- Maneuvering during slow flight by instruments.
- Turns around a point.
- Landing stall recovery.
- Emergency procedures, pseudo-forced landing.
- Landing practice.
Flight:
Preflight and pre-flight briefing as normal. We had to trim down the lesson plan a little because 388 was only 1.2 tach hours from the 50-hour oil change mark. We took off on 13 and headed up-river to our practice area. Chuck had me don the foggles and going only by instrument reference continue our climb to 3000' and turn to different headings. The syllabus says IR maneuvering at slow flight, so it may be that we finished our climb then slowed before doing the maneuvers.
We then practiced a couple landing stalls (without foggles) to the left and right. I have quite a time getting a "clean break" during the stall, but with more practice will be able to. For now, I glance down at the VSI every few seconds checking for a high descent rate. In between the stalls we stabilized, then went into a glide and reduced airspeed further to set up for the next stall.
While still at a relatively low airspeed, we throttled back to idle and simulated an engine-out situation. I selected a field nearby at our 2 o'clock and adjusted for a Vx airspeed. We overflew the field to assess it more closely, approved, and turned onto downwind for a left-hand pattern. Using flaps, we got down to the prescribed 1000' at the key point (turn from downwind to base) and glided on around nicely. We had plenty of time to review the emergency procedures checklist. At ~800' when we were ready to turn onto final, we agreed that we'd make the field if we needed to, so I powered back up and eased in the flaps.
Back at a higher altitude we selected a house amid the trees and fields to use as the point about which I'd try a constant-radius turn. The wind was mild, and the turn went fine. I can't say that I "thought" my way through it; before entering the turn, I confirmed with Chuck that the bank would need to decrease when the wind was at our side, but during the turn I just flew and split my eye time between watching the house and checking for traffic.
We did at least one more stall, maybe two. There was a power-on stall during the afternoon lesson as well, but those are old-hat now (well, let's say I'm comfortable with them) and don't stand out in my mind. At ~3000', I went under the hood again and we did unusual attitude recovery by instrument reference.
Back at JGG we had a go-around on our first approach because my pattern was too tight and I was too high on final. I also had some low-airspeed issues; none that caused a stall warning screech, but I was sloppy enough that Chuck did have to point it out. (We were just practicing landing stalls, right?!?!) The second approach was better, and the flare was closer to the "runway environment," as Chuck calls it. Amazingly, I could still see the runway, so that must be what I've done wrong every single time at JGG -- flared too high.
Discussion:
- Landing stalls: I am conceptually and emotionally ok with these (thank goodness!) and with practice will be reactionally ok, too. On my first landing stall, I rolled the plane back to level and began to raise the nose but left out the throttle. Ok, learned from that. On the first one and the second one, I banked harder than was necessary; rather than pulling back on the yoke to put the nose above the horizon to induce the stall, it was just making us turn more tightly and so the feeling of the "landing" turn was lost. I don't recall getting a clean break on these stalls, so it's a little hard to assess my recovery from them when (a) getting into them was erratic and (b) the only stall indication was on the VSI. I'll have to be more deliberate while inducing the stall: moderate-banked turn at slow airspeed (using rudder), then lift the nose.
- Tight downwind: A tight pattern is good because it keeps the plane close to the runway and maximizes the chances that an engine-out in the pattern can be handled safely. It's more difficult because the base leg is very short, resulting in less time/distance over which to lose altitude. Proficient pilots do tight patterns, so that will naturally be my goal. I'm not proficient yet, and my tight pattern resulted in a go-around. On final, Chuck asked what I thought. I said we were way too high, and we agreed to go around.
That first pattern was also a slow pattern. At one point, I let our airspeed get down to ~60 mph; for reference, pattern speed is 80 and touchdown speed is 65-70. I'm pretty disappointed in myself for that. I know better, I've done better on every single other landing, I can do better. I knew I was too high, and that's what I was focusing on so my attention to the airspeed slipped, which is kinda weird because reducing pitch would have helped both situations, right?!?!!
A wide pattern is a student pattern and was what I did the second time around. There's lots of time to consider what needs to be done and make changes more leisurely. Base is nice and long. Since I have to look back at our flaps and check the gauge to verify how far they've gone out, obviously I'm glad to have the extra time to look away from the course and runway that a wide pattern provides. The second final was okay; we landed long, but the flare was much closer to the runway this time and I could actually see the runway for most of it, if not all. That pitch should be the same as the take-off pitch, so I'll try to consciously think of that next time.
Self-Assessment: Meh, not satisfied with today's performance. I should have gotten the landing stalls more quickly and better, and the landings were sub-par.
- Preflight: Good.
- Taxiing: Good.
- Take-off: Good.
- Maintaining airspeed: Good.
- Stalls: Power-off stall, good. Power-on stall, good. Landing stall, needs practice.
- Slow flight (VR and IR): Good.
- Maintain attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Good.
- Change attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
- Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
- Forced landing: Good, but it might have been an easy situation today; I need to commit the procedures to memory.
- Pattern: Not as good as previous patterns.
- Landing: Closer....
- Radio calls: Decent.
Next: JEP FI-6 and 7 on Wednesday, then hopefully FI-8 on Thursday, and FI-9 (supervised solo and first unsupervised solo) on Thursday or Friday!
- More of the above!
- S turns
- Rectangular courses
- Go-arounds (got that twice already!)
- Forward slips to landing
- Crosswind takeoffs and landings (and we've got a front passing through, so maybe on Wednesday we'll have some winds)
- ATC light signals
- Runway incursion avoidance
- LAHSO
- Lesson 7 looks like a big review of everything except stalls and distractions.
Hours logged total: 8.1
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.2
Hours logged total: 0.4
Take-offs and landings this flight: 1
Take-offs and landings total: 17
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