Another day, another solo one could say. Today it was Class C again this time without Terry. I had to make at least 3 stop and goes to earn the ‘ATC English dialect proficiency’ badge. Everything went smooth so I won’t bore you more.
Finaly some progress today. Weather was great so we decided with Terry to train landings at towered airport. Having Eastern Iowa Airport just 5 miles north comes handy in such situation. Although KCID being local hub can be problematic at afternoon rush hours, we decided to go anyway. And boy it was fun!
For starters I forgot to turn on the transponder. here we go - before I could do something about it ‘7717U stay clear of class Charlie’ came over from approach control causing us to do immediate 180 turn to not violate the airspace. We didn’t even make 90 degrees when our blip turned on his radar and we were cleared to proceed north and contact tower.
Tower… Well I’ve read and listened to tons of radio communication examples and knew what to expect but I can tell you - first time out there it was like first flying lesson - drinking from the fire hose again. Tons of information pouring down on from every possible direction. Lets say, first we had very variable winds, changing almost on every tower call, then evening rush hours so plenty of airliners coming in from all directions and the most important thing - rookie controller during her training session! Result - combination of left and right traffic, every possible combination of extended or short legs, requests to do short finals and denials of stop and go - just an expedited touch and go. And the most interesting part of this all - she had even bigger problems remembering things I did - you can’t imagine how many ‘17U correction on my part, make it….’ I’ve heard today. And the runways themselves - sea of concrete. Compared to KCID landing at Green Castle feels like trying to put this bird on taxi way
Sometime during the lesson we stopped on the ground to look at the airport signs and ways of operating. After that we had to depart again. This was straight and easy, call ground, get taxi clearance and go as they said. Piece of cake. Terry even allowed me to request departure from A4 intersection. It shouldn’t surprise me considering that even from A4 I still had over 5000ft of it left. Up to fly patterns again. After another 5 rounds we headed back to Green Castle.
Later when we were finally done with it I was simply exhausted. But terry was pleased. He said that such ‘real life’ situations was almost best we could imagine - this way in short 10 circles around the pattern I experienced almost everything I could imagine when I’ll be there alone.
Outcome of this lesson - I’m now endorsed for flying into towered airports. Sweet!
Nothing too interesting happened other that first half of lesson was extremely bumpy. Evening weather change. Other than that just pattern work, another 12 landing (yay, over 200 total right now!).
Today’s lesson was one of those ‘time-landings’ builders before we move on to more interesting stuff. All I did was flying around the pattern training landings. I did 11 of those. Unfortunately I have to admit I’m not proud of most of them. They weren’t bad, but I could do better. I think only one of all 11 was one of those you could show to your CFI with head up.
The most interesting thing was how busy the pattern was. there were tons (well four or five) planes buzzing around which needed constant attention from me. Especially that one C-152 NORDO. But I managed.
Lack of flying activity combined with ‘my’ Cherokee being grounded for quite some time resulted myself being out of solo endorsement. Last time I got introduced to our club’s Cessna C-172 and now it was a time to train this puppy to play as I wish. Weather was cooperating (steady but not too strong wind almost directly down the runway) so after careful preflight off we went.
There isn’t really much to say as there wasn’t much going on. It was all pattern work. After first three tries that were more or less bad (although all were salvageable) I finally started to feel this bird similarly to how I felt the Cherokee. following five approaches and landings were good. I think there was even one greaser. Slowly but surely I started to think that there is slight chance that I may solo this one maybe on the very next lesson. But just as we took off after 8th touch Terry said:
‘OK lets do the emergency landing next time’
That was a surprise to me. In my book ‘let’s do the emergency approach’ means ‘you’re ready to solo, we just need to check off all items on the list’. And while last time it was ‘Oh come on, let’s solo this thing’, thins time it was a real surprise - already? Are you sure?. So we did too emergency approaches, both quite good although I had to use one notch of flaps on the very end of it. Then Terry asked to drop him of and give him three take offs and landing. Here it was - I soloed C-172 just below 2h. I actually started to believe a little bit that I can fly and that sometime in the future I’ll be a real pilot.
Solo patterns were uneventful. I had slight problem with counting which resulted in making four of them just to make sure. Then I parked the airplane and Terry endorsed my logbook. I’m good to fly solo for next 90 days. Strange (in a good way) feeling indeed. See you next time.
It’s been over 3 month since I flew last time. Work and family obligations plus winter weather kept me off the airport for good. Today tough all things started to click in so I could get to the airport and catch some air before dinner. Except for one thing - no plane. ‘My’ Cherokee was due to annual and club decided that it’s high time to overhaul the engine. So the Cherokee went to the shop and it’s going to be there for at least another 3 weeks.
Fortunately our club has another plane big enough for me and Terry to fly in. It’s ‘63 Cessna C172 with 6 cyl 150HP Continental engine. Everywhere on the Internet you can find opinions that those older Cessnas flying Conti engine are nicer, smoother to fly, generally better. Well the engine sounds different. That’s for sure. Flying characteristics? I wouldn’t be so sure. More on that while the story unveils itself.
Today the weather was so beautiful I couldn’t stop myself from going to the airport. Calm wind, almost unlimited visibility with clear sky and temperature around 60 degrees just asked to fly. So I set everything straight at work and headed towards the airport.
The plan for today was to train soft and short field landings. I will spare you details but I did few of them and made myself sure I still can’t do them properly. But I’m getting there. Read the rest of this entry »
First lesson outside the pattern since… as long as I can remember. I preflew the plane, set up camera (yes, first usable video from Piper) and departed. If you remember from last lesson I had a small problem with landing gear being fully extended. This week for a change the bird went for some other maintenance and having it in the shop they fixed the gear so it was back where it should be. I figured out one or two landings to get familiar with it would be in order. And… disaster, two first completely botched, ended with go arounds. Third one acceptable, I flared a little bit to high and touched just a little bit too hard, but as they say - ‘every landing after which you can reuse the plane was a good one!’. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s lesson was like no other before, ever. I’ve never done so many “crazy” stuff in one hour ever before. Well maybe if you don’t count Sugar Bottom Scramble I raced last Sunday.
It started with nice and not so smooth two rounds in the pattern. Not so smooth because for some reason main gear in the Cherokee was almost fully extended and looked as it wasn’t working. it took me two rounds to get used to flare 6 inches higher. It came quite easy, surprisingly easy.
It turned out somehow oil was able to get into heat exchanger, where it evaporated and entered the cabin through windscreen vents as a white smoke. Apparently wasn’t as dangerous as smoking electrical cables, nevertheless it could cause some poisoning if I didn’t noticed it and flew much longer.
I’m happy they found it and will have the fix ready before the end of this week.
