long long way to go, buts it nice to see something change flight to flight. I’m scheduled to fly tomorrow at 9am, but if the weather is like today, there is no way the fog will have cleared by them. Grainne has my phone number and she’s going to call if it looks like we have to scrub the flight.

Sunday August 25th 2002

Well Sunday’s flight got cancelled. Grainne called me at 8am to say that the weather didn’t look good and the fog was unlikely to lift before noon. Oh well, I guess this is how the rest of the country lives, but its just so not California to have the weather cause a problem. I decided to go get breakfast as I was already up at this ungodly hour on a Sunday morning. About 9:30am I emerged from my local purveyor of fine breakfast food to beautiful bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. I called ATIS at RHV and sure enough visibility was up to 5 miles with broken cloud at 2500’, which I’m sure would be gone in a very short while. If we had only had faith in California, we would have decided that the weather would clear, gone to the airport with hope in our hearts. And we would have been rewarded. Next flight is scheduled for Tuesday, then its vacation for two weeks.

Today was hot and hazy, 34C degrees on ATIS, but as usual the wind was light just 8 knots blowing right down the runway at 310. I always leave work bang on 5pm if I’m flying, its about a 40 minute drive in traffic, but anything can happen and I don’t want to arrive hot, bothered and late for flying because of a jam on the freeway. Today the traffic gods smiled upon me and I arrived about 20 minutes early. Grainne arrived about 10 minutes later and sent me out to preflight the plane. Good old 66J again, I really like this plane. No issues with preflight, Grainne arrived and we got through the taxi and run-up checks. I made a fine take-off from 31R and a downwind departure. Everything was smooth and for once I forgot nothing (not even the transponder or the climb checklist). Today I would finally get to practice stalls again, slow flight, some more instrument work and some slips. Of course as we decided that we wouldn’t do any pattern work the airport was almost deserted with nothing in the traffic pattern. We climbed to 4000’ and leveled off over the North end of Anderson Reservoir. I was just making my first clearing turn when we spotted a yellow bi-plane doing aerobatics right in front of us, at the same time another plane was under him at about 1000’ and we had passed two other planes while climbing. I guess, its just Murphy’s aviation law that there will always be planes around when you’d rather have the sky to yourself. We decided to head further South to get some clear space for maneuvers.

A little North of Frazier Lake after some clearing turns we started with the slow flight. This was fun, it appeared that N5766J is almost unstallable. I slowed to 40 knots and still had to really pull back to force the plane into a stall, we didn’t even get a stall warning at 40 knots. Grainne also had me try to stall the plane by turning at 45 knots without adding any power. No luck, but I may have kept the nose a little down to keep the airspeed at 45 knots as we turned. Its amazing how tight a turn you can make at the slow speed. Generally this was a really well behaved plane at these slow speeds. All the power-off stalls went fine, I think I did three or four. Then it was time to try power-on stalls. I hated these the last time, I couldn’t seem to keep the plane coordinated, which got us into an incipient spin on one attempt. This time things went better. Pull the power back to 1500 RPM, pitch the nose for 55 knots which is rotation speed. When you reach that speed apply full power and just keep pulling back on the elevator until the stall breaks. Then forward on the elevator, recover from the stall and level off. This time the plane stayed coordinated, I kept my heading well, actually any deviation was because I didn’t put in enough left rudder while I was slowing to 55 knots. My only problem was being too timid to push the elevator forward when the stall breaks. You see, after the break the nose is pointing straight down (well downwards anyway) so the natural reaction is to try to pull it up which is the wrong thing to do. You need to let it go and gain airspeed then level off. So while my headings stayed good, I lost too much altitude on most of the attempts. After three or four goes I decided I had enough stalls for one day and we started heading back towards RHV.

We had worked our way quite far South so I started following highway 101 North. Alongside South County Grainne decided it was time for hood work. The hood performs the same function as the foggles I had used before, only its better at blocking your view out of the plane. Grainne had me do a constant speed descent at 90 knots and then some turns to headings on the way down. We descended to 2500’ where she had me level off and do some more turns to a heading. The only problems I had was with the rudder. I was keeping “my foot on the ball”, that is applying enough rudder to keep the ball in the turn coordinator centered, however, this kept me drifting left. I could see my heading was changing but I couldn’t seem to get the right amount of rudder to keep it steady. I had just about decided it was the planes fault when Grainne told me to just leave the rudder alone and when I did the plane came into perfectly coordinated flight and kept its heading. We did a few turns left and right and as I was doing this Grainne called the tower, so I guess we were over UTC. I was wondering would she have me keep the hood on until we were on short final to land. I had read about CFI’s doing this because it simulates what it would really be like to emerge from the clouds just short of the runway and then have to land as is common in IFR conditions. In the event, she let me take off the hood about 5 miles out.

As usual I was a little high on the approach, rather then use flaps Grainne told me to do a forward slip. This worked great the last time I tried it so I expected no problems. We were cleared to land on 31L and I had a good line on the approach. Then I tried the slip, I just couldn’t seem to balance the rudder and the ailerons to get into a stable slip. The plane just wanted to go one way or the other. Finally Grainne help get into the slip and then I held the controls, once setup it felt fine. While all this was going on the Tower changed our runway to 31R and I had to slip/drift/move over to line up on the new runway. Coming out of the slip was not very pretty, we were just short of the runway and getting the wings level and the plane pointed down the runway was a little stressful. For the first time I noticed Grainne didn’t have her hands on the controls as were landed - for the first time it would be just me landing the plane. I leveled off at the right time and then as usual flared just a little too fast and the plane floated upwards. Grainne reached for the controls and helped me start over, just level the plane again and try the flare again. This time the wheels touched the tarmac but we floated up again. Third time lucky, we stayed on the ground. So I got three landings for the price of one approach. I let the plane run to the end of the runway, though I had some problems breaking evenly - this is an old problem I thought I had conquered. I stopped on taxiway echo, radio’d Ground Control and was cleared to taxi to parking. Once I parked Grainne told me I had forgotten the after-landing checklist.

Its clear that Grainne is now not telling me what to do. She expects me to remember what to do and when to do it. I actually have to press her to give me directions. I can see that this is all preparation for when she’s no longer sitting in the right seat and I have to fly on my own. While I’m looking forward to the milestone of my first solo its only starting to sink in how much I have to remember on my own and how much more concentration this will require. I have unconsciously been using Grainne as my long term memory expecting her to tell me what I forget when I forget it. And I still forget plenty. For instance, I seem to have a mental block about carb heat. I either forgot to turn it on or off several times today. Next time I’m going write a large red “C” on the back of my right hand so that I see it every time I reach for the throttle.

I’m on vacation this Thursday until the 14th of September, Grainne is leaving on the 12th for her vacation so we won’t fly together again until at least Saturday the 21st, three weeks from now. She has recommended another CFI and suggested I get a couple of flight in before she gets back. I hope I’m not too rusty after the break.

Wednesday September 18th 2002, 6pm, N5766J, 1.4H (0.3 Night)

My first flight in 3 weeks. I was a bit apprehensive that I would totally suck when I got back into the plane. The weather was typical, but it was hot, not a cloud to be seen. I had booked a new CFI for this flight, Grainne had recommended him and let him know I would by flying while she was on vacation. He turned out to be a fairly young, short little guy called Yoed Shani, and a great instructor. I was early and he was there when I arrived so we started right away. He did a much longer pre-flight briefing compared to Grainne. We went over what I had done and planned a flight to brush up on the basics, slow flight, stalls and some steep turns. I went out to do a pre-flight on 5766J. Everything looked good other than a bald spot on the nose-wheel tire. I did a normal taxi, run-up, take-off and downwind departure. handled almost all the radio work. To my great relief I didn’t appear to have lost too much during the break.

We flew down to Anderson Reservoir and did the standard maneuvering checklist and clearing turns and then some slow flight. This was where the rust started to show. I had to walk through the whole procedure in my head, because I really wasn’t sure exactly what I had to do. I guess, this is a big part of the learning process, but when the CFI says “OK, lets do slow flight” or some other maneuver I find it really difficult to remember exactly what I should do, I know I need to throttle back the engine, but how much ?, pitch for what speed ? put in how much flaps? and so on. Still, we got through it and the slow flight was fine. We did a couple of power-off stalls without much problem. As usual I just need to remember to level the plane quickly when the stall breaks. On one stall I was slow to bring the engine back to full power so we lost more height than we should have. Then some more clearing turns and Yoed showed me a power-on stall. The contrast with when Grainne had done this was huge. Grainne’s first power-on stall was a bit like a roller-coaster while Yoed’s was really gentle. I am much more used to what the plane does in a stall by now, so that may be part of the explanation why Yoed’s was so much less frightening. I mentioned the problems I had had with keeping coordinated in a stall on N9552A (the almost new Skyhawk I flew back in August). So he showed me something neat. He stalled the plane with power off and then just kept it in the stall while he had me work the rudder. It was no big thing. We were totally stalled and it was easy to just keep the plane straight using the rudder. Other than we were dropping out of the sky at about 1000 FPM (and the buffeting and the stall horn) you would believe you were in straight and level flight. A good technique to take away any fear about keeping coordinated in a stall. Another thing he did just after the power-on stalls was to prove to me that the trim setting doesn’t matter and you can always compensate for it with the elevator. I had been avoiding trimming the plane as I slowed down to setup for the power-on stall. I didn’t want a lot of nose-up trim when I hit full power (it will make the nose jump up even faster). This is kind of dumb because you want the nose to come up to get into the stall anyway. He had me just fly straight and level and then keep that attitude no matter what. He then turned the trim wheel as far forward and as far back as it would go. You can feel the pressure on the elevator first forward and then back, but you can always keep the plane level. A very nice trick to remove any fear about where the trim is set. I think worrying about trim is a bit like a new car driver asking what way the wheels are pointing before they start the engine.

Another key thing Yoed told me that lead to one of those “ah ha” moments, was “Whenever you change the flight attitude or configuration, LOOK OUT OF THE PLANE”. I realized that whenever I did anything I was always looking at the control or the instrument as I was changing it. For example, glancing at the attitude indicator when starting a turn. As soon as I stopped doing this, my turns got better. Another example, is learning to judge the engine RPM by sound rather than looking at the tachometer. So when you want to slow down or descend, just set the power where you think it should be make sure the plane does what its supposed to do and then give a quick glance to make sure the RPM is about what you want.

We did a couple of steep turns, one left and one right. This was only the second time I had done these. They are fun and I think Yoed uses them as a kind of reward to good behavior. They want well and again focusing outside the plane the whole time and using the horizon to get the right bank angle made them a whole lot better.

The Sun had set as we turned to fly back to RHV. It was full dark by the time we got over the buildings at UTC where we normally contact the Tower. No problem picking out the airport, there is a flashing beacon and the VASI lights were easy to see. There were three planes ahead of us approaching the field. I guess this is coming home time for a lot of folks and the Tower was really busy. He was making some folks go around so we slowed down a little early to let the traffic stay ahead of us. The landing approach went just fine, and the landing looked great until we hit the tarmac with all three wheels. I think I was looking too close to the plane and misjudged the height slightly. I dropped the nose just a bit when I should have just continued the flare and we set down on three wheels. A little rough, but it was all mine and my first true night landing. I had my GPS setup wrong so I didn’t get a GPS track of the flight.

Thursday September 19th 2002, 6pm, N5766J, 1.3H (0.2 Night)

My second flight with Yoed. The weather was once again hot and clear, just like yesterday. Again the longer pre-flight briefing and we decided to repeat the same stuff as yesterday along with an emergency engine-out landing. Nothing significant about the pre-flight checks, taxi, run-up and take-off and a normal downwind departure.

After the standard maneuvering checklist we did a couple of steep turns. I had some problems getting my speed up to 95knots. 5766J always seems a little underpowered, at about 2200 RPM in level flight she just wants to trot along at 85knots. It took full power to get the speed up to 95knots and about 2500 RPM to keep it there.

Then some more slow flight and power-off stalls. These went fine, I still need to practice putting the nose in the right place to recover from the stall. But today’s were better than yesterday’s. We did one power-on stall which went about the same. Yoed could sense that I was reluctant to let the nose fall too much forward and that this was keeping me from pushing the nose down in a stall as quickly or as far as I should. So he asked me if I wanted to see what it felt for the nose to point right down. I was nervous, but I agreed. He the proceed to stall the plane with full flaps and then when we were stalled retracted the flaps and let the nose fall forward. We ended up facing almost straight down in a dive. He let it go for a couple of seconds and then gently pulled out to level flight. It was actually fun, it reminded me of all the fighter flight simulations I had played with where you throw the plane all over the sky in a dog fight. But mainly it showed me that its not so scary to have the nose point all the way down as long as the ground is far below.

We did a couple more clearing turns and were facing into the hills when he pulled the engine back to idle. I did a good job of getting the best glide speed and got pointed away from the hills. This time I remembered about Frazier Lake and we headed in its direction. I crossed over the center of the runway and checked the wind sock to choose which way to land on the runway. I also did a credible job of the emergency checklist. I made a left turn to enter the pattern on a downwind 45. However, I was at about 1500’ AGL when I got abeam the numbers so I was too high. Yoed even told me that I should adjust my speed to make sure I got down, but I wasn’t really listening (or hearing). I turned base and final (I was a little too close to the runway on the downwind). I was lined up on final but still way too high. In the end I think we would have overshot the runway, but Yoed thought we would have just landed on the very end (I think he was just being kind). We did a go around and headed for home. I had also forgotten to do the emergency landing checklist and make any radio calls to let people know I had an emergency.

Again it was dark when we got to UTC. This time we ended up as the first of four planes coming in to land from UTC. The glide down was good, though at one point a “Long EZ” shot past us on the right. I was just a little slow to start the flare and we landed on three wheels and bounced, the second touch down was fine. Again, this is failing to judge the round-out correctly. Its a little more difficult at night because there is just a lot less visual inputs to help you.

We were just about to push the plane back into its parking space when Yoed said “Is that the rocket launch you told me about”. I had warned him that Vandenberg AFB was scheduled to do a test launch of a Minuteman III missile out into the Pacific and it could happen anytime between 1800 and midnight. In the event they kindly waited for us to get on the ground and for darkness and it was spectacular. The missile climbed out and to the West into a clear dark sky leaving a glowing trail behind it. We saw the second and third stage separations. The photo shown was taken from Southern California, but it looked pretty much the same from the apron at RHV.

Saturday September 21st 2002, 12pm, N5766J, 1.4H

Open day at RHV airport. I arrived early to find no parking and cops and people everywhere. I finally found a parking space and headed for Tradewinds. Grainne hadn’t shown up yet so I went for a look around. The whole transient parking area was cordoned off along with a chunk of taxiway Zulu. There was a bunch of cool planes most of which I couldn’t identify, a bunch of bi-planes, some Skyhawks and Skylanes and a couple of what I think were YAKs one had Russian words painted on its side and the other had Chinese. The San Jose PD helicopter was there along with a life-flight helicopter. There was also plane rides for 10cents/lb. It was pretty hot walking around so I hung out in Tradewinds. Grainne showed up a little late. We spent some time going over what I had done with Yoed and decided that RHV would be too crazy for much so we would fly to LVK and do some pattern work there. As I walked out to the plane It was cool to walk past all the people just there to see the planes, and then walk through the police tape and out onto the apron, six weeks ago I’d have been stuck behind the tape as well.

Did a normal pre-flight inspection, through the fuel truck arrived half way through to top up the tanks. Just after engine start the life-flight helicopter flew in front of us really close and shook the plane a lot. The guy in ground control was just completely flustered with everything. With his main taxi way was closed and only one taxi way leading from the runways was open there were planes going every which way. Some guy was trying to get help having some planes moved so he could get to his tie-down spot. Ground control seemed to keep forgetting where people where and kept asking them to tell him. In general it was chaotic and I was glad to take-off. We made a right 45 departure which like the last time pretty much takes us right over my house. Took the time to note the emergency landing spots ahead of the runway, I knew they were there, but at least now I know where to find them.

This time I remembered all the checklists for climb and cruise and we had a nice flight at 3000’ over Calaveras Reservoir. The sky was really clear and we could see the skyline of San Francisco in the distance. We listened to Livermore ATIS and then called Livermore Tower over Sunol Golf Course. When we called on the frequency from the sectional (118.1) we were told to stay clear of class delta and call Livermore Tower on a different frequency. Don’t know why, but the Tower answered us on the new frequency and gave us clearance “for the option” (to land or do a touch and go). I did a reasonable job of getting us into left pattern for 25L though we entered a little low (only 600’ AGL - ok a lot low). We did four landings, two of which were touch and goes. The first approach was a bit low and we arrived on all three wheels again. I don’t specifically recall the next three it was a blur of getting through the checklists and the final approaches. While none of the landings were terrible, none of them were very good either. But at least we never had to do a go-around. On one touch and go I was following another plane on the departure leg and was just starting to believe he was not entering the pattern when the Tower told me to make my left turn onto crosswind. I probably should have called the Tower myself sooner to check what he was doing.

3D View of GPS Track around LVK

We made a crosswind departure and headed for home. Climbing up out of Livermore the Tower warned us about another aircraft crossing our path from the South, we couldn’t see him anywhere until Grainne told me to lift up the right wing and hey-presto there he was right above us. A valuable lesson in why you lift the wings to check for traffic. At 2500’ and back above Sunol, Grainne pulled the throttle back to idle and told me I had an engine failure. This time I knew I didn’t have an airport close by, but there was a lovely plowed field just below the golf course. I did a fine job of getting the right airspeed, and doing the cockpit checks through I forgot to actually take out the checklist and make sure I had not forgotten anything. I remembered to make the mayday call and to go through the emergency landing items (again without the checklist). It was a great pity therefore, that I would have a very difficult time actually making the landing in the spot I had picked out. As the field was below us I started a 360 degree turn to get lower. However, what I didn’t notice was a hill between me and the field topped with power lines. By the time I got around the turn I was really to low to get over the hill and lined up for the field. I forgot the first rule of emergencies to just FLY THE PLANE and really didn’t think through clearly exactly how I was going to get myself in the right place to land on the one good spot around. That makes two emergency landings in a row that I’ve messed up.

We powered up and headed for home. I leveled off at 2500’ above Calaveras Reservoir and got the RHV ATIS. At this point Grainne covered up the Airspeed, Altitude and Vertical Speed Indicators with post-its. So now we would do the landing at RHV with a simulated static port failure. I did a good job of judging when to start my descent and got into the right downwind leg at about the right altitude and I got the final approach nailed (with no distractions from those pesky instruments). The actual touch down was not so clean. Again I had some problems with the round-out and flare and were flew along a lot of runway before touching down. Still, the actual touch down was OK when it finally happened. I know that the problems I’m having with landings are common for most student pilots, but it is still frustrating to keep making the same mistakes. We will do more landings tomorrow probably at South County Airport, there just isn’t any substitute for practice.

Sunday September 22nd 2002, 12pm, N5766J, 1.4H

The weather was sunny but hazy, only 3 miles visibility. It was warm at 25C but not too bad. I arrived just on time and Grainne was waiting for me. We decided that we would go do pattern work at South County as planned and I headed out to pre-flight the plane. No issues with the pre-flight, the airport was back to normal today after yesterday’s Open Day. Normal taxi, run-up and take-off with a downwind departure. Although we took off on 31R, the tower asked us to turn left traffic for the downwind departure. This is a little unusual, but he may have had another plane coming in to right traffic at the same time. I made no mistakes and I remembered all the checklists.

I climbed up to 3000’ and we had a smooth cruise down to Anderson Reservoir, through there was some traffic coming against us. I got South Country in sight and we listened to the CTAF (Common Traffic Advisory Frequency). As South Country is an uncontrolled airport, all the panes announce their position and intentions on this frequency. We heard one guy saying he was turning onto right base for runway 32 which told us what runway and traffic pattern was in use. As I still needed to lose some altitude I flew a little left of the field to give myself a longer approach to the downwind leg. In the event I got on the 45 right at pattern altitude and announced I was there.

I did six landings at South County, four touch and go’s and two to a full stop. In general, they were much improved over yesterday. The very first one was a little hard, but the others were fine. I really can see an improvement over yesterday and previous flights. One of the landings was with a simulated engine failure and it was probably the best. I really tried to keep focused on the end of the runway during the round-out and flare and it seems to be paying off. Another big help is that today I was ahead of the plane the whole time. I got the checklists done and I never forgot to switch on my transponder or operate carb heat correctly (my usual sins). This gave me more time to focus on getting the approach setup. Grainne pretty much left me alone most of the time letting me make my own decisions so I really felt like I was flying and landing the plane myself. Today was a definite confidence boaster. After the last touch and go I said I’d take us to 2500’ and head for UTC to go home, I was getting tired and a little hot.

I was just setting up to get the RHV ATIS when Grainne pulled the throttle out for another simulated engine failure. We were too far from either South County or RHV to I picked a nice field just below us. My mistake was picking a field with a crosswind and then failing to just fly the plane so I could get a good approach to land. Just like yesterday, I spent too much time on the emergency checklists and not enough just flying the plane. Its much harder to plan out the approach to a field than an airport. To some extent your are spoiled for choice, there were just so many nice fields we could have landed in. There is a big temptation to keep changing your choice. Once you’ve got best glide speed, you really need to plan out the whole approach, my mistake is to try and do this in stages. It doesn’t work, and you end up too low and in a bad spot. Next time we’ll see, I have a feeling I’m going to be dreaming about landing in fields for a few nights until I get one of these right.

The only interesting issues with the trip back to RHV was that were first were told (by ATIS) to use a different Tower frequency (I guess they had two controllers on duty) and second was were told to change our transponder to squawk 5300 (the first time I’ve ever had to change this). There was another Cessna on our left and a little ahead so we were told to follow him in. He was told to squawk the same code, so then we were told to IDENT. There is a button on the transponder called IDENT, when you press it causes your plane to flash on the controllers radar screen, this allows him to make sure he knows which plane is which. The approach went well and we were just coming over East Ridge Mall when I spotted another plane right under us. He seemed to be almost scraping the trees in the mall parking lot. Grainne didn’t seem too concerned and said that he was probably heading for 31R, which sure enough he was. Either way is really overshot his final and was very low. My landing went just fine, not hard and on only two wheels (one less than my usual count). Other than the second emergency landing today was a nice flight.

Tuesday September 24th 2002, 6pm, N4754D, 1.4H (0.3 Night)

There is a major fire burning down in Morgan Hill called the “Croy Fire”. I saw a little smoke this morning as I drove to work, but this afternoon the smoke had completely covered the sky to the South and East. I made a couple of calls to RHV ATIS during the afternoon because I was worried that the smoke might close the airport if it moved up towards San Jose. In the event it stayed well to the South (not surprising as the wind usually blows from the North in the afternoons). Later, during the flight we had a spectacular view of the flames burning in the distance along the mountain ridges.

Tonight was a nice flight. The weather was hot again and there was a light wind blowing down the runway as usual. We had already decided that we would do some pattern work in RHV. The evenings are starting to get short and there really isn’t much time to fly anywhere else and get anything useful done while daylight remains. The traffic was bad and I arrived with only a little time to spare. Grainne was waiting for me, so I went out to pre-flight N4754D as soon as I arrived. The last time I flew this plane the radio’s didn’t work and we had to take another plane. The time before that, we had an electrical fire after landing and my radio didn’t work. So, I have avoided this plane until now, my favorite N5766J was already booked and this was the next best choice. Other than the radio, this plane is nice to fly, this time everything worked fine.

The taxi and run-up went without notable incident. We took off on 31L and entered left traffic. Now, while I’m much more ahead of the plane, its still difficult to remember particular landings in any detail. What I do remember was that today I did almost all the radio communications with the tower, I had no problems with flying the pattern, I was ahead of the plane the whole time and had time to actually enjoy the view. My approaches on final were generally good and I hit the correct glide slope almost every time. I have really got the hang of adjusting the power and keeping the nose in the right place to get the plane right where I want it over the numbers. My main sin is tending to be slow on final, I was often at 65 KIAS (Knots Indicated Air Speed) as I turned onto final. This is a little slow and close to stall speed for making a turn this close to the ground, its the biggest danger point for the classic landing stall (you overshoot final, going too slow, bank to much to recover so increasing your stall speed and then stall with only about 500’ between you and the ground - it would just spoil the whole day). I need to watch this more closely and try to be at least 70 KIAS on the turn, there is plenty of time to slow the last little bit on the final leg.

I believe, like most student pilots timing the flare is the hardest part of the whole landing. I either flared a little too fast and ballooned up or flared late or not enough. I did manage to get the trick of adding a little power if I ballooned and settling down fairly softly, but I didn’t always add it quite soon enough. The timing and feel of the round-out and flare is so fine that you really don’t have time to consciously think about what you are doing, its really got to be instinctive. I’m starting to believe its a little like learning to ski. You spend a ridiculous amount of time falling flat on your face (or behind), then suddenly you “get the feel of it” and while still not good you can suddenly ski. At least I’m hoping that is what will happen, otherwise its going to be a long slog. If the flare lasts about 10 seconds, then only about 60 seconds of my 1.4 hours in the air was spent practicing the most difficult part of the whole exercise.

I tried a forward slip on one of the approaches, this is only the third time I have practiced this, the first time was fine, but the other attempts were poor. Unfortunately this one was not much better. The first attempt I turned far too soon onto final while still at pattern altitude, so we didn’t have nearly enough time to get down. The tower told us to go around because the plane in front of us was still on the runway. The second attempt, I extended the downwind leg and so had more time to lose the altitude. However, it was very rough and jerky, just couldn’t get the balance between the opposed aileron and rudder. I did get down onto glide slope and land but it wasn’t pretty.

The only other incident of any note was the extended upwind leg. There was a plane entering on the 45 for right traffic. The tower told me to extend my upwind and he would clear me for the right turn. I dutifully flew upwind past the incoming plane, and then some more and then some more again with no word from the tower. I finally called the tower and asked to make the turn. I guess he missed me so maybe I should have just turned anyway.

All in all today’s flight was a blast. I think significant improvement over last Sunday down at South County. Grainne seemed pretty happy with it.