JEP FI-4 Homework: FYJ's airport diagram

After the last lesson, during which we had landed at West Point (FYJ), Chuck gave me the homework of find out what was "different" about the runway there. West Point is interesting in that it's a skydiving base (watch out for human litter from that jump plane!) and it has two defunct runways, one of which is used for auto maneuver practice. I've heard that it's used by the CIA (based nearby at Camp Peary), but don't know whether that is actually true.

So, on to the homework. The runway is listed as 3700' long, with some gray area off the end. The US Terminal Procedures legend says that gray area is a stopway, and it appears to connect to the taxiway. It's not space that's available for normal takeoffs/landings, but is an option for an aborted takeoff:

"An area beyond the takeoff runway, no less wide than the runway and centered upon the extended centerline of the runway, able to support the airplane during an aborted takeoff, without causing structural damage to teh airplane, and designated by the airport authorities for use in decelerating the airplane durin an aborted takeoff." (This actually comes from instuctions for surveyors from the NGS concerning how important it is that they be accurate with atypical runways -- not sure how much credance to give it since it's not FAA or NACO.)

But why would one specific runway have this? Why not the reciprocal runway? I mean, if extra safety buffers are built in on runway 9, why wouldn't 27 need them, too? Why not the others at the airport? Why not all runways at all airports? Isn't a safety buffer a good idea all around? Of course, but the runways are generally pretty long anyway, and land limitations, and cost limitations, and ... Back to FYJ. It's obvious that this airport has gone through some changes, what with two of the three runways being decommissioned. Perhaps that pavement is there and is ok for emergency use, so they reclassified it as a stopway. Perhaps it's damaged, or may be reserved for the CIA's use... Officially, the AIM says:

4.3.6 Use of Runways/Declared Distances: Section c says "At some airports, the airport proprietor may declare that sections of a runway at one or both ends are not available for landing or takeoff. For these airports, the declared distance of runway length available for a particular operation is published in the Airport/Facility Directory. Declared distances (TORA, TODA, ASDA, and LDA) are defined in the Pilot/Controller Glossary. These distances are calculated by adding to the full length of paved runway any applicable clearway or stopway and subtracting from that sum the sections of the runway unsuitable for satisfying the required takeoff run, takeoff, accelerate/stop, or landing distance."

The bottom line: the pavement for RW9 beyond 3700' is physically there but it is not available for normal operational use.

Flying slave, part 2

Ha ha ha... We just flew back from our weekend with the in-laws and this time I did all the flying except for the flare back at JGG, which I was starting to do but was not doing aggressively enough so Husband assisted. Husband had a nice, easy trip with me at the helm! :) I jokingly say that I'm his flying slave now -- he has me doing the preflight, taxiing, takeoffs, flying, pattern work, and soon enough the landings, too! He does the communicating with ATCs and handles flight-following and all that jazz, and I talk to the local traffic and UNICOMs.

It was very calm today and we had a mild tailwind. We flew at 5500' for most of the trip, and I was able to trim up and do "two-finger flying" for a lot of it, meaning just the thumb and forefinger of the left hand lightly held the yoke. Minor heading corrections were done with the rudder. This gave me lots of time to pick out landmarks, scan for traffic and evaluate possible forced landing locations along the route.

We made it back in 2.5 hours on the Hobbs, whereas the trip down was 3.1. The Dog is such a super flying pal. He cozied up on the back seat and slept the whole way. What a cutie!

Here's a pic of our GPS track. The blue line, going down to UZA, shows the turbulence and cloud-dodging that we had to do. The white line, coming back to JGG, is remarkably straight!

First long trip as make-believe pilot-in-command

Today Husband and I flew down to KUZA (Rock Hill, SC) to visit Husband's family for a long weekend. I flew (from the right seat) all but maybe 20 minutes or so of the three hour trip, and did the take-off (very well, too -- Husband was impressed! That was his first time flying with me since I started training). Husband did the landing since we had a pretty good crosswind and I haven't done any crosswind landings yet in my training. The trip took about half an hour longer than when he made the trip himself a few weeks ago on account of strong headwinds at most every altitude.

From AKQ to about RDU we were dodging big puffy clouds at ~4500'. It had an extremely unique and surreal beauty to it. After that, it was mostly a matter finding the least turbulent altitude, and there weren't many choices. Halfway down I was feeling a little queasy and headachey, so Husband took over for a little bit to let me relax, get some air and just focus straight ahead on the horizon.

The Dog (85-lb black lab) liked the trip, too. He spent most of the time napping on the floor in front of the back seat, except for the occasional pop-up of the head to get a treat.

I don't get to log any of that time :( but I did take advantage of the opportunity to practice things like maintaining altitude, quick corrections in response to turbulence, sight pictures, etc.

A note about altitudes: For VFR flying on the westerly side of the compass, target altitudes are even thousands plus 500' -- 4500, 6500, etc. We stayed at 4500' for a good portion of it, but when the turbulence started to get to me, we went down incrementally to 2500 in search of calmer skies. We were doing flight-following, too, and kept in the loop with various controllers along the way. VFR flying on the easterly side is odd thousands plus 500 (3500, 5500) and the even and odd thousands (not plus 500) are IFR altitudes -- or whatever the controllers tell the IFR travelers!

And shortly we'll head up to Charlotte for the Clemson game. Go tigers!

JEP FI-4: More stalls, slow flight, instrument time, flaring

Goals:

• Climbs, descents, and turns to a heading by instruments.
• Steep turns.
• Stall recovery practice.
• Accelerated, cross-controlled, elevator trim stalls (demo).
• Emergency procedures, forced landing location selection.
• Landing practice.

Flight:
Preflight and pre-flight briefing as normal. When briefly talking about emergency procedures, Chuck mentioned the "wind the clock" step that used to be prevalent but not so much nowadays. More on this below in the discussion.

We took off on 13 and I had a good take-off. I'm doing things more autonomously now, so I departed the pattern when I saw fit and headed up-river to our practice area. Chuck had me don the foggles and going only by instrument reference perform some climbs and descents first while maintaining heading and then while turning.

Then without foggles we reduced airspeed for slow-flight maneuvers, using the rudder to turn to different headings. This was followed by a power-off stall, which naturally was followed by a recovery :) I lost 300' on this one.

Next, Chuck demonstrated a steep turn to the left with a roll-out onto a specific heading. While he was still in control of the plane, he started another steep turn to perform an accelerated stall. This seemed just like a really tight steep turn, and was recovered pretty much by just returning to level flight. That one was ok. We also did a cross-controlled stall and an elevator-trim stall (eek).

It was my turn for a steep turn to the left, through which I gained 100', and a slow turn to the right, through which I nearly maintained altitude. Rolling out seemed natural. The foggles came back on, but I don't remember what we did with them this time. Perhaps more slow-flight maneuvering? I'll have to check the syllabus and see if that jogs my memory.

In any case, we headed toward West Point (FYJ, or Middle Peninsula Regional) for my first non-JGG landing. UNICOM didn't answer my request for an advisory, and we hadn't heard any traffic in the area (no skydivers). There's a processing plant of some sort just up the York River from FYJ and the smokestacks clued us in on the local winds -- we'd aim to land on 9. We stayed wary of the departing Cirrus as we entered crosswind to circle around for left-hand traffic. I did a good pattern and had a pretty good landing on the extra-wide runway, reasonable flare and everything. There was a little snaking on final, and we floated a tad down the runway, but all in all it was my best one so far.

We back-taxiied, departed, and headed south for JGG. As I was maintaining Vy, climbing and starting to turn south, I became distracted a little by how far off the heading indicator (or directional gyro, DG) was compared to the magnetic compass.
We chatted for a second about using the mag compass in this case, and we wrapped up when the stall warning started to sound. Holy crap, how did that happen?!?!!? My eyes immediately went to the airspeed indicator, which read over 70 MPH. The stall speed under normal conditions, which I thought we were in, is 52. I still don't know why the stall warning came on then, but I knew what had to be done: reduce pitch, regain airspeed.

Once we were back over our peninsula, we focused on emergency procedures. Lightweight, at this point -- as Chuck throttled back, I looked around for spots we could land. The options were a selection of fields (thanks, Virginia! :) ) and that was about it. Of all the surrounding fields, we were passing the most appealing one on the left at that time. Next order of business was to reduce airspeed to the best gliding speed (also Vy) and assess whether we could make it in a pattern. We could, so with our Vy airspeed I turned us back around and headed for the field. During what seemed like a long approach, we sized up our choice and other alternatives that were nearby and stuck with the original choice. Once we "made it" we powered back up and resumed our heading towards JGG.

The rest of the flight back to JGG was normal. We talked about workload management and realistic distractions and the prerogative of the pilot-in-command to call for a "sterile" (silent) cockpit. We entered right-hand traffic at JGG for 13 and my pattern and landing were unassisted until the flare, since I overshot the runway heading when turning final on that truncated approach pattern and snaked around a little. Taxi, takeoff, only overshot traffic pattern altitude by about 50' this time, good pattern, better final, first "drop in" landing (not a good thing), and done.

Discussion:

1. "Eight-hour clock" in the emergency procedure:In times gone by, there was an "eight-hour" clock in the instrument panel that had to be wound by hand, and one of the very first steps in dealing with an emergency was to wind the clock. Why does the clock need to be wound if there's a cabin fire or the engine cut out? For no other purpose than to force the pilot to focus on a task and think about what was going on. The lesson in this is that jumping wantonly into action may not produce the best results, and in fact may make the situation more dire, so pause, focus and then act.


2. Tracking extended centerline on takeoff: I'm feeling good about taking off now, and am sticking pretty well to the centerline when thundering down the runway. Ha ha ha, like a 172 thunders! :) At JGG, once we lift off I can no longer see the runway and have felt that I haven't necessarily been tracking the extended centerline for a straight-out departure very well. Chuck suggested after lifting off to set myself up so that I can see the edge of the runway and thereby have a reference. When we left West Point, with its nice wide long runway, I could see it after lift off both out the
   front and out the side, so that one seemed pretty good.
3. Scary stall: The elevator-trim stall SCARED THE PANTS OFF ME. Chuck described what was going to happen, I prepared myself mentally for it, but all I remember is seeing the entire windscreen getting entirely filled up with ground, swooping in from the bottom left, and saying in a terrified voice: "No, no, no, no, no..." And that's not being melodramatic. After stabilizing, Chuck looked over and assured me it was ok, which I knew to be true. It totally gets my goat that I react this way! I don't want to, I know I don't need to, but it happens! I hope that it's just a reaction to the introduction of these stalls and that after a few times through them that "brace-for-death instinct" will go away. The other stalls don't bother me now, so this ought to be true, but OMG. Next time up, we'll have to do it a few times to desensitize me.
   
   But the elevator-trim stall is worth talking about a little more. This is the problem case where you're all set up for landing, everything is peachy, you're trimmed nice and slow, your flaps are full-out, and then you have to abort the landing. Thus, it's the "dog on the runway" stall. To go-around, you put in full power, start to climb and prepare to milk in the flaps. But whoa! Before you can even think about the flaps, the stall warning is screeching and you gotta pitch forward! The problem is that you're trimmed nose-high, so the extra throttle wind exaggerates that pitch and since your stall speed is already lowered by the flaps, it doesn't take a huge decrease in airspeed to break your control. Plus, the torque of the full-throttled engine is amplified at slow speed, so you swoop off to the left. This is the case where recovery with minimal loss of altitude is crucial. No, this is the case you just don't want to be in -- the point of this demo is what can happen if you don't maintain control.
4. Steep turns: A steep turn involves a bank of 45 degrees (or higher, I reckon), back-pressure on the controls to maintain altitude, and a rudder balance to keep the ball (in the turn coordinator) in place but not so much as to affect altitude; the rudder controls whether the nose points left or right, so tilt that halfway on its side and the rudder then controls some relative pitch as well. These feel fine.
5. Forced landing site selection: Who wants to land in a field? Ooh, ooh, me me me! Just kidding. We sized up a bunch of fields: that one's too far, that one has hay bales, that one has power lines, that one's too short, that one has lumpy ground, etc. Even as we got close to our selected field, we found power lines that we hadn't seen from above, poking out over the tree line on the near end of the field. We would have cleared them just fine, but it's a lesson in the unexpected and in active re-assessment of non-standard procedures.
6. Drop-in landing: On my final landing today, I flared too high. So I relaxed the back-pressure and let the nose drop a little, then flared again after we had descended some. On this second flare, we just dropped the remaining distance to the runway and kinda went thud. It was the opposite of graceful. I don't remember the stall warning being on, so I haven't yet put the pieces together for why we fell, but fall we did. Maybe it was a ground effect issue. After I figure that out, I'll let you know what I learned and how to avoid it. The key is that I need to get better at knowing when to flare; partly this is hindered by not being able to see the runway over the dash when we're over the runway and pitched up already for lower airspeed at idle power.

Self-Assessment: A lot of progress in 4.5 lessons! Still too stressed out by (certain) stalls, but even worse is I really logically believe they should not stress me out yet they do!

• Preflight: Good.
• Taxiing: Pretty good; not afraid to use more throttle for tight turns now.
• Take-off: Yay! I feel good about these! Need to focus now on maintaining departure heading after lift-off.
• Maintaining airspeed: Getting there, more practice.
• Stalls: Power-off stall, good. Dealing with most stalls, good. Dealing with that one stall, tremendously awful psycho.
• Slow flight: Good.
• Maintain attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Good.
• Change attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
• Forced landing: Just an intro today, but was ok for that.
• Pattern: Much better. Need to eliminate squirreliness on final.
• Landing: Still assisted by Chuck on the flare sometimes.
• Radio calls: Decent, will improve with practice.

Next: JEP FI-5: More of the above, plus we'll kick it up a notch (Bam!) by doing recovery from unusual attitudes under the foggles. We've already done all of the maneuvers for the next lesson, and possibly the lesson after that, according to the syllabus, so it'll be practice.

• More of the above!
• S turns
• Rectangular courses
• Instrument maneuvers

Hours logged this lesson: 1.3
Hours logged total: 6.0
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.2
Hours logged total: 0.2
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 15

Another first: Weather cancellation

Boo hoo! :(

Well, the TAFs this morning were calling for broken clouds at 1500', but I was still optimistic that we'd be able to go up for today's lesson -- steep turns, stall recovery practice, and emergency procedures.

As the morning went on, however, the METARs were showing cloud layers that were becoming lower and more dense, and so around 11:30 Chuck called to call it off.

My gut had been telling me the optimism was foolish, but my heart still sank. Rescheduling it is obviously the right thing to do, but it's not like that relieves the disappointment.

But this blog is about learning to fly, and learning when not to fly has to be part of that. Or perhaps the harder lesson is learning to get over not flying when you've been looking forward to it for so long!

So, let's talk about VFR rules while we're here. 14 CFR Part 91.155 has a table describing the requirements for visual flight in various types of airspace and at different altitudes (other VFR requirements are described in neighboring sections/paragraphs). I'm going to assign myself the homework of looking at the sectional when I get home and seeing what kind of airspace JGG is in (no hints, please!) and the surrounding areas where we fly; I believe Chuck called Felker (nearby Army air base) a Class D airspace when we talked about not flying through it on our way back from PVG (if you do fly through it you're required to make contact). The other hint I have from memory is that Husband has talked about staying 500' below the clouds in the past, so I'm just going to use that as my rule for now.

Visibility is good today; 10 sm. But those doggone clouds below 1500' are troublesome since we'd need to be at least 500' below them, and that doesn't give a lot of wiggle room in which to practice stall recovery.

The other consideration, of course, is the altitude requirement for operating over inhabited areas. CFR 14 Part 91.119 gives minimum altitudes for different conditions and situations. For us, it would be 1000' (congested areas). There are lots of wooded areas, farmland and rivers around here, so we could really go down to 500' once we get out to the practice area, but between here and there it's all neighborhoods, schools and shopping areas.

So, if the clouds had stayed at 1500', it would have been on the marginal side of ok. But since the latest METAR said 1100', that's just not really reasonable. I mean, come on -- we're going to practice stalls because I haven't done that yet and wouldn't really expect to recover within 100' at this point!

Common sense wins a begrudged victory.

JEP FI-3B Homework: Runway length with displaced thresholds

First let me say that I'm surprised to find that I've been spelling threshold incorrectly my whole life! I swear it used to have three 'h's in it!

At PVG we were looking at the airport diagram to make sure it was suitable for taking off. Given that 388 needs only 850' to take off and the favored runway was shown as 3524' long by 70' wide, this would be fine. But the runway had squiggles at both ends, indicated displaced runway thresholds. Such thresholds are pointers for where landings should begin and do not affect the takeoff starting position.

Obviously, however, the usable runway length is different for takeoffs and landings on a runway with a displaced threshold. My question was what the 3524 meant: Physical pavement length? Usable landing length? My gut said physical length, and Chuck's answer was "homework."

The answer is that it is the physical length.

I flipped through the majority of the AIM after failing to come up with any terms that were in the index that seemed reasonable to discover whether runway length is the pavement length or the usable length or what. I did find a "terminal procedures publication" at AOPA that describes the symbology used on airport diagrams. It specifically says "Runway length depicted is the physical length of the runway (end-to-end, including displaced thresholds, if any) but excluding areas designated as stopways. Where a displaced threshold is shown and/or part of the runway is otherwise not available for landing, an annotation is added to indicate the landing length of the runway; e.g., RWY 13 ldg 5000'." (Side note: This AOPA linked doc is also page K1 in the 03Aug2006 Southeast Volume 2 issue of the US Terminal Procedures, the legend for the airport diagram, which seems like it must be in ALL of those booklets, which makes me think it's a trustworthy source!)

The PVG diagram, with displaced thresholds on both ends, is labeled as 3524x70. The notes for the runways give the displacement distances (510' for 2, 440' for 20), but do not include any "landing length" annotations, as far as I can tell. So it seems to me that the pavement is 3524' and a pilot landing on 2 would need to make a mental note that the usable landing length is really 3014. They do give specific approach ratios for the thresholds. This is based on airport information from AirNav.com, and agrees with the AOPA kneeboard diagram.

Chuck notes that there are many sources for airport diagrams and that the official terminal procedures publication comes from NACO. In fact, I looked at a few diagrams for PVG and one didn't use the squiggle to mark the displaced thresholds, and I wouldn't have noticed that if i wasn't looking for it.

JEP FI-3B: More Takeoffs and Landings

Goals:

• Work on landings; in particular, learn to visually assess the height and speed situation on final and start taking over the flare
• Try dead reckoning

Flight:
388 was at PVG still (glideslope maintenance) so Chuck and I flew down with Jim (another owner of 388) in Jim's Cirrus SR22. Upon leaving JGG, we dodged helicopters from Ft. Eustis, dodged clouds and got down to PVG in, oh, I don't know, maybe 10-15 minutes. We did have to descend to about 1400' toward the end to stay under the clouds, and then we were flying between radio antennas like a football through goal posts. On the ground, Jim taxiied us over to Bay Avionics, dropped us off and was on his way.

Given that (1) we were expecting bad weather to move in and didn't know that we'd even make it back to JGG and (2) the next lesson will be at least a few days away since the weather is supposed to stick around all weekend, we decided to not move on to the next lesson in the syllabus. We had talked about calling it off altogether, but I really wanted to make more progress on landings, and having some time to focus on that without the introduction of new topics suited me just fine for this afternoon. We planned to go up the river back to JGG and do as much as we felt like doing there.

Preflight, pre-flight briefing, and a homework assignment while we were reviewing the airport diagram. This time I won't post the assignment until I know the answer! ;) It has to do with displaced runway threshholds, which PVG has.

It was neat to take off at a different airport for the very first time. My first non-JGG t/o! Runway 2 at PVG. It was bizarre to make radio calls that didn't start and end with "Williamsburg traffic;" I had to think about what I was saying a little more. Oh, and also had to think about the gajillion helicopters that were out and about. But of course the t/o process was the same, and it was nice to not have the noise abatement procedure and just go straight out.

We kept those tall towers in sight as we headed towards the James River, which we would follow on the south side until we were just SW of JGG and clear of the Ft. Eustis (KFAF) airspace and the nuclear station. We used the sectional to pick out landmarks and do some dead reckoning for our position and to confirm that our path would steer us clear of KFAF. We skimmed along the underside of the thick, pillowy clouds at ~1500'. When we visually picked out the nuclear station, which we know to be across the river from Jamestown Island, which is a landmark oft quoted in in-bound traffic calls, we headed up towards the airport and began our descent.

From there, it was all pattern work, landings and takeoffs. But these were no normal, pleasant, calm-winded, left-hand into 31 patterns with which I had started to grow comfortable. Noooooo. These were right-hand patterns into 13 with the noise abatement procedure on approach and 20 kt winds. Ha ha, just kidding about the winds; to our shock and surprise, it was almost still by the time we got back to JGG (the calm before the storm, no doubt). That was a bit more challenging. As we approached our turn to base for my very first landing onto 13, it struck me -- we're going to have a very short final over the dirt mounds! (I'll have to take a picture next time I'm out there... They're really of no consequence, but I thought (again with the melodrama) that an altitude of 200' going over them would be cutting it close!)

.... wondering what happened?

We did a go-around. Frankly, I don't recall why at this point. I have a mental image of the runway being way below us (so I probably gave the dirt mounds 500'), but am not certain that that was the problem. In any case, that was a learning experience by itself. I've never done a go-around. The process was to throttle up (from near-idle to full) and incrementally ease in the flaps so as to not change the flight characteristics they're providing (namely lift) too suddenly. (Chuck -- did we count this go-around as one of the 5 landings? The more I think about it, the more I think we did 5 patterns but only 4 landings.)

Oh, and did I tell you about our flaps? They're old-school. No notches or automatic motors to let you nonchalantly flip to a setting and casually glance to check that they extended. You have to depress the lever and hold it and watch them and/or the deployment gauge and release the lever when they're where you want them. I suppose the good thing about that is that it has taught me to not mess with the flaps during a turn!

Anyway, long story short, we did the pattern several more times. We started on flaring, too. Now that's the big item on the list to work on. I'm inching closer to doing it all myself, but I'm not there yet. On one landing I quite unwittingly muttered "Bonk" as we landed, er, safely and securely. Chuck says we'll shoot for rolling landings, with the stall warning going off just as we touch down instead of at 20'.

Discussion:
Several things settled into "understanding land" in my head during our landings and t/os this afternoon.

• I've been having trouble keeping the center line on t/o, especially right before lifting off. I realized that I always go way left first and then dampeningly (that's a word, right?) oscillate until we leave the ground. More right rudder as we pick up, so no left sway and no need to correct! Once that dawned on me, it got a lot better.
• The non-moving numbers on final just clicked since I was paying attention to them. It was so obvious on final for the first landing after the go-around. So obvious. For the ensuing landings I didn't even have to think about it.
• I had very, very bad use of reference points for landing. Since the base/final corner is cut to avoid flying over the school, I was using the school as my reference for when to turn instead of looking at the end of the runway. When we were landing on 31, that was not a problem; I'd look back over my shoulder and start my turn when it was at ~45 degrees. I didn't make that check for a single landing on 13. Slap my wrists and send me to bed without dinner! (But I get dessert -- I made an apple pie from scratch when I got home, another first!)
• The pattern airspeed is 80-85 MPH but landing speed should be closer to 70. On one of the landings I crossed the threshhold doing over 80 and we floated and floated and just couldn't seem to get down. We landed safely and had plenty of room to stop but couldn't make the mid-field turn-off and had to roll all the way to the far end.
• Pattern altitude is something I need to practice maintaining. The real problem is that after takeoff, I focus on sticking Vy and climbing and then suddenly I'm at 850' and can't level off while keeping my airspeed (Vy happens to be a good pattern airspeed for our plane, too). So I'm pulling back power and pulling out the carb heat and trimming all while trying to turn with no more than a standard-rate turn and (if I remember) then also looking around for traffic and calling out that we're turning back onto downwind, which we usually are doing by the time I get myself and the controls in order.

Self-Assessment: Overall, decent with the challenges so far; it felt good today. Flaring and only ascending to pattern altitude when staying in the pattern need work.

• Preflight: Good.
• Taxiing: Better.
• Take-off: Better. Still need more practice on maintaining the centerline, but I know what my problems are and what to do; need deliberate work on not breaking pattern altitude when the intention is to stay in the pattern.
• Maintaining airspeed: Better, more practice.
• Stalls: No practice this time.
• Slow flight: No practice this time.
• Maintain attitude by instruments: Actually, we had a little "scud" on the way up from PVG and Chuck told me to use the attitude indicator; I descended slightly, so more practice.
• Pattern: Generally good, except for the bad use of reference for turning base on 13!
• Landing: Still assisted by Chuck; better, need to work on the flare and getting airspeed down toward 70 at the end of final.
• Radio calls: Decent, need to work on brevity.

Next: Unknown - Between weather and John's intensive training sessions next week, we'll just have to see what we can fit in.

• More of the above!
• Accelerated and unbalanced stalls.
• Emergency procedures.

Hours logged this lesson: 1.5
Hours logged total: 5.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 5
Take-offs and landings total: 12

Now for some warm apple pie!

JEP FI-4: Preparation

Looks like the next lesson (hopefully tomorrow afternoon, although the rain is supposed to be moving in) will review the previous stuff, introduce steep turns and emergency procedures, and include demonstrations of more dangerous stalls (ones that might induce a spin).

In addition to all of that, I'd like to become more comfortable with the landing assessment. I can follow instructions on getting to that runway threshhold, but I don't have an established sight picture or procedure for getting one yet, so I'm not 100% comfortable with it. I've read that you should pick a spot on the windshield, put the numbers under it, and make control adjustments so that the numbers remain under that spot throughout the descent. So far, I've been so focused on getting the general airspeed/altitude/flaps/heading/radio calls parts right (the pattern and landing procedures) that I haven't devoted my brain to that important bit of targeting! I am confident in my pattern work, so maybe now that I can get us to final I'll be able to work on this piece.

Well, I say I'm confident in my pattern work, but we'll just have to see when the next lesson comes. At the end of the last lesson 8 days ago I felt good about it... Practice, practice, practice!

JEP FI-4 on the horizon?

388 is down for maintenance that hopefully will end by late tomorrow or early Thursday. I've got the plane booked for Thursday evening, Friday morning, and all day Saturday and Sunday. There's a Presidential TFR shutting JGG down Friday afternoon and evening.

Cross your fingers that the weather will cooperate and that the maintenance will go smoothly!

Withdrawal

I know, I know, it has only been three lessons but I am going through some kind of withdrawal! I get all achey and jittery when I try to figure out when next I'll fly... Chuck is out of town until Monday night, and Tuesday 388 goes for maintenance for who knows how long (hopefully not more than 2 days), and Thursday we leave for a 4-day weekend to visit family, and the following week John has 388 booked a lot for his training (his instructor is here one week, gone one week for work)...

I finally understand the Husband's constant jonesing to go up again!

[Update: Husband pointed out my dates are wrong and our 4-day weekend is NOT this week, so maybe there'll be lessons Thurs or Fri!]

JEP FI-3: Attitude indicator, Stalls, Slow flight

(Update: attitude indicator's fpm (details below), and I'm told that C130s could use lil' old JGG.)

Goals:

• Slow flight maneuvering.
• Power-on stalls (intro).
• Power-off stalls (intro).
• Maintain climb/descent by instruments.
• Turn around a point.

Flight: Preflight and pre-flight briefing, normal. Taxi for take-off on 13 (light changing winds; by the time we got back they favored 31). Take-off, mediocre. I think on that one Chuck took over because I had too hard of a turn for the airspeed, which I had probably allowed to slip below Vx. Up-river to the practice area and begin...

We trimmed up for cruising airspeed and began to learn more instruments. The attitude indicator (artificial horizon) has a variety of uses. In a very general sense, which is all the attention I had really paid it before, it tells whether you're pitched up or down and whether you're rolling left or right. It also, though, tells specifics on those two axes as well. There are horizontal notches above the horizon for a +500fpm climb, and a line below the horizon for -500fpm descent. Putting the little "virtual plane" on those lines, you can verify the rates using the VSI (vertical speed indicator). (Update: Those lines correspond to those rates at cruise speed, which is what we were doing when we looked at them.) Additional lines are below the -500fpm markings, but we didn't explore those. There are also, below the horizon, diagonal marks with which the wings of the virtual plane align for a standard rate turn; again, there are other diagonal marks but we didn't go further. Across the top of the indicator are tick marks as well for different bank measures, but I didn't process them while looking at the lower marks.

We then practiced slow flight, reducing airspeed further and further until the stall warning came on. Then we maintained and used the right rudder to turn right and simply had to let off the right rudder to turn left. The P-factor adds a left-turn tendency, so just by not resisting it you can turn left.

Then we did power-off stalls, where Chuck demonstrated one and I did one or two. They were uneventful, requiring a check of the VSI to in fact verify that the stall had been achieved. Slow flight, pull back, stall, pitch forward, regain control, throttle up, nose to the horizon, establish positive climb rate, recover.

Next was power-on stalls, where Chuck demonstrated one and I did one or two. These were slightly more eventful, and in fact, despite Chuck preparing me for it, I still instinctively grabbed my seat when we swung to the left and had a windshield full of ground (not that bad, again, I'm over-dramatic). Then I did it. Reduce airspeed (just to minimize how much has to bleed off to stall), full throttle, let it pitch up, then help it when it doesn't want to go any further, keep helping, keep helping, then mush. And with as much right-rudder as I could possibly put in we still swung left, but it broke (the stall), swung left, I pitched forward, already at full throttle, control came back quickly, nose to the horizon, establish positive climb rate, recover.

We moved on to descending S-turns to do some descending turns while clearing an area of interest over a clearing in the woods with a few buildings. Now was the time for turning around a point, but this was to be a descending turn. I'm comfortable with turning, and was comfortable using the rudder and turning a little tighter if I felt I was getting too far off the ground reference. I didn't pay quite as much attention to the descent as I should have and so we at least stopped descending if not even gained a little altitude for a little bit. We rolled out of that towards the James and headed back to JGG.

We entered the pattern on 45 downwind for 31 and I did all the pattern work and radio calls. We went through the pattern 5 times. I had a tendency to not be quite parallel with the runway on downwind, leading to a a short base, until the last 2-3 patterns when I consciously kept farther away (once too far -- couldn't see the numbers on the runway because of trees!).

I think each one got better, and each one was a little different. On one of them, we looked up after using the heading indicator to decide when we were fully turned onto base to see a C130 out in front crossing our path! Luckily we were about to turn final and he was plenty far beyond the airport (spraying for mosquitos; some residents called JGG to complain about the huge low-flying military plane, like that thing could possibly use JGG!). I don't have a good sight picture for final yet, but the procedure for getting through the pattern to final has sunk in, I think, so the next lesson I should be able to absorb more and maybe start doing the flare myself (Chuck did them all, with me "helping" as an observer, until the last one where I really just felt that I was pulling back as hard as I could, brute force not brute smarts!).

The 4 take-offs were each different, too. At least one of the early ones had a notable problem with tracking the center line, so I consciously worked on that and it generally improved. On the next to the last one I misjudged when the nose strut extended and that resulted in an (off the ground) excursion over the grass to the left of the runway, so I was more attentive to that on the next take-off. I was definitely paying attention to Vx and trying to keep it, but I completely brain-fudged it on one (the last one, maybe?) and saw that we dipped below Vx and my solution was to increase pitch (should have been to decrease pitch) and so of course the stall warning started squealing and Chuck stepped in, but then turned it back to me as we turned off and climbed back to 850' at ~80-85 MPH to re-enter the pattern.

Discussion:

1. Why practice stalls? Power-on stalls simulate what was about to happen on that last take-off. If we had stalled at 300' full throttle, well, ouch. That would have been pretty nasty. Power-on stall means full throttle stall. We practice them so that if we do stall on take-off we can recover as quickly as possible while losing as little altitude as possible. At 300' over trees, houses and a school, there ain't much altitude to lose safely. Power-off stalls are the opposite; stalling on a landing approach. This one's not quite so bad, since you don't pitch down and dive, but it's also almost worse because it's not obvious that you're dropping (in 388, at least). Either way, it still has the potential for major nastiness and still needs to have lightning-fast responses to recover quickly and while maintaining altitude.
2. More notes on Vx: Vx is the best angle of climb (gets you aloft the fastest), the best glide angle (keeps you aloft the longest), and corresponds to the maximum coefficient of lift; it gets you up the best.

Self-Assessment: Overall, more confidence than last time and it felt good today, not so stressful. I got into the groove with landings, and learned from each take-off, but still need to put all the factors together.

• Preflight: Good.
• Taxiing: Improved even since yesterday, more needed especially in tight spots.
• Take-off: Better indeed. Maintaining the centerline while still on the ground under full power needs practice and sticking Vx throughout the initial ascent (for JGG) needs practice.
• Maintaining airspeed: Better, more practice.
• Stalls: Was ok, but didn't have to try to recover within a certain altitude... we'll see next time.
• Slow flight: Was ok for what we did, didn't do enough to assess.
• Maintain attitude by instruments: Good. We'll see when harder scenarios are introduced.
• Pattern: Much better today (thank you 5 landings!). More practice for adding throttle when descent rate is too high and not making too wide of a pattern (downwind).
• Landing: Still assisted by Chuck; my assessment of the situation and ideas on correction need active work.
• Radio calls: Decent, will improve with practice.

Next: Unknown - Chuck is unavailable until Tuesday afternoon, and 388 goes for glideslope maintenance on Tuesday.

• More of the above!
• Will have to check the syllabus...

Hours logged this lesson: 1.7
Hours logged total: 4.2
Take-offs and landings this flight: 5
Take-offs and landings total: 7

JEP FI-2: Take-off, Configuration changes, Landing

(Updated: Flaps discussion.)

(Updated: After giving in last night to exhaustion and a sense of mild frustration at not being able to summarize what I had learned, I slept the night away and was awakened by an epiphany regarding Vx/Vy at 6am; the blanks that existed last night have been filled in.)

(Also, I'm trying out a potential new format for my lesson write-ups; let me know if you like it or have a suggestion that would make it more clear.)

Goals:

• Recognize some airport markings.
• Trim for desired airspeed.
• Familiarize with pattern flight, including take-off and landing.

Flight: I arrived early to preflight and Chuck checked up after me. We discussed what we'd do during this lesson and talked about Vx (best angle of climb, useful to clear obstacles at the end of the runway) and Vy (best rate of climb, most efficient climb and is also the optimal glide speed). Vx on our plane is 67 MPH, so that's when we want to initially lift off the runway on take-off. For the noise abatement procedures that require turning to heading 275 at 400 feet, we stay at Vx until 400 feet then accelerate to Vy (83 MPH), turn off, and climb to the desired altitude. On the way to the end of the runway, we talked about yellow taxiway markings v. white runway markings and that we stop at solid lines because the other side (with the dotted line) is the "hot" side.

The idea was that I'd attempt the take-off, and with a fair amount of weaving as we rolled full-throttle down the runway, the nose lifted up, then the plane lifted up, and we continued to accelerate straight through past 83 MPH because I wasn't managing our pitch very well. Frankly, I was already feeling overwhelmed at that point. Chuck took over for the turn off, then handed it back to me to climb up and head out to the training area up the James.

We reached a straight-and-level flight path, reduced throttle to ~2400 RPM for cruise and trimmed. We used the throttle to climb/descend when trimmed for a certain airspeed; for the plane to maintain a given airspeed when more throttle is applied, it must climb, and the opposite is true for less throttle. Under 2100 RPM requires carb heat, so that required monitoring as well.

We did a few practice patterns (at 1700'). First we trimmed for 95 MPH at pattern altitude (which is 850' for the real pattern). Then came 10 degrees of flaps (note to self: why? descent?). Then more flaps, and throttling back, and pitching down, .... It was a lot to take in at once.

We tried to enter the pattern at a 45 downwind but another plane had just entered downwind and we would have ended up too close behind him, so we did a left 360 for spacing and entered. I followed Chuck's instructions throughout the pattern and got us most of the way in, and he assisted as we came over the runway from a final that started at ~400'. We floated gently before lightly touching down, slowing and turning off. We decided to give it another go in the pattern, so I taxiied us back to 31, we waited for a plane that was slipping his way down to the runway, then I rolled us out there and took off. Better, but not good. We went through the pattern again, with Chuck talking me through it. I didn't realize we were getting blown a little in toward the runway, so we had a very short base and still overshot the runway. My instinct, which Chuck later told me was right, was to correct so that we'd have as straight a final approach as possible, and so that's what I did. We were at 600' this time and so used max flaps, and after throttling back to idle we had a little skip on touchdown but still landed safely and were able to slow in plenty of time to make the taxi turnoff.


Discussion:

1. Why Vx and Vy exist. So Vx is the airspeed that gives the aircraft the best angle of climb; this is useful to know when you've gotta clear an obstacle at take-off. Vy is the airspeed that gives the aircraft its best rate of climb (the most efficient climb); this is useful because, well... the efficiency part is self-evident, and in planning if you know how much ground you're covering given a certain altitude change, then that would be useful.
   
   Anyway, the real thing that struck me is that for take-off you're at full throttle, so that parameter isn't available to help you with airspeed (the focus of the lesson). At take-off, you probably have an idea of how you need to climb out; get out fast or get out steady? Noise abatement at JGG says get out fast to 400' then turn west. How do you get out fast? You shoot for an airspeed of Vx (67 MPH for 388). But that is not a fast airspeed, right? Right, and that's the second part of the point. If the throttle is all the way in, you have to pitch up to maintain that lower airspeed. When you pitch up, you climb. The lower the desired airspeed (for the same power setting), the higher the nose has to be and so the steeper the climb. Thus, maintaining Vx (at full power) requires a climb, which is what you obviously want to do on take-off!
   
   Chuck made a statement regarding Vx and Vy before we hopped in the plane that I understood but of which I didn't recognize the consequences at the time: The plane only knows airspeed. Vx and Vy are about climb characteristics; it can't tell you you're at a 38 degree climb (well, maybe the artificial horizon tells you some things, and the VSI tells you some things, but they weren't part of this lesson so we'll skip them for now). If there's an obstacle and you want to be sure you're doing everything you can to avoid it, you use Vx, knowing that that gives you the steepest climb angle.


2. "Trim for airspeed." This phrase seems misleading (to me) because it suggests (to me) that trim/pitch is the only factor in airspeed when it's not. There are basically three gauges we used: airspeed indicator, tachometer, altimeter. If you want to fly at cruise speed (let's say 120 MPH) at 2000', you get yourself to 2000', set the throttle for cruise (2300-2400 RPM), and then trim to relieve the control pressure that you're having to apply to maintain the pitch/throttle balance.
   
   I wrote that paragraph last night and it both did and didn't make sense to me then. Right now what I think makes sense is that you have to make a choice when you decide to change airspeed. Let's say you're all stabilized and trimmed up for a certain airspeed at a certain altitude and power setting, and you want to slow down. You have a choice: pitch up or reduce throttle. If you change pitch but leave the throttle as is, you'll climb. If you reduce throttle but leave the pitch as is, you'll descend. But of course there's a third choice: do both, and you should be able to maintain altitude.
   
   The real problem with "trim for airspeed" as a phrase is that trimming is the last thing you do and it's optional. You attain an airspeed using the throttle and yoke, and after stabilizing you can then trim to set that airspeed as the plane's new "baseline," like a speed (cruise) control setting in a car.


3. Flaps. The bottom-line statement about flaps is that they don't affect airspeed (UPDATE: This statement is wrong! I'm leaving in the rest of the original discussion because I think the thought process is interesting; I've added a paragraph at the end that puts the truth simply.). I tentatively accept that statement, but haven't entirely worked it through mentally. Flaps are a high-lift device, meaning that they change the characteristics of the wing (camber and chord line) to provide more lift. Full flaps (40 degrees of deployment) seems to me that it would be more like air brakes! If you're in the car with your arm out the window and put your palm vertically into the (relative) wind, the wind applies a lot of force on your hand. If you angle your palm somewhat, you still feel a good deal of force, but the wind also tries to push your hand up. Does this have a corollary for the flaps? The fully extended "barn door" flaps are at an angle to the relative wind, and it seems there would be a fair amount of force against them (drag) as well as increased upwards tendencies (from the wind pushing up and/or the whole Bernoulli/Newton explanation of lift from pressure differential above and below the wing). The lift isn't going to change airspeed; it's not affecting pitch. The drag part of it, though, I'm not sure about. It must not, given the bottom-line statement, but why not? It seems like if it adds to drag, you'd slow down, so you'd need to pitch down to maintain airspeed, and you're using flaps to aid the descent, so that would be a logical thing to do, right?
   
   And then finally, on flaps, if they increase lift, why use them on landing when you want to descend? I presume it's because you also want to bleed off power and idle onto the ground, and since losing power (when all else is constant) results in altitude loss, the flaps control the descent rate. Our second landing was way high, so we used extra flaps.... why? Hmmm... I'm not sure about this business yet.
   
   Update: So the bottom-line statement should have been "We don't use flaps to affect airspeed, even though they do." The flaps do introduce lift and drag in a variable ratio, but they make the plane climb and thus reduce airspeed. In the pattern, we want to maintain airspeed, so we counter the flaps by pitching forward, resulting in descent. Any it may be the case that the descent is too steep, so throttle can be applied to arrest the descent. It's a balance thing.


4. Workload management. In retrospect, it's funny in a very sad and disappointing way that I couldn't come up with 1.3*52 while we were heading back to the airport. I can't even remember at this point what that number means -- 52 is the stall speed in the landing configuration, and 1.3 is a rule of thumb for something (probably the speed to shoot for so you don't stall during approach). I was mental mush by this point in the lesson, though, feeling a little frazzled because I didn't feel that I was getting it quickly enough -- I still needed coaching for configuration changes despite the seeming simplicity of the concepts. Anyway, Chuck asked me to do that calculation. I couldn't. I thought, and thought, and visualized the numbers in my head, and they just laughed at me. Then I got stressed out because I forgot how to multiply! It just got worse. I admitted that I couldn't do it. So he helped me to break it down and come up with the answer. But the real lesson here followed: Simple tasks become monumentally more difficult when you're overloaded, so managing the workload is very important.

Self-Assessment: Overall, I have very little confidence, but it's only the second lesson so that's ok. In the air I can feel the plane and see what's going on and believe that it's just a matter of practice. The take-off and landing part, however, is a touch overwhelming right now because it's new and the margin for error is so much smaller; those parts are kinda necessary, so thus the overall confidence rating of "low."

• Preflight: Good.
• Taxiing: Taxiing was better. Even application of brakes while taxiing needs deliberate work.
• Take-off: Needs lots of deliberate work, but it's too early in the process to pick it apart! Maintaining the centerline while still on the ground under full power (high-speed taxi? :) ) needs deliberate work.
• Maintaining airspeed: Needs practice (different from needs deliberate work; I have a baseline feel for it, just need to employ it more to let it become natural and not an overt thought process).
• Pattern: Needs deliberate work; turning is fine, but managing airspeed and altitude hasn't sunk in yet.
• Radio calls: Decent, will improve with practice.

Next: Tuesday, 9/26 at 4 pm.

• More of the above!
• Stalls
• Maneuvering in slow flight
• Constant airspeed climbs and descents (trim for airspeed and use the throttle, right?!?!)

Hours logged this lesson: 1.5
Hours logged total: 2.5

.

Jep Pilot Handbook - Chapters 1-3

You know that I haven't started ground school yet and don't know when I will. Flight lesson #2 is scheduled for Monday, and the syllabus says that it should be preceded by ground school lessons 1-3.

I decided I'd at least do the reading assignments for those lessons and not be "behind the curve."

And I do intend to finish that reading. I read/skimmed Chapter 1, which is about the history of aviation, what is the FAA, why do people start training, etc. I'm on Chapter 2 and it kinda bogged me down this afternoon.

Ch. 2 covers aircraft and equipment. What does it mean to be monocoque v. semimonocoque? How does a float-type carburetor work and why does it ice? I was able to explain the carburetor to Husband, so I take that as a token of understanding, although it feels just like a matter of acceptance, similar to 1+1=2, that increased speed of air flow through a venturi results in lower pressure -- if air is like fluid, then how come when you put your thumb across a hose opening to restict flow the pressure builds up and it sprays out faster?

Anyway, this afternoon I hit a saturation point and had to walk away. I just don't care (at this point) how a supercharger works!

Chapter 3 is what I really want to get to and through -- Fundamentals of flight. The four forces. Surfaces and principles. But tomorrow I intend to finish up the section on why the instruments work and then digest the fundamentals. I can always come back later to the chaff that doesn't apply to my plane or immediate training...

JEP FI-1 Homework

Find citations in the FAR/AIM that define whether a first aid kit and fire extinguisher are required equipment for legal operation.

• faa.gov was my first source. There's a "regulations" link at the top that takes you to the eCFR searchable site. I searched for extinguisher and got several relevant sections. 14 CFR Part 23 (23.851) addresses airworthiness standards for aircraft and includes at least one fire extinguisher as required emergency equipment. It does not mention "first aid." [Edit: Upon closer inspection of the Applicability of Part 23, it specifies that it applies to aircraft designed to carry 10 or more people," and thus may not be applicable to 388.]


• I cross-referenced this against the FAR/AIM 2006 book, and did not find Part 23 in the book at all. However, I found these under the heading for "large and turbine-powered multiengine airplanes and fractional ownership program aircraft:"
  • Fire extinguisher: 14 CFR Part 91 paragraph 513.c: Required, must be secured, must be within reach of the crew, and if the location of it is not obvious it must be labeled.
  • First aid kit: CFR 14 Part 91 paragraph 513.d: Required, must be able to address injuries "likely to occur in flight or in minor accidents."
  
  35388 does not fall into that category, though. Yes, it is owned by multiple parties, but Part 23 defines "fractional ownership program" in Subpart K and includes a clause that says a fractional ownership program owns two or more fractional ownership planes, among other clauses, which disqualifies 388.


• 91.205 gives a list of instruments and equipment such as safety belts, but does not mention fire extinguishers or first aid kits. This paragraph/section at least seems to apply to all US aircraft/airmen.


• There are other CFR 14 sections that talk about first aid, but they're oriented toward air carriers like commercial passenger planes.

So, it looks to me that neither a fire extinguisher nor a first aid kit is required, for 388 at least.

Home schooling: Stalls

Last night Husband and I went out to the airport for a short local flight, with a mind of me doing the preflight/securing, taxiing and some of the in-flight maneuvering for practice.

Preflight went fine and taxiing showed improvement, although Husband did suggest to me several times to give a little more margin between us and the other aircraft, which is perfectly reasonable. I need to get over the "driving a car" tendencies to only take up what room I need and leave the rest open for other aircraft should one be met and replace all that with a strategy for centering myself in all available room (and of course following the yellow lines when available). I also thought of an invention: a nice, bright, lighted marquis that would mount to the top of the cabin stating "STUDENT PILOT." That way, when people at the airport see me weaving all over the place, they'll humor me and perhaps politely get out of my way instead of giving me the crook-eye. :) But alas, I guess things that would alter the flight characteristics of the aircraft are bad...

The real highlight of the flight, unfortunately, was the stalls. Husband asked whether he had done any with me before and I answered in the default way: "Probably." I mean, we've been up together a lot, so surely he had, right? He's talked about them at home, and we've talked about stall speeds and angle of attack and all that jazz, so we had probably done them in the air.

No, we hadn't.

I would have remembered that.

Indeed!

It scared the snot out of me. I knew generally what was going to happen. I knew that the plane would drop its nose and that the situation would be quickly recoverable. I have full faith and confidence in Husband and never questioned his ability. The impending-doom screech of the stall warning doesn't bother me and I've heard it plenty before (on landings).

But when that nose dropped so dramatically, and we went so suddenly from what felt like 45 degrees pitched up and flying slowly to 85 degrees pitched down and absolutely diving, my instincts took over and I grabbed on for dear life, tensed up, and maybe even stopped breathing for a sec. I imagine I went pop-eyed, too. I know we weren't diving at 85 degrees, but it was way more dramatic than what I expected. And I can't come up with a better description than dramatic for it.

I had expected the upward pitch, the slow flight, and then a gentle and smooth tipping down and unsurprising recovery. That wasn't the experience.

"Don't do that again."

Husband quickly looked over at me with a look of worry. He knows this reaction was out of character for me. Then he told me that in time stalls will be fun, like roller coasters. I like roller coasters, but I can see the roller coaster track and anticipate what it will feel like when I get to that next hill.

I know I've gotta do them, and I will get used to it, and I will be able to anticipate it, but I need some time to process and digest that and realign my expectations for the next time.

So we did it again immediately. And it was only mildly better. I still did the instinctive brace-for-impact response, but didn't stop breathing. That's progress, right?!?! :)

(I suppose I'm feeling a little melodramatic this morning. I'm surprised by how startled I was yesterday, but am not logically intimidated by the maneuver. Beyond that, in practice it took a lot of effort to get it to stall. Low throttle, flaps deployed, pitched way up (to hold altitude, too)... And then 388 pretty much recovered itself by tipping forward.)

Trike Flight

Last night, John, one of the other owners of 35388 and a great guy I'm glad to call my new friend, took me up in his microlight/trike for a 45-minute open-air tour of Williamsburg and the Chickahominy River. It was a lot of fun! The clothes-flapping-frenetically-in-the-wind feeling reminded me a lot of sky-diving, only this had the pro of not being over in 2 minutes!

John is also doing his private pilot training (he's at ~22 hours) in 35388 and talked about lots of things he's learned along the path, such as the legal altitudes to fly when within range of buildings, people, etc. You can imagine that in a trike like this it's a joy to skim down over the water's surface! It was also neat to get a low-pass view of some areas of the Chickahominy that you otherwise could only access by john-boat or not at all.

I took a lot of pictures, but the dying light and fast fly-by speeds made for a lot of blurry ones. The sunset pictures came out nice, tho! [Flickr set] I also used our still camera to take a video clip of landing back at JGG. Husband has also been up with John; read about his experience here.

One last note... Greybeard reminded me that flying is fun and that if a day of training gets to me, to take a step back, take a deep breath, and reset my perspective (well, that's my wordy version of what he said!). I think if/when learning has me frazzled, I'll ask John to take me for a ride!

JEP FI-1: Preflight, basic maneuvers

[Updated to fill in the parts that were ungraciously obliterated... Also, I realize that this format is probably very dry for anyone who's not me, Husband or Chuck, or probably for them, too, so I'll work on it moving forward... In a past life I was a writer, but I digress.]

My first lesson! Yay!

My first log book entry! Yay!

My student pilot certificate! Yay!

My first lesson was great, despite the lack of sleep. Chuck is a super instructor. He leads me through the topics by asking questions that guide me to answers and lets me figure them out and make deductions (as opposed to just lecturing) and that style works extremely well for me. We covered quite a bit of stuff, but most of it, thankfully, I'm familiar with from being up with Husband so much.

To title my lesson-related posts, I'll use a slightly modified form of the notation that Chuck will use in my log book to sign off on training lessons: JEP FI-1. That's Jeppesen curriculum, flight (as opposed to ground) stage one (Roman numeral I), lesson 1, and a few keywords describing what we did.

The bulk of this lesson was on preflight. We discussed:

• human factors, such as:
  
  • pilot fatigue
  • use of medications, including self-medication like NyQuil or beer (FAA says no flying within 8 hours of alcohol consumption)


• aircraft requirements:
  
  • Airworthiness certificate
  • Registration
  • Operating handbook (a.k.a., POH or the Pilot Operating (Operations, maybe?) Handbook)
  • Weight and balance -- this is the official aircraft set of numbers, such as empty weight, the arm lengths, etc., not a specific calculation with specific passengers/baggage.


• aircraft logs, equipment (see homework for first-aid kit and fire extinguisher)


• fuel types:
  
  • 100LL (blue) - that's what 35388 uses
  • 100 (green)
  • 80/87 (red?)
  • 130 (also green?)
  • AvGas (clean kerosene, straw colored, makes the engine cut-off)
  • MoGas (regular old unleaded, requires a special expensive certification of the engine to be legal and some airports won't allow it)


• other... I need to check the syllabus to jog my memory....
  

We did a very thorough preflight and I won't go into the details of that other than to say that ELT means Emergency Location Transmitter and that's what sends out distress signals when it detects unreasonable G-forces, or when it gets bored at 4 in the morning. From here on out, preflight is my responsibility during training. Husband is delighted to have an "aide" to do the preflight for him!

We had some trouble with the radio, but I should have been able to prevent that. Husband reminded me when I told him of the trouble that he had previously told me the radio wasn't working and that we should use the GPS radio. He had given me detailed instructions on how to use the GPS radio, too! I don't know the systems well enough yet to realize that's what the problem was. The symptoms were that Chuck and I could hear each other intermittently, and between getting the squelch adjusted properly and flipping the little COM/NAV patch switches (to go to headsets or the dome speaker), I just didn't think of the radio; after all, we were just talking to each other, not radioing out or listening for outside comms. In any case, it seemed to resolve itself after a few minutes and worked perfectly for the rest of the flight.

We taxiied around the airport, practicing steering with the rudders and using the throttle to moderate speed, aiming for a brisk walk. The brakes are applied in "taps" to slow down if we get going to fast and also on the rudder of the turn if we need to make a sharp turn. We brake at intersections (taxiways, parking areas, etc). This is far and away the area where I need the most practice so far! (The basic flight maneuvers went well, but we'd be in big trouble if staying centered on the ground was a matter of life and death!) It'll get better with more practice. Room for improvement.

At the end of runway 31, we taxiied to a halt with a good view of the left-hand traffic pattern. Here we did the engine run-up checks; first Chuck did them, then me. They are pretty "by the book;" I'll need to get my brain adjusted to the various tick-marks in the various instruments -- for some reason I was just having difficulty quickly assessing the RPM drop for the magneto swaps. And other than fudging the throttle down (should have been 1700 RPM to 1000, but I pushed the rod in and got up to ~2000 before my brain snapped-to and I corrected it), it was ok. Husband gave a good rule of thumb: anytime you want more, push forward -- loosely, if you want to go forward, push the throttle forward. It'll get better with more practice and I hope quickly will be instinct. Or at least muscle memory. :)

Take-off was handled by Chuck. Minor digression: Before we hopped into the plane, and as we were searching the ages old POH (this is a 1968 plane and the manuals just might be the originals) for stall speeds and related data, he briefly explained Vx and Vy. Be it information overload or "mental marshmallow" from no sleep, those terms and their definitions didn't sink in (thanks IFR Pilot for the links -- what follows is still from recall, but I will do my homework and learn more about them forthwith!). In any case, those had to do with optimal climb rates and possibly speed. As we (Chuck) accelerated down the runway, I believe it was ~65 MPH (not kts in our trusty antique) that the nose came up and at ~75 MPH that we (Chuck) climbed out and executed the JGG noise-abatement procedure to avoid the school. This was a demo take-off; when I wonder if I could have done it, I imagine doing a cowgirl-style technique of just "flooring" it and letting it come up when it was ready.... We'll see if that's what it's actually like in another lesson or two (I hope!) :)

We exited and headed westward up the James River to practice some basic maneuvers. Straight-and-level flight came first. Chuck reached a desired altitude and power setting, then trimmed up the plane to maintain. He used a phrase that I've requested more explanation of during our Monday preflight review session: "trimming for desired (air?)speed." My amateur thought process goes something like this and I can make up an explanation to connect the dots, but I'd like a more scientific basis:

trim -> pitch -> angle of attack -> airspeed

Much like middle school algebra, some things you just accept for the purpose of the lesson. The point here was that, once trimmed and balanced out properly, the plane wants to stay that way, even if it has to self-correct sometimes. We were trimmed and level, then both stayed off the controls. 388 was stable, then gained a little altitude, then came right back down to our baseline. Point made, although the theory behind the empirical results has yet to be laid down (maybe the early chapters of the pilot handbook about the fundamentals of flight will provide this...).

Next, rudder control for minor heading corrections was employed. We picked a visual target and headed for it. Using only minute application of each rudder, I was amazed to see just how effective it was for those tiny redirections. After wrestling those danged things on the ground, this was both easy and responsive! (Planes are happier in the air, yes indeed...)

In preparation for larger heading changes, we practiced tipping the wings to see beyond our high wings and to check for any traffic or other obstacles. What other obstacles at 1700 MSL? Ah, I just threw that in there in a moment of safety-conscious rambling. Weather balloons? Car dealership balloons? Backyard rockets? As Chuck said, the most safety-conscious answer is not a wrong answer. Back to the tipping... my technique here needs work, too. As an engineer, I would like ultimately to do crisp tip-up/tip-downs without even the slightest course deviations -- I think of Husband's descriptions of his aerobatic demo flight and seeing the Red Bull obstacle course with the 1/4-stop barrel rolls. I doubt that's really reasonable, and even if it was, it also kinda seems perhaps too regimented and not relaxed enough. Yes, I am a woman of two minds.

Tip the wings, check for traffic, and a nice big swooping medium-bank turn! The goal was to get about half-way between level and a standard-rate turn according to the turn coordinator, then look up and get a visual feel for the turn and maintain it as we came around. This was nice and gentle, and I lucked out in having the elusive visible Virginia horizon.

As we headed back down river after coming out of the turn, we experimented with climbing and descending. The throttle was the primary parameter we adjusted to make major changes in altitude; throttle in = go up, throttle out = gown down. Once the power got us pretty close to the target altitude, minor yoke forward/back adjustments could be made. When climbing by power and then leveling out, some yoke-back tension needs to be held to counter the plane's tendency to nose-down. (That doesn't make as much sense in words as it did in my head, so I'll review again later.)

Across Jamestown Island (or as it was called in the olden days, "Olde Jamestowne") and back toward the airport, another opportunity for "positive exchange of flight controls" occured. What this means is that the pilot in control says "Your airplane," then the pilot assuming control says "My airplane," and then the new pilot in control jiggles the yoke to demonstrate that he/she is the one controlling the plane. Chuck took the plane for the landing from here. (It will definitely be a few more lessons before I'm ready to manage that many changes at once... especially with the infamous JGG swamp monster.)

We returned to the airport with the intent of landing on 31. What I didn't mention earlier was that prior to take-off, UNICOM said the favored runway was 13, despite the winds that were from maybe 320 or 330. We agreed that taking off into the winds on 31 was the right thing to do, and so we approached the airport with care in case someone else down there was in the process of using 13. Rather than entering the pattern for 45 downwind (did I get the phrase right? I know what it is, but the words don't seem right) we swung out far to get a good view of the 13 end of the runway and run-up area, where no one was in sight, and then just entered fairly straight-on for downwind and a normal pattern.

The landing is the part of the process by which I'm intimidated. Ever since Husband took me up, as friends, for the first time in a small plane way back in college, I thought that hard paved strip was coming up awfully fast and big and that we puny meatbags in a little spindly metal box had drawn short straws. (Even back then I wasn't scared -- Husband has always instilled confidence just by being obviously good at it -- but apprehensive.) I know I'll get to it, and I know I'll learn the pieces and they'll fit together when the time is right, but it's the only part of it (that I know of so far!) that I'm just not positive I can do. Well, I guess there're emergency landings, too, but I'd just rather not think about those at the end of my first official day as a student pilot (see a previous post, anyway, for the off-the-record training to-date).

Chuck cleared the runway, came to a stop and turned it back over to me. We went through the landing checklist and taxiied back to the tie-down space to shut-down and secure the plane.

Chuck indicated that I should be able to solo before we leave for a flight home to see some family on Oct 12.

Summary

• Safety/fit-to-fly of the pilot and aircraft
• Preflight -- checklists are good
• Positive exchange of flight controls
• Taxiing and ground-based movement (rudder controls, brakes, throttle)
• Engine run-up and pre-take-off checks -- checklists are good
• Take-off acceleration and climbing
• Straight-and-level flight
• Trim
• Climbing and descending (by yoke or throttle)
• Rudder control for heading correction
• Wing tipping
• Medium-bank turns
• Landing (and checks after clearing the runway)
• Shut-down and securing the aircraft -- checklists are good

Homework

• Find the VOR checks (docs that should be in the plane and are probably in the on-board binder)


• Find citations in the FAR/AIM that define whether a first aid kit and fire extinguisher are required equipment for legal operation.


• Prepare for the next lesson (Monday, 9/25 at 4 pm) by reading the sections identified in the syllabus for more ground operations (including airport markings and lighting) and the next set of basic flight maneuvers.


• (personal assignment): Look into the meaning of "trimming for a desired (air?)speed" and also into Vx/Vy.


• Get some sleep!

Anticipation becomes Anxiety

The answer to the previous post: no, no I will not be able to sleep tonight.

:(

Despite going to bed at a normal time, I've just been too excited to fall asleep and my mind won't stop pre-flighting. Nothing is working, not counting down, not muscle tense/relax cycles, not a stern self-talking-to, ... I actually almost fell asleep thinking about some programming I did at work on Tuesday, which is odd because that usually keeps me up, but then I realized I was almost asleep and snapped awake.

Now that it's after 3 am, though, the feeling has changed to anxiety. Even if I was to fall asleep now, the alarm will go off in less than 3 hours. I expect that this precludes me doing any of the flying in a few hours. And at that the feeling changes to disappointment.

The first flight lesson is preflight, demonstration of basic maneuvers, and postflight. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten to do any flying anyway, and maybe the whole lesson doesn't have to be cancelled. But I am terribly disappointed right now to know that I'll be showing up at 7 am for my very first flight lesson in such a sub-par state.

First Lesson's Eve

...wonder if I'll sleep tonight... :)

CFI Search over!

My instructor will be Chuck Whitechurch and my first lesson (weather permitting) is Wednesday at 7 am (backup time of 4 pm)! Chuck is clear and direct, amiable and attentive. The conversation was structured, and the lessons will be structured: pre (talk about what we're going to do), actual (do it!), post (talk about what we did).

The only drawback so far is that there's not a clear plan for ground instruction. The flight school is close to having that worked out, but it's not finalized. Chuck identified alternatives, but suggests waiting a bit before looking into them. Ground and flight instruction are independent for a while, so we can start working towards the solo.

Wednesday: We'll do a thorough, explanatory run through of basic operations of 388: pre-flight (using Husband's checklists), start it up, go for a short flight, land, and post-flight/shut-down/not-sure-what-this-phase-is-officially-called-yet.

I purchased my Jeppesen GFD student pilot package and.....

...drum roll please...

put my name in my very first logbook! That was much more exciting than I would have imagined! :)

CFI Search update

Woo hoo! A CFI from JGG called during lunch today. I'm heading out in a few minutes to meet him so we can get a feel for each other and if all is well to make a plan for training.

Cross fingers...

Off-topic: TSA

This is slightly off-topic, but aviation related so here goes... Let me preface this by saying that (1) the only thing I ever get anxious about is the possibility of missing a flight and the ensuing challenges, (2) that anxiety is primarily induced because of the random security policies and unpredictable amount of time needed to get through, (3) TSA personnel in general are at least neutral if not friendly during the process, and (4) it's (typically) not their fault that the policies are arbitrary, inconsistent and inconsistently applied.

I took a 3-day weekend to visit a very dear and very pregnant college friend to help her paint the new baby's room and to catch up. The Tampa airport has implemented the new air-puff "security" measure in addition to the baggage screening and metal detectors.

There are a lot of reports out there of people feeling claustrophobic, violated and even harmed when going through these machines. Many people also report that it's only used for random/special passengers. In Tampa, every passenger had to go through it, resulting in a long, slow-moving line.

The worst part for me was the wait and not really knowing what was going on. The attendant TSA fella said it would blow some puffs of air and that I needed to stand still for 22 seconds until the light turned green and the doors opened. I'm fairly small, so no feelings of claustrophobia. The air puffs from this one weren't "hurricane force," as some other poor travellers reported about their experiences. But after the puffs, why the 22-second delay? Why not 5 seconds? What was the whirring noise? And when the attendant called out (more loudly than he had spoken before I stepped into the machine) "Is this your bag?" I turned to see if he was talking to me... You can imagine me grimacing and closing my eyes and apprehensively clenching my fists, waiting for him to pull me out and either make me do it again or be hand searched or something. Luckily, that didn't happen, but there again -- why the instruction to stand still if in fact it didn't matter that I moved?

I can see why these facades really piss people off. Why does GE get to make billions of dollars by inconveniencing commercial passengers with a questionable net effect on security? All in all, I accept the inconvenience and temporary stressors they invent because it's less painful than the alternatives, most of which would include missing my flights. But it still sucks.

Oh, and they confiscated my mascara, too. I suppose the threat of forcibly giving the captain a makeover is just too much.

Private pilot license, here I come!

CFI Search, disgruntled...

How many times does a gal have to call the new flight school? Am I off-base to think that if multiple instances of people taking my number and telling me an instructor would return my call and then getting no call is rude?

I gotta say it has dampened my initial enthusiasm at hearing that the JGG-based school was opening. I'm still hopeful that it's going to work out, but come on!

Home schooling: Weight and balance

A few weeks ago, soon after we bought our share of 35388, Husband taught me how to do weight and balance for the aircraft after I had asked enough questions about how much we could carry on trips and how that would affect our allowable fuel capacity and such.

In a nutshell, and going from memory that hasn't been exercised on this topic since, here's what I learned back then:

1. Each plane has a datum [originally I recalled this as the center of gravity (CG), but the CG changes based on the moments whereas the datum is a fixed reference point] that is defined by the manufacturer in a book that comes with the plane; that book might be the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH). Where this is actually physically located is not of practical importance; you just need the numbers (described below) that are related to it. The point is that doing the weight and balance ensures that the plane is (1) not carrying too much weight and thus will fly, and normally at that, and (2) the weight is properly balanced, not introducing any strange rotational forces (we all remember doing "moment about an axis" calculations in high school physics, right?).


2. The book also gives some basic numbers to work with, such as the arm (distance from the datum) for each row of seats and the luggage compartment (i.e., the places where weights will be located) and the empty weight, arm and moment (which might have been updated since the book was published if modifications to the plane have been made).


3. You draw a matrix that has weight, arm, and moment (which is weight x arm) on one axis and then the items/locations contributing weight on the other axis (such as the empty weight, front seat, rear seat, luggage, fuel, and oil).
   
   
   
   • The arm for each weight contributor is known and will be the same from calculation to calculation (unless the plane is reconfigured, I guess -- you could have the back seat moved or removed, right?). Both passengers in the front seats combined make the weight contributor corresponding to the front seat arm; same for the back seat. All luggage in the luggage compartment combined will be entered for that arm.
   
   
   • The empty weight, arm and moment are known and will be the same from calculation to calculation, unless the plane is modified, in which case you just have new numbers from that point forward. Things like swapping out instruments may require the empty weight to be reassessed.
   
   
   • Fuel and oil have known weights per gallon or quart. Let's call those multipliers, which will be the same from calc to calc. For each calculation, then, you just need to multiply the actual quantity (such as 30 gallons of fuel or 5 quarts of oil) times the multiplier to get the actual weights for the flight you're planning.
   
   
   • Estimate high. When taking your aunt in the back seat, you politely ask her for her weight and secretly assume she's answering the way we all do -- we lie to be skinnier. Include a fudge-factor to be on the safe side.
   
   


4. Multiply the weights times the arms and enter those as the moments for each weight contributor.


5. Sum all of the weights to find a total weight. Sum all the moments to find a total moment. In the POH, find the weight and balance chart and see whether the total weight and total moment from your matrix intersect in the envelope for allowable load.
   
   
   
   • If so, go have fun already!
   
   
   • If not, try moving things around -- heavier stuff up front will reduce the overall moment; or you can try planning to take less fuel (and thus have a shorter flight), but consider the situation of arriving at the airport and finding your plane full; or something has to be left behind.
   
   

When Husband was teaching me, we used a whiteboard and went through several potentially real-world scenarios with our plane, such as "how much luggage can we carry if we want to take a 4-hour flight with the 90-lb Dog in the back seat?" or "can I go too if Brother and Brother's Girlfriend want Husband to take them up for a local aerial tour?"

That's all I remember right now. When next I have to do an actual weight and balance, I'll review this and see what I left out.

CFI Search, continued

After a long vacation to Alaska, it's time to restart the search for a CFI. I called JGG to find out when Colonial Flight School will be opening and with the idea that I'd be able to hook one of their instructors now and become an official student of the school (continuing with that instructor) once it opened.

I spoke with Mrs. Jean Waltrip who said that the school officially opens tomorrow. Good timing! They have one instructor on board now, one who will have his final (of two, apparently) check-out with them tomorrow, and a third who is being recruited. She took my cell number and I'm expecting to hear from one of the instructors in the next day or two.

Yay! Cross your fingers for me....

Alaska is the place for GA

We just got back from a 9-day vacation to Alaska. You can't throw a stone in Alaska without hitting an airstrip, and that's saying a lot! The population distribution up there is such that if the residents were evenly spaced across the state, there would be more than a mile between any two people, and yet the aircraft ownership rate is one per every six people. Of course, flightseeing is a huge tourism business (Husband circled Denali at 20,000' and will post some of his video footage soon...), and there are the bush pilots who provide the only deliveries to many of the remote communities, and the hikers and mountain climbers in many cases have to be dropped off by air for some of the adventures.

We had never seen brick-and-mortar airplane parts stores, but driving down the road next to either airport in Anchorage proved that they exist and that it's a viable business up there! Plenty of spots advertised "Learn to Fly Here!" and servicing and even a neon sign with a phone number for medicals (as compared to Williamsburg, VA, where some research must be done to locate a doctor who can do this).

There were lots of float planes, as well as planes with skis and/or plump tundra tires. Drivers approaching the Ted Stevens International Airport terminals in Anchorage would do well to keep their eyes open for small aircraft traffic as well -- at least one taxiway crosses the road, just like a normal vehicle crossroad!

A neat park along the water on the southwestern (I think) side of Anchorage gives a nice spot to see land-based GA planes coming and going, sea-based GA planes coming and going, and the big boys (commercial cargo and passenger) roaring through the air. (Earthquake Park, it is called, for reasons unrelated to the engine sounds above, although an observer can feel the 777s as they climb out!)