JEP FI-8: Review, landings, and mistakes

Goals:

• Review, review, review.
• S turns.
• Landings.

Flight:
During my preflight, Husband called as I was finishing up the tail section to say his day of jury duty was over and to wish me a good flight. I stowed my phone and decided I'd better review the checklist items for the tail just to be sure as I walked on to the right wing. It seemed that I had done everything so I went on. Chuck arrived, we chatted, and then prepared to taxi. Throttle up, no movement. More throttle, no movement. I wiggled the brakes and rudder to make sure the brakes weren't sticking, still no movement. Then it dawned on me. OMG, I didn't untie the tail. Can you imagine my embarassment as Chuck took off his headset, got out, and untied it for me?!? I just wanted to melt and ooze out of the plane into a humiliated puddle on the ground. But it was a learning experience and I'll wager that it will never happen again! (Coincidentally, it happened to Husband early in his training, too, 15 years ago and has never happened to him again.)

In any case, it was an omen.

We taxiied on to 13, took off, and obeyed the new noise abatement procedures off the end of 31 -- climb to 500' and turn to 180 to avoid the neighborhood. On to the practice area with a little IR time on the way...

We did a few turn-to-landing stalls. The first one I did was really crummy. I did all the right things, but not in a coordinated fashion and not quickly enough. The second one was much better; I think I only lost about 200' on that one. Stall breaks were good.

We did a practice half-S-turn (a C-turn? :) ) just so I'd get a sense for the constant radius and picking a reference point while planning ahead for the second half of the turn. Then we repositioned over I-64 and executed one. The first half-loop was pretty, and the second half was pretty, but the radii didn't match; the second half was a good bit tighter than the first. That means it was a bad S-turn, so I know I've gotta work on that!

We started heading back southward towards the James River and simulated an engine out. I set our airpseed and picked a field that was just under us and that I could see very well to be a nice, clean field. We were way high, though, so I changed my mind to a neighboring field and started to turn and descend toward it. Long story short, we crossed midfield ~1100', were at ~900' at the key, and everything was looking peachy so we called it off and continued on toward the James, getting more IR time for straight-and-level flight.

We got back to JGG, entered the pattern, and landed. We landed long because I was late getting my flaps out on base and final and so I had more altitude to lose than I should have had. But we landed safely and were still able to use the midfield turnoff.

That's when UNICOM called to us to say that Homeland Security wanted to talk to us. WTF?!?!!!?!!?!?!?!! Why on earth would they possibly want to talk to us?!? I instantly tried to think of anything on the flight that we could have done that would be suspicious, and other than the S-turns possibly being near Camp Peary (CIA) or something else they're sensitive about of which I'm not aware, I couldn't come up with anything. But I detest being disciplined or having to defend myself even when I'm right, so I got extremely anxious. I'm fairly certain the color drained from my face. UNICOM told us the word was that we violated a Presidential TFR around RIC, but we were no where near RIC (which is ~33 nm from JGG according to airnav.com) and how would they know it was us anyway? UNICOM asked us to come on in and get on the phone with RIC ATC, so we parked in front of the FBO and Chuck went in as I tidied up the plane for a minute.

It seemed like ages that he was on the phone. Ages. The butterflies in my tummy had turned to angry hornets. I danced around as Jean, the airport manager, told me of the other time a JGG-based pilot did such a no-no. He was a new private pilot and by the time he got back on the ground, emissaries from the FBI and the CIA were waiting for him. They kept him at the airport for hours, interrogating. Egad! I don't know the particulars of his incident, but surely if RIC was right and it was us, it would be obvious that it was a training lesson and not anything malignant, right?!?

Chuck wrapped up the call and came over with some heading/distance info (112/24, meaning radial 112 from RIC at 24 nm out) that the ATC person gave him as our position of violation. He said they knew it was us because they tracked us all the way back to JGG and called up the FBO to have them contact us, and since there was no one else around at the time, it had to be us. We checked the sectional against the position and by golly it was us! The TFR covered 30 nm from RIC, and that's a helluva lot closer to JGG than it seems.

So you're probably asking why we didn't do our diligent preflight planning and check for TFRs. Well, Chuck did, but got the date mixed up. He saw the RIC TFR of 30 nm but thought that it was for the next day, believing that today's date was actually the day before! We chatted for a few minutes about what all of this meant. Remember the tail being tied down -- was it a sign? Chuck was pilot-in-command, so the authorities would be dealing with him and if any actions were taken they would involve him. That gave me a kinda guilty-helpless feeling about the situation, and naturally I was a little relieved, too, but I was worried about what it would mean for him. Given his long, spotless career, he expected a warning from it, possibly some administrative paperwork. If they felt more serious about it, he might be grounded for 30 days. (He talked with a man from the FAA for a while that night and he said to consider it a "learning experience." WHEW! He says he's still expecting a letter from the FAA and maybe a call from the Secret Service, too.)

We decided to continue the lesson, which entailed several loops through the pattern with emphasis on landings. The first landing was meh, the second landing was better, and the third landing was exceptional until about 2 seconds from touchdown when the nose wandered off to the left and I didn't correct it forcefully enough.

Discussion:

1. Checklist diligence: I thought I was being diligent when resuming my checklist after taking a phone call by stepping through the items for the tail section checks in my mind. What I learned is that either (1) I should not permit interruptions, which may not always be possible, or (2) I should actually start over in that section of the checklist, not just review mentally that everything was done. Naturally this goes beyond just the preflight checklist and is direct evidence of why there are specific procedures for doing things.
2. TFRs: TFRs are temporary flight restrictions. As the name indicates, they are additional restrictions on arbitrary locations for an arbitrary length of time that's expected to be temporary. TFRs are included in NOTAMs.
3. (Human) attitude for flight: The Homeland Security thing had me feeling a little unhinged. While Chuck was on the phone, I really didn't know whether I'd be able to focus well enough to continue the lesson, should we be permitted to do so, and was preparing myself for the disappointment of calling it off. Even after we talked over the situation I still felt a little edgy. As we walked out to the plane to continue the lesson, however, my mind geared back into flying and the TFR situation shrank to the background. Focus was not an issue whatsoever. If anything, it might have made me more even deliberate in everything from the engine run-up to radio calls.
4. Landing on centerline: My first three approaches to land were squirrelly, like they had been on Wednesday. By the third one, I was getting frustrated because I was actively trying to counter the excursions but was either overcorrecting or just not being effective. I didn't understand what the problem was, and so of course my actions were just simple reactions instead of deliberate counter-measures. After the third landing, I told Chuck that I didn't feel my rudder inputs were effective and asked if I should just be expecting a lag between my input and the plane's response at that slow airspeed. Ah, light bulb goes on. All flight controls are less effective at slow speeds! That was part of my problem -- I wasn't correcting hard enough. The second part of the problem made it hard to diagnose the first part and contributed a lot to the oscillations: not anticipating the corrections.
   
   On the fourth landing, I had that all in mind, and it was a very nice final. Chuck jinxed it by saying twice how pretty it was, and just before touching down the nose started twisting to the left. I didn't correct hard/quickly enough and so the touchdown was not so pretty. That landing went from a 10 in Chuck's estimation to a 5 because of the last few seconds. And I agree; for something that started out so well, I sure phoned it in at the end.

Self-Assessment: Showing improvement. It was an odd lesson overall.

• Preflight: Good.
• Taxiing: Good.
• Take-off: Good.
• Maintaining airspeed: Good.
• Stalls: Power-off stall, good. Power-on stall, good. Landing stall, improved, needs more practice.
• Slow flight (VR and IR): Good.
• Maintain attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Good.
• Change attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Good.
• Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Good, still need to commit the entire set of emergency procedures to memory.
• Pattern: Overall, good. Ocassionally I enter the pattern high or fast or whatnot and need to work on getting that situation under control more quickly.
• Landing: Improved, more practice.
• Radio calls: Decent.

Next: This afternoon's planned solo has been postponed until tomorrow morning due to high winds.

• More of the above!
• Forward slips to landing
• Crosswind takeoffs and landings (come on, weather! Give us useful winds!)

Hours logged this lesson: 1.7
Hours logged total: 12.3
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.2
Hours logged total: 0.8
Take-offs and landings this flight: 4
Take-offs and landings total: 27