Goals:
- Leave the airport vicinity by myself.
- Practice steep turns, turns around a point, landings, and if bold enough, stalls.
Flight: I had the plane scheduled for 2 pm and around 10 am I started to get nervous. This would be my first time flying out of range of the airport by myself, and I was going to the airport alone. This was to be all me. And that made me nervous.
Husband was asking around lunchtime why I was getting so worked up. After some thought, all I could really come up with was (1) it would be more "firsts" and (2) what if something goes horribly wrong? What if the engine gets rough? What if I get surprised by something, like colliding with a plane when rolling out of a steep turn? What if I have another reversal (i.e., thinking that pulling up will give me more airspeed)? For those kinds of fears, there's nothing he or anyone can say to allay them. They're possibilities, and they're things that only diligence and more experience can help with. But the more we chatted, the worse it got and I could see psyching myself out of going if we kept at it so I had to leave.
All the way to the airport it got worse. "Maybe I'll cut out the other maneuvers and just do a steep turn then come back." "Maybe I'll scrap it all and just stay in the pattern again today." "Maybe I should just go back to work."
Underneath it all, though, I knew the only factor there was my fear of the unknown. So I parked the car and sat for a few minutes. I closed my eyes and planned everything out. Preflight, taxi, run-up, takeoff, climb out, straight-and-level to the practice area, steep turn left, steep turn right, turn around a point left, turn around a point right, point back south, slow flight, power-on stall, head toward the airport, descend, enter the pattern, throttle back early, do the pattern, flare, land, and do another pattern/landing if things were going well.
I made my maneuver card (a 3x5 notecard) with steep turns, turns around a point and power-on stalls. I pulled out my maneuvers booklet and re-read the sections on those maneuvers. The last time I had read those was before doing any of them; amazing how much more meaningful they are now! They matched what I expected. I made extra note cards, one for each maneuver, with the basics. Steep turns: clearing turns, determine heading and altitude, roll in, gradually increase power, use opposite rudder and pull back as necessary, roll out ahead of the heading, decrease power/rudder/back pressure. This way, if i felt I needed a double-check or refresher right before doing it, I'd have a maneuver checklist. I didn't need them, but they were there.
I was prepared. Being prepared and planning took away my nerves. If everything went according to my plan, it would be just fine. If anything went awry, there would be only one option -- do the best I can.
And I followed my plan. Mostly. After taking off, I realized that it was a little bumpy. The winds were 6 kts from 150, so just a tiny crosswind for 13; I didn't notice it then but over the trees it was a little turbulent. I got up to the practice area at ~2000' and forgot to do my clearing turns. The radios were not busy in the least, and I had made a big sweeping turn to set up for my first steep turn. Not all planes have radios and despite the sweeping turn I should still have done clearing turns, but I just didn't think of it. I should have written "clearing turns" at the top of my maneuver card as a reminder; I'll do that next time.
It was turbulent out here, too. I almost called it off since I was focusing on sticking my altitude and didn't want the wind to be hosing it for me, but I decided that developing competence in calm skies was not developing competence as a pilot and moved on. I did the steep turn to the left, using more throttle (maybe full, as Chuck had advised this morning, but I don't remember specifically), right rudder and back pressure. The turn cycled between rising and falling, but I think it stayed reasonably close to my target altitude. I'd like to figure out how to get Google Earth to tell me the altitude deviations.
I rolled out and did a steep turn to the right following the same process. This one felt much, much more stable. Almost too stable... ;)
This image (click to enlarge) is a side view of the GPS track as seen in Google Earth. From right to left it shows the left-hand steep turn, the right-hand steep turn, and then the turn around a point. I then picked a ground reference and did a crappy turn around a point. I know why it was crappy: I couldn't visualize the wind relative to me and the reference point. I didn't know whether I was entering the turn downwind. I did the best I could manage, but decided to only do the one since there was an underlying issue that would keep me from performing up to snuff on the second.
Turning back south toward the river, I slowed down to about 60 mph IAS and initiated a power-on stall. Attempted to, anyway. I throttled up, pitched up, used my right rudder, and spent what seemed like several minutes listening to the stall warning squeal as my airspeed dropped to under 40 and the plane just kept climbing. I kept pulling back farther and farther, and my climb rate decreased but stayed positive. Eventually I got frustrated, not knowing what more I should be doing to induce it, and called that one off. I think I gained nearly a thousand feet during that.
From there it was just descend and locate the airport. On the descent I was managing RPMs, throttle and airspeed, which was super happy to get up to V(A) if I used pitch to descend. So I trimmed for about 125 and throttled back to sink more gradually.
Upon entering the pattern at ~900' (yay!), I got abeam the numbers, pulled back to ~1700 RPMs, and put down one notch of flaps. This pattern went really well, though it seemed pretty wide. On final I used the VASI to check the glide path (and I was gliding!) and it showed me as right on, even though my conservative nerves thought I was low (stupid school, houses, trees, dirt mounds!). I put in a little power for a few seconds and then went back to idle just to be sure I'd clear the threshold. It was a really nice slow landing, just a teensy bit left of centerline, no bounce, no squealing brakes! I pulled off mid-field, radioed that I was clear and did a little cockpit dance of happiness while cleaning up for another go around the pattern.
The second pattern was pretty much just like the first. It was very well set up, nicely aligned, nice and slow. Unfortunately, I didn't flare early enough or aggressively enough -- I still thought I was a little high when I did start my flare -- and I bounced it. Not a hard bounce like I've done in the past, but a bounce nonetheless. I had a few oscillations this time as I tried to figure out where neutral elevator was, and eventually I just put in a little power and tried to hold steady and it was over. No stress, no scares of running out of runway (since I had touched down in the first probably quarter of the runway), no anxiety... just a "let's fix this" feeling.
I taxiied back and parked with a big smile! :)
Discussion:
- Being alone: I can do it all by myself! And it's getting better emotionally and with confidence and all that jazz, plus it's practice so the skillz ought to be getting better, too!
- Turn around a point: I've got to figure out how to figure out what the wind is doing. The next chapter in my textbook is about weather, so maybe I'll get some theory or tricks that will set it in place.
- Power-on stall: Husband suggests that I wasn't pulling back aggressively enough. He's probably right, and I'll try it again later this week.
- Relief? I am relieved to have a good flight like that under my belt. Proof that it is getting better, after some of my experiences earlier that caused such trepidation.
Self-Assessment: Yay! Happy cockpit dance! I talked Husband into celebrating tonight, since this was a good solo experience worth celebrating!
- Preflight: Good.
- Taxiing: Good.
- Take-off: Good.
- Maintaining airspeed: Good.
- Stalls: Power-off stall, good. Power-on stall, needs practice to force it to freaking happen! 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.
- Steep turns: Great to the right, not so great to the left, obviously needs more practice!
- Turn around a point: Meh, I need to interpret/anticipate the wind.
- Pattern: Overall, good, but needs more practice.
- Landing: Improved, more practice.
- Radio calls: Decent.
Next: Next Monday at 3 pm for a lesson, probably Thursday morn or Friday afternoon for another solo practice flight.
- More of the above!
- Forward slips to landing -- me doing it!
- Crosswind takeoffs and landings
- Short/soft field takeoffs and landings
- Cross-country preparations
Hours logged total: 18.1
Instrument hours logged this flight: 0.0
Hours logged total: 0.8
Take-offs and landings this flight: 2
Take-offs and landings total: 50
PIC hours: 2.3
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