[Update: The missed question...]
I took the written this afternoon, and got a 97! I missed a question about minimum height AGL for flying over a wildlife refuge; I answered 2500', but the correct answer is 2000'. So I'd add some extra buffer for the cuddly bunnies and badgers, I can live with missing that question.
Super special thanks to Husband who quizzed me on the meteorology stuff on the way to the testing center since that was the section I studied least recently. The vast majority of the questions on today's test had to do with weather! Can you believe it?! Opposite-Murphy's Law, I reckon...
If you're in this area, be advised: the LaserGrade testing fee at Hampton University's Department of Aviation is $60, as compared to the apparently standard fee of $90.
Yay! :)
Now for the oral test practice, after a good rest...
Friday, January 19, 2007
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
JEP FII-16: Local night flight
Goals:
Flight:
We met up at 6 at the terminal to sign me off to take the written exam and to chat about a few things I missed on the "official" groundschool completion test. I got 94 out of 100 questions right. We chatted about some night topics and the plan for the flight. Sunset was at 6:15, and at 6:45 we headed out to 388 for preflighting.
During the day it had been windy, 13+ kts, but tonight I got lucky and scored calm conditions. But man oh man was it cold! Earlier in the day Chuck had called to ask what the owners' policy was concerning cold-temp starts of the plane. This had not yet come up for us with 388, so I had no idea. Husband indicated that the policy on planes he had rented in the past required preheating at or below freezing, and tonight it was expected to drop below freezing around 7 pm (where'd our unusually tropical winter weather go?!?). I called Kevin (mechanic) to ask if they had a preheater and, upon hearing that they didn't, asked his advice. He relayed that most POH's say preheating isn't required unless the temp is in the teens (Fahrenheit, obviously!) and that provided the engine was "willing" to start he saw no reason for us to cancel the flight on account of temp.
Preflight was cuh-old. Thank the heavenly stars that there was no wind, or else we'd have canceled on account of not physically being able to do the preflight! Ok, maybe I'm a wimp, but it was unpleasant. Husband had given me his hat with bill-clip light again and this time I remembered to bring it. It was fantastic, making the whole process more efficient! Soooooo much easier than fumbling with a hand-held flashlight while using two hands to preflight and hold a checklist.
I found that frost crystals were starting to branch out on the fuselage, and thin smooth patches of frost were forming in various areas on the wings, especially near the tips. Chuck looked it over and said it wouldn't affect airflow and that we'd be ok; it was due to temp differential between the fuel inside the wing and the cooling surface of the wing.
Chuck showed me about rotating the prop a few times manually to get some oil moving up from the sump into the engine as a preparatory action. Finally we got in (although it was not any warmer inside yet, of course).
Three shots of primer. Not enough, engine wouldn't catch. Three more shots. Engine wants to catch, but won't. Three more shots, plus a loaded shot that, while I cranked and Chuck managed the throttle, I'd smoothly feed. This got it, and 388 came to life just like its normal happy self.
On to the flight... I turned on the runway lights (7 mic clicks in 5 seconds) and turned off the blinding runway end strobes (3 long clicks), plugged in the FYJ AWOS in the standby com slot and tuned the HCM VOR on the nav, then executed a standard takeoff on 31. As soon as I rotated and began to climb, all I could see was a gorgeous big sky full of stars. Wow. But weird, too -- was I pitched too far?!??! A quick check of the airspeed indicator said all was as it should be, so after running through the other instruments to verify that we were in good shape, I returned my gaze to that beautiful picture. That must be what the lucky shuttle astronauts get to see.
We climbed to 2500' and headed north. Immediately I could see the telltale city and factory lights that are West Point. For good measure, I dialed the VOR indicator to take us to HCM (after verifying the Morse code), knowing that the 337 would kick us over to the airport. Once departing the VOR and hearing on the AWOS that the winds were calm, I began the descent and set up for a 45 entry into downwind for 27 and clicked on the pilot-controlled lights. As we got onto downwind, however, I noted that the well-lit smoke coming from the well-lit factory was blowing gently westward; perhaps there would be a light tailwind, but it shouldn't be much. We'd give it a shot.... (Famous last words!)
This first approach was probably the worst as far as organization. I was very preoccupied with the differences compared to a daytime pattern, with making my pattern turns at the right time, using the runway lights as the visual cues, and, knowing that 27 has a displaced threshold on account of trees that I most likely wouldn't be able to see, I was major-preoccupied with not being low on final. Also, FYJ has no VASI or PAPI, so it would have to be all based on my judgment and gut feeling about the situation.
Predictably, I came in way high. I was probably still at 300' at least as I came over the threshold at idle power with at least 20 degrees of flaps, maybe 30. Ok, I had wanted to be some high, but that was too much. Also amidst the new distractions of a not-so-well-lit airport environment, I did a poor job of managing my airspeed and was probably ~85 mph on short final where it should be more like 65-70. Go-around #1. I was a little frustrated with myself, but being conservative assured that I'd get to try again!
Second time around was better, but resulted in another go-around. This time I was very careful with my airspeed, keeping it where it ought to be, and at the beginning of final when I realized I was high I put out the full 40 degrees of flaps. I should have made it down this time, but that's when I realized that that tailwind was having a bigger effect than anticipated and was forcing my glidepath to be longer than what I wanted. So a night go-around from full flaps ensued.
Third time around, I was on downwind and Chuck said to turn this pattern into a crosswind entry for runway 9. I was a little glad at that moment to not have to do 27 again since it wasn't going well. My downwind leg was a little too close to the runway, so I decided to extend to compensate for a short base. I ended up drilling along on final, trying not to lose too much altitude too far out, and the landing lights clearly lit the trees below us short of the threshold (they were well below us, but still...). That was proof of two things: 1 - don't wanna be low on final! What if the landing light was out? I wouldn't have seen those trees and while seeing the trees is not what determined how I tweaked my power/glide, it's nice to see something if you know you need to avoid it. 2 - I never saw the trees on 27, so I must have been way-plenty-extra high.
The landing was just fine. No problem. I rolled out to the end of 9, turned around and departed 27 for another attempt at 27. And yet another go-around! Can you believe it?!?! I couldn't. I was starting to feel very frustrated. Things were going wrong, we were talking about them, I was fixing them. Airspeed under control, check. Wide-enough pattern to descend on base, check. Flaps set appropriately, check. Corners of the pattern at proper altitudes, check. Beginning the go-around, I put in the power, started on the flaps, and let out a little of the tension by swearing, followed by an apology to Chuck for the swearing.
Next time around was very similar. I thought I was doing well and anticipating the tailwind. Turning final I was at ~375' AGL. Full flaps. Power off. 75 mph, pulling up a tad to slow those last few mphs off. And we just drifted. Still probably 100' above crossing the threshold. I was ready to go around yet again when Chuck said to land it. This, I felt, was doable but pushing it. Part of the lesson on this landing was that the runway looks shorter at night than it really is. We did finally get down, and with plenty of runway to spare, but I was still feeling very negative about the whole thing and voiced that it wasn't working for me. We talked more about all the variables and left it basically at "more practice needed;" I thought I was compensating for everything already, with the exception of selecting an aim point short of the runway, knowing the wind would drift me past it.
2 landings, 5 approaches. Ugh. (Although if it was baseball, .400 would be heroic!)
I turned us around for a 9 departure, and Chuck called for a soft-field takeoff. I considered going for the checklist, but instead I rattled off the procedure from memory: 10 degrees of flaps, get airborne asap, accelerate in ground effect to Vx, climb out. And so that I did.
When I got abeam the numbers for the landing on 9, Chuck called for a soft-field landing. Again from memory: Full flaps, shallow approach (which I would consciously forgo), hold the nose up for as long as possible after landing. This wasn't so good. Final was fine, and I was good and slow, <65 mph. The stall warning came on before we crossed the threshold, which made me a little nervous since that was not typical for my landings -- horn during the flare was normal. I just tried to be careful with it, and as I flared, we stalled, plopped down a few inches, and I was unable to hold the nose off the surface. I pulled back to at least keep the weight on the mains, but failure on the soft-field landing.
3 landings down.
Roll-out to the end of 9, turn around and prepare to depart 27. Chuck wanted another soft-field takeoff but asked me to use my checklist, basically saying that if I have a checklist for something, even if I know what needs to be done, to use it. A point well made and well taken; the DPE will like that. That's one of the fundamentals, right? It did make me wonder if he disapproved of my technique on the previous one, but he didn't critique it at all. I was doing the right things, but obviously I was being a little overwhelmed by new stuff and different stuff and feeling frustrated. I never felt overwhelmed, but in retrospect I think that might have been the case.
After a good soft-field takeoff, we were downwind for 27 when Chuck said that the landing on 27 should be non-standard, but lady's choice for how. I opted for a short-field landing. Full-flaps, slow, steep approach. Again I thought I had accounted for the tailwind but didn't land until 2/3 of the way down the runway, as the side lights changed to red. We stopped in an extremely short distance (good short-field landing except for completely missing the target landing zone!) and had to throttle up to get rolling to the end of 27. I turned around and reviewed the checklist for a short-field takeoff: hold the brakes, no flaps, throttle up, check the gauges, release the brakes, roll to Vx, rocket upward! And thusly was it done.
4 down.
By this time my approaches and landings on 9 were going just fine, so on final my landing light "failed" at Chuck's whim. That was totally awesome! As instantaneously as the light went off, my brain shifted gears and my eyes focused on the red strip at the far end of the runway. I mean, it was really just amazing how that naturally happened. And it perfectly, perfectly demonstrated what I should have been using to judge height and flare point this whole time! Man that was cool, and it was a really good landing, too. Chuck reminded me as we continued the rollout to turn that light back on.
5 down.
At the end of 27 we turned and departed 9 as a standard takeoff. This time around would be a standard landing with no landing light. Despite how fantastically awesome the previous no-light landing was and how enthusiastic I was about doing it that way, I still had trepidation about the trees and my inability thus far to aptly land with the tailwind. But I did what I could do: manage airpseed, manage altitudes, try to land "early"... On final the light went off and while the landing happened long again, it happened just fine and was again a very cool experience.
6 down.
The next two were normal takeoffs and normal landings, one on 9 and the last one on 27. Hmmm, you know, something must be out of order above, because the final departure was on 27, followed by a left turn to the south to head home, so the final landing was on 9. In any case, you get the point: we exhausted the West Point pattern and accomplished the night training, with various styles of landings and takeoffs and with and without the landing light!
After departing FYJ, we crossed the river, got to 2500' and I slowed for slow flight. The stall horn was squealing as I held ~65 mph (clean). A 90-degree turn to the west, and I had to add a little power to keep from losing altitude. A 90-degree turn back to south, again with power management. Approximately south I pulled out the power and pulled back to stall. It was a normal stall recovery with the added experience that the *visual* horizon seemed more obvious as the windscreen full of stars transitioned to a combination of stars and city lights. Given the unreliability of horizons at night, that's not something to rely on, and I was actively checking the instruments to verify attitude and climb/descent rate, but it was neat. Immediately upon establishing a positive climb, I moved on to the power-on stall, which took a good deal of effort to induce and with all those stars and no sense of horizon I was sure we were about to flip over backwards! (Go, little Cessna, go! :) Ha ha ha ha...) Again, the stall recovery was normal and it illustrated that I still need to work on getting a clean break to demonstrate to the DPE.
Getting back to JGG was an adventure. After the slow flight and stalls, I didn't have my bearings for where we were, even with the peninsula spread out before me all lit up. I couldn't immediately tell where I was based on city lights and roads, so I started searching for the beacon. (Turns out the beacon was on this time, thankfully, but that it's kinda hard for me to make out until within ~6 nm or so.) Chuck asked what I was going to do. I said there were two primary options: first, HCM VOR 188 is part of the instrument approach to JGG, and I had HCM tuned in so I dialed in the radial and turned eastward to intercept. Second option, head south, knowing we'd eventually cross the James River, at which point we'd be able to identify the telltale features like curves in the river, Jamestown Island, the power station, etc. After puttering along for a few minutes and still not hitting the 188, which would have sent us right to the airport when we really wanted to be to the west of the airport for a 31 landing, I changed methods with Chuck's approval and went river-hunting. It was not long at all before we found it. I was still looking for the beacon along the water's edge when Chuck knowingly said, "Aha! What's that?" and pointed just off the left of the nose. The ferry docks!
From there, I clicked on the runway lights and got on downwind, where the runway lights were promptly obscured by the treeline. The approach was normal, although I do remember being a little tense about it. Probably on account of the fact that 31 is the less predictable of the two finals at JGG because of the swamp monster; but he would probably be hibernating right now anyway... JGG does have three lit bars that align when you're on the glidepath (APAP?), and so I used those to bring us in for a decent landing.
Discussion:
Self-Assessment: More polish, more practice!
Next: ??? Husband wants to act as DPE for me before I take my checkride, and that's a good idea since I haven't done maneuvers recently and only typically grade myself on altitude. This week we need to do that, and I need to do a phase check with Dan. Then I leave on Saturday to visit a friend in Florida for 5 days, and when I get back 388 will be gone for two weeks. So, I'll start scheduling a DPE for the end of Feb, and plan to do the 3 hours of pre-checkride flights, which will include the remainder of the required instrument time, during the third week of Feb.
Hours logged this flight: 1.8
Hours logged total: 48.5 (42.8 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 8
Take-offs and landings total: 106
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
- 8 night landings, with and without landing lights.
- Light night maneuvers.
- Night VFR navigation.
Flight:
We met up at 6 at the terminal to sign me off to take the written exam and to chat about a few things I missed on the "official" groundschool completion test. I got 94 out of 100 questions right. We chatted about some night topics and the plan for the flight. Sunset was at 6:15, and at 6:45 we headed out to 388 for preflighting.
During the day it had been windy, 13+ kts, but tonight I got lucky and scored calm conditions. But man oh man was it cold! Earlier in the day Chuck had called to ask what the owners' policy was concerning cold-temp starts of the plane. This had not yet come up for us with 388, so I had no idea. Husband indicated that the policy on planes he had rented in the past required preheating at or below freezing, and tonight it was expected to drop below freezing around 7 pm (where'd our unusually tropical winter weather go?!?). I called Kevin (mechanic) to ask if they had a preheater and, upon hearing that they didn't, asked his advice. He relayed that most POH's say preheating isn't required unless the temp is in the teens (Fahrenheit, obviously!) and that provided the engine was "willing" to start he saw no reason for us to cancel the flight on account of temp.
Preflight was cuh-old. Thank the heavenly stars that there was no wind, or else we'd have canceled on account of not physically being able to do the preflight! Ok, maybe I'm a wimp, but it was unpleasant. Husband had given me his hat with bill-clip light again and this time I remembered to bring it. It was fantastic, making the whole process more efficient! Soooooo much easier than fumbling with a hand-held flashlight while using two hands to preflight and hold a checklist.
I found that frost crystals were starting to branch out on the fuselage, and thin smooth patches of frost were forming in various areas on the wings, especially near the tips. Chuck looked it over and said it wouldn't affect airflow and that we'd be ok; it was due to temp differential between the fuel inside the wing and the cooling surface of the wing.
Chuck showed me about rotating the prop a few times manually to get some oil moving up from the sump into the engine as a preparatory action. Finally we got in (although it was not any warmer inside yet, of course).
Three shots of primer. Not enough, engine wouldn't catch. Three more shots. Engine wants to catch, but won't. Three more shots, plus a loaded shot that, while I cranked and Chuck managed the throttle, I'd smoothly feed. This got it, and 388 came to life just like its normal happy self.
On to the flight... I turned on the runway lights (7 mic clicks in 5 seconds) and turned off the blinding runway end strobes (3 long clicks), plugged in the FYJ AWOS in the standby com slot and tuned the HCM VOR on the nav, then executed a standard takeoff on 31. As soon as I rotated and began to climb, all I could see was a gorgeous big sky full of stars. Wow. But weird, too -- was I pitched too far?!??! A quick check of the airspeed indicator said all was as it should be, so after running through the other instruments to verify that we were in good shape, I returned my gaze to that beautiful picture. That must be what the lucky shuttle astronauts get to see.
We climbed to 2500' and headed north. Immediately I could see the telltale city and factory lights that are West Point. For good measure, I dialed the VOR indicator to take us to HCM (after verifying the Morse code), knowing that the 337 would kick us over to the airport. Once departing the VOR and hearing on the AWOS that the winds were calm, I began the descent and set up for a 45 entry into downwind for 27 and clicked on the pilot-controlled lights. As we got onto downwind, however, I noted that the well-lit smoke coming from the well-lit factory was blowing gently westward; perhaps there would be a light tailwind, but it shouldn't be much. We'd give it a shot.... (Famous last words!)
This first approach was probably the worst as far as organization. I was very preoccupied with the differences compared to a daytime pattern, with making my pattern turns at the right time, using the runway lights as the visual cues, and, knowing that 27 has a displaced threshold on account of trees that I most likely wouldn't be able to see, I was major-preoccupied with not being low on final. Also, FYJ has no VASI or PAPI, so it would have to be all based on my judgment and gut feeling about the situation.
Predictably, I came in way high. I was probably still at 300' at least as I came over the threshold at idle power with at least 20 degrees of flaps, maybe 30. Ok, I had wanted to be some high, but that was too much. Also amidst the new distractions of a not-so-well-lit airport environment, I did a poor job of managing my airspeed and was probably ~85 mph on short final where it should be more like 65-70. Go-around #1. I was a little frustrated with myself, but being conservative assured that I'd get to try again!
Second time around was better, but resulted in another go-around. This time I was very careful with my airspeed, keeping it where it ought to be, and at the beginning of final when I realized I was high I put out the full 40 degrees of flaps. I should have made it down this time, but that's when I realized that that tailwind was having a bigger effect than anticipated and was forcing my glidepath to be longer than what I wanted. So a night go-around from full flaps ensued.
Third time around, I was on downwind and Chuck said to turn this pattern into a crosswind entry for runway 9. I was a little glad at that moment to not have to do 27 again since it wasn't going well. My downwind leg was a little too close to the runway, so I decided to extend to compensate for a short base. I ended up drilling along on final, trying not to lose too much altitude too far out, and the landing lights clearly lit the trees below us short of the threshold (they were well below us, but still...). That was proof of two things: 1 - don't wanna be low on final! What if the landing light was out? I wouldn't have seen those trees and while seeing the trees is not what determined how I tweaked my power/glide, it's nice to see something if you know you need to avoid it. 2 - I never saw the trees on 27, so I must have been way-plenty-extra high.
The landing was just fine. No problem. I rolled out to the end of 9, turned around and departed 27 for another attempt at 27. And yet another go-around! Can you believe it?!?! I couldn't. I was starting to feel very frustrated. Things were going wrong, we were talking about them, I was fixing them. Airspeed under control, check. Wide-enough pattern to descend on base, check. Flaps set appropriately, check. Corners of the pattern at proper altitudes, check. Beginning the go-around, I put in the power, started on the flaps, and let out a little of the tension by swearing, followed by an apology to Chuck for the swearing.
Next time around was very similar. I thought I was doing well and anticipating the tailwind. Turning final I was at ~375' AGL. Full flaps. Power off. 75 mph, pulling up a tad to slow those last few mphs off. And we just drifted. Still probably 100' above crossing the threshold. I was ready to go around yet again when Chuck said to land it. This, I felt, was doable but pushing it. Part of the lesson on this landing was that the runway looks shorter at night than it really is. We did finally get down, and with plenty of runway to spare, but I was still feeling very negative about the whole thing and voiced that it wasn't working for me. We talked more about all the variables and left it basically at "more practice needed;" I thought I was compensating for everything already, with the exception of selecting an aim point short of the runway, knowing the wind would drift me past it.
2 landings, 5 approaches. Ugh. (Although if it was baseball, .400 would be heroic!)
I turned us around for a 9 departure, and Chuck called for a soft-field takeoff. I considered going for the checklist, but instead I rattled off the procedure from memory: 10 degrees of flaps, get airborne asap, accelerate in ground effect to Vx, climb out. And so that I did.
When I got abeam the numbers for the landing on 9, Chuck called for a soft-field landing. Again from memory: Full flaps, shallow approach (which I would consciously forgo), hold the nose up for as long as possible after landing. This wasn't so good. Final was fine, and I was good and slow, <65 mph. The stall warning came on before we crossed the threshold, which made me a little nervous since that was not typical for my landings -- horn during the flare was normal. I just tried to be careful with it, and as I flared, we stalled, plopped down a few inches, and I was unable to hold the nose off the surface. I pulled back to at least keep the weight on the mains, but failure on the soft-field landing.
3 landings down.
Roll-out to the end of 9, turn around and prepare to depart 27. Chuck wanted another soft-field takeoff but asked me to use my checklist, basically saying that if I have a checklist for something, even if I know what needs to be done, to use it. A point well made and well taken; the DPE will like that. That's one of the fundamentals, right? It did make me wonder if he disapproved of my technique on the previous one, but he didn't critique it at all. I was doing the right things, but obviously I was being a little overwhelmed by new stuff and different stuff and feeling frustrated. I never felt overwhelmed, but in retrospect I think that might have been the case.
After a good soft-field takeoff, we were downwind for 27 when Chuck said that the landing on 27 should be non-standard, but lady's choice for how. I opted for a short-field landing. Full-flaps, slow, steep approach. Again I thought I had accounted for the tailwind but didn't land until 2/3 of the way down the runway, as the side lights changed to red. We stopped in an extremely short distance (good short-field landing except for completely missing the target landing zone!) and had to throttle up to get rolling to the end of 27. I turned around and reviewed the checklist for a short-field takeoff: hold the brakes, no flaps, throttle up, check the gauges, release the brakes, roll to Vx, rocket upward! And thusly was it done.
4 down.
By this time my approaches and landings on 9 were going just fine, so on final my landing light "failed" at Chuck's whim. That was totally awesome! As instantaneously as the light went off, my brain shifted gears and my eyes focused on the red strip at the far end of the runway. I mean, it was really just amazing how that naturally happened. And it perfectly, perfectly demonstrated what I should have been using to judge height and flare point this whole time! Man that was cool, and it was a really good landing, too. Chuck reminded me as we continued the rollout to turn that light back on.
5 down.
At the end of 27 we turned and departed 9 as a standard takeoff. This time around would be a standard landing with no landing light. Despite how fantastically awesome the previous no-light landing was and how enthusiastic I was about doing it that way, I still had trepidation about the trees and my inability thus far to aptly land with the tailwind. But I did what I could do: manage airpseed, manage altitudes, try to land "early"... On final the light went off and while the landing happened long again, it happened just fine and was again a very cool experience.
6 down.
The next two were normal takeoffs and normal landings, one on 9 and the last one on 27. Hmmm, you know, something must be out of order above, because the final departure was on 27, followed by a left turn to the south to head home, so the final landing was on 9. In any case, you get the point: we exhausted the West Point pattern and accomplished the night training, with various styles of landings and takeoffs and with and without the landing light!
After departing FYJ, we crossed the river, got to 2500' and I slowed for slow flight. The stall horn was squealing as I held ~65 mph (clean). A 90-degree turn to the west, and I had to add a little power to keep from losing altitude. A 90-degree turn back to south, again with power management. Approximately south I pulled out the power and pulled back to stall. It was a normal stall recovery with the added experience that the *visual* horizon seemed more obvious as the windscreen full of stars transitioned to a combination of stars and city lights. Given the unreliability of horizons at night, that's not something to rely on, and I was actively checking the instruments to verify attitude and climb/descent rate, but it was neat. Immediately upon establishing a positive climb, I moved on to the power-on stall, which took a good deal of effort to induce and with all those stars and no sense of horizon I was sure we were about to flip over backwards! (Go, little Cessna, go! :) Ha ha ha ha...) Again, the stall recovery was normal and it illustrated that I still need to work on getting a clean break to demonstrate to the DPE.
Getting back to JGG was an adventure. After the slow flight and stalls, I didn't have my bearings for where we were, even with the peninsula spread out before me all lit up. I couldn't immediately tell where I was based on city lights and roads, so I started searching for the beacon. (Turns out the beacon was on this time, thankfully, but that it's kinda hard for me to make out until within ~6 nm or so.) Chuck asked what I was going to do. I said there were two primary options: first, HCM VOR 188 is part of the instrument approach to JGG, and I had HCM tuned in so I dialed in the radial and turned eastward to intercept. Second option, head south, knowing we'd eventually cross the James River, at which point we'd be able to identify the telltale features like curves in the river, Jamestown Island, the power station, etc. After puttering along for a few minutes and still not hitting the 188, which would have sent us right to the airport when we really wanted to be to the west of the airport for a 31 landing, I changed methods with Chuck's approval and went river-hunting. It was not long at all before we found it. I was still looking for the beacon along the water's edge when Chuck knowingly said, "Aha! What's that?" and pointed just off the left of the nose. The ferry docks!
From there, I clicked on the runway lights and got on downwind, where the runway lights were promptly obscured by the treeline. The approach was normal, although I do remember being a little tense about it. Probably on account of the fact that 31 is the less predictable of the two finals at JGG because of the swamp monster; but he would probably be hibernating right now anyway... JGG does have three lit bars that align when you're on the glidepath (APAP?), and so I used those to bring us in for a decent landing.
Discussion:
- Tailwinds are bad, m'kay: Well, I suppose not necessarily bad, but they definitely require adjustments to the standard landing setup. When possible, I will be avoiding that situation! I believe I proved tonight that despite my efforts to correct the elements that were not working, it still didn't come under control adequately.
And that was such a light tailwind, too! AWOS said calm, but the smoke from the factory was disturbed. That was good proof of why you land into the wind, even when the reports say there's no wind at all! :) - Maneuvers at night: Theoretically, maneuvers at night should be quite a lot like maneuvers during the day. On a reasonably clear night, even with no moon, there's still a horizon. Well, let me rephrase: Last night it was clear with no moon and we could pick out the horizon here. Maybe it was as simple as where the stars stopped. Maybe there was a subtle color difference between sky and dark land. But the horizon was there and that was useful for stall recovery. It would have been usable for steep turns and the like as well. For slow-flight turns, with squealing stall warning, airspeed, DG and attitude indicator were my primary inputs.
The obvious difference, however, is the trouble scenario. NTSB reports that the vast majority of accidents happen during maneuvering flight. An emergency at night is more serious since it's so much harder to find a safe landing site. In stark contrast to the night x-c a few weeks back under a full moon, tonight I could barely tell the difference between water and land, let alone pick fields out from trees or even gauge the size of fields. We did the maneuvers last night with caution, with confidence in the plane's performance in the conditions, and to a minimal extent.
Doing night stalls was a valuable experience. I'm glad we did those. I don't think that doing steep turns at night would add much to my skill set or comfort level or whatever. Stalls are always practical to practice, and since the visuals are quite a bit different at night, it was good to do it. In the end, it went to show that the process is the same (naturally!) but that the instruments play a more important role since a horizon may not be available. - Landing at night: The number one thing to remember about landing at night is that it follows the exact same procedure as landing during the day. The same procedure. Altitudes are the same. Airspeeds are the same. The pattern is the same. The visual cues are different, especially for runways with no approach path indicators, but it's still the same process.
Self-Assessment: More polish, more practice!
- Flying
- Preflight, taxiing, normal takeoff, short/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, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
- Crosswind landing: Decent.
- Radio work: Good.
- Short/soft-field landings: Good, need to practice hitting the aim point.
- Night operations: Decent.
- Navigating
- ADF: Haven't used it since the intro, needs practice.
- VOR: Good, will get more practice.
- Dead reckoning: Improving but needs practice.
Next: ??? Husband wants to act as DPE for me before I take my checkride, and that's a good idea since I haven't done maneuvers recently and only typically grade myself on altitude. This week we need to do that, and I need to do a phase check with Dan. Then I leave on Saturday to visit a friend in Florida for 5 days, and when I get back 388 will be gone for two weeks. So, I'll start scheduling a DPE for the end of Feb, and plan to do the 3 hours of pre-checkride flights, which will include the remainder of the required instrument time, during the third week of Feb.
Hours logged this flight: 1.8
Hours logged total: 48.5 (42.8 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 8
Take-offs and landings total: 106
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
Star light, star bright...
I'm super tired right now and am going to bed! But first I just wanted to report that I got in my 8 night landings tonight with Chuck, and we did a little slow flight and two stalls by starlight.
Pitching up to depart JGG was surreal, beautiful and a little unsettling -- having a windscreen full of stars just felt wrong! I had to keep double-checking the airspeed :)
It went well. Three go-arounds on 27 at FYJ thanks to a minor tailwind (also a learning experience), short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings, landings with and without landing lights -- without is totally awesome!
Pitching up to depart JGG was surreal, beautiful and a little unsettling -- having a windscreen full of stars just felt wrong! I had to keep double-checking the airspeed :)
It went well. Three go-arounds on 27 at FYJ thanks to a minor tailwind (also a learning experience), short- and soft-field takeoffs and landings, landings with and without landing lights -- without is totally awesome!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Retarding myself
I've decided to slow down. I was pushing to finish up and do my checkride by Jan 26. Losing 4 days last week for personal reasons, and now not having quite as much daytime flexibility as I had hoped due to work obligations, plus with the unknowns of weather and DPE availability, it's just too much. I was stressing myself out, and that leaves open too much possibility for screwing stuff up.
So the new plan is as follows:
1 - Tomorrow night, finish up night training. It's supposed to be pretty windy during the day, but calming down into the evening. If it doesn't settle down as expected, that's ok, we'll postpone.
2 - Thursday afternoon, phase check with Dan. I'm thinking about rescheduling this for next week since I haven't practiced maneuvers at all in the last 5-6 weeks since I've been working on cross-country stuff. That would give me time to get in a little solo refresher time.
3 - Friday 2 pm, take the written exam. I took another test last night when I was sleepy, hot and not feeling well, and got a 90. I was alarmed during the test because I got several questions I had never seen before, not even the topic areas! But I'm good to go, have my "reread-just-before-test" list of facts, and just need to get some sleep.
388 will be MIA for the first two weeks of February, so I'll be planning to do my pre-checkride prep flights when it returns and then the checkride soon after. That gives me this week and next week to work in some solo prep flights in a non-rushed fashion.
So the new plan is as follows:
1 - Tomorrow night, finish up night training. It's supposed to be pretty windy during the day, but calming down into the evening. If it doesn't settle down as expected, that's ok, we'll postpone.
2 - Thursday afternoon, phase check with Dan. I'm thinking about rescheduling this for next week since I haven't practiced maneuvers at all in the last 5-6 weeks since I've been working on cross-country stuff. That would give me time to get in a little solo refresher time.
3 - Friday 2 pm, take the written exam. I took another test last night when I was sleepy, hot and not feeling well, and got a 90. I was alarmed during the test because I got several questions I had never seen before, not even the topic areas! But I'm good to go, have my "reread-just-before-test" list of facts, and just need to get some sleep.
388 will be MIA for the first two weeks of February, so I'll be planning to do my pre-checkride prep flights when it returns and then the checkride soon after. That gives me this week and next week to work in some solo prep flights in a non-rushed fashion.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Congratulations, John!
One of our co-owners in 35388 passed his checkride at the end of last week. Bigtime congrats to him!
He has over 300 hours in his ultralight, and now is getting ready for his early-February two-week celebration trip to FL (in 388, the motivation for me to finish my training within the next 2 weeks)!
He has over 300 hours in his ultralight, and now is getting ready for his early-February two-week celebration trip to FL (in 388, the motivation for me to finish my training within the next 2 weeks)!
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Mixed emotions...
Forgive me for a short post. The x-c went very well, I got in 3.0 hours and 2 landings at controlled airports, so I've now satisfied all of my solo requirements.
Husband's grandfather passed away this morning while I was nearing home base, so we'll likely be heading back south for his funeral in the next day or two. Please keep Husband and his family in your thoughts.
Husband's grandfather passed away this morning while I was nearing home base, so we'll likely be heading back south for his funeral in the next day or two. Please keep Husband and his family in your thoughts.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Practice test #2 - 95
I did another online test -- 95. I felt like I was doing badly tonight and was just generally frustrated... the cat walking in front of the keyboard, not having enough desk space (still using the old college desk) to spread out nicely, etc. The cat got the boot, and the rest just had to be dealt with as best as possible.
Tonight I missed:
1 - cloud bases in PIREPs are AGL. I figured MSL since a pilot calling them in has very easy access to that measure, and they want to encourage the reporting of actual conditions. I suppose, though, that pilots could be reporting that way and the FSS or Flight Watch or whoever translates it according to reported position to AGL. There was logic behind my answer, just not correct logic.
2 - Measurement error -- The question was something like "From airport A to a VOR B, what is the TO radial to fly?" One answer was 359 and one was 001. My measurement said 360. Repeatedly. I couldn't see what was going wrong, so I eventually randomly selected 001. They wanted 359. I'll have to see if Husband measures differently.
3 - Another ETA problem where I came up with 30 minutes and the answer was 34. This one I have already gone back and rechecked, and upon recalc'ing I get 33, so I guess I was careless somewhere. On the real test, I'll double- and triple-check.
Consistency is good, I reckon.
X-c in the morning to finish up the x-c reqs as well as landings at controlled airports. I have to do a phase check with another instructor (probably Dan again), get 8 night landings, and do 3 hours of pre-checkride prep flights.
Tonight I missed:
1 - cloud bases in PIREPs are AGL. I figured MSL since a pilot calling them in has very easy access to that measure, and they want to encourage the reporting of actual conditions. I suppose, though, that pilots could be reporting that way and the FSS or Flight Watch or whoever translates it according to reported position to AGL. There was logic behind my answer, just not correct logic.
2 - Measurement error -- The question was something like "From airport A to a VOR B, what is the TO radial to fly?" One answer was 359 and one was 001. My measurement said 360. Repeatedly. I couldn't see what was going wrong, so I eventually randomly selected 001. They wanted 359. I'll have to see if Husband measures differently.
3 - Another ETA problem where I came up with 30 minutes and the answer was 34. This one I have already gone back and rechecked, and upon recalc'ing I get 33, so I guess I was careless somewhere. On the real test, I'll double- and triple-check.
Consistency is good, I reckon.
X-c in the morning to finish up the x-c reqs as well as landings at controlled airports. I have to do a phase check with another instructor (probably Dan again), get 8 night landings, and do 3 hours of pre-checkride prep flights.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Bleh
I spent about 8 hours today cranking through the remainder of the Jeppesen FliteSchool groundschool software, and redid all of the practice questions.
I haven't taken the official software test yet, the one that I can print out to get credit for the groundschool prereq. I'll do that after taking a few more online practice tests.
I just took my first practice test at sportys.com, and got a 95. One question I missed because I didn't read the answers carefully enough. One I missed because I couldn't remember what the min vis requirement is for VFR above 10000' MSL (it's 5 sm; I answered 3 sm). The third was a calculation error that I'll have to go back and review; time en route should have been 8 minutes but I got 11 minutes.
There's so much rote memorization. I kept a list of things I know I'll just have to re-memorize right before the test. Like FAR 43.7 allows a private pilot to perform preventive maintenance. Like whether the word category or class means airplace/rotorcraft/etc or normal/utility/acrobatic with regard to airmen/aircraft.
Maybe I'll feel good enough about it to take the written this week. Right now I just feel drained.
I haven't taken the official software test yet, the one that I can print out to get credit for the groundschool prereq. I'll do that after taking a few more online practice tests.
I just took my first practice test at sportys.com, and got a 95. One question I missed because I didn't read the answers carefully enough. One I missed because I couldn't remember what the min vis requirement is for VFR above 10000' MSL (it's 5 sm; I answered 3 sm). The third was a calculation error that I'll have to go back and review; time en route should have been 8 minutes but I got 11 minutes.
There's so much rote memorization. I kept a list of things I know I'll just have to re-memorize right before the test. Like FAR 43.7 allows a private pilot to perform preventive maintenance. Like whether the word category or class means airplace/rotorcraft/etc or normal/utility/acrobatic with regard to airmen/aircraft.
Maybe I'll feel good enough about it to take the written this week. Right now I just feel drained.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
No x-c this morning
The gusty crosswinds here and at Charlottesville stepped up. I'll try again on Tuesday. I suppose now I should spend those hours studying!
Friday, January 05, 2007
Das Logbuch
Chuck needed to get caught up on flight school records for my solo time and requested copies of my logbook pages. Scanned 'em, may as well post 'em too!
I remember standing next to our cars after those first few flights and watching Chuck fill in my entries. I certainly had perma-grin then! I had flown! And then more grins when I got to start filling out everything but the comments. And then more grins when I got to fill in the whole thing all by myself!
That's my medical/student license peeking out of the top left. It's clipped to the front page...
Errr, I better double-check all those sums, now that they're out there to publicly disgrace me (if wrong)!
I remember standing next to our cars after those first few flights and watching Chuck fill in my entries. I certainly had perma-grin then! I had flown! And then more grins when I got to start filling out everything but the comments. And then more grins when I got to fill in the whole thing all by myself!
That's my medical/student license peeking out of the top left. It's clipped to the front page...
Errr, I better double-check all those sums, now that they're out there to publicly disgrace me (if wrong)!
Solo x-c prep
[Update: Dammit, it's looking gusty tomorrow, with base winds near my x-wind limits...]
I'm hoping to finish out the solo x-c requirement tomorrow. I'd like to leave around 10 am, but right now they're saying a cloud deck at 1000' until lunchtime, so it may be delayed a tad.
The plan will be JGG->CHO->JGG for ~2 hours of flying time plus land/taxi/takeoff. I'll have to see how the Hobbs is going on the way home and maybe divert down to AKQ or something if the winds have shortened the trip. Or maybe go past JGG to PHF for the last towered airport landing. Or go JGG->CHO->PTB->JGG.
I just don't know! :) Depends on how the weather shapes up.
I'm hoping to finish out the solo x-c requirement tomorrow. I'd like to leave around 10 am, but right now they're saying a cloud deck at 1000' until lunchtime, so it may be delayed a tad.
The plan will be JGG->CHO->JGG for ~2 hours of flying time plus land/taxi/takeoff. I'll have to see how the Hobbs is going on the way home and maybe divert down to AKQ or something if the winds have shortened the trip. Or maybe go past JGG to PHF for the last towered airport landing. Or go JGG->CHO->PTB->JGG.
I just don't know! :) Depends on how the weather shapes up.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
JEP FII-??: Night Cross-country
Goals:
Flight:
Tonight I had my first night training flight. After the long holiday, I had a bit of trouble getting in touch with Chuck, and I was feeling a little (self-imposed) rush to get night time in at the beginning of this week since there was a full moon and later in the week new storms were to roll in. When he did get back to me, he suggested I contact Dan (the instructor who did my phase check) since Chuck wouldn't be able to fly at night this week. I did so, and Dan was gracious enough to trade shifts at his part-time job to free up his evening for the lesson. We arranged to meet at the airport at 5:45 and for me to have planned a x-c down to ASJ (Tri-County Airport in Ahoskie, NC).
I got to the airport early and preflighted in the dark. That took about twice as long as usual, and I kept feeling disoriented with my checklist. I think this was because I couldn't just hold my finger in place and quickly glance down to see what was next on account of needing an extra hand for flashlight management. (I had grabbed Husband's hat with bill-clip light at home but somehow neglected to actually put it in my flight bag, stupid me.)
When Dan got back to the airport from helping a friend ferry a plane from another local airport, we met up and chatted for a while about night-flight topics. Empty-field myopia, where you stare at one spot and it kinda blanks out. Rods (movement) and cones (color) and using peripheral vision more. False horizons, and being diligent about checking instruments to keep oriented. Target fixation. The tendency to flare too high for landing and how to use the REILs to combat that. We looked over the route I had picked, then adjourned to 388.
After we hopped in and got situated, I started the next checklist, which begins with "Preflight inspection - complete." Since it had been 20-30 minutes since I did the preflight, I did a quick recall and remembered that I had chocked the plane (but not tied down) when I went to the flight school to meet Dan. Aha! Good. Hop out, unchock, re-situate. No embarassing attempts at departure with the wheels chocked!
After starting up, I spent a minute experimenting with lighting options. 388 has a fantastic red dome light that was beyond perfect for illuminating the instrument panel. Really, I wouldn't change a thing about that. For reading checklists and sectionals, however, it wasn't sufficient and I was regretting not having the hat light. I had two flashlights, one for a backup, and neither was particularly convenient to manage. One had a clip, so if I had a shirt pocket that might have been easy, but I had a thick fleece sweater on. The other had a short lanyard, wrist-sized, but a dangling device wasn't appealing. Dan's flashlight was on a neck lanyard, and that seemed like a workable arrangement, so I'll try that next time (or remember the hat!). I ended up holding the clip flashlight during the whole flight except for takeoffs and landings; that one has the push-the-end-for-temporary-light-or-twist-for-constant, and the push-style was most useful for short checks of the papers.
Eventually we got going. I always use the beacon and strobes, but Dan emphasized that they're required for night flight, which makes perfect sense. The landing lights were useful for taxiing, and my confidence in where the wings end was definitely compromised by the darkness! I thought my distance-judging skills were bad in the daylight -- that's nothing! Let's just say it was a slow, cautious and kinda tense taxi experience. Checking the rpm/oil/suction/amp gauges over in front of the right seat was more inconvenient in the dark during run-up, but not prohibitive. When ready to depart I flicked on the strobes and man are they bright. Dan recommended limiting their use to pattern and airport vicinity, and turning them on at the last moment before taking the runway. I'd have to agree -- the extreme contrast and flickering effect is pretty hard on the eyes.
I keyed the mike according to instruction to turn the lights on -- 7 in 5 seconds for high, 5 in 3 for medium, 3 in 1 for low, and 3 slow clicks to turn off the blinding runway strobes.
Takeoff was no different than normal. I suppose perhaps I'm used to giving some minor awareness to the periphery when rolling since deer and turkeys live in the area, but the limited visibility due to the night eliminated that possibility, kinda like a runway tunnel.
While climbing out, maybe around 300' and after checking gauges and instruments, I took in my first few quick glances of the night. It was really breathtaking. Huge full moon over the glistening river, woods and fields and streets, neighborhood lights, the brewery was shining in its pocket of woods, tiny aircraft lights way up high... Very special.
But no time for that yet! It was time to get the flight set up. As we crossed the river and continued to climb, I got set up on the 233 heading to AKQ (first checkpoint) and then called Leesburg Radio and opened the VFR flight plan. Next it was Norfolk Approach to pick up flight following, and quickly we were handed to another Norfolk frequency and then to Washington Center, who advised us of traffic at 12 o'clock that we already had in sight. It didn't take long to be able to pick out the green-and-white beacon of Wakefield -- it proved to be much easier to locate in the dark than it is in the day!
I leveled off at 6500' for the cruise portion of the trip. While working down to AKQ we played two "games." One was identifying landmarks outside and trying to find them on the sectional, and vice versa. There was a school that was well-lit and on the map. Thanks to the moon, the big straight cut of road that connects several towns on the southside was visible; also on the map and the main daytime indicator that AKQ is nearby. The second exercise addressed emergency landing site selection. Since Dan and I are both familiar enough with the area to know that the vast majority of fields down there -- easily identifiable in the glorious moonlight -- are flat and unobstructed, they provide an obvious option although they specific choice must be more guarded and having nearby alternatives would be more important since a last-minute rethink might be necessary. We talked about roads as an option, which many people don't like and which also must be considered with utmost care and reservation. If the moon wasn't so fantabulous, picking fields from woods from water would be more difficult and thus the emergency decisions would be much harder.
Oh, another aspect of this trip that was new to me was fuel tank management. The placard on our fuel selector says single-tank operation is needed over 5000'. As we passed through 5000' we were across the river and so I chatted it over with Dan for a minute and then reached down and clicked it to the right tank. This all happened very quickly: I felt it slip past the right tank (towards off!) ever so slightly, and was backing it up to rest in the notch when Dan took it and seated it. How did he know I had missed it? How did he possibly have time to get his hand down there between the time when I went past and started to go back? Literally, it was like 3/4 of a second. There was no change in performance. I understood that he'd check it after I switched, but the quickness with which he was on it surprised me. He did say right afterwards that had we gone for 10 seconds like that we'd be restarting the engine, but it would have been less than a second before I had seated it properly. I suppose he was ready to check it immediately after my switch so that I would not get first-hand experience in what happens when you screw up your fuel management, and that his response just came more quickly that I had anticipated. Anyway, I made a note of when the tank was switched.
We got to AKQ right on schedule. Sweet! (And I wonder why this time the DR worked out just right, whereas all my other attempts at DR to AKQ have failed miserably.) Next leg: 240 for 11 minutes to the town of Courtland, west of the town of Franklin, home of the Franklin-Rose Airport (FKN). FKN's beacon was easily visible from AKQ -- ~18 nm maybe. The towns were pretty easy to pick out based on size and relative locations. Awesome, going well. Well, almost going just right. We were two minutes late getting to Courtland. I adjusted the ETA for the next leg, a 6-nm hop to the teensy town of Newsoms, which we were skeptical that we'd even find: most of the stretch from FKN to ASJ is pretty empty.
We took a few minutes to talk again about false horizons and tricks our human eyes and brains play at night. Looking behind us at the peninsula, several things were apparent. For one, you can definitely tell where there's land v. water! Newport News and Hampton run together, wedged on the peninsula, and after a small break that is the James River entering the Chesapeake Bay, Norfolk and Chesapeake and other southern cities all clump together. We know that all of those city lights stop because the Atlantic ocean starts, but I could see how it would be easy to think they stopped because of a horizon. Another element of the city illusions was that the York River-bounded side of the peninsula runs basically at a diagonal, so I could also see how it would be disorienting to think that a line of city lights at a slant in front of darkness might be the horizon. Another thing was that some haze was apparent, and it somewhat blurred the line between land and sky. The haze was lit from above by the moon, and probably from below by the cities. We'd see more about this effect soon enough...
We did find something that we decided was Newsoms, and were two minutes late here as well. Our heading seemed ok still, so perhaps the wind had just picked up a little since I wrote up the numbers. With only 20 miles to the airport, I didn't think that trying to recalc in the dark while fumbling with a flashlight would be worth it. The next waypoint was Murfreesboro, a bastion of civilization in the VA/NC countryside, in 12 nm. A thin layer of clouds was forming up below us and to the east, and while we could probably see Murfreesboro, we decided it was time to descend to get a clear view of the ground and also just because of proximity to the destination. After alerting ATC of our intentions to descend to 3000' and being instructed to maintain VFR, I started the descent. The clouds proved to be at ~5000', and no course alteration was required to stay clear of them; they were entirely to our left, but in fact they were preventing a clear view of Murfreesboro. As we got lower we found that we were farther west of the town than planned, but could clearly see the ASJ beacon.
I continued our descent as we tuned in the AWOS to find calm winds. I chose to circle the airport and enter crosswind since we still had some altitude to lose for a landing on 19. My plan was that since no one else was around and the winds were calm and we wanted to go back north that I'd depart runway 1. The night pattern was normal, using the runway lights for reference was no different procedurally than using the runway itself, and the only part that was a little sketchy was not having a clear view of treetops on final, but Dan recommended a little extra precautionary altitude and it turned out just fine. I did use the VASI this time, and just after turning final was on the glide path it signaled, but then applied that little bit of extra height and so watched the double-whites until I could see the transition from dark trees to lighter (dead) grass, at which time the runway and the horizontal strip of red lights marking the other end became the focus.
Sooner than I anticipated Dan said to start my flare. The typical response for pilots new to night landings, I understand, is to flare too high, thinking they're lower than they actually are. Perhaps my feeble brain was overly aggressive in countering that impulse and went the other way. Turns out we were just right and had a very nice landing, slightly left of center.
I rolled to the end, and since no one was around I turned us around on the runway and quickly cleaned up, organized my papers for the next leg and prepared to depart. We took a quick look at the fuel selector (which had been switched back to both for the descent) and I gave it a practice turn in each direction before returning it to both.
We departed straight out and tuned in the FKN VOR for the return trip, estimated to take about 32 minutes that we'd fly at 3000' to ensure the clouds we saw on the way down couldn't increase below us going home. Radial 027 would take us to it from ASJ, then 034 would send us to JGG. Once established on 027, it was time to call FSS and close the JGG->ASJ flight plan. The Cofield VOR (CVI) was nearby and was a remote for Raleigh FSS but required transmitting on 122.1 and listening over the VOR freq. Dan dialed it in and made it the active nav freq. We identified the Morse code and then I tried to hail Raleigh.
In retrospect, I think Dan and I had miscommunicated about the frequencies -- obviously we were listening on the VOR freq (the Morse code was ID'd) and the com had 122.1 in it. I should have said "Raleigh Radio, 35388 is listening on", but instead Dan had said to tell them I was transmitting on 122.1. At the time I thought they shouldn't care what I'm transmitting on, they care what I'm listening on, but he's the instructor so I did as told and got no response, twice. Between tries, Dan tapped my VOR indicator which was showing the needle fully deflected to the right. I was surprised but couldn't eliminate the possibility that I had drifted that far since I was preoccupied with the nav and the sectional and whatnot and we were relatively close to the VOR. So I chased it with a good turn to the right and had probably gone through 45 degrees of heading before I realized that the wrong VOR was active in the nav. Duh. I pointed that out to Dan, who said "Good catch." That was probably a test. So I switched FKN back up to active and reaquired my radial, then back to CVI for attempt #2.
Dan's next suggestion was to pick up flight following and then we'd try another frequency for FSS. We were almost immediately handed off by Wash Center to Norfolk Approach, and next to nothing was going on on those airwaves, so Dan suggested just asking if they could close the flight plan for me. The fella had been super nice, so I was a little surprised when he didn't come back with an acknowledgement or anything. After a minute of silence, he asked if we had a number for it. That confused me, and I asked Dan if he meant something other than 1-800-Wx-Brief; Dan said just to tell him the outlet and see where it went from there. I said that we had filed with Leesburg Radio (shoulda just said Leesburg) and had been unable to hail anyone yet to close. After another few moments of silence he came back saying that Leesburg had my cancellation. I thanked him in the best sweet girl voice I could conjure.
Ok, back on track. Soon enough we were on the 034 radial outbound to JGG, leaving Franklin, with the Newport News sprawl getting closer. Dan pointed out the bend in the river with the power station brightly marking the southside point across from the airport, though we were still too far out to pick out the airport.
I was hoisted by my own petard again on this last bit. As we continued up, I was scanning and putting together the light puzzle, working from NN and the power station and all that, searching for the JGG beacon. Aha! A green flash. There it is; outside of the city lights so it's not PHF, too far up river to be Fort Eustis. So I consciously stopped holding my radial and headed for the beacon. As I made this decision, Dan was pointing out PHF and we chatted about the ILS clearances for inbound pilots we were hearing over the radio. A few minutes later, I reacquired the beacon and that's when I realized my folly: green-white-white. That was Fort Eustis, not JGG. Crap.
I admitted my mistake to Dan, who then asked me what I was going to do. The first plan that came to mind was to dial in the Harcum VOR, knowing that the 188 outbound radial was part of the instrument approach to JGG; that would be the backup. For visual acquisition, I'd need to look west of that FAF military beacon. By this time I could make out Jamestown Island and knew the airport to be just beyond it. But I couldn't see the airport yet, and neither of us found a beacon there. We agreed that we were basically there, so I cancelled flight following so we could switch over to CTAF and activate the runway lights. From out there I never saw the lights lining the runway, but the runway is a cut through the trees so that wasn't terribly surprising. What I did see, however, was a short, neat line of bright white lights that conceivably could be end lighting. Dan confirmed, so I began the descent. We were going to be way high, so I executed an S-turn over Jamestown Island to buy us some time. That was pretty weird, and didn't quite feel right in the dark. I thought back to the flight training articles warning that the vast majority of accidents happen during maneuvering flight.
But we got down and into the pattern for right 13 and it was just fine. The winds had picked up some and were blowing me into the runway pretty good, which I didn't notice until he pointed out that I was getting kinda close. I was looking back periodically to judge my position relative to the runway, but I admit that I was also trying to savor the last few moments of the first night flight and also taking stock of how the usual daytime visual queues for key pattern points are invisible. A little crab took care of that. On final I had a pretty good right crab in, but was happy with the stable track of runway centerline. Below the trees I was able to straighten out without having to slip (the trees broke the wind) and had a good landing.
And for the record, we never, ever saw the JGG beacon; perhaps it became inop. no NOTAM regarding its status before we left...
Discussion:
Self-Assessment: More polish, more practice!
Next: I've got the plane Saturday morning/afternoon for another x-c. I would like to do something different, but I've gone to most of the area that's in "short" cross-country distance. I was thinking of going back to Elizabeth City because it's an interesting flight and would get one of the two remaining required towered-airport landings (although maybe some of the 8 night landings will be at PHF). An alternative would be to fly up past Richmond and hit Charlottesville (also towered) and back. Either of those should easily get the 2.1 x-c hours I have left to do. But you know what I realize? I had been hung up on those numbers but now that it's FUN it seems so easy and kinda sad that they ONLY require 5 hours of x-c time! But the overhead of getting logbook endorsements and planning reviews... There'll be puh-lenty of x-c time after the checkride!
Hours logged total: 43.8 (38.1 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 2
Take-offs and landings total: 95
PIC (solo) hours total:: 11.7
- First night flight, with night landings, of course!
- Night x-c.
Flight:
Tonight I had my first night training flight. After the long holiday, I had a bit of trouble getting in touch with Chuck, and I was feeling a little (self-imposed) rush to get night time in at the beginning of this week since there was a full moon and later in the week new storms were to roll in. When he did get back to me, he suggested I contact Dan (the instructor who did my phase check) since Chuck wouldn't be able to fly at night this week. I did so, and Dan was gracious enough to trade shifts at his part-time job to free up his evening for the lesson. We arranged to meet at the airport at 5:45 and for me to have planned a x-c down to ASJ (Tri-County Airport in Ahoskie, NC).
I got to the airport early and preflighted in the dark. That took about twice as long as usual, and I kept feeling disoriented with my checklist. I think this was because I couldn't just hold my finger in place and quickly glance down to see what was next on account of needing an extra hand for flashlight management. (I had grabbed Husband's hat with bill-clip light at home but somehow neglected to actually put it in my flight bag, stupid me.)
When Dan got back to the airport from helping a friend ferry a plane from another local airport, we met up and chatted for a while about night-flight topics. Empty-field myopia, where you stare at one spot and it kinda blanks out. Rods (movement) and cones (color) and using peripheral vision more. False horizons, and being diligent about checking instruments to keep oriented. Target fixation. The tendency to flare too high for landing and how to use the REILs to combat that. We looked over the route I had picked, then adjourned to 388.
After we hopped in and got situated, I started the next checklist, which begins with "Preflight inspection - complete." Since it had been 20-30 minutes since I did the preflight, I did a quick recall and remembered that I had chocked the plane (but not tied down) when I went to the flight school to meet Dan. Aha! Good. Hop out, unchock, re-situate. No embarassing attempts at departure with the wheels chocked!
After starting up, I spent a minute experimenting with lighting options. 388 has a fantastic red dome light that was beyond perfect for illuminating the instrument panel. Really, I wouldn't change a thing about that. For reading checklists and sectionals, however, it wasn't sufficient and I was regretting not having the hat light. I had two flashlights, one for a backup, and neither was particularly convenient to manage. One had a clip, so if I had a shirt pocket that might have been easy, but I had a thick fleece sweater on. The other had a short lanyard, wrist-sized, but a dangling device wasn't appealing. Dan's flashlight was on a neck lanyard, and that seemed like a workable arrangement, so I'll try that next time (or remember the hat!). I ended up holding the clip flashlight during the whole flight except for takeoffs and landings; that one has the push-the-end-for-temporary-light-or-twist-for-constant, and the push-style was most useful for short checks of the papers.
Eventually we got going. I always use the beacon and strobes, but Dan emphasized that they're required for night flight, which makes perfect sense. The landing lights were useful for taxiing, and my confidence in where the wings end was definitely compromised by the darkness! I thought my distance-judging skills were bad in the daylight -- that's nothing! Let's just say it was a slow, cautious and kinda tense taxi experience. Checking the rpm/oil/suction/amp gauges over in front of the right seat was more inconvenient in the dark during run-up, but not prohibitive. When ready to depart I flicked on the strobes and man are they bright. Dan recommended limiting their use to pattern and airport vicinity, and turning them on at the last moment before taking the runway. I'd have to agree -- the extreme contrast and flickering effect is pretty hard on the eyes.
I keyed the mike according to instruction to turn the lights on -- 7 in 5 seconds for high, 5 in 3 for medium, 3 in 1 for low, and 3 slow clicks to turn off the blinding runway strobes.
Takeoff was no different than normal. I suppose perhaps I'm used to giving some minor awareness to the periphery when rolling since deer and turkeys live in the area, but the limited visibility due to the night eliminated that possibility, kinda like a runway tunnel.
While climbing out, maybe around 300' and after checking gauges and instruments, I took in my first few quick glances of the night. It was really breathtaking. Huge full moon over the glistening river, woods and fields and streets, neighborhood lights, the brewery was shining in its pocket of woods, tiny aircraft lights way up high... Very special.
But no time for that yet! It was time to get the flight set up. As we crossed the river and continued to climb, I got set up on the 233 heading to AKQ (first checkpoint) and then called Leesburg Radio and opened the VFR flight plan. Next it was Norfolk Approach to pick up flight following, and quickly we were handed to another Norfolk frequency and then to Washington Center, who advised us of traffic at 12 o'clock that we already had in sight. It didn't take long to be able to pick out the green-and-white beacon of Wakefield -- it proved to be much easier to locate in the dark than it is in the day!
I leveled off at 6500' for the cruise portion of the trip. While working down to AKQ we played two "games." One was identifying landmarks outside and trying to find them on the sectional, and vice versa. There was a school that was well-lit and on the map. Thanks to the moon, the big straight cut of road that connects several towns on the southside was visible; also on the map and the main daytime indicator that AKQ is nearby. The second exercise addressed emergency landing site selection. Since Dan and I are both familiar enough with the area to know that the vast majority of fields down there -- easily identifiable in the glorious moonlight -- are flat and unobstructed, they provide an obvious option although they specific choice must be more guarded and having nearby alternatives would be more important since a last-minute rethink might be necessary. We talked about roads as an option, which many people don't like and which also must be considered with utmost care and reservation. If the moon wasn't so fantabulous, picking fields from woods from water would be more difficult and thus the emergency decisions would be much harder.
Oh, another aspect of this trip that was new to me was fuel tank management. The placard on our fuel selector says single-tank operation is needed over 5000'. As we passed through 5000' we were across the river and so I chatted it over with Dan for a minute and then reached down and clicked it to the right tank. This all happened very quickly: I felt it slip past the right tank (towards off!) ever so slightly, and was backing it up to rest in the notch when Dan took it and seated it. How did he know I had missed it? How did he possibly have time to get his hand down there between the time when I went past and started to go back? Literally, it was like 3/4 of a second. There was no change in performance. I understood that he'd check it after I switched, but the quickness with which he was on it surprised me. He did say right afterwards that had we gone for 10 seconds like that we'd be restarting the engine, but it would have been less than a second before I had seated it properly. I suppose he was ready to check it immediately after my switch so that I would not get first-hand experience in what happens when you screw up your fuel management, and that his response just came more quickly that I had anticipated. Anyway, I made a note of when the tank was switched.
We got to AKQ right on schedule. Sweet! (And I wonder why this time the DR worked out just right, whereas all my other attempts at DR to AKQ have failed miserably.) Next leg: 240 for 11 minutes to the town of Courtland, west of the town of Franklin, home of the Franklin-Rose Airport (FKN). FKN's beacon was easily visible from AKQ -- ~18 nm maybe. The towns were pretty easy to pick out based on size and relative locations. Awesome, going well. Well, almost going just right. We were two minutes late getting to Courtland. I adjusted the ETA for the next leg, a 6-nm hop to the teensy town of Newsoms, which we were skeptical that we'd even find: most of the stretch from FKN to ASJ is pretty empty.
We took a few minutes to talk again about false horizons and tricks our human eyes and brains play at night. Looking behind us at the peninsula, several things were apparent. For one, you can definitely tell where there's land v. water! Newport News and Hampton run together, wedged on the peninsula, and after a small break that is the James River entering the Chesapeake Bay, Norfolk and Chesapeake and other southern cities all clump together. We know that all of those city lights stop because the Atlantic ocean starts, but I could see how it would be easy to think they stopped because of a horizon. Another element of the city illusions was that the York River-bounded side of the peninsula runs basically at a diagonal, so I could also see how it would be disorienting to think that a line of city lights at a slant in front of darkness might be the horizon. Another thing was that some haze was apparent, and it somewhat blurred the line between land and sky. The haze was lit from above by the moon, and probably from below by the cities. We'd see more about this effect soon enough...
We did find something that we decided was Newsoms, and were two minutes late here as well. Our heading seemed ok still, so perhaps the wind had just picked up a little since I wrote up the numbers. With only 20 miles to the airport, I didn't think that trying to recalc in the dark while fumbling with a flashlight would be worth it. The next waypoint was Murfreesboro, a bastion of civilization in the VA/NC countryside, in 12 nm. A thin layer of clouds was forming up below us and to the east, and while we could probably see Murfreesboro, we decided it was time to descend to get a clear view of the ground and also just because of proximity to the destination. After alerting ATC of our intentions to descend to 3000' and being instructed to maintain VFR, I started the descent. The clouds proved to be at ~5000', and no course alteration was required to stay clear of them; they were entirely to our left, but in fact they were preventing a clear view of Murfreesboro. As we got lower we found that we were farther west of the town than planned, but could clearly see the ASJ beacon.
I continued our descent as we tuned in the AWOS to find calm winds. I chose to circle the airport and enter crosswind since we still had some altitude to lose for a landing on 19. My plan was that since no one else was around and the winds were calm and we wanted to go back north that I'd depart runway 1. The night pattern was normal, using the runway lights for reference was no different procedurally than using the runway itself, and the only part that was a little sketchy was not having a clear view of treetops on final, but Dan recommended a little extra precautionary altitude and it turned out just fine. I did use the VASI this time, and just after turning final was on the glide path it signaled, but then applied that little bit of extra height and so watched the double-whites until I could see the transition from dark trees to lighter (dead) grass, at which time the runway and the horizontal strip of red lights marking the other end became the focus.
Sooner than I anticipated Dan said to start my flare. The typical response for pilots new to night landings, I understand, is to flare too high, thinking they're lower than they actually are. Perhaps my feeble brain was overly aggressive in countering that impulse and went the other way. Turns out we were just right and had a very nice landing, slightly left of center.
I rolled to the end, and since no one was around I turned us around on the runway and quickly cleaned up, organized my papers for the next leg and prepared to depart. We took a quick look at the fuel selector (which had been switched back to both for the descent) and I gave it a practice turn in each direction before returning it to both.
We departed straight out and tuned in the FKN VOR for the return trip, estimated to take about 32 minutes that we'd fly at 3000' to ensure the clouds we saw on the way down couldn't increase below us going home. Radial 027 would take us to it from ASJ, then 034 would send us to JGG. Once established on 027, it was time to call FSS and close the JGG->ASJ flight plan. The Cofield VOR (CVI) was nearby and was a remote for Raleigh FSS but required transmitting on 122.1 and listening over the VOR freq. Dan dialed it in and made it the active nav freq. We identified the Morse code and then I tried to hail Raleigh.
In retrospect, I think Dan and I had miscommunicated about the frequencies -- obviously we were listening on the VOR freq (the Morse code was ID'd) and the com had 122.1 in it. I should have said "Raleigh Radio, 35388 is listening on
Dan's next suggestion was to pick up flight following and then we'd try another frequency for FSS. We were almost immediately handed off by Wash Center to Norfolk Approach, and next to nothing was going on on those airwaves, so Dan suggested just asking if they could close the flight plan for me. The fella had been super nice, so I was a little surprised when he didn't come back with an acknowledgement or anything. After a minute of silence, he asked if we had a number for it. That confused me, and I asked Dan if he meant something other than 1-800-Wx-Brief; Dan said just to tell him the outlet and see where it went from there. I said that we had filed with Leesburg Radio (shoulda just said Leesburg) and had been unable to hail anyone yet to close. After another few moments of silence he came back saying that Leesburg had my cancellation. I thanked him in the best sweet girl voice I could conjure.
Ok, back on track. Soon enough we were on the 034 radial outbound to JGG, leaving Franklin, with the Newport News sprawl getting closer. Dan pointed out the bend in the river with the power station brightly marking the southside point across from the airport, though we were still too far out to pick out the airport.
I was hoisted by my own petard again on this last bit. As we continued up, I was scanning and putting together the light puzzle, working from NN and the power station and all that, searching for the JGG beacon. Aha! A green flash. There it is; outside of the city lights so it's not PHF, too far up river to be Fort Eustis. So I consciously stopped holding my radial and headed for the beacon. As I made this decision, Dan was pointing out PHF and we chatted about the ILS clearances for inbound pilots we were hearing over the radio. A few minutes later, I reacquired the beacon and that's when I realized my folly: green-white-white. That was Fort Eustis, not JGG. Crap.
I admitted my mistake to Dan, who then asked me what I was going to do. The first plan that came to mind was to dial in the Harcum VOR, knowing that the 188 outbound radial was part of the instrument approach to JGG; that would be the backup. For visual acquisition, I'd need to look west of that FAF military beacon. By this time I could make out Jamestown Island and knew the airport to be just beyond it. But I couldn't see the airport yet, and neither of us found a beacon there. We agreed that we were basically there, so I cancelled flight following so we could switch over to CTAF and activate the runway lights. From out there I never saw the lights lining the runway, but the runway is a cut through the trees so that wasn't terribly surprising. What I did see, however, was a short, neat line of bright white lights that conceivably could be end lighting. Dan confirmed, so I began the descent. We were going to be way high, so I executed an S-turn over Jamestown Island to buy us some time. That was pretty weird, and didn't quite feel right in the dark. I thought back to the flight training articles warning that the vast majority of accidents happen during maneuvering flight.
But we got down and into the pattern for right 13 and it was just fine. The winds had picked up some and were blowing me into the runway pretty good, which I didn't notice until he pointed out that I was getting kinda close. I was looking back periodically to judge my position relative to the runway, but I admit that I was also trying to savor the last few moments of the first night flight and also taking stock of how the usual daytime visual queues for key pattern points are invisible. A little crab took care of that. On final I had a pretty good right crab in, but was happy with the stable track of runway centerline. Below the trees I was able to straighten out without having to slip (the trees broke the wind) and had a good landing.
And for the record, we never, ever saw the JGG beacon; perhaps it became inop. no NOTAM regarding its status before we left...
Discussion:
- Picking a night route: Part of this lesson was to do cross-country planning with visual checkpoints and dead reckoning navigation. The challenge, of course, is finding items on the sectional that you think will be easily identifiable in the dark.
On the first half of the route going down, there were some reasonable choices. Towns. Airports. A school (assuming it would look like a school at night from 6500'). The second half, however, not so much. At one point there was a cluster of towers marked on the map, but they weren't the icons with a flashing light at the top so I didn't know whether they'd be lit (man I hoped so! and it turns out that cluster made an excellent checkpoint) and couldn't rely on that for planning.
I also realized from this first experience a little something about using cities as checkpoints. First, some cities -- townships or villages, rather -- are on the map but really don't make good checkpoints because nearby neighborhoods have more lights on. Second, some cities run together (like NN and Hampton) so more specific checkpoints would be needed. Third, and this kinda goes with numero dos, a city may stretch for several miles so having a clear idea of "city center" or "western edge" or "trailer park on the outskirts" is advisable. - DR, winds and climbout: So, you know the winds at the airport and the winds at your cruise altitude. What's the correct way to calculate DR parameters, adjusted for wind? First, it seems obvious to pick a first checkpoint at the beginning of cruise, since after that the number of variables should be reduced and thus the error should be minimized. Getting to that first checkpoint, though... It doesn't seem right to use the winds aloft at 6500' to determine groundspeed, distance covered and timing when climbing from field elevation of 49'. Nor does it seem correct to use the AWOS winds. Nor does it seem realistic to break the calculations down into 1000'-increments and get data for each "layer" of the climb. So there's the question: What's the proper way to determine the parameters for the climbing leg?
- Raising the bar: I know I've said it before and I'll say it again: it's really awesome to know you're making progress when things that seemed stressful just a few flights ago no longer take a second thought. Talking to controllers is no problem, carries no intimidation anymore. Landing at new airports, even in the dark, is no biggie. :)
- Spotting traffic: Picking out other traffic was easy at night, and I like that. There were no other aircraft near us, so I didn't get a good feel for how the perception might be different, say in the traffic pattern, in deciding how your path might cross another plane's, but finding them to begin with was simpler in the darkness, even when the background was a city. Is this how it's supposed to be, or was it a product of the conditions, or am I fooling myself?
Self-Assessment: More polish, more practice!
- Flying
- Preflight, taxiing, normal takeoff, short/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, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
- Crosswind landing: Decent.
- Radio work: Good.
- Short/soft-field landings: Good, will get more practice.
- Night operations: Good, will get more practice.
- Navigating
- ADF: Haven't used it since the intro, needs practice.
- VOR: Good, will get more practice.
- Dead reckoning: Improving but needs practice.
Next: I've got the plane Saturday morning/afternoon for another x-c. I would like to do something different, but I've gone to most of the area that's in "short" cross-country distance. I was thinking of going back to Elizabeth City because it's an interesting flight and would get one of the two remaining required towered-airport landings (although maybe some of the 8 night landings will be at PHF). An alternative would be to fly up past Richmond and hit Charlottesville (also towered) and back. Either of those should easily get the 2.1 x-c hours I have left to do. But you know what I realize? I had been hung up on those numbers but now that it's FUN it seems so easy and kinda sad that they ONLY require 5 hours of x-c time! But the overhead of getting logbook endorsements and planning reviews... There'll be puh-lenty of x-c time after the checkride!
- Revisit stalls and maneuvers that have been neglected during the recent cross-country work and personal travels.
Hours logged total: 43.8 (38.1 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 2
Take-offs and landings total: 95
PIC (solo) hours total:: 11.7
Night x-c!
Super news! Dan can fly tonight, so we're meeting at the airport at 5:30 to do an x-c.
I'll be planning a trip down to ASJ (Tri-county airport, NC), using the sectional as best as I can to find checkpoints that will be identifiable at night.
I'll be planning a trip down to ASJ (Tri-county airport, NC), using the sectional as best as I can to find checkpoints that will be identifiable at night.
Status
My instructor can't do any night flying this week, so I have a call in to Dan, the instructor with whom I did my phase check a while ago, to see if he can go up with me tonight. The rest of the week is supposed to be cloudy and rainy here, so it's likely tonight or not until next week.
This got me thinking about whether I really can expect to finish up this month. Here's where things stand:
2 -- the night training -- ???
3 & 4 -- could go together, but I'm not as concerned about 3 since it's not new stuff, just a matter of getting the time.
5.i I hope to knock out this coming Saturday.
5.iii I hope to do sometime this week -- if no night flying tonight, I'll plan to fly this afternoon to PHF and do a few trips through the pattern there.
This got me thinking about whether I really can expect to finish up this month. Here's where things stand:
- Aeronautical knowledge
- Studying...
- Aeronautical experience (61.109a): For an airplane single-engine rating. Except as provided in paragraph (k) of this section, a person who applies for a private pilot certificate with an airplane category and single-engine class rating must log at least 40 hours of flight time that includes at least 20 hours (30.x?) of flight training from an authorized instructor and 10 hours (7.x?) of solo flight training in the areas of operation listed in §61.107(b)(1) of this part, and the training must include at least—
- (1) 3 hours (3.0) of cross-country flight training in a single-engine airplane;
- (2) Except as provided in §61.110 of this part, 3 hours (0) of night flight training in a single-engine airplane that includes—
- (i) One cross-country flight (not done) of over 100 nautical miles total distance; and
- (ii) 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (0) to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport.
- (3) 3 hours (1.x?) of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments, including straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, radio communications, and the use of navigation systems/facilities and radar services appropriate to instrument flight;
- (4) 3 hours (0) of flight training in preparation for the practical test in a single-engine airplane, which must have been performed within 60 days preceding the date of the test; and
- (5) 10 hours of solo flight time in a single-engine airplane, consisting of at least—
- (i) 5 hours (2.9) of solo cross-country time;
- (ii) One solo cross-country flight of at least 150 nautical miles total distance, with full-stop landings at a minimum of three points, and one segment of the flight consisting of a straight-line distance of at least 50 nautical miles between the takeoff and landing locations (Done); and
- (iii) Three takeoffs and three landings (1) to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.
2 -- the night training -- ???
3 & 4 -- could go together, but I'm not as concerned about 3 since it's not new stuff, just a matter of getting the time.
5.i I hope to knock out this coming Saturday.
5.iii I hope to do sometime this week -- if no night flying tonight, I'll plan to fly this afternoon to PHF and do a few trips through the pattern there.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Appreciation :)
I just want you all to know that I appreciate you and your knowledge and your experience and your advice!
In my few months of training so far, you have all been very supportive, helped me to understand aspects of flying that have been difficult, and enriched the learning process through your own stories.
Special thanks to BC and FD who have taken time in the past few days to answer questions and provide thorough information via email, and to Husband (VTF) who spends an immeasurable amount of time explaining and chatting, and of course to my instructor Chuck.
It's really inspiring to get to interact with people who so obviously love what they're doing. This community is really something special.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming... :)
In my few months of training so far, you have all been very supportive, helped me to understand aspects of flying that have been difficult, and enriched the learning process through your own stories.
Special thanks to BC and FD who have taken time in the past few days to answer questions and provide thorough information via email, and to Husband (VTF) who spends an immeasurable amount of time explaining and chatting, and of course to my instructor Chuck.
It's really inspiring to get to interact with people who so obviously love what they're doing. This community is really something special.
And now back to your regularly scheduled programming... :)
Time to get cracking...
January. Must finish flight training.
I'm fairly close. Night flying is the last area in which I need to receive instruction. I have a few more requirements to meet, like another 2.1 hours of x-c time and two more landings at a towered airport.
But what got me going this morning was looking at the schedule for 35388 and seeing that it will be gone for a long trip from Feb 1-16. I think I'll be better off to get things done before that than to have a forced 2+ week hiatus right at the end.
The big hurdle, though, is the written. I'm going to forgo the self-imposed task of reading straight through the rest of the book and instead focus on the test guide and sample tests. That'll illustrate where I need more in-depth knowledge, and I can hit the big books in more focused bursts.
I'm fairly close. Night flying is the last area in which I need to receive instruction. I have a few more requirements to meet, like another 2.1 hours of x-c time and two more landings at a towered airport.
But what got me going this morning was looking at the schedule for 35388 and seeing that it will be gone for a long trip from Feb 1-16. I think I'll be better off to get things done before that than to have a forced 2+ week hiatus right at the end.
The big hurdle, though, is the written. I'm going to forgo the self-imposed task of reading straight through the rest of the book and instead focus on the test guide and sample tests. That'll illustrate where I need more in-depth knowledge, and I can hit the big books in more focused bursts.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)