Rededication

[Update: changed the address of the family blog.]

I've rededicated my other blog to the new baby and family, so I'll stop posting about him here unless it's aviation-related!

New baby :)

[Updated: added a picture of Evan and his daddy.]

Baby Evan arrived at 5:32 pm on Thursday, August 23. We got home from the hospital a little bit ago.

He's super, a great big healthy heap of softness! 9 lbs, 12 oz, 22 inches.

TOMORROW!

6:30 am tomorrow we'll be at the hospital, having labor induced.... Wish us luck!

Not such a big day...

Today is our due date. No sign that he'll make his appearance today. Hopefully soon, though!

We went out to the airport today so Husband could show me the new turbo SR22 GTS we're almost part owners of... it's not so easy to get in and out of for a person of my condition ;) but it is a gorgeous machine!

Busting out...

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted. I'm in the skies vicariously now only through Husband and the blogging pilot community! The baby is due in 9 days, and he's certainly ready! This video will remove any doubt...

Dorks

So, how sad is it that this morning on our tour of the hospital and maternity unit that we both kinda perked up when they said there's wifi?

[Off topic - stretching future soccer guy]

Three minutes of recent dancing belly footage, but mostly slow dancing on this one evening...

Gut feelings and random thoughts

My feelings on flying are changing as my gut changes, I'm sorry to say...

I'm ~3/4 of the way through the pregnancy, and certain activities are becoming uncomfortable. Like bending to pick something up from the floor. Like sleeping. Like sitting.

Like spending hours upon hours in airport seats or airline seats.

Our 9-day trip to the Canadian Rockies was really a good trip. We hit Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper, Edmonton, and points in-between. I'd have to say that Banff was my favorite; a gorgeous little mountain town in a valley on a river surrounded by lush green mountains capped with snow, a town that's big enough to have interesting eating options but small enough to not be overrun with tourist-y shops. (It does have its share...) I'd really like to go back there when I get my body back so's to take advantage of the vast scope of outdoor opportunities -- hiking, rafting, biking, horseback riding, etc.

But spending 8+ hours in planes plus another 3+ hours in airports (thank you, weather delays) -- one way -- had my back screaming for mercy, and resulted in this policy: no travel longer than ~2 hours after the second trimester!

Beyond that, however, are the physiology management concerns, and this applied also to our flight in the 172 down to Asheville a few weekends ago. Amniotic fluid is pretty important for the developing baby (understatement), and it's cumulative; the recommendation is to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day (in addition to whatever other fluids like coffee or juice might be part of the daily regimen), plus another glass for each 15 minutes of exercise, plus 4 additional glasses on hot days with outdoor activity. That's a lot of intake, and it creates a lot of output, and with a shrinking bladder capacity, frequent breaks are necessary.

I'm not typically a germophobe, but airliner bathrooms really gross me out, as they do most everyone I know. The 6-year-old boy in 15b surely doesn't have the best aim to begin with, so throw in a little turbulence and you've got a situation that's less than ideal for any subsequent passenger. Ick and shudder.

And in a 172, that's an expensive potty break.

So you see where I'm going here. Just bitching about the growing discomforts of flying whilst preggers. I'd guess that it's just as bad for driving nowadays, too, but haven't tested it. Discomforts of traveling.

On another note, United gets mixed reviews from this trip. Our layover was at Chicago O'Hare, and the landings there both on the trip out and coming back were really soft and smooth, so pats on the back for those pilots. On the ORD-YYC leg, they announced that ATC would be tuned in on channel 9 in the armrest audio. That was fun, listening to the busy stuff going on at ORD and the calls in transit. (Note to self: what is "metering?" Some kind of departure load-balancing service?) Sometime at cruise altitude, the captain came on and advised us that he'd be "giving a dissertation" if anyone wanted to listen in on channel 9. He was amusing and talked for probably 20 minutes or so about the FO's experience, his experience, the history of the Boeing 737 (such as we were on), fuel ferrying and consumption/performance trade-offs in a time of high prices, etc. He was pretty cool and sounded very friendly.

Other United issues, though, were unusual and unpolished to me. For instance, during the pre-taxi safety instructions, it appears to be United policy to turn the cabin speakers down way low and to select the crew member with the worst diction and recitation skills to do the announcement. The phrasing of the announcements was bad, too; they seem to have accepted the first draft. The one that seemed very odd to me was the prepare-for-landing announcement: stow carry-ons, tray tables and seat backs in their full upright and locked position, seat belts fastened, and "in the case of an emergency after landing, leave all carry-ons behind"... They had already emphasized that in the case of any emergency all carry-ons should be left behind, so why repeat it for landings? Do they have a history of landing problems? Are they just trying to give the aviophobes a little nudge in the last-minute freak-out direction?

Ok, enough blathering for now, back to work! I'll post a few pics from the trip soon, and promise to be more positive! End communication.

Sleek, but suspicious

I found one of these in the garage this morning. At least, I think it's one of these.

I was pulling out of the garage and saw it peeking its head out. I put the Jeep in park and bounded out to get a closer look -- snakes don't bother me in the least, and this guy looked pretty big and cool. But as I got closer, this new risk-minimizing reflex kicked in: Being preggers, how close is safe to a snake if I don't know whether its venomous? That was kind of a strange wall to hit.

Well, shoot, at least I had the camera in the car. I'll post one of my pictures later, but here's what the guy looks like. I'd estimate that it was between three and four feet long, but it's pretty hard to tell when you can't grab him and stretch him out! Husband thought from the pic I showed him on the camera that he was at least four feet. (Image from the Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries.)

We have lots of lizards around the house, and occasionally they'll hang out in the garage. We've had the good fortune to find nests of baby snakes in the backyard when mulching, and just transplant them farther back in the woods off the back of the property. This is the first time I've seen a snake in the garage. And with a snake this big, I worry about the bunnies living under the porch, adjacent to the garage!

Birthday Jaunt

We just got back from Husband's birthday day trip (his birthday is later in the week, but today was irresistible) up to KGED (Georgetown, DE). It was a really nice trip! He did 3 hours of sight-seeing, and I got 3 hours of flight time.

We left JGG by 31 around 10 am, turned west for the noise abatement. I called Leesburg Radio and opened our VFR flight plan, then headed northeast for Mobjack Bay and the narrowest passage across the lower Chesapeake Bay. We got to our target bay-crossing altitude of 7500' a few minutes before running out of land, and up there it was a little chilly even though on the ground it was already in the upper 60s. The air was nice and smooth, and the bay was already thoroughly dotted with boats.

It was a gorgeous, nearly cloudless day with good but not "severe clear" visibility. Once we crossed the bay, I took us down to our cruise altitude of 5500' and pointed us NNE. We'd be overflying Accomack County (MFV, I think), traffic for which is frequently heard all the way down at JGG. We flew along the eastern seashore, Chincoteague and Assateague. We flew just west of Wallops Island, a military field (maybe AF?), and could see the buildings of Ocean City, MD, off at the very edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

It was a super trip, the kind of really good and easy trip that perfectly exemplifies why I learned to fly. Husband is putting up some video he took en route and also of my landing at GED (below). When we landed and were directed to transient parking, three ground crew members came out to help us push back and with chocks, and within moments the fuel truck was there to top us off; great service here.


Landing here for me was pretty neat. It's the first time since finishing training that I've gone to an unfamiliar airport, or gone on an unfamiliar cross-country flight (as PIC). I did the usual preflight prep, checking weather, using RTFP for course plotting and filing the flight plan, checking for TFRs, etc. I had picked out several airports along the way and printed out their kneeboard pages from the AOPA database, including GED's, of course. But actually going to that airport with so little research was neat. The only other time I've really gone to "new" airports was during training, and as a student I was anal (who, me?!?!?!!!) about knowing every available detail about the airport and surrounding area so there would be no surprises. I knew I had everything I needed for the destination, we'd have two GPSs and the sectional, so we were good to go without having to spend two hours planning and analyzing the trip! Approaching the airport, Husband helped me plan our descent from 5500' to pattern altitude of 1050', I executed that and got into the traffic flow with ease. Training apparently worked as it was supposed to have worked, because there were none of the comfortable visual cues of homebase, just the runway to use as a guide for the pattern and everything went just right.

Sussex County Airport (GED) has a nice little restaurant called the Flight Deck. They've got a good-looking menu, and we were both delightfully satisfied with our meals; a ($100) cheeseburger and onion rings for Husband, and broiled flounder with coleslaw and sweet potato casserole for me.

After a nice lunch, we paid for our fuel and headed out to the Delaware Aviation Museum, which is right there on the grounds. Out in the grass between the taxiway and the runway they have a collection of deteriorating Migs. I thought the noses had a neat design.

We then went through the museum, guided by a nice lady name Charlie. It's not a big place, but there are lots of neat artifacts. Apparently, all of the stuff there was collected by Larry, a B-24 (or 25?) pilot who lives in the area. Here are two of the exhibits in there. On the right, those are recon cameras; thank goodness for the tiny digital technologies we have nowadays!

Just before finishing up with the tour, the medevac helicopter pilot who was on waiting duty came in and said a Corsair was in the pattern. We went out to see it land, and it was followed by a P-40. Those things are huge! The wing design of the Corsair is really neat, too.

Departing the airport was easy. We had come in on 22 and departed 4. We turned out to the west, dodged some restricted airspace, stayed well east and south of the DC ADIZ, and picked our way back home. The air was a lot choppier as we came home, and I abandoned our 4500' first choice for cruise and went up to 6500' where it was generally much smoother. I had some of that weird unsettling feeling in the turbulence, which was nothing as far as turbulence goes, but stuck it out (I just annoyed husband with some of the whining...); luckily most of the return trip was smooth! Just some thermals as we move into warm weather...

We landed back at JGG, safe and sound, on 31 around 4 pm. We swapped places so Husband could get a trip around the pattern in before we shut down for the day.

What a nice day! :)


I'm up to 67.1 total hours now. And both takeoffs and both landings were one-handed.

Day trip

Tomorrow we're planning a trip up to KGED for two $100 hamburgers and a visit to the Delaware Aviation Museum, and maybe a nice walk into town. Looks like it should be a beautiful east-coast day for a flight up the DelMarVa peninsula!

In the completely unrelated category of fun with babies in utero, here's a baby-kick indicator on my burgeoning belly.... No fat jokes, please -- I can still see my toes.

Refresher flight

Goals:

• Brief, fun local flight.
• Takeoff and landing practice.

Flight:
Husband sauntered into my office this afternoon around quarter after five, sat down, looked out the window and said, "Man, looks like a nice day for flying." I've been married to him long enough to know what that means! Ten minutes later we were on our way home to pick up the flight bag and camera.

The plan for the evening would be for me to knock the dust off. It had been a little over three weeks since I flew, and the last flight wasn't good. We were coming back from down South for a family visit, and I had taken off and was going to fly for the first leg. We weren't 500' AGL when some turbulence started kicking us around, and while I've flown in enough chop for it to not be unsettling (hello, checkride?), I was borderline panic-stricken! I could not explain it, but almost immediately I had to pass control over to Husband. It was a terrible feeling then, and really shook my confidence that I would react so strongly, so quickly to conditions that really weren't that bad. I've thought about it so much, and honestly can't come up with anything better than "hormones" as an explanation. Had I been alone, I would have stayed in the pattern, landed and deplaned. (And no, I didn't blog about it; I haven't been able to make sense of it.)

I'll just tell you the ending for this evening's flight first -- it was a good, easy flight with no strange feelings and mostly decent work.

As we rode to the airport, I couldn't help but be apprehensive. The memory of the terrible and inexplicable feelings from a few weeks prior mixed with the knowledge that I haven't had any real practice in about a month left me feeling, well, just apprehensive. I didn't say anything to Husband because my intention was for it to be a good flight and I knew he'd be able to take over at any time should we have a repeat.

Blah, blah, blah... My feelings this, my feelings that. Rant on myself. Ok, stream of consciousness over.

Preflight was good. Husband snapped a few pics of the shiny new 4-hour-old tach. We decided to go to PHF (towered) for two stop-and-go landings. Husband showed me his new leaning technique (throttle to 1500, lean until it starts to drop, enrichen to stabilize it -- this left the mixture rod out about the length of my pointer finger up to the second knuckle). We taxied out to 13 and departed with a nice normal takeoff and a climb just to the west of the power station.

Once we were clear of the power station and at 2600' MSL (clear of Fort Eustis' airspace), we pointed toward PHF. I called them when we were over the dead fleet to let them know where we were and that we had info Quebec. He told me to report a 2-mile left base for 7. I had a bit of confusion making out the airport. I know PHF, but I've never used 7-25, had never approached from this angle, and it was hazy enough that I couldn't quite pick out the V-shaped runways from where we were, so I was a little off-kilter not being able to immediately visualize the approach plan.

Once we passed Fort Eustis and officially entered PHF's airspace, I began my descent, pulling power out for a fairly aggressive sink rate (5 nm from the airport (center) with 2600' to lose). As I turned onto base I called the tower, who cleared me for #2 behind a Cessna on final doing a touch-and-go, then instructed me to make right traffic for the second landing and report midfield downwind. I repeated the clearance, kept the descent, and grinned a teensy bit as a regional jet announced he was ready at 7 to depart. (Typically at PHF, 7-25 is the big plane and commercial traffic runway and 2-20 is the GA runway.) The tower told him to hold for me. The grin wasn't because we were making him wait, but rather that I felt like I was really part of the system, not just some student gumming up the works.

Anyway, feelings again, eh?

I turned final and Husband supplied the requested 20 degrees of flaps. My airspeed was good, holding just under 70 mph and it was a pretty decent landing, despite the wacko visual cues of such an enormous runway. So's to minimize the time on the ground, Husband pulled in the flaps while I brought us to a stop and put the carb heat cold; the rest of the post-landing checklist didn't apply since we were going right back up.

With gradual full throttle, we were on our way again. Shortly we reached 1000' and were at midfield before I knew it. Another call to the tower and we were again cleared #2 for 7 (this time for the option) behind the same Cessna who was doing another touch-and-go. I repeated and stated "cleared for a stop-and-go." This time around I got to do a more standard approach, starting my descent with flaps abeam the numbers and so forth. It should have been a good landing, but alas... I got slow really high and the stall warning came on. I mean, probably 50' up still. Runway 7 is enormous, so missing the numbers by half a mile would still leave plenty of room for lil' 388 to land just fine. I put in a little power and relaxed some back pressure. The horn stuttered off-and-on for the rest of the descent, and we landed quite firmly. It wasn't pretty, but it also wasn't a bouncer. I suppose I'd sum it up as a clumsy landing. Husband instinctively grabbed the yoke, and I told him I had it... actually, my memory could totally be wrong but I think he grabbed it after we touched down. I'll have to ask him about that.

We cleaned up expeditiously and again departed. Straight-out, after listening to an incoming aircraft's call from somewhere out ahead of us, I told PHF I'd like to depart straight-out then return to JGG. He, bored, okayed that. We turned off to go up the peninsula, keeping an eye out for the incoming traffic. After a few minutes, PHF alerted us that the plane should be no factor at 2000' off our right wing. We were at 2600 by then, and Husband picked out the other plane with ease.

He wanted to try a simulated engine loss on takeoff to see what the sight-picture would be for attaining the recommended 80-mph glide for that emergency in that configuration. As we neared a field, I set the trim for takeoff, pitched us up and went full throttle. As we slowed to Vy, we stabilized and then pulled the throttle (and carb heat) out. The nose quickly pitched itself over -- no leaning forward on the yoke from either of us -- and before long we were nearing 100 mph. The training mag articles all emphasize how (1) imperative the response and (2) extreme the nose-down are for an engine failure on takeoff. Perhaps it depends on when during takeoff the failure occurs, because our Vy is 83 mph, and best glide is 80, and it did not require an extreme input from us at all. Had we been climbing at Vx (65), well, I still am not sure since the plane pointed itself down so rapidly.

With that exercise behind us, we returned to 2500' and continued the scan for traffic into the setting sun through the haze (super for perceived visibility) as we approached JGG. Winds were reported to be calm, and an airport advisory indicated to land 31. We overflew Busch Gardens and Husband called out the rides he saw and what they were doing; some folks were down there having a nice (albeit chilly) evening!

At home base we crossed midfield to enter left downwind for 31. I felt way wide, so I brought my downwind in a little tighter, but then my base ended up way short and I overshot final. It wasn't awful, and I'm comfortable maneuvering back to centerline, so I chose not to scrap the landing. I was lined up and doing ~80, whereas 70ish would have been more appropriate for that stage. I pulled the power, and just then the swamp monster gave us a little jab. I put a touch of power back in to get us through it with a little more force and accepted that we'd land long; it was all still well within limits. I was not keeping centerline very well, and part of my effort was diverted to recovering that. As we got down into the runway environment, we were still way fast so I went to idle and tried to fly just over the pavement while bleeding off airspeed. I didn't want to pull back much for fear of ballooning, so I tried to ride it out. Unfortunately, my height judgment is, aside from being rusty and aside from being quintessentially feminine, not spectacular and we flew onto the runway. Not the good kind of "greased it" "flew onto the runway," but rather planted it with resolve onto the runway. The angle was shallow enough that no bounce or ouchy resulted... well, actually, we did have a flicker of a nosewheel shimmy, but nothing like the jaw-rattling shimmies we experienced before the dampener and wheel were replaced.

We rolled out, cleaned up, called for fuel, shut down and went home. As we left the airport, we stopped to snap a few pics of the beautiful sunset.



Despite having two firmer-than-satisfactory landings, all-in-all it was a really good flight. I got more airtime. Husband got to be my passenger and we got to go together. Well, the whole family got to go! And perhaps most importantly, I demonstrated that whatever that panic situation was three weeks ago, it was an isolated event and not some new gonna-be-a-mommy-so-must-eliminate-all-risk subconscious freak-out policy.

Discussion:

1. Co-pilots: Having a co-pilot, or a pilot-not-flying, is great. It's really good and reassuring to know he's there and can help. Husband is quite talkative in-flight (honey, that's not a complaint!) and it generally helps me to continue learning. He knows the things that irk me, and can tailor his pointers around those!


2. Power and landings: Landing #2 at PHF saw too little power; we had bookoos of room and a whining stall horn. More power would have stretched out the descent and eased that landing. The landing at JGG had too much power; I had deliberately put it in to get past El Chupacabre but left it in quite longer than I should have, making it an unnecessarily long landing.

Hours logged this flight: 0.9
Hours logged total: ?
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: ?
PIC (solo) hours total:: ?

Baby is a boy!

We're growing a son! He's got the right number of arms and legs, a good strong heartbeat, a wicked-cool looking spine (really neat on ultrasounds!), and nicely defined muscles, too, don't you think? :)

News on the ground

The baby-pilot-in-making is now kicking, rolling and punching such that Daddy can feel it, too. Exciting!

The easiest hours

I know, I know, I still owe you details about the checkride and I'm working on it! Here's a teaser... the METAR when I showed up at the airport Saturday morning; needless to say, it was a tense hour of go/don't-go fretting leading up to the scheduled departure time:
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1

This morning Husband and I went up for the easiest 1.4 hours I could possibly get -- as his safety pilot! :) And so it begins! He did a good job. We did the VOR 9 and VOR 27 approaches with holds and all that down at Franklin (FKN), then a VOR check just west of AKQ at the WAIKS intersection, then the HCM VOR approach to JGG for a very well-executed circle-to-land on 13. Husband is good. :)

As a completely off-topic side note, a warning: I'm trying to resolve some identity theft issues right now and one thing the bastard(s) did was to open a Macy's credit card. Ok, fine. I saw it on my credit report as "MACYDSNB", called them up and they closed it. Today I was giving ye olde credit reports another perusal, and a new account with the same institution information appeared as "VISDSNB." I figured another credit card had been opened, but it turns out that Macy's is just a shady creditor. When they open a store account, they also automatically open a VISA account with a $10,000 credit limit and tie it to the same card so their store card can be used at any retailer that takes VISA. No consumer approval or application required (not that I applied for the Macy's card to begin with!). Shady. So I called them again and verified that the Macy's account was closed and asked that this account also be closed. They complied, but that just seems so wrong. Be advised...

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

Flying for two...

So, I hope this doesn't count as carrying a passenger, else I'm in trouble!

Tiny Baby Cargo is due August 19!

Home again

We could not have had better weather for our flying days. The weather and schedules even cooperated to let us hop down to GA to see my family for the day on Thursday -- something that wouldn't have been possible if we were visiting by automobile.

It was a fabulous trip. Good family time, good food, good rest.

Since this blog is about flight training, I'll briefly state what I remember off the top of my head... I did all of the flying, from the left seat, with the exception of the return trip from SC to VA because I wasn't feeling so hot that day (I did the communicate tasks, however, so it wasn't a wasted 2.25-hour trip as far as training goes) and the times when we were carrying family passengers since Husband had to be up front!

1. Flying down last Sunday it was so smooth that I set the elevator trim, sat back, and enjoyed a little under 3 hours of sight-seeing, scanning for traffic, petting the dog, and enjoying the time with Husband. Occasionally a retrim or a nudge of the yoke to correct a drift was required, but it was a very easy trip.

2. At KUZA I had one of my best landings ever, and Husband was genuinely impressed :).

3. KUZA-->18A with a fly-over of Clemson University (that's Death Valley at left) was a nice trip down to see the folks with a few minutes of "where's the airport?" at the end -- even with the GPS, we couldn't visually find it until we were almost right over it. My landing there was firm, but no bounce or control issues. Just after landing, my dad met us at the airport and we talked him into taking a short flight over the lake with two big circles over his house and a quick jaunt over Hartwell Dam -- yes, the lake level is unusually low, and thus the large bright orange ring of Georgia clay along the shorline. Husband was PIC for the tour with dad, and his landing at 18A was similar to mine; must be something about the airport! ;)


4. 18A-->KUZA later that day was good, too. We snuck into the pattern between a cute little red low-wing that was doing pattern work and another fella coming in for a full-stop. I held my flare a few inches high and after drifting with the stall warning on for a bit it plopped down; firm, no bounce, but not one to be proud of.

5. KUZA-->KJGG was Husband's leg. Various ATCs pointed traffic out to us, two of which were aircraft passing left-to-right of our path directly in front of us, with less than 1.5 nm separation. This was (1) a little unsettling (but not really) to see other planes that close without it being the usual pattern kind of close, (2) good to know ATC had our backs (and nose), (3) neat to see other planes that close in flight, (4) good to see what other traffic really looks like -- I've been a little anxious that my scanning technique is ineffective due to how little traffic I see when VFR all by myself (it is a big sky, isn't it?!), but every time ATC has pointed it out, it has been obvious and these that were in close quarters were quite obvious, and (5) proof of how flight-following is a super service but also a warning that it's an as-time-and-workload-permit service that is no substitute for pilot awareness. We saw some very odd low thin clouds, all roller-coastery, as seen in the pic at right...

6. The night before we returned home, we spent some time weighing our Christmas booty (gifts, silly!). Husband had the forethought to email our W&B spreadsheet to himself so we sat down and worked it out. Even with 60 lbs of gifts, us, the Dog, luggage, etc., there was still plenty of room for another full-grown adult. The catch the next morning would prove to be organizing those inconsistently shaped boxes in the limited-sized spaces under and behind seats.

A great trip, and perfect proof positive of why having (a share in) a plane makes traveling easier! Had we driven, we wouldn't have gotten to GA, and all useful time in the day Sunday going down and Friday coming back would have been spent driving instead of enjoying time with family or settling in at home.

Xmas Eve X-C

Santa came early for us. He brought us a beautiful day with very smooth skies for our trip down south to see the family. With 2.9 hours on the Hobbs and a landing that impressed the pants off the Husband, I got a nice x-c for the log book (that doesn't count toward training/PIC time, of course) and had a good time with the Husband and the Dog.

And this time we've got pictures of said Dog with his Mutt Muffs on -- how prosh! Will post them when we get home :)

I hope Santa brings you all gorgeous weather and safe journeys! Happy holidays!

(Off topic)

I'm sorry, I try to keep this blog focused on my flight training, but right now I'm feeling rather irate. If you don't care, that's fine and I'm sorry for wasting your time. If you do care, here's what's going on.