Solo 8: Soft-field takeoff, landing at FYJ, VOR

Goals:

• Land solo at a non-JGG airport! :)
• Soft-field takeoff.
• Play with the VOR.

Flight:
Today's flight was essentially the same as yesterday's lesson. I departed 13, tuned in HCM (verified the correct Morse code), headed to it at 2500', then took the 337 radial up to FYJ.

There was a military helicopter, no doubt out of Fort Eustis, practicing at FYJ, doing low passes over the field and flying the pattern. I couldn't help pretending it was Greybeard :) (I don't know anything about helicopters, so hopefully that's not insulting!) Anyway, I spotted him when I was on a 1-mile crosswind entry for left traffic, and he was turning from runway 9's upwind. I assumed that, and from where I was it looked like, he had turned off left for crosswind, so I announced my location and intention and that I had him in sight. He came back with negative contact but that he was looking for me. I answered that I was right behind him and would follow him in the pattern, figuring I might need to space myself out. Then I realized he was getting bigger and that he was in fact doing a right-hand pattern. I immediately announced, "Correction: 388 is right in front of you, diverting north" and I turned off to the right. Then he had me -- which was kinda scary because this was the point that I realized it was a military helicopter, what with that huge gun sticking out the front! Surely he wouldn't use a girl for target practice, right? ;)

He did his thing and was on right base when I got back into the pattern on a long downwind. After his low pass, he turned out south, headed back in the direction of Fort Eustis. I had the airport to myself for the rest of my stay. First landing on 9 was nice. I was on the ball with my procedures, not willing to have a repeat of yesterday's slop. I rolled out to the departure end, turned around and immediately departed 27 (it was calm today, again). After a normal takeoff, a normal pattern, and a short-field landing right on the displaced 27 numbers, I had a looong roll-out, then turned around and immediately departed in soft-field fashion on 9.

Then it was a near repeat of yesterday getting back to JGG: went direct to HCM, then dialed in the 188 radial to target JGG (188 is the VOR instrument approach radial from HCM). Crosswind entry, normal pattern, good soft normal landing, another pattern and another normal landing and I was done for the day. Husband met me just afterwards so that he could go up for a little while and knock the rust off of his less commonly used techniques, such as a soft-field takeoff.

Discussion:

1. Soft-field takeoff: This seemed ok, but I realize in retrospect that I did not use the recommended 10 degrees of flaps. As I reached the departure end of 27 and was turning around to depart 9 at FYJ, that was when I decided to do a soft-field takeoff. A useful lesson: checklists are good! Nothing went wrong, but what if it had been some essential step that I had left out? I suppose what I really learned from that is that I should prepare for what I'm going to do before the flight, and during the flight I shouldn't do anything for which I didn't prepare.

Self-Assessment: I landed somewhere else, all by myself! I give myself a gold star! :) I'm just so tickled about it, can you tell?!?

Flying
• Preflight, taxiing, normal takeoff, short-field takeoff: Good.
• Soft-field takeoff: Needs practice.
• 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 landing: Improved.
• Soft-field landing: Not sure...

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

Next: We're meeting at the airport tomorrow at 4 pm to do cross-country planning, and my homework will be to plan the short cross-country that we'll take Monday at noon. Husband is going to ride along on it, and schedule with Chuck sometime soon to do his BFR from the right seat so that when we fly together I can fly left-seat and do stuff (even though he'll get all the credit).

• Soft-field takeoffs and landings.
• Practicing everything.

Hours logged this flight: 1.0
Hours logged total: 25.6
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.3
Take-offs and landings this flight: 4
Take-offs and landings total: 77
PIC hours total:: 6.7