Solo!

Today 40TP and I went out for the first time without a chaperon. I flew solo for the first time!

After a couple of pattern circuits with Joel just to make sure Thursday's landing successes weren't accidental, he asked me to take him back to the FBO and do three more on my own. He wrote the necessary endorsements in my logbook to make it legal, and I taxied back out, alone. It was a strange feeling, but I was confident and happy that my training has carried me this far.

Joel told me that TP would have an extra bit of power without him, and he was right. She reached 55 knots and lept off the runway with a little extra spring, and I reached the 1000' pattern altitude noticeably faster. Other than that, it was pretty much the same routine I've gotten used to.

Though it wasn't without its challenges. The winds were shifting quite a bit at Olympia today. When Joel and I were up, the winds were basically out of the south, meaning we were using runway 17. They were calm when I taxied out solo, but by the time I had turned around into the downwind, they had shifted almost 180 degrees. Listening to the radio, I heard the tower controller start to "spin the boat" and direct traffic to 35, though he cleared me to land on 17 since I was already well into the pattern. The wind was 10 knots on my tail. That was not something I felt ready to handle yet, so I asked to fly around to 35, which he approved--not only was it more comfortable for me, but it helped him get things shifted to the new flow.

My first landing was not my best, but was acceptable. The second and third were pretty good. As I was rolling out to pick up Joel at Glacier for our cross-country trip to Paine Field (north of Seattle), I thanked the controller for being part of my first solo flight. He congratulated me as I turned off the runway. All in all, a great experience.

I'll blog later about the cross-country flight, which was terrific.

Here is a link to a recording of the Olympia tower frequency during my solo (I've stripped out a few long periods of silence, so the timeline is a bit compressed...the mp3 is 12 minutes, but the elapsed time was just over 20.) Listen for "Cessna 40TP" or just "0TP". The wikipedia article on traffic patterns is pretty good if you need some orientation to the terminology.

At some flight schools, there is a tradition of "ripping the tailfeathers" of the student by cutting major chunks out of his or her shirt. Glacier doesn't do that, which is just fine with me...Joel and I had a picture taken instead.


Joel has authorized me to solo in the pattern at Olympia, the pattern at Shelton, and to fly in between. So in upcoming posts expect to hear about more solo flights, as well as dual lessons (next one is Tuesday).

N40TP

Here she is in all her glory. 160 horsepower of stable, delightful flying machine.

Click

Two things clicked tonight, but one was much easier than the other.

First, for the difficult thing. I am really starting to figure out a lot of this flying business, but one thing that still has me mystified is how to master the seatbelt and shoulder harness in the left seat of 40TP. Each time I get in the aircraft that bugger is twisted, hard to adjust, and just plain snarfy. Eventually I get it, of course (since per FAR 91.107, I can't take off without it, not that I would anyway). But it is a mighty struggle. I'm open to considering that it is mostly user error; the right seat harness is apparently identical, and Joel is usually buckled in and ready to go within 10 seconds. Then he just laughs as I fight it out with my side. Hopefully at some point the harness and I will just agree to disagree and come to some sort of compromise.

But now on to the good stuff. Tonight Joel didn't have to touch the controls. Once. We did seven takeoffs, seven landings, a power-off stall and a power-on stall, and I did it all.

We took off from Olympia, straight out to the north, and I used the navigation radio (VOR) to take us up to Sanderson Field in Shelton, about 20 miles northwest. It's a non-towered airport that's not too busy, and Joel wanted to get me a change of scenery plus some radio practice on an advisory frequency (that is, where pilots communicate directly without a tower.) My first two landings at Shelton were quite good, with a little "crabbing" to the left that has to be corrected with right rudder on the ground to regain the centerline. We did two more at Shelton, and they were really good...my best yet. On the go, after the second one, Joel asked me to land again, drop him off, and do the rest on my own. Gulp. Solo time.

However, I really didn't feel quite ready. I explained that I wanted another round of stall practice, since that's the skill I would absolutely need if I got in trouble in the pattern. Joel commented (positively) on my decision-making and we went to practice stalls. I did a decent job at the maneuvers--it really takes some effort to stall Tango Papa when she's light. Gave me confidence.

I flew us back to Olympia, and waited a bit too long on the descent, so that gave us a good excuse to practice slips. This is where the pilot intentionally puts the plane in uncoordinated flight, with the sole purpose of exposing as much fuselage as possible to the oncoming wind, which creates drag and slows the aircraft while it descends. It's a brilliant trick and I enjoy doing it. Magically we arrived in the pattern at the right altitude and speed, set up for a good approach.

I nailed three more landings, each one a little better. On most of tonight's landings there was barely a squeak of tires, none of the nosewheel shimmying of past lessons...it was all good. We parked, Joel did another review of my pre-solo written exam, and signed the appropriate endorsements in my logbook. We decided he'd go up with me again at my next lesson for a couple of pattern circuits, then he'd sign me off for solo. I'll be authorized to fly solo in the pattern at Olympia, at Shelton, and in between.

After the soloing formalities, we plan to do a cross-country flight up to Paine Field, in Everett, north of Seattle. I'm supposed to plan the flight before the lesson.

Next lesson is Sunday, so I should have more to report then.

Pretty Darn Good

Woke up Saturday morning to dense fog in the Olympia area...and the freezing kind too, which doesn't always burn off as easily. I tuned the Olympia ATIS on my radio at home, and confirmed: less than 1/4 mile visibility, ceilings 100. About as far away from VFR as you can get. I grumped about it a bit, but decided to head out on my bicycle for a first-hand look. Confirmed again: pea soup.

Called Joel around 10:30, half hour before my lesson. He said he was optimistic, and there was always ground school anyway. So I drove out to the airport.

Skies weren't cooperating yet, so Joel had me go through my pre-solo written exam (required by the FAA). Of the 30-40 questions, I had trouble only with one or two, simply because I hadn't memorized something yet. Another hour or so of study and I'll be able to finish that up. Joel told me to complete it at home before my next lesson (it's open book).

During the exam practice, we kept one eye each on the "idiot light"...what seasoned pilots call the rotating beacon at the airport when it's on during the day. (If it's on during the day, the field is IFR; when it becomes VFR, the tower controllers turn it off.) Joel remained confident that the ceiling would lift, so he had me go pre-flight N40TP (which has become my standard aircraft now).

Just as the fueler finished putting gas in the tanks, the idiot light went off: VFR! Joel smiled behind his shades and said, "let's go fly!" Never one to argue (and knowing we'd check the ATIS just to be sure), I hopped in. I've been practicing passenger briefings with Joel, knowing the FAA examiner will expect me to do it on my checkride. That and the startup checklists went without much discussion--these are now becoming routine.

We did six pattern circuits in under an hour. On the first one, I did by far my best landing yet: right on the centerline, and barely a squeak from the tires. Joel looked over and said, "well, that was pretty darn good. Show me four more of those and next week you'll do it solo." Well, that must've been a bit of a jinx. I did three more that were barely acceptable, one that was awful, and a practiced short approach (simulated engine failure) that was, well, a failure. Ended in a go-around.

I have everything pretty much nailed now except the final flare. I'm still ballooning and landing too hard. But I did do it well once, so I know I can. Will just take practice.

On our last circuit we were behind an Ercoupe. Pretty aircraft. But slow. Joel warned me that we'd be quite a bit faster, and I backed off the airspeed a little, but not enough. On downwind the coupe started appearing in the windscreen about as fast as someone driving 45 in the left lane of the freeway. So I really backed off, and fortunately he began his base turn shortly thereafter. I extended our downwind by about a mile to give him space. The last landing was probably second in terms of quality to the first, though we got quite a bit of nosewheel shimmy as we slowed. Between dealing with that and comprehending my taxi instructions from the tower, I got a bit flustered. Just still not 100% comfortable, and I believe soloing is still several hours away.

Next lesson is Thursday (business trip to LA Mon-Tues), with study of my last couple of ground school lessons in the meantime.

Progress

Three lessons since my last post. I'm back with Joel now, and I really feel like (to stretch the analogy) I've completed my climb and am in cruise flight. I know what to expect, I know what's ahead of me, and the pace is nice and steady. A good feeling.

Last Saturday the weather was marginal. Joel was willing to go up and do pattern work, but he let me make the decision. The winds were high (but right down the runway)...and they were gusting, which makes for an unpleasant ride and an extra degree of difficulty. In the end I chose not to go. This gave us a chance to talk about what the FAA creatively calls "Aeronautical Decision Making". It's really about judgment. Joel said I made a good decision. And we got to finish up aerodynamics in ground school.

Monday was a horrible weather day, and frankly I felt a little frustrated with the gaps between flights. I feel like skills slip a bit. Coupled with the fact that I hadn't read enough ahead, the inability to fly led to a quite unproductive session. The topic, ironically, was weather--theory, hazards, basic forecasting, and so on. I do find it interesting, but the going is a bit slower. Just a completely new area of knowledge for me, for which I have little frame of reference.

So why do I title this "progress"? Because tonight's lesson really was a major step forward in the aircraft. I accomplished three landings without Joel's help (plus two that were not as good), and I'm really getting the hang of the traffic pattern. For the first time, it just really felt comfortable. We also did a little slow flight--I don't take fright anymore at the squawk of the stall horn. It is definitely seeming more natural and I feel like I know what I'm doing. After the flight we also knocked off the weather stuff that I couldn't get on Monday when I wasn't prepared.

Joel says maybe another few hours until I solo. Gotta work on those flares and landings...the two that didn't go so well involved ballooning down the runway, and one landing that was a bit more harsh than we like. But things are moving right along!

FAR Away

I walked away from last Sunday's lesson with Russell with a nice list of the sections of the Federal Aviation Regulations that I need to study for the written and practical tests. So this has become my bedtime reading. Fairly dry, but I have enough context now from flight experience that it's relevant and interesting too.

Different Perspective

Three lessons this past week.

Sunday brought wet snow and rain to the Olympia area, and with it low ceilings and poor visibility. So that meant ground school with Russell. The session was great--we covered airport operations, focusing on ops at Olympia. My background is fairly strong here, so it was a nice discussion that probed some of the more esoteric rules and regulations.

Wednesday and Thursday involved flight time with Steve, the third Glacier instructor. We focused on maneuvers (slow flight, stalls, and steep turns), which was fun and educational, but more than that I learned that there are as many different perspectives on flight instruction as there are instructors.

There's not enough space in a blog post to get into the technical details of the differences between Steve and Joel, and it would be boring anyway. It's enough to say that there is no one way to learn to fly, and I'm glad to have had a couple of lessons with Steve to learn some different techniques. I'll be back with Joel starting tomorrow, and I plan to talk about which of Steve's recommendations (hopefully, those I liked) could be carried forward through the rest of my training. I particularly liked Steve's final approach technique, which minimizes the number of things you have to remember and do. At this point, simplicity has a lot of benefit!

In any case, I'm pretty comfortable now with stalling the airplane myself and recovering...more so with power off than power on. I also did a passable job on my first steep turn execution (this is a 45 degree bank for 360 degrees in one direction, then same in the other direction, marking a figure eight in the sky.)

What I wasn't terribly comfortable with was Steve's demonstration of some more severe stall situations. In one maneuver we pulled 2.5-3 Gs in what's called an accelerated maneuver stall. I found this pretty disorienting, and it was actually the first time in 7 hours of flight so far that I experienced motion sickness. But it was a good experience that showed me lots of things not to do.

Rain this weekend, which means ground school only.

Stick and Rudder

I've been looking for a good conceptual description of aerodynamics and airplane systems. The presentation in my Jeppesen textbook doesn't quite go deep enough, and it's written like, well, a textbook.

So I stumbled upon Stick and Rudder, a book written in 1944 but still one of the more popular treatments of basic aerodynamic forces and how a properly flown airplane exploits these forces in flight. The author's style is a bit like myth-busting...explaining thoroughly how the lay person's (which is to say the student pilot's) conception of things is often wrong. He is definitely reinforcing what Joel has been teaching me: the elevator (operated by moving the control wheel forward and back) is not the "up/down" control, but the airspeed (angle of attack) control, and the throttle is not the "fast/slow" control (as it is in an automobile) but the altitude control.

I'm also finding it enjoyable to see the slight difference in how people described airplanes sixty years ago...the elevator surfaces are called "flippers" and the airplane, occasionally, a "ship".

Lesson tomorrow, but we're supposed to have light snow here in Olympia, so we'll see if VFR conditions prevail. Joel is still off work for a bit so I'm with a new instructor, Russell. I'll post if I go.