Refresher flight

Goals:

• Knock the dust off.
• Practice maneuvers again.
• Flying with a pseudo-DPE and being critiqued.

Flight:
One month to the day since my last time in the cockpit. Sad, eh?

Husband was kind enough to go up with me today (his much more succinct account of the flight is here). On account of the hidden passenger and it being my first time going through these, shall we say, state changes, I'm disinclined to fly solo right now, just to be on the overly-cautious safe side. Since I've got all the solo time in that is required, and the rest of the requirements are with an instructor, it should be all good.

Like it's hard to convince Husband to go flying... sheesh! :)

The winds were forecast(ed?) to pick up throughout the day, so we hit the airport ~9:15. No frost on the wings, despite a 15-degree night and 31-degree morning so far. Everything outside looked good. It was cold, so I gave 388 4 1/2 shots of primer to get started. Not enough. Another 1 1/2. Not enough. 3 more. Not enough. After 12 pumps, the engine wanted to catch, but I may have messed up with adjusting the throttle because it conked out. 3 more pumps and stable throttle so almost had it, but as I added some throttle it conked out again. 3 more, for a total of 18, stable throttle, and it rolled over like our familiar trusty ol' happy plane.

Winds were 240@4, so we'd use 31. Altimeter, set. Radio check, check. Lights and coms, as desired. Seats and seat belts, taxi, brake check, run-up, all good. Thank goodness for checklists.

Husband DPE (HDPE) asked for a short-field takeoff. I think he planned to ask for that anyway, but that would give us a chance to run the engine full out and check gauges with time to change our minds about leaving. I pulled out the trusty maneuver flip-book and read through the process before moving onto the runway (after announcing, of course) and lining up with as little pavement behind us as possible.

Brakes on, throttle up, check gauges, release brakes, right rudder, all felt normal. Airspeed alive. Vx, time to rotate and climb out. I wasn't compensating for the crosswind so we drifted a little right of centerline, which HDPE pointed out. I corrected, and before long we were at 400', time to turn west for noise abatement. We continued the climb to 2000', then HDPE asked me to track to HCM. The VOR was dialed in, I spun the indicator knob to find the "direct to" heading of 015, then tipped the right wing up and turned us to that heading.

Again I wasn't compensating for the winds, which seemed to be stronger at 2000'. The needle was persistently left of center, and at first I didn't recognize that the wind was the problem. First I realized that I hadn't set my DG once we got airborne, so I flew straight-and-level, correct the DG (which was only slightly off), redialed for the direct-to heading and set up on that. After not more than 30 seconds, the needle was off again. I looked down and saw that I wasn't dead-on my desired heading, so I chalked it up to sloppy out-of-practice-ness, dialed again for the direct-to heading and vowed to pay closer attention. Another 30 seconds later, the needle was off again, and as I thought about what my problem could be, I was checking for traffic and saw the smoke from the West Point factory -- blowing completely parallel to the ground -- and that's when it hit me.

So I took one final desired-heading reading from the VOR indicator, and pointed myself left of that by about 10 degrees. That turned out to be too much, but at least I was on the right track and could feel it out for an appropriate correction after that. HDPE critiqued my choice to re-set the VOR indicator to new headings, and said that instead I should have corrected myself onto the original heading. I knew when I was off course that I had two choices: get on the original heading or update to a new direct-to heading. Since I was trying to limit the variables and minimize the time spent chasing it while doing so, I opted to update. But I can see that it could (or would) be viewed as weak that for something as simple as tracking a VOR radial that the pilot picked a newer, more convenient radial instead of correcting onto the desired one.

Once I was established, I think HDPE realized that I was not as busy and so he started chitchatting. I grinned at his distraction attempts. It killed some time as we got to, over, and past the VOR. The test here was to maintain the same direction coming out the other side, and using the VOR in "from" mode to assure that. With that reasonably accomplished, Husband had me turn to 060 and climb to 3000'. We were heading for a cluster of fields over which we'd do steep turns.

As we got there, I did clearing turns left and right, then entered a left steep turn. Using all of the controls, including power, I did a fairly good job and maintained altitude pretty well. HDPE asked for more bank at one point in the turn, and so I banked harder, pulled back harder and throttled up. I forget now what heading we were on when we entered, but I rolled out perfectly on it, reduced power and kept at 3000'.

I felt good about that! Husband complimented the maneuver and pointed out that when you bank more in the middle of the turn, it takes noticeably more back pressure (and throttle) to maintain altitude. A few nights ago a question came up in the oral review questions about how you compensate for the loss of vertical lift in a turn, so it was theory in practice... :)

We were getting up toward the Tappahanock River by this time, so I chose to point us southwest to get back safely over land and near a nice patch of fields. Once there, I went into the right steep turn. It did not go well. I think I overbanked and overcompensated at first, because we were climbing and that sight picture was moving awfully fast. I tried to rectify the maneuver, but then we were descending too much and still turning very tightly. We were maybe 2/3 of the way through it when I called it off. After that nice left one, I was a little shaken and disappointed to have done so badly on this one. But I stabilized, got my head back in it, and tried again. This time around it went much better, but I rolled out about 10 degrees too early. HDPE reminded me to shoot for at most 30 degrees leading to start the rollout.

Since we knew we were limited on time, we pointed back to JGG. Whilst over the upper peninsula still, HDPE had me slow to slow flight, maintaining 3000', with 20 degrees of flaps. I didn't anticipate well enough the power and pitch changes that were needed as the flaps came out, but I did correct quickly enough to not bust altitude. With the stall horn complaining and us drifting along at about 60 mph airspeed, I performed the requested 90-degree left- and right-hand turns, overshooting the left-hand target heading by a few degrees. HDPE asked me to accelerate to 70, maintain 3000', and milk in the flaps, which I did and which required constant tweaks of pitch and power. Then he asked for a power-on stall. I know how to do that, and I certainly know the recovery, but since it has a checklist in the flip-book, I thought I'd just take a look to show the DPE another instance of using checklists. HDPE didn't really like that for this particular maneuver, and absolutely for the recovery a checklist MUST not be consulted(!) but for setting it up I figured it was ok.

Anyway, that aside, I powered up, pitched up, and we climbed a bit and we got slower and slower, then I pulled back that last inch on the yoke and it broke cleanly. And my recovery totally sucked, and that was so scary because the suck was mental. Nosing over is not a problem; the plane does that pretty much by itself. But when I checked the instrument panel, my eyes didn't go to the airspeed, they went to the VSI, and it wasn't showing a positive rate of climb and I got confused. I didn't spend any time on the confusion, but rather looked back outside and pulled the nose up to the horizon. I glanced at the VSI again and still not a positive rate of climb. Well, duh, I had just leveled off. I started to raise the nose, but Husband said we were high enough (from the pre-stall climb) and to just get stabilized at 3000' again.

Man, that totally bit. I'm just appalled at how bad such a critical thing became after a month off. I'll have to look back through my training logs and see when the last time actually was that I did a stall; it's been a while. That's so scary, though, because while I figured it was something I'd practice periodically after getting my license, now it seems like it needs to be practiced frequently!

Anyway, next HDPE had me don the foggles and he punched JGG into the GPS and use that instrument to get back home. I corrected the DG again, then turned to 190, the desired track announced by the GPS. Not long, again, and the destination was to the right of my track. Dumb, dumb, dumb! When would I learn! I have to correct for wind! The VOR and GPS headings don't do that for me! As we got back over the middle peninsula, we hit a lot of turbulence. That was ok for a little while, but I started to get kinda icky feeling and elected to take off the foggles so I could see the horizon.

HDPE vocalized our position, told me to descend to 2000' and then to do what I would normally do when approaching an airport to land. I appreciated the cue, since I was still trying to get my physiology back on track and wasn't keeping track of our distance to the airport. It was still more than 10 nm at this point, but that's ok. I tuned in AWOS and heard 270@7, so we'd land 31. HDPE asked me to cross midfield to enter the pattern.

At about 5 miles out, in between the chatty jerks at another nearby airport, I was able to announce my location and intention. I slowly descended to 1200' just before the airport, and then just as we got over the field they shut up long enough for another announcement. I turned left downwind, descended to pattern altitude of 900', and began to drop airspeed as quickly as possible, seeing as we were still going about 110 and I wanted 80. When we were abeam the numbers, I was still dropping speed, but felt it was under control and we were in the flaps-ok range, so I put out 10 degrees and kept pulling out the throttle. Upon the next glance at the runway, I saw that yet again I had failed to compensate for the wind, and we were being blown in tight. I told my HDPE what was up, that I was going to crab to prevent further deviation and would extend my downwind since we'd have a short base.

By the time we got around on final, I was set up exactly the way I wanted to be. A little higher than usual since we were longer than usual, airspeed at 80, power (and carb heat) out, and 10 degrees of flaps. For the typical landing I'd do 20, but what with the wind and upcoming swamp monster and all...

HDPE instructed me to land long to avoid the swamp monster. I did as requested since I gotta be able to hit the DPE's target. Setting up for this, however, I kept a little too much altitude and then suddenly wished I had the extra 20 degrees of flaps because I was carrying a little extra speed anyway and now needed to descend faster. We weren't in danger of running out of runway, so I just rode it down. Being fast, I floated a good deal after the flare, and we touched down a little harder than I would have liked, but no bounce.

After that, it was a normal rollout, turn off, announce clear, checklist for post-landing, and taxi back through the empty parking lot for our spot. I called for a fuel refill, and we buttoned up our worthy old flying mobile.

Later in the day I would file a POREP -- not a PIREP for the turbulence, but a police report for the identity theft. What jerks there are out there!

Discussion:

1. The good and the bad: I'm obviously a little rusty on these flight logs, too, since I did so much analyzing up above in the narrative! The main point that I take away from all of this is that I surprised myself in good and bad ways today. Going a full month with no flying, and more than that since the last time I practiced any maneuvers, really left me lacking. Lots of pilots say it, and I'm living proof: Today I was current but not proficient. On the other hand, the everyday stuff -- using checklists, taking off, pattern and landing -- all of that was just like it ever was.
   
   But I wonder, and I put this to you, dear reader: In the time that you've been licensed, how often do you practice the things you learned while training? Steep turns and S-turns aren't something you use very often, but they're obviously something that takes practice to keep sharp. How about more important items like stalls? I'd like to hear from you.


2. Husband: I'm so thankful to have him, and that he's so supportive and helpful! :)

Self-Assessment: Oh, geez. Man do I need the upcoming practice with instructors!

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: I'm due for that phase check with Dan, then three hours of checkride prep, two of which will be with Chuck and the third should be with the chief pilot at the flight school, Mark. I really need to practice engine-outs again, in addition to freakin' everything else.
Hours logged this flight: 1.2
Hours logged total: 49.7 (42.8 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 1
Take-offs and landings total: 107
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7