Home again

We could not have had better weather for our flying days. The weather and schedules even cooperated to let us hop down to GA to see my family for the day on Thursday -- something that wouldn't have been possible if we were visiting by automobile.

It was a fabulous trip. Good family time, good food, good rest.

Since this blog is about flight training, I'll briefly state what I remember off the top of my head... I did all of the flying, from the left seat, with the exception of the return trip from SC to VA because I wasn't feeling so hot that day (I did the communicate tasks, however, so it wasn't a wasted 2.25-hour trip as far as training goes) and the times when we were carrying family passengers since Husband had to be up front!

1. Flying down last Sunday it was so smooth that I set the elevator trim, sat back, and enjoyed a little under 3 hours of sight-seeing, scanning for traffic, petting the dog, and enjoying the time with Husband. Occasionally a retrim or a nudge of the yoke to correct a drift was required, but it was a very easy trip.

2. At KUZA I had one of my best landings ever, and Husband was genuinely impressed :).

3. KUZA-->18A with a fly-over of Clemson University (that's Death Valley at left) was a nice trip down to see the folks with a few minutes of "where's the airport?" at the end -- even with the GPS, we couldn't visually find it until we were almost right over it. My landing there was firm, but no bounce or control issues. Just after landing, my dad met us at the airport and we talked him into taking a short flight over the lake with two big circles over his house and a quick jaunt over Hartwell Dam -- yes, the lake level is unusually low, and thus the large bright orange ring of Georgia clay along the shorline. Husband was PIC for the tour with dad, and his landing at 18A was similar to mine; must be something about the airport! ;)


4. 18A-->KUZA later that day was good, too. We snuck into the pattern between a cute little red low-wing that was doing pattern work and another fella coming in for a full-stop. I held my flare a few inches high and after drifting with the stall warning on for a bit it plopped down; firm, no bounce, but not one to be proud of.

5. KUZA-->KJGG was Husband's leg. Various ATCs pointed traffic out to us, two of which were aircraft passing left-to-right of our path directly in front of us, with less than 1.5 nm separation. This was (1) a little unsettling (but not really) to see other planes that close without it being the usual pattern kind of close, (2) good to know ATC had our backs (and nose), (3) neat to see other planes that close in flight, (4) good to see what other traffic really looks like -- I've been a little anxious that my scanning technique is ineffective due to how little traffic I see when VFR all by myself (it is a big sky, isn't it?!), but every time ATC has pointed it out, it has been obvious and these that were in close quarters were quite obvious, and (5) proof of how flight-following is a super service but also a warning that it's an as-time-and-workload-permit service that is no substitute for pilot awareness. We saw some very odd low thin clouds, all roller-coastery, as seen in the pic at right...

6. The night before we returned home, we spent some time weighing our Christmas booty (gifts, silly!). Husband had the forethought to email our W&B spreadsheet to himself so we sat down and worked it out. Even with 60 lbs of gifts, us, the Dog, luggage, etc., there was still plenty of room for another full-grown adult. The catch the next morning would prove to be organizing those inconsistently shaped boxes in the limited-sized spaces under and behind seats.

A great trip, and perfect proof positive of why having (a share in) a plane makes traveling easier! Had we driven, we wouldn't have gotten to GA, and all useful time in the day Sunday going down and Friday coming back would have been spent driving instead of enjoying time with family or settling in at home.

Xmas Eve X-C

Santa came early for us. He brought us a beautiful day with very smooth skies for our trip down south to see the family. With 2.9 hours on the Hobbs and a landing that impressed the pants off the Husband, I got a nice x-c for the log book (that doesn't count toward training/PIC time, of course) and had a good time with the Husband and the Dog.

And this time we've got pictures of said Dog with his Mutt Muffs on -- how prosh! Will post them when we get home :)

I hope Santa brings you all gorgeous weather and safe journeys! Happy holidays!

(Off topic)

I'm sorry, I try to keep this blog focused on my flight training, but right now I'm feeling rather irate. If you don't care, that's fine and I'm sorry for wasting your time. If you do care, here's what's going on.

Solo 11: First solo x-c

[Update: added pictures. Chuck -- I couldn't figure out how to make my camera include a timestamp actually on the image, but it's in the picture file's metadata, so I can Photoshop them in, but that kinda defeats the purpose of the timestamp!]

Goals:

• First solo cross-country flight, to airports at least 50 nm from home base.

Flight:
It was looking to be a spectacular day for my first x-c! This is on the way to the airport, waiting at a traffic light:


This flight started with Chuck and me sitting down in Charly's for 40 or so minutes so that I could brief him on my plans and we could chat about stuff. He asked for the sectional, which had my course drawn and highlighted with checkpoints circled. He asked for my nav logs, which had all headings, miles, times, fuel usage and wind calculations. He asked for the applicable airport diagrams. Everything was in order. I showed him my note cards with the different frequencies along the route that I might need for talking to FSS or with flight following, as well as the VORs with Morse code IDs that I could use throughout the course.

We talked briefly about my trip Monday to PHF. The main thing was that I have no limit for headwind because I don't need one; my judgment is good enough to make that call. The crosswind, however, is still a matter of inexperience for me and so I do have a limit on that. We talked about what would happen if I tuned in the AWOS at one of my x-c airports and found that the winds were beyond my endorsements; since we were talking about viable alternatives, I would be allowed to find another nearby airport with suitable conditions and land there, even though my endorsement only said LVL and OFP. Speaking of which, I almost walked out of the terminal to head to 388 without getting my logbook endorsed for the trip, but luckily remembered at the last second!

I was grinning, and I was jittery. The jitters were because my 5'6" girl body couldn't contain all the enthusiasm! Not that the coffee was helping matters... But I got down to 388, preflighted, pulled the chocks, and hopped in. Just before takeoff I fired up the handheld GPS to start the track, and away I went!

On my way south across the river to my first DR checkpoint (very close, only 5 or so minutes away), I called Leesburg FSS over the PHF frequency of 122.2. I chose that one so that I wouldn't have to transmit over one freq and listen over a different one; Harcum and Hopewell VORs are nearby and are remotes for Leesburg, but why bother if a unified freq is available? Flight plan open, check. Then I hit my checkpoint and changed course and set the timer for the second checkpoint: the town of Waverly, west of Wakefield. Then I called Norfolk approach for flight-following, got a squawk, and was immediately asked to switch over to Potomac approach. I figure since he new I was headed SW away from Norfolk, it would just be easier to get me out of his collection of responsibilities (not that he has much of that for a VFR flight-following engagement!).

My predicted time to Waverly was for 10.5 minutes. At about 12 minutes I was abeam the town, with it out my window. It seemed like I was looking more down than out at it, so I called that a hit for the first DR leg. The GPS track shows that it wasn't as near as I felt it was. So I snapped a picture of it and set up for my next leg, which was calculated to be 12 minutes. Since the first leg took a little longer, I was prepared to allow the second leg to be a few minutes longer as well.

So I flew along, keeping my heading, keeping the heading indicator in sync with the magnetic compass. I scanned a lot, took in the scenery, evaluated different forced-landing sites. Thirteen minutes went by, and I hadn't seen the next checkpoint: the town of Jarratt, with its factory and water tower nestled next to I-95 and railroad tracks. I-95 would be the big tip-off, and there had been no major roads yet.

Then fifteen minutes went by. I saw a dot of a town ahead, but began thinking that the plan wasn't working out as expected and started formulating alternatives. The obvious alternative would be to switch on the GPS. Another alternative would be to dial in the LVL VOR and either fly the radial that went through the airport, to the VOR and back if necessary depending on where I was at the moment, or use that VOR and another one to pinpoint my location, then refine the plan from there. The alternative I chose was to switch over to pilotage, but after scanning for identifying landmarks and finding nothing that really stood out, then checking the sectional for something that would stand out and finding nothing except an occasional tower across this portion of the route, I knew that wasn't going to work just that moment. During this time, however, that dot of a town was getting nearer, so I decided I'd circle it and see if it would disclose its identity to me, or give me a clue to find it on the sectional.

Ah, there was and interstate: I-95 is the only one in that region. There's a water tower. Could that be Lawrenceville, my destination?!?! What happened to checkpoint #3? Believing this to be Lawrenceville, I fired up the GPS to confirm; yep. At 21 minutes past checkpoint #2. Now a choice: how to find the airport. The sectional gave me clues to get me in the right direction. East of I-95, southeast of town, with runways 18/36 (and an intersecting turf strip) I'd know the orientation. So I did a big loop around the western edge of the city and flew up the southern side, keeping an eye out. After a minute or two, I really felt like I should have been able to see it, so I cued up the GPS to take me to KLVL, and there it was, just a few miles ahead. Just needed to be patient and I would have flown right over it. At this point I called Potomac approach to cancel flight-following.

Ok, whew. No one was answering UNICOM, and no one was self-announcing on CTAF, so I overflew the field to check out the windsock: 18 would be favored. After flying away from the airport for a little bit, I swooped back around to the right to enter a 45 for left downwind, then had a normal pattern and pseudo-short/soft-field landing (it's 3000', but what the hey); it was a steep 40-degrees-of-flaps final where I tried to be slow, but then kept the nose up to prevent the shimmy as much as possible. I pulled off the runway, cleaned up the plane, snapped my picture, got my materials organized for the next leg and rolled back out toward the runway to depart. I was expecting to back-taxi for 18, but in the 3 minutes that I was on the ground the wind had shifted and was favoring 36. That was more convenient, since I was at the approach end of 36, so I didn't complain!


Normal departure. The plan was to fly northward until I picked up the 042 radial from LVL VOR. I did depart to the north, and expected to have time to talk to FSS and get flight following. I think the FSS operator was the same guy I had talked to earlier, and he closed my JGG-->LVL flight plan for me and wished me a good flight. I thanked him and asked him to open the next flight plan for me, and I was set to go. Potomac approach gave me a new squawk and had me on radar.

Then my attention shifted to getting on the radial. A NOTAM had advertised that the 042 radial was unusable along this Victor airway up to the DALTO intersection, just past which I'd be turning up to the Flat Rock VOR -- I was prepared for this possibility, or as Agent Smith would say, this inevitability, and had a back-up plan for using the RIC VOR on the other end of the airway. The VOR indicator was very confusing. I did not expect to be on the 042 radial yet, so I was still going generally north. During this time, the needle was swinging from left to right, which didn't make sense to me. It was possible that I was too close to the VOR, so I decided that I'd turn to 042 and fly that for a few minutes until I could expect to be away from the overly-sensitive region of the VOR, then it would probably stabilize and I could do something with it.

But it still didn't make any sense. It was on the left, so I drove toward the left. It wasn't changing, wasn't changing, wasn't changing, then all of a sudden swung all the way to the right, then bounced back to slightly left of center. Eh? So I turned a little each way to see what it would do, and it just didn't behave as I expected. Next, I tried a dramatic turn to the right, and it would twitch some to the left and some to the right. Ok, time to give up on that one. I dialed in the RIC VOR, verified the code, and turned back to the NW to pick up its outbound 223, the other end of the Victor airway. As you can see from the track, that went fine!

Approaching Richmond, flight following was proving its worth. It was a busy day (busy by my one-plane-every-fifteen-minutes-is-normal standards), and the good people at Potomac approach alerted me to a bunch of other traffic as I made my way to OFP. Before my big left turn south of Richmond, they announced another Cessna "orbiting" at my altitude 4 nm off my 11 o'clock. I found it and called that I had the traffic. A minute or so later I was tuning in the Flat Rock VOR in preparation for turning up towards it, and when I looked back up I had lost the Cessna. I scanned for a moment, glanced at the VOR indicator and saw that I was on the radial. I told Potomac approach that momentarily I'd be turning up that way and had lost the traffic; they came back to say the traffic was behind me, no factor. Ok, yay!

Up to FAK VOR I went, taking in the sites, watching a shiny Beechcraft descend into Richmond, looking out for the regional jets and commuter planes coming and going. Another aircraft was being handled by Potomac approach by the ID of "388V", so it was back to full tail number for me. This leg was pretty easy. As maintaining the needle on the VOR indicator in a perpendicular orientation became more difficult, I knew I was getting near the VOR. I set the OBS for 065, the radial that would take me to Hanover, then started a shallow bank to the right. I expected to roll out in the vicinity of the radial on a heading of 065, then scooch around as necessary to align just right while moving away from the sensitive spot. And that's pretty much what happened.

Once I got situated, I scanned and checked the local landmarks. A nice big obvious granite quarry just north of a river was right outside my window. That was clearly marked on the sectional, confirming where I believed I was. Off to the right (east and southeast) I could see the tall buildings of downtown Richmond.

This leg of the trip would be relatively short, and it was only a few minutes after that turn that a lady controller with Potomac approach called to say that Hanover was 10 nm directly in front of me and that I could start my descent anytime. That seemed a little weird to me, so I wondered whether it was really a gentle nudge to cancel flight following. I thanked her and cancelled.

Hanover stood out pretty well: a nice big runway in a nice big clearing next to I-95, lots of planes and hangars and buildings on the airport grounds on the southwest side. A lady with a great voice answered my request for an airport advisory, then asked whether I'd need fuel or anything. I know I was smiling when I told her I was a student on my first solo x-c so I'd land, take a picture of the terminal and then depart, and you could hear her smile when she wished me a great flight and said to let her know if there was anything she could do.

I wasn't super happy with my descent; I was still about 400' above pattern altitude when I wanted to get on the 45 for left downwind for 34. Since the only other plane around was a fella preparing to depart straight-out, I called that I'd do a left 360 to drop altitude and enter the 45. I rolled out right on the 45 at my target altitude, and was pleased as punch that it worked out correctly. :) The pattern and landing were normal.

After negotiating a nosewheel shimmy while slowing, I pulled off the runway and cleaned up then called the lady to ask whether the terminal or another building had the airport name on it that I could use for my picture. She guided me to the terminal with the blue awning, and had sent a lineman out to help me park. Not wanting to park, and not wanting to confuse the lineman who was giving me the signals, I called her back (hoping he could hear as well) and asked if it would be okay for me to just turn around in the big open spot in front, snap the pic from inside, and carry on. It was, and so it was done! Two down!

Before reclaiming the runway, I popped out a power bar and drank some water. The excited energy was keeping me going, but it had been about 6 hours since the morning bagel, so it was time for more nourishment. I got my papers in order for the next leg, which wasn't much since this was going to be primarily a pilotage leg after using the HCM VOR to ensure I'd be north of the RIC airspace; unfortunately, I didn't feel there was enough on the sectional that I'd be able to rely on for that without going a fair distance out of the way. In any case, the plan was to depart straight-out, turn east, pick up the radial and head home.

The departure was normal. As I ascended, I called FSS again and I swear it was the same fella again! I closed the LVL->OFP plan and opened OFP->JGG. I lowered the nose to clear for traffic, and was surprised to see the Eiffel Tower ahead. It's an attraction at Paramount's King's Dominion amusement park, one of the landmarks we used on our trip to Luray a few weekends back. I checked the sectional to see just how far north of Hanover I had gone, and was actually a little surprised; I figured maybe 5 or 6 miles, but it was more like 10. I had intended to turn off to the east earlier. No biggie, I turned and continued my climb, then picked up flight-following again.

When nav2 had the Harcum VOR frequency set, I turned up the volume and heard lots of static and a weak woman's voice giving what sounded like an ATIS report. Odd... Being too far from HCM and perhaps close to some other signal that uses the same frequency was the best I could come up with to explain it. I'll have to check the sectional to see if that's realistic. Since I was in doubt about when I could turn to a southerly heading, I continued to fly east clear of RIC. It wasn't long before I could see water features on the horizon; no doubt the river above the York (Rappahanock, maybe?). I tried HCM again and this time could hear the Morse code through the clutter. Since this leg was pilotage and I was confident I had succeeded in avoiding RIC, the question of whether the HCM signal would be reliable given the other mess on the frequency didn't receive much consideration. I dialed in the 137 that I had intended to fly, and the indicator pegged right, as I expected. I maneuvered to get on it, and it made sense. Now that I was on it, time to ignore it and go back to pilotage!

The landmarks were fun. The York River is fed by a decent sized creek for a while, and some power lines cross it; check. At that landmark, I turned off south and saw the big West Point factory off to the left; check. Before long, there was a collection of water spots that may or may not have been connected, but that are labeled as "5 Lakes" on the sectional and are distinguishable from the rivers and creeks of the area; check. Staying on that heading took me down to the Chickahominy, and the only pocket of turbulence I encountered on the whole trip. Home, sweet home!


Chickahominy feeding into the James.


AWOS indicated 13 for landing. When I was about 6 miles SW of the field approaching Jamestown Island, a plane called for the third or fourth time for an airport advisory, and since UNICOM hadn't answered, I figured he might learn something from my intentions, so I announced my position and that I was inbound for right traffic for 13. He rogered that and said he was crossing the James and would enter right downwind for 13. I found him and would be safely behind him when I entered the 45.

Normal pattern, normal landing -- although a bit bobbly on short final -- and I was home with a successful first solo x-c under my belt, and a long one at that!

Discussion:

1. Being alone: Being alone for that long wasn't scary. I had 8ish hours of solo time before this trip to get used to having all the responsibility, plus having flight following is at least a little reassurance that someone knows where you are (or were) if something was to go wrong. I have to admit that with the persisting nosewheel shimmy and the precautionary statements that the purpose of nosegear is to keep the prop off the ground, that's the thing that mechanically gave me the most unrest: the idea of landing at a remote airport and having the nosegear break followed by a prop strike followed by me in hysterics trying to figure out how to get home and what to do about poor 388 was borderline intolerable. But like all risks, it came down to considering the likelikhood of a problem and using what actions I could to mitigate the risk.
   
   It was pretty cool to have all that time to myself, in fact. I prefer flying with Husband because it is safe and I'd always rather be with him than without. But I did feel like I was taking myself for a sight-seeing tour of the middle state, and that was neat. I was relaxed and enjoyed it.


2. Talking: Some switch must have flipped on Monday when I went to PHF and talked to ATC all by myself for the first time. Talking to FSS and the different approach controllers on this trip caused me no stress, no problems. It was easy and natural. The right things to say (at least, it all seemed right!) were always there, because it all goes with the situation.
   
   You know how "they" say that one of the main psychological benefits of sleeping and dreaming is to give your brain time to digest the day's events without the distraction of further observations or inputs? I kinda feel like that must be what happened for this topic with me. I was overthinking it, and so after my brain had time to process without me getting in the way it all fell into place. Not that it doesn't have room for improvement -- it obviously does! -- but it's good enough to be safe and effective, and experience will provide the rest.


3. Navigation: I learned a lot on this trip, and I've got more to work on, primarily when it comes to dead reckoning. When we get back from the holiday vacation, I'll probably make a little trip between all the local airports I'm allowed to fly to using just DR, and see if I can't nail it. If it still comes out poorly, I'll have to get more training on that because my prep skills will be suspicious.

Self-Assessment: I'm feeling good about my progress. This feels like a good milestone!

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal/short-field/soft-field takeoff: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
• Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
• Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
• Radio work: Ok, will improve with practice.
• Crosswind landing: Improved.
• Short-field/soft-field landing: Improved.

Navigating
• ADF: Okay for an intro, needs practice.
• VOR: Needs practice.
• Dead Reckoning: Needs mega practice.

Next: Tomorrow afternoon or Sunday we expect to fly down to SC for Christmas. We'll get at least 6 hours of flight time in; "we" meaning I get aeronautical experience and Husband gets to log PIC hours. :) The last part of my training that's left is night flying.

• Night flight.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 2.
Hours logged total: 34.8
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 89 (this number seems wrong... must check logbook)
PIC hours total:: 11.7

Ooops!

Sorry about that... I accidentally hit "publish" midway through my writeup about the x-c. I've taken it down so I can finish it. Please bear with me!

[Insert cheesy grin here :)]

[Update: Added the GPS track picture.... I could see checkpoint 2 from the air, just outside my window it seemed, but the track doesn't lie -- I was already off course at that point. Something to work on...)

Paul, sorry, no picture of the cheesy post-flight grin, although I think I'm still wearing it... I did a cheesy self-portrait in the air, though, and pending editorial approval by moi, it might come up here. :)

I'm home, I'm safe, the flight went very well. I'm at work now and we have our office Christmas party tonight, and tomorrow we may be enroute to SC to beat the incoming storms, so it may be a few days before I get the usual description and analysis up.



The brief synopsis:
- Leg #1: First two DR checkpoints, dead on. Third one, never saw it, don't think I was anywhere close. Fourth one, doesn't count -- it was the town of Lawrenceville, home of the destination airport -- because it was by chance that I was flying over it after having missed the third checkpoint so dramatically. Thank you GPS for confirming and helping me get back to the field without too much further daliance.

- Leg #2: The NOTAM was right: the LVL VOR is unusable on radial 042 up to DALTO. The GPS track is going to look somewhat obscene, showing how I ran around trying to figure out if I was wrong or the signal was wrong, before I trashed that plan and switched to the RIC VOR. RIC to FAK to OFP went off without a hitch; Potomac approach kept me alerted to the Richmond traffic. Super nice lady manning UNICOM.

- Leg #3: Pilotage back to JGG went fine fine just fine. Such a pretty place we live in, even in winter. The only turbulence I encountered on the whole trip was crossing the peninsula from West Point down the Chickahominy to the James; otherwise it was smooth flying.

I opened and closed my flight plans with Leesburg FSS like a good girl, and had flight following on all three legs. I took pictures of the FBOs at LVL and OFP for the proof that I was there, as well as pictures of checkpoints and other things I found interesting along the route.

It was a really good trip! 2.9 hours on the Hobbs, distances meet the long x-c requirement, and the time went by pretty quickly.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The moment of truth, the time has arrived.

And I've got the biggest grin ever!

I'm ready, it's looking to be a gorgeous day, 6 successful hours of sleep...

Flight plans for the three legs are filed. Calculations are all done.

Cross your fingers for me! :)

X-c eve

I got the butterflies around 4 this afternoon. Don't know why. When I think about the trip, I'm good, I feel prepared. When I'm not thinking about it, I get anxious. WTF?

Weather for tomorrow is looking really nice. 55 degrees, 6-8 kt winds on the ground, no turbulence predicted...

If the winds aloft hold as predicted, the first leg looks like it will be shortened a little, thanks to a tailwind. The second leg will be drawn out. The third leg will be very, very fast.

The only thing that looks a bit questionable is that there's a NOTAM saying the V-042 airway from the LVL VOR to the DALTO intersection is unusable. I was planning to depart LVL along that route, then a few miles past DALTO turn up toward the Flat Rock VOR. I'll probably try it and see how it does, but that airway has an opposite end at the RIC VOR, so that may do as a replacement.

Solo 10: Towered airport

Goals:

• Land at a towered airport (PHF) solo.

Flight:
To help assuage some of my gooberness about planning, I decided during lunch at 11:30 that I'd go for a quick flight, just to land at PHF for the first time by myself and come back. PHF is 12 nm away, so it ought to be quite doable without much planning since this is my local area and also without missing too much work. (Husband (a.k.a., my Boss) is out of the office today for a business meeting, so shhh... don't tell him I was playing hookie!) I had gone home for lunch, so as I left I grabbed the sectional (which was out this morning for my continued planning of the Wednesday x-c) and threw my flight bag in the back seat.

I popped back into the office to check for TFRs and do a check of the weather on the way to the airport. The PHF TAF put the winds at 9 kts for the next 2 hours, mostly down the runway at both JGG and PHFj, and the JGG METAR was showing 5 kts at the moment. Well, not much for crosswind practice, but within my endorsed limits. No TFRs, no relevant NOTAMs. Cool. Aside from returning to the office after making it halfway to the airport because of the realization that I didn't have the PHF plate or airport diagram, everything went as normal through engine crank.

At engine crank, I realized that I hadn't removed the chocks. Crud. Inconvenient for being alone. Mixture to idle-cutoff, hop out, remove chocks, hop in, go through the whole pre-crank checklist again just to be sure... Ok, good to go.

So I dialed in the AWOS. 290@12. Hmmm. My logbook endorsement says up to 10 kt crosswind component, but doesn't say max wind; the older endorsement was a limit of 10 kt winds with 5 kt x/w. 12 kts at 290 means way more headwind than crosswind for departure from 31, so I figured it would be ok but was still hesitant. While I was trying to make up my mind, the AWOS loop started again, and a new report came out just then that said 290@10. Well that was no problem no matter how you looked at it.

Taxi, short-field takeoff, departure to the west to avoid the school, then north to skirt the FAF Class D and fly down the peninsula to PHF. A plane inbound for JGG asked me for location info as I was reaching my cruise altitude of 2500', and I responded with that and a location 5 nm north of the field moving east. Once I found I-64, I followed it southeast toward PHF. Staying on the northern side of I-64 would keep me clear of FAF the whole way down.

At 8 miles out, I dialed in the ATIS and got information Papa; winds at 8 kts with runways 25 and 20 in use. At 7 miles out, I called the Newport News Tower and I think made a good contact, saying that I was at 2500' 7 miles northwest of the field inbound for landing with information Papa. The lady controller told me to set up for a straight-in approach for 20 and report a 2-mile final.

Hmmmmm... I haven't done a straight-in approach before, and given my crappy skills at judging distances, I was a little unsure about doing my procedures for airspeed reduction and flaps and whatnot. Plus, if the descent here was as bumpy as the ascent from JGG, I could expect to be busy with wing-levelling tasks, too. Since 20 is 6500' long, I resolved to feel it out and err on the high side.

Using the GPS to tell me when I was at 2 miles out, I called to report that, then put out 10 degrees of flaps and began descending from 1000'. I didn't hear anything for a little while, and when I got down to 500' and hadn't been cleared to land yet, I prepared to call and remind her that I was getting there. Before I could do that, however, she called and cleared someone else to land on 25 and told me I was #2 for landing on 25.

Whoa. Wait. What?!?!!?!

I immediately called and said that I was on short final for 20 and please advise. She said to do a right 360 for spacing. Aw, crap. 85 mph, 10 degrees of flaps, 400'. I got really nervous. Here goes.... Power in, carb heat in, slight right bank to avoid the runway (was that necessary?), level, speed up, leave flaps alone, climb and turn. And there was the turbulence. Dammit. As I got to ~270 degrees of the turn and had searched unsuccessfully for this other traffic, I called again and asked the tower to confirm that I was supposed to land 20. She confirmed 20 and said I was cleared to land. I guess that either she misspoke earlier or I misheard, but if that was the case it surely wasn't for lack of listening!

I repeated the clearance and struggled to get back toward centerline after having overshot it dramatically coming out of the 360. I was recentered with plenty of short-final to spare, and put out another notch of flaps to get down. Just as I was about to touch down, a gust grabbed me and pushed my right wing up. I tried to level with the ailerons and preserve a straight-ahead track with rudder, and mere split seconds later touched down. The nosewheel was pointed off to the right, so to the right 388 went. I straightened it out quickly and came to a stop as soon as possible.

Ugh. I guess she was letting someone land on 25 and giving them time to be safely down without threatening my runway before clearing me to land.

Now I didn't know what to do. I hadn't looked up the answer to my question from Friday's lesson: Can I turn off the runway at a towered airport on any taxiway I like? Well, I figured that doing nothing until instructed was better than possibly breaking the rules, so I called the tower, told her I was a student and requested instructions.

The lady controller, who had been nice and patient with me so far, continued being nice and patient but started talking reaaaallllllyyyy ssslloooooowwwwllly. I will try my best never to have to tell them I'm a student again (I will if I need to, but this was torture!). I had stopped just short of taxiway Delta, and she said, nice and slow and clear, "Take the taxiway to your right." Oh I just sank a little. She didn't even call it by its name, she just gave me the most fundamental -- and nearly impossible to screw up -- directions. I replied that I'd take taxiway Delta, then cleared the runway.

As I was rolling off the runway, she called again.

NNT: "November 388, where would you like to go?"
388: "388 would like to taxi for departure to the west back to Williamsburg."
NNT: "November 388, take taxiway Alpha for Runway 20."
388: "Taxiway Alpha for 20 for 388."

Then I sat there for a moment to clean up the plane, as I typically do right after clearing the runway. After maybe 15 seconds, she called again.

NNT: "November 388, taxiway Alpha is to your right."

Oh come on! I could see the signs, I had my taxiway diagram, I knew what to do, I just needed a sec to finish up my checklist! There were no other planes landing or in the pattern, and it wouldn't have made any sense for any departing planes to come through my little taxi spot, so I don't think she was hurrying me... Oh to be branded a student! :)

388: "Roger, 388 will take taxiway Alpha to 20."

By then I was done with the cleanup, so I throttled up and headed up to 20. I positioned myself in place behind the hold-short line for 20 and did the departure checklist before calling the tower.

388: "NNT, 388 is holding short of 20 and is ready for departure."
NNT: "November 388, hold short for traffic."
388: "388 is holding short."

During this time, a Gulfstream landed on 25 and taxied across to Rick Aviation. He was on Delta when he called the tower. (I don't remember his tail number so I'll call him GS.)

GS: "NNT, GS, understand cleared to cross 20."
NNT: "GS, affirmative."

Then a few seconds later...

GS: "NNT, GS, be advised that your wind advisories may be wrong if you're using the midfield windsock. A red hawk has been sitting on the sock since we came in."
NNT: "Oooh, pretty."

Argh.

NNT: "November 388, cleared for departure, runway 20."
388: "388 is cleared for departure, runway 20."

And away I went. Actually kinda glad to be leaving that whole experience behind. As I got out over the river, I called the tower and advised that I was leaving her airspace. She approved a frequency change, I repeated and g'day'ed her.

On the sectional I located the FAF CTAF and decided I'd do the same as Chuck and I had done last Friday by advising that we'd transition the area above their airspace. I plugged it into the standby position, swapped the frequencies and announced:

388: "Felker Tower, Skyhawk 35388 is departing Newport News airspace en route to Williamsburg and will overfly your airspace at 2700' over the dead fleet, Felker."
NNT: "November 35388, NNT, check frequencies, frequency change approved."

Urgh. I imagine she released her mike and muttered to a coworker, "Stupid student."

388: "Thanks, and my apologies."

I looked at the radio and sure enough, I had NNT's frequency of 118.7 in BOTH positions on the com. How'd that happen? I checked the sectional again, and that was the problem -- I had misread it. PHF's info is directly under the FAF airspace, and the FAF info is below and farther to the left.

With the correct frequency dialed in, I repeated the advisory to Fort Eustis (Felker).

FAF: "Aircraft calling Felker, repeat callsign."
388: "35388."
FAF: "35388, repeat altitude."
388: "Two thousand, seven hundred."
FAF: "35388, you are above my airspace. If you need traffic advisories contact Norfolk approach."
388: "Roger, thanks."

This guy sounded peeved that I had bothered him. There was nothing else going on on the frequency, but whatever. Maybe he was doing something else, and yeah, it wasn't necessary for me to call him. Whatever.

Up near the bend in the river, I started to descend, and looked around to see where I'd go if the engine had trouble. Very few choices: Power station to the left with lines crossing most of the fields; Army land to the right that I'd use if it really was an emergency but really would rather not; river and woods ahead. From 2700', perhaps I would have made the Colonial Parkway area, but the wind was out of the west and that wasn't good. A fun time at Fort Eustis it would have to be... should it be needed.

Luckily the engine didn't fail. I dialed in the JGG AWOS and it said winds 270@8 with max gusts of 15. Oh crap. That's not what I want to hear. Me no likey gusts. A little anxious, I continued to descend over the water to about 1200', and listened to the AWOS again. It had changed, and now was saying 270@8, no gusts. Well, ok, but I was still apprehensive as I turned onto the 45 for left downwind for 31. The pattern was mostly normal, with the exception of crabbing on downwind to avoid being pushed into the airport. I anticipated a shorter base, and so chose to extend my final a little to be sure I'd have time to set flaps and slow down. That part of the planning worked out well. I was a little hot coming over the threshold, and so floated a bit and then bounced once, but the wrestling I was doing with that wind had the majority of my attention.

I can't help but be reminded of my first solo. I don't think I've flown in gusty conditions since then. And I still don't like it.

Discussion:

1. Talkie talkie: I feel really good about talking to the tower. Yes, it was painful once she started treating me like a student, but the parts leading up to that were good. When in doubt, I asked for confirmation. When the unexpected was happening, I piped up and requested advice. Other than the frequency change fiasco upon departing PHF, it really went well.
   
   In retrospect I am actually laughing at how she was talking to me. Whenever possible and safe I will avoid disclosing my status in the future!


2. Straight-in approach: Needs practice, obviously. I'll have to figure out or learn from someone how a "normal" straight-in approach is executed.


3. The value of planning: I didn't plan, deliberately, beyond having the basics. Check TFRs, wx, NOTAMs. Take a sectional. On the way over, though, in thinking about the flight, I knew I'd want the PHF plate and taxiway diagram. Ok, turn around and get them. If I had spent 5 minutes planning that flight, I would also have made my customary note card with the frequencies I'd be using, and would probably have avoided the PHF/FAF mix-up, although fundamentally that was nothing more than a mistake; still, one that could have been avoided. It was fine, I had everything I needed, but my normal anal preflight planning would have made it more organized. Shame on me.


4. Judgment: Do you think I made the right call based on the winds AWOS reported before I left the parking spot?
   
   (1) I'll have to ask Chuck so I'm entirely clear on just what the logbook endorsement means, but I believe that going up did conform to the endorsement; the AWOS report at departure time was 290@10, well under the 10 kt x/w limit.
   
   (2) Moments before the AWOS report was different, and it was questionable whether it exceeded my legal allowable limits. Despite the fact that the current report was within limits, should I have considered that another change, potentially for the worse, could happen before I got back to land at JGG?
   
   (3) What if that inbound-for-JGG report of 15-kt gusts had continued until I was ready to land? Should I have diverted to West Point or back to PHF? Would I expect it to be any better at those locations? I bet I could pick up their AWOS/ATIS from the air around JGG, but what if I couldn't? I know there's such a thing as Flight Watch, but how would I talk to them and would this be a reasonable thing to call about? Even though the AWOS report did improve by the time I was near the pattern, it had obviously continued changing since I departed and would it continue to change over the next few minutes during my approach?

Self-Assessment: Talking with ATC was decent; not verbose, good inclusion of information, good reactions. I feel good about that. Most everything else on the day, though, I don't feel good about.

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal/short-field/soft-field takeoff: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
• Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
• Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
• Radio work: Ok, needs practice.
• Crosswind landing: Improved.
• Short-field/soft-field landing: Improved.

Navigating
• ADF: Okay for an intro, needs practice.
• VOR: Needs practice.

Next: Wednesday, 10 am, solo x-c.

• Talk with FSS and use flight-following.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 1.0
Hours logged total: 31.9
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 2
Take-offs and landings total: 86 (this number seems wrong... must check logbook)
PIC hours total:: 8.8

Just call me crUZA

Oh that was bad. That's my mother's sense of humor coming out.

Husband has decreed that I'll be the "acting" PIC (without of course being PIC since I'm just a lowly student) on the trip to SC, destination airport KUZA. I get the left seat, and he's going to be the "pilot not flying" and will do as much or as little as I ask him to do.

I am going to plan this trip. I had said previously that I wasn't going to, but I am. I just got to thinking that it would be a massive opportunity to miss if I don't. KUZA is just on the other side of Charlotte, outside of Bravo airspace but under one of the layers of its inverted wedding cake. It requires us to skirt parts of the airspace a little and make sure we are low enough at various points to be clear. I know Husband talked to CLT last time we went, but I don't know whether it was actually required, since we weren't coming into it; maybe it was just because flight-following handed us off. Other than that, it's 2+ hours of straight and level.

Reading about talking

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- I can't imagine doing primary training without living with a pilot!

One of the books in the reading room, I noticed the other night, is Say again, please. I set it on my bathroom counter so I'd see it in the morning, after work, in the evening... and wouldn't forget to start reading it. The book is about using the radio. It's about why we talk to each other and to controllers. It's about the information that's needed and relevant for different exchanges. It has examples for everything.

I read the first four chapters last night. So far it's easy to get through, but it is dense. There's no way I'll retain it all right now, but at least it's something practical I can add to the studying going on right now. Well, I haven't picked up my groundschool textbook in probably two weeks; it's getting to be like the kid who has to sit at the table until he finishes his green beans, sulking, checking out the curtains, memorizing the pattern on the ceiling plaster... Okay, it's not that bad yet, but I look at the book sitting there and even scrubbing the floors seems more appealing. It's just that it is sooo dry and a lot of it is "pass the knowledge exam" kind of reading, not stuff that's practical to my flights right now. Like Class A airspace boundaries and requirements. Or turbochargers.

I almost always have several books going at once, but I've been trying to discipline myself to get through the groundschool, not allowing any leisure reading until the textbook is done. This way, I'm still learning stuff that's relevant to my training, and it's very refreshing to have a book in the rotation now that's instructional but not painful to pick up. We'll see how that changes after a few more chapters. I'm into the chapters that are broken down by airspace, starting with G and moving backwards in the alphabet. When it gets to Alpha, and maybe even Bravo, we'll see how rapt it keeps me... :)

Anyway, several of you out there in interwebland have noted that I'm anal to the point of getting too keyed up. Yes, that's who I am about this training stuff. (That's not who I am with most other things, oddly.) Husband is being gracious enough to practice exchanges with me. Chuck and I hung around on the ground for a little while after the flight where I got the endorsement for landing solo at PHF to practice some different scenarios that might come up in talking with them, and also the importance of receiving and repeating clearances before enacting them. All of this prep makes me less anxious about going out and doing it. I don't care if I say something stupid, I'm used to looking like an idiot, but I don't want to say something or say it at the wrong time such that it causes problems for the controllers or other pilots.

And Husband's bookshelf is full of stuff that I'm sure is worth reading. There are a few Rod Machado books, Stick and Rudder, his instrument training books (not that I'll be cracking those babies open in the near future), leisure reading like The Cannibal Queen and Bandits over Baghdad, ... There are enough options there to enliven the reading rotation without feeling guilty, although I am going to have to crack down soon, finish up the studying and get the knowledge test out of the way.

Plus, I'm crossing my fingers for a few fiction books for Christmas, so the attention may further be divided...

No solo x-c today

I had planned to do my first solo x-c today.

I spent several hours last night planning it out. It seemed like a good length (~156 nm) with good waypoints and interesting navigation paths (like using VOR fixes to route between Class C airspace and an MOA). Stuff I'd learn from but not be overwhelmed by.

At about 8:30, a wave of exhaustion just swept over me, and I could hardly keep my eyes open to finish the nav log. I wrapped it up, emailed the plan to Chuck, and went to bed.

But I couldn't sleep. At first it was just the usual thing where my brain wasn't done planning and still wanted to think through things. The plan was to meet at 9:00 at the JGG terminal to review, then I'd go at 10. That meant I'd need to get up ~7:30 to have a leisurely morning. But we were out of breakfast foods, so I'd have to go by Starbucks or something like that. And I wanted some snacks to take with me, because I'd rather fly the route and not have to find lunch along the way, so I'd need to go to the grocery store or a convenience store on the way. And then there was the matter of not having scrutinized the sectional for alternate airports in the case of a problem, so I'd need to get up extra early to find and print the appropriate diagrams.

It was turning into one thing after another, and before long I was getting worked up in a bad way. My heartbeat was too fast, my gut had that clenched-yet-hollow feeling. I kept telling myself it was stupid, that there'd be time for everything, that if something did go wrong I'd have to GPSs, etc. But it was no use, and I just didn't get much sleep.

At 6:30 I finally gave up and got up. I emailed Chuck to let him know that I was in no shape to fly and was postponing the x-c. It sucks, because it's gorgeous around here today -- mid-60s, cloudless, light winds...

Around that time I had come to the conclusion that the route was too aggressive for my first x-c. I still haven't totally ruled that out, but I think the real fundamental problem is that I don't feel prepared for that route for all the reasons mentioned above. I'll try to take a look at it again this afternoon and maybe it'll feel better.

Then again, I'm soooo sleepy!

Two new airports

Goals:

• More practice at a towered airport.
• Get signed off for solo landings at AKQ and PHF.

Flight:
Today I rode in the back during Husband's BFR -- he did a good job, and it was neat, but I'll leave the details to his post. One point of advice: look ahead, not out the side window, when someone is doing Dutch rolls.

After that, Chuck and I went up to make sure I could find and land at AKQ and PHF (towered) so's to add two more airports to my 25-nm limitation. We departed 31 and left out to 247, as was indicated by my DR calculations. I climbed to 2500', where the winds were supposed to be 250@26 (according to RTFP at 7:45 this morning for a 10 am departure, and it was now 10:30). I was expecting a measly groundspeed of 78 kts going down to AKQ, and the GPS was showing 90+. I used power and trim to get to an IAS of 117 mph, which is what the numbers in the nav log were based on.

Then Chuck had me use the E6B to do some figuring. Outside temp at 2500' was 10C, so I plugged that in. Next, to determine true airspeed (TAS), you find calibrated airspeed (CAS), for which we substituted IAS, on the wheel and read off the corresponding TAS. I left my notes on this in the car, so I'm not sure exactly what that came out to -- something like 119 kts. So, 119 kts with a nearly direct headwind of 26 kts means a ground speed of 93 kts. So my time value would be wrong, and if it was more than a 15 minute leg, we would have reworked the numbers.

But the angle was wrong, too. I don't know whether it was (1) the wind wasn't where it had been predicted to be 3 hours earlier or (2) the headings coming out of RTFP in fact are correct and I'm doing something fundamentally wrong in my by-hand calculations; my 247 took us well west of the field, west of Waverly even.

So when I knew for certain (based on landmarks) that we were going to be passing the field off to the side, we did a VOR check. I had determined before leaving that the ORF (to) 105 and FKN (to) 190 VOR radials intersect right over the field. So we turned to a heading of 090, knowing we were south of the 105 radial and headed back east. I then tuned in FKN and waited for the needle to center. We could see the airport just out the right side of the plane, and I switched our lonely single VOR indicator back to ORF to cross check and it was close.

Great. Good enough for government work. Next I was cleared by Chuck to land at AKQ. I had already dialed in the ASOS and it said the winds were variable and the altimeter setting was a full in-hg higher than JGG. As we fley just past the approach end of 20 while messing with the VORs, I could see the wind cone favoring 20 at that time. I flew away from the airport while I descended, then turned to the right to get on a 45 for left downwind for 20.

With a 9-kt wind at my back, I deliberately turned base early, crabbed along, and had a relatively short final that took a relatively long time! It wasn't one of my better landings recently -- the strong direct headwind and slooow progression of things threw me off a little, and so I flared to early and just waited seemingly forever for the plane to settle onto the runway, and that settle happened from a few inches higher than would be termed graceful, so it was more of a plop. No bounce, a little shimmy, but it was ok.

I back-taxied and we departed 20, then turned northeast to head toward Aberdeen and PHF. Along the way we discussed initiating contact with PHF, what to use as a reference when giving our location, etc. I checked ATIS and received information Mike; PHF was landing 20 (6000', the usual GA runway) and 25 (8000', for commercial and military traffic) today. The ghost fleet a few miles up-river is flagged on the sectional for use as a VFR landmark when talking to controllers, and I probably should have used that but I used Aberdeen anyway. Coming in over Aberdeen guaranteed clearance of Fort Eustis' airspace.

I hailed him at ~9 miles south of the field over Aberdeen, inbound for landing. He instructed me to set up for left traffic on 25 -- the runway nearer to us -- and report midfield downwind. He also added the wind and altimeter info; dang it, I forgot to tell him that I had info Mike. We heard him talking to a helicopter that was working 20, instructing him to stay north of (taxiway) delta, the taxiway along 25 on the 20 side. Landing on 25 would be neat; I tried to imagine what that huge of a runway was going to feel like in our dot of a plane but couldn't, despite having landed there in 172s with Husband many times in the past!

Crossing the river, PHF stands out pretty well. It's the huge V-shaped clearing! As we neared the airport, I turned right to get onto downwind, and just before I reached midfield the controller, who must have been bored this day, contacted me first and said I was cleared to land on 25 and hold short of 20 (7500' down the runway!). I repeated the clearance, then pointed out to Chuck that I had been given a LAHSO, in which student pilots aren't allowed to participate. He said it would be ok since he was there, but when I come back by myself to either announce when I make contact that I'm a student so they won't issue it or to decline it if it is issued.

When the controller had called me with the landing clearance, he referred to me as "November eight eight." That caught me off guard, and I didn't respond immediately. I had a good inkling that he was talking to me since the helicopter's ID sounded nothing like mine and there was no one else he'd be clearing right now for 25, let alone on the frequency at all. He called back again, and this time I responded by accepting the clearance for 35388 (just to be sure he meant me).

On base I felt I was doing good and Chuck said, "Well there's a reason to keep a high pattern!" I quickly scanned to see what he was talking about and didn't see anything. Then he pointed out that we were flying over power lines, probably not more than 200' below us, if that much. I turned final and wondered briefly where I'd be expected to turn off the runway, and therefore where I should aim to touch down. I decided that the numbers, as usual, were prudent, and if necessary I could speed right along down the runway.

It was pretty neat to go in there. It's hugemongous! I think the landing went well, but I don't really remember it very well. Had it not been for the nosewheel shimmy, I could have made the early taxiway turnoff. Instead, as I rolled past it, the controller told me to take Golf (the next one) and switch to ground. I repeated that, and Chuck suggested that for that instruction I should abbreviate it to "388, wilco." For a busy airport, it would make a difference for the airway clutter.

That does lead me to wonder whether, had I slowed enough to make that first turn off, could I have taken it or must I only exit the runway when/where instructed to do so?

I cleared the runway, cleaned up the plane and switched to ground. I called them and asked to taxi back for departure, and should have but didn't tell him where I was. I should have said, "Newport News ground, Skyhawk 35388 on Golf, request taxi for departure." Given the slow day, I'm sure he knew where I was, since I wasn't a helicopter in the air at the time, and he told me to take delta back to 25. He also called me Cherokee. Doesn't sound much like Skyhawk, but given the lack of traffic and the fact that any assumptions that might be made about Cherokee v. Skyhawk for that runway or my departure would probably be okay, I just taxied away.

The engine seemed a little rough to me during the taxi, and when Husband had started up this morning it was behaving oddly (carb ice), so I elected to do another run-up. It went fine.

I hailed the tower and told him I was ready to depart. He asked how I wanted to depart. To save a round on the radio, I could have initially said, "Newport News tower, Skyhawk 35388 is ready to depart, would like to depart VFR straight out." He cleared me to depart 25, and I went back simply with "Roger for 388." This earned me a correction from Chuck. Always, always fully repeat clearances to land and clearances to take off. Period. Other stuff can be abbreviated or not repeated, but clearances are a must.

Taking off from PHF was even more interesting than landing. I could see the end of the runway for most of the takeoff! It was great. I felt like a tiny little bug. Just before we reached the river, the controller came on with "Frequency change approved." I had already determined where I would call him to say I was beyond his airspace, but he beat me to the punch on everything today (which was actually nice for me, since I'm still a little tentative about when to say what). I acknowledged and wished him a good day, then started the plan for getting to JGG.

Initially we were going to go back to the southern shore of the James and cut up on the west side of the power station, but thought it would be a good practice to overfly Fort Eustis airspace (which tops out at 2500', I think -- something around that) and talk to them. So I turned up-river and tuned them in. After listening to silence for a few seconds to be sure it was clear, I advised, "Felker tower, Skyhawk 35388 is overflying your airspace at 2600' over the dead fleet." This was not required, since I wasn't in their airspace, but Chuck called it a "good citizen" contact; if it was a busy tower, we'd leave them alone, but they didn't seem to have anything going on, judging by the calm freq and the fact that there were no military helicopters in sight.

Anyway, a nice lady came back with a "Good afternoon, 35388" and then followed with something like "proceed as described," then gave me the local weather info and advised that if I needed any assistance that I could call Norfolk approach. And she sounded like she was smiling, which made me smile, too :)

After that it was a bumpy final (direct left crosswind) with a left-of-center touchdown (the crosswind disappeared below the trees and I didn't anticipate that).

And now I have two more airports that I can go to all by myself, one of them towered!

Discussion:

1. Talking through things: I was very talkative on this flight. Don't know why... But it was mainly me talking about what I was doing. Things like "I see the airport, time to start descending, check the mixture, turn on landing lights, gonna descend a little faster than usual so I'll pull the throttle out more..." and so forth. Chuck kinda laughed at the end of it and said to keep that up and to do it on the checkride for two reasons: (1) The examiner will know what I'm thinking and why I'm doing things without having to ask, and (2) the more I talk, the less the examiner can!


2. Winds not as expected: I was surprised at how far from my expectations the winds were when we got up there. That took me aback and I got a little worried; my planning went out the window (not literally). The groundspeed issue can be worked out, and while it was unsettling to have to think about reworking those numbers and dividing attention between the E6B and the traffic scan for the amount of time it would take to redo it all, it would be doable. Wind direction, however, I don't know that I could assess very well. Well, I suppose that if I used the groundspeed indication on the GPS, I could change my heading until it was the slowest, and that would be a full headwind, right? Other than that, how do you know?

Self-Assessment: .

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal/short-field/soft-field takeoff: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
• Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
• Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
• Radio work: Needs practice.
• Crosswind landing: Improved.
• Short-field/soft-field landing: Improved.

Navigating
• ADF: Okay for an intro, needs practice.
• VOR: Needs practice.

Next: Wednesday at 10 am I've got the plane reserved for the solo x-c.

• Radio.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 1.5
Hours logged total: 31.4
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 87 (this number seems wrong... must check logbook)
PIC hours total:: 7.8

More weight and balance...

We're hoping to fly down south for Christmas to visit family. Christmas presents a twist: big payload of gifts, both going down and coming back! We'll have gifts for at least 12 people, and I've thought ahead and gotten mostly gift cards or light-weight items for folks. That's cool, and there'll be room in the baggage compartment and no worries on weight there -- it'll only add a few pounds at most.

Coming back, however.... I know one gift that Husband's getting will be weighty and possibly even an awkward size for the luggage area (do NOT ask me about it, Husband, I will divulge no other clues!). Same thing for one gift idea I gave Husband that I think he gave to his mother. Plus, the luggage area has a total weight limitation, too, of something like 120 or 150 lbs.

Anyway, two adults up front, 100-lb dog in the backseat, luggage and gifts in the luggage area, fuel. I'll have to play around with it sometime over the next few days to see how much goodies we can keep! ;)

Imposed limits

Today's flight was first restricted and then canceled due to limits imposed on the plane and us.

Weather
The easy one to explain is the cancellation -- the weather ultimately shut us down today, and also canceled the flight part of Husband's scheduled BFR. NOAA had very consistently been predicting 60% chance of rain from 10-2 today. This morning it was foggy. Not just foggy, but faw-awggy. But as with most fogs it cleared out by mid-morning. Husband was meeting Chuck at the airport at 11 to start the BFR, and he called on his way over to have me give one last check of the weather.

JGG's METARs actually showed VFR with clear skies (below 12000) and 10 sm vis. The skies were anything but clear today, but I don't know the difference visually between clouds at 5000' v. 15000' so that could have been correct. Across the river at AKQ, it was LIFR with overcast at 300'. PHF showed similar to JGG, and its TAF indicated clouds that would gradually descend and thicken between 11 and 6, becoming IFR later tonight.

As the morning went on, I was optimistically planning my afternoon lesson which would hopefully end with me being endorsed to land solo at AKQ and PHF (towered). Again I ran into the RTFP error in headings from JGG (grr), but gave another check of the weather at JGG, AKQ and PHF using ForeFlight. The latest JGG METAR, ~11:45 or so maybe, said IFR. From VFR to IFR in less than an hour. PHF was getting worse more quickly than the TAF predicted, too. I accepted at that time that the afternoon flight would most likely not happen, but finished up the nav log planning as though we'd go DR to each point.

So, the weather imposed its will upon the day's plans. Oh well.

Required Equipment
Huh. Losing that silly little ELT antenna yesterday kinda screwed us. FAR 91.207 says you gotta have an operable emergency locator transmitter. But subparagraph f3 says the plane can still be flown for training purposes within 50 nm of home base.

Ahhh.... At first when I read the FAR, I thought, "There go the x-c plans!" But indeed, that was too quick of a conclusion to draw. Yes, the JGG-->LVL-->PHF x-c I've been planning and reworking every day for different wind conditions would be out; LVL is 60-some miles away. But we could still do an x-c; I'd just have to get a little creative with it. So I took out the sectional and my plotter and made a big 50-nm circle around JGG. That includes EMV, ORF, RIC, W75, PTB, ... Quite a few airports, actually. So the next step was to see how I could cobble together a route to get a couple of 50+ nm legs. JGG-->W75-->FCI-->PHF would give me two legs over 50, plus PHF for the tower and W75 (Hummel) would be the shortest field I'd ever flown to. And we'd still be following the regs. Sweet!

(A replacement antenna was supposed to have come into JGG today for us. Hopefully it did and will be installed soon, because I asked and Chuck agreed that my developing nav skills are good enough to do a solo x-c!)

Solo 9: Slow flight, soft-fields

The move to the new blogger appears to have gone well... yay!

Goals:

• Slow flight & maneuvers.
• Power-off stall.
• Soft-field takeoffs.
• Soft-field landings.
• Use of checklists.

Flight:
The x-c for today was canceled since Chuck is sick (get better!). I used the time to get in some solo work, after getting all wound up last night when reading through the PTS. Normal preflight -- complete with verification that the ELT antenna was there and secure. Soft-field takeoff on 13, followed by a climb and turn out to the west to go to the Chickahominy River to do maneuvers. I consulted the checklist for cruise flight, which included turning off the landing lights and setting the mixture and throttle for efficient flight.

As I approached the river and did a final scan before starting my clearing turns, I noticed a bright white Cessna at my 3 o'clock, same altitude, same heading. We could have been flying in formation. I can't guess at how close he was, nor where he came from. I couldn't see people or read the tail number. He was probably at least 3000' away -- I'm trying to picture what he'd look like if we were sitting on opposite ends of the JGG runway, and I think he was smaller (farther) than that. I pushed my talkie button and announced to Williamsburg traffic -- not really knowing how better to try to alert him to my presence -- that I was 6 miles west of the field at 2500' with traffic (white Cessna) in sight. I kept an eye on him, and after 10 seconds or so he started climbing. I was at the point where I wanted to turn up north to go along the river in the direction of West Point, so I turned left (away from the plane) to start a clearing turn, and when I turned back he was well to the west of my position and my heading was now perpendicular, so it was all good.

I slowed for slow flight and listened to the blasted stall horn for ages as I flew for several minutes straight, focusing on maintaining altitude exactly on 2500'. I then used the rudder to turn left and right, scanning as much as I could -- when the stall warning is going, paranoia pulls my eyes back to the altimeter first and then the airspeed indicator. Anyway, the turns were fine so it was time for a power off stall.

I pulled back. And climbed. And the stall warning squealed away. I pulled back more. And climbed more. And the stall warning squealed away. I wish I had looked at the airspeed indicator then. I pulled back more aggressively and it broke. Carb heat and throttle, nose below the horizon, airspeed up, nose up, and rest.

So at 2500' I pointed up to FYJ and pulled out the checklist again for the "before landing" section. We've talked about, at Chuck's suggestion, creating a new checklist for "approaching the destination." This checklist includes figuring out when to start the descent, tuning in AWOS/ATIS/whatever is available, contacting ATC if appropriate, etc. I dialed in AWOS and it reported calm winds. I then dialed in CTAF and listened for several minutes as I started my descent (for such a low-altitude local flight I didn't rehearse the descent calculations, but probably ought to). The before-landing checklist reminded me to put the mixture to rich and turn on my landing light. I've also been instructed by Husband in the GUMPS mantra, even though U and P don't really apply to 388.

No one was manning UNICOM, no other calls were coming over the frequency, and my scans of the air and the ground showed no activity. I decided to set up on 9 for a soft-field landing after overflying the field at ~1300' (pattern altitude is 824). The wind sock indeed looked limp and there was no sign of life down there. The first landing was fine, fine, just fine. I landed nose-high and kept some back pressure to keep the weight on the main wheels. After rolling a bit down the runway, I eased forward and there was no shimmy -- yay! Since no one else was around, I announced that I'd roll out to the approach end of 27 (again, I should have made reference to the runway I was on -- 9), turn around and immediately depart.

As I rolled I did as much cleaning of the plane as I could remember: flaps up (from full extension), carb heat cold. During the interminable roll I grabbed the checklist and chose not to do the other after-landing items, such as switching the altimeter to stdby and killing landing/nav lights. I was going to do another soft-field takeoff and therefore wouldn't be stopping at the beginning of the runway, so I put out the recommended 10 degrees of flaps, then began the turnaround as I announced my departure to remain in the pattern.

It went fine. It's a weird-feeling takeoff. Departing 27 I turned off to the left and stayed in the pattern. Paying attention to altitude, I set up for another soft-field landing. On final I had a nice, slow approach and the short final was shallow. I was afraid it was a little too shallow and so throttled up just a tad to be absolutely sure to not touch down before the threshold! It would have been fine without the extra throttle, but really I should have picked a touchdown spot farther down the runway since it's so long and that's such a long rollout.

But rollout I did for an immediate turnaround and another soft-field takeoff to remain in the pattern. Left turn onto crosswind, normal pattern, another soft-field landing (not as shallow this time), a nosewheel shimmy when I allowed the nose to rotate down followed immediately by an opposite rotation, then after slowing the roll another shifting of the weight forward (no shimmy), a long rollout and I pulled off the runway. At this point I turned on the cell phone to call Husband so he could meet me at the airport for some engine examination.

Cell phone off, soft-field takeoff, and heading home. JGG was right-hand traffic for 13 and a normal, albeit very breeze-buffeted, landing and another nosewheel shimmy.

Husband met me at the airport and we took the upper nose cowl off to have a look around (thanks, FD, for the suggestion!). If energy persists through the evening I'll try to post some about what I learned there, but for now we just have to mention the ELT antenna since its loss was part of this flight. That's right, it was missing when I got down. WTF? Where did that go? And what else is going to just fall off mid-flight? Bizarro. Long story short, training flights within 50 nm can be legally conducted (FAR 91.207f) without a working emergency locator transmitter -- I'm just going to assume that missing the antenna counts as an inoperative transmitter. So no x-c until that is replaced; the mechanic is ordering one for us but it won't be here until Wednesday. Another partner in 388 was scheduled to fly up to Atlantic City tomorrow, but he can't do that legally now.

Discussion:

1. Checklists and natural reactions: Checklists are good. No need to justify that. Use of checklists is insanely important to the FAA examiner; just read the PTS if you need proof. I use checklists for preflight, cruise, before landing, after landing and for shutdown/secure. I bought a little maneuver book that effectively is a collection of checklists for each maneuver, from normal takeoffs to s-turns to stalls to short/field work to crosswind stuff to commercial maneuvers.... I've gone through and annotated the maneuvers I've been taught and will be expected to demonstrate with information relative to our plane; things like the POH recommends 10 degrees of flaps for the soft-field takeoff and accelerating in ground effect to 65 mph then climbing.
   
   I used the booklet checklist before taking off to review the short-field takeoff and landing procedures since that was to be the main focus. I did not use the booklet for slow-flight setup and maneuvers, nor for the stall and subsequent recovery. I am going to try to get into the habit of using it every time it's practical.
   
   For the stall, I knew what I needed to do for the recovery and it was a natural reaction. Usually when preparing for any maneuver -- especially stalls -- I'll walk through it mentally to be sure I've got the actions there at the tip of my brain. This time, though, I wasn't worried or nervous about being on the brink of the stall, and when it broke my hand was pushing in the carb heat and throttle before my eyes got down there and I don't think I lost much altitude at all. It was a reassuring stall.
   
   The bad part of it is that I wasn't at idle when I started to provoke the stall, and that's why I kept climbing instead of pitch-breaking. My checklist would have reminded me about that.


2. Slowing for slow flight: Previously when slowing down for slow flight maneuvers, I've felt that I was juggling too many things: throttling back, keeping altitude, adjusting trim, maintaining heading, scanning, reducing airspeed, etc. Husband and I chatted about it over lunch and he conveyed his tactic as ignoring airspeed and reducing the number of instruments to monitor down to two: RPM and altimeter. It doesn't take much pitch for me to lose visual field out the front, so I have to periodically check the DG, too, but dropping the airspeed indicator helped a lot. I also felt that I did a much better job of maintaining altitude during slow flight (with power adjustments) compared to the usual graceful, slow, nose-high descent. And yes, that's the anti-descent power that I should have removed when transitioning to a stall.


3. Soft-field takeoffs: They're just weird. It feels weird. Today I wasn't totally positive I was off the ground until I started to drift laterally over the runway. Well, FYJ is a little easier to assess because it's a much rougher runway. But it's just weird, unnatural. I'd like to try it at a real soft field sometime.
   
   Speaking of which, we had dinner recently with Gordon and Christine, the proprietors of Campbell Field on the Eastern Shore. It's a little grass strip across the bay from here, 42 nm. Perhaps we shall get some soft-field practice by going to one of their Soup on Sunday events.

Self-Assessment: Practice practice practice practice practice practice must ace checkride practice practice practice.

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal/short-field/soft-field takeoff: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
• Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
• Pattern, radio calls, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
• Crosswind landing: Improved.
• Short-field/soft-field landing: Improved.

Navigating
• ADF: Okay for an intro, needs practice.
• VOR: Needs practice.

Next: Maybe on Wednesday if Chuck has recovered we'll get Husband's BFR and my x-c done.

• Soft-field and short-field landings in succession to emphasize the differences (approach slope & speed).
• Radio.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 1.1
Hours logged total: 30.9
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 4
Take-offs and landings total: 84 (this number seems wrong... must check logbook)
PIC hours total:: 7.8

Switching to the new blogger...

It's time to move over to the new blogger. Crossing fingers for a smooth transition...

No x-c today

Unfortunately, Chuck is sick today so no BFR for Husband and no x-c for me. I suppose that's another reason for reduced time aloft in winter -- more colds.

The afternoon is looking nice for some solo practice. I'll probably leave JGG, go to the practice area and do something, maybe slow flight maneuvers and a steep turn or something. But the main focus will be soft-field takeoffs and landings, and I'll use all airports that I'm allowed to use -- FYJ and JGG :)

PTS -- eeeeeek!

I just read through the PTS.

My tummy went all butterflies.

I'm sooooo not ready.

I'm at 29.8 hours, 6.7 of them solo. I had been thinking I'd shoot to do my checkride in mid-January, but I just don't predict feeling ready then.

The thing is, I feel good about at the performance stuff. Well, S-turns I haven't really gotten to practice in any wind, but everything else, sure, I could probably do it all right now. And I've got as much time as I need to refine the soft-field takeoffs and landings and other aspects that need polish but that are fundamentally in place.

It's the knowledge stuff that is so intimidating. I can't remember the various details about the different classes of airspaces. I get class and category confused for aircraft when relating to pilot certification or aircraft certification (who came up with that dumb naming system?). I don't know how the electrical system works, or what I'd do if all of a sudden my avionics when kaput; the checklists only cover so much. (Ok, that last part is more practical than knowledge, but if never used it's still just knowledge, right?!?) And on and on...

And now I'm going to try to sleep, being all hopped up (in a good way) about tomorrow's x-c and all hopped up (in a bad way) about the checkride that's not even close to being scheduled!