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