Tight maneuvers

In the morning nothing looked like there will be weather for flying and (due to tight schedule) I was ready to accept sad fact that I probably won’t fly this year anymore. But to my surprise around 10am it started to clear out and just after lunch it was almost perfect weather for winter flying. Clear sky, visibility over 10 miles, 13 knots wind and temperature just below freezing point. Quick call to make sure my CFI will be there and here we go – I delivered myself to the airport just before 2pm.

Quick (yet thorough) preflight and the plane was ready. The was a problem though. Hangar door got blocked by ice (we had some nasty freezing rain last Saturday) so we had to spent another 10 minutes cleaning it out before we actually could haul “my” Cessna out.

We entered the plane and buckled up. Today, due to temperature, I used more priming (3 strokes) to help the engine with start up. After completing the checklist time to start the engine – it fired up right away without any problems. Probably because it’s brand new engine in it .

I taxied slowly to the run up area to finish checking all the system. Everything worked fine so we tuned up radios to correct frequencies, announced our departure on the radio and slowly back taxied to the end of runway 33. Today taxiing went much, much better than last time. I’m pretty sure that after next fifty, maybe 60 hours I’ll be actually able to drive this thing straight. Anyway, after nice and quick turnaround I tarted to walk through pre-takeoff checklist. Mental note here – on the checklist we have in the plane there are two things missing – check if the primer is securely locked and if the mixture is set to full rich.

After I was sure that everything is OK – time to start. And here first surprise today – during takeoff I notice that unlike last time, I’m the one who actually flies (or rather still drives) the airplane. Although Terry was holding yoke I clearly felt that he doesn’t pressure in any direction. Same thing with rudder pedals. Without much deliberation I reminded myself everything I knew about it and tried to do my best. First surprise – just after passing 20 knots plane starts to listen to the rudder and going straight is much easier that one would expect remembering what was happening during slow taxi. Second surprise – you have to actually put quite a lot of pressure on the elevator to take off. This resulted in a little bit longer and higher speed takeoff – As far as I remember it was already around 65 when main gears left the ground – which considering STOL configuration of the airplane was quite overkill.

Anyway, just after takeoff first surprise today – gosh it’s windy! Looks like 13 knots is not a piece of cake. At least for know. Just after I managed to calm down shaky plane another surprise came – I was supposed to call Cedar Rapids Approach and announce our departure to the practicing area. This was quite a bummer, because I remembered from last lesson Terry saying “I’ll be talking to Cedar Rapids during couple first flights” so I didn’t memorize all the texts I had to say.

“Cedar Rapids Approach, Cessna 9832Golf er”… luckily I didn’t forget to release the mike so they didn’t hear what Terry is saying to me

“.. leaving Green Castle and going to practice area, 32Golf”

After very long 5 seconds nice and calm voice responded:

“9832Golf squawk 0232, altimeter 30.17″

Here my clumsiness came in again – I started to set the responder instead of repeating the instructions to the controller. Result was easy to predict – I started to talk to him leaving responder on 0231. I didn’t have to wait long – quick shot reminded me:

“9832Golf, squawk zero two three two”

this time I knew I have to say

“squawk 0232, 32Golf”

before I set correct number on the responder. But it wasn’t the end. Although whole conversation didn’t take more than maybe 30 seconds it was enough to loose concentration to the point that the plain did some nice climbs and descents and was anywhere between 1400 and 1650 ft. It took me another minute or so to put it into straight and level flight on 1500 ft. I have to compliment myself here – from now till the end of today’s lesson I didn’t have much problem keeping it on desired level. I think I fully comply with the practice test standards saying that student pilot should demonstrate ability to keep the plane on desired altitude plus minus 100 ft. Even with some weak turbulence from wind gusts it wasn’t that hard.

During today’s lesson I was pretty much repeating all figures from last time. Terms like tracking the road, making standard left or right turns, climbs, descents or positioning aircraft approximately half of a mile from imaginary runway simulating flight in the pattern sounds quite familiar and doesn’t raise a brow anymore. I think after fifth or so round Tarry said that I’m doing quite well. I always wonder how quite is such quite.

Then something new happened. Terry took the controls and said that he will show me emergency landing. Without further notice he puled throttle completely out and we started to glide. First rule – keep flying. I was quite surprised how quickly he can put this bird in a best gliding configuration – speed, pitch, trim – everything was set in less than 10 seconds – way before I was able to even think about all that stuff. Second rule – emergency procedure. Terry simulated emergency engine starting procedure. Obviously it didn’t work se we went to the Third Rule – find landing spot and land. in Iowa it’s not that hard to find flat piece of land (farms) or even nice paved second category roads (which are usually every mile) so we quickly decided on the spot and turned plane in that direction. Merely 200 ft over the ground Terry put power back on and we climbed back to 1500.

If we forget about me having problems locating the airport again the rest of the lesson went quick and smooth. I did some nice pattern circle around runway and here we go – landing. Of course it wouldn’t be me if there were no problems at all – today I managed somehow to make everything to far away from the runway – the effect was that we had to put some power back on to get to it. Other than that it went pretty smooth. With one note. Apparently what I would call very rough landing it’s still pretty normal in that type of plane. Looks like what I’d call normal landing fits into “greased” category. That should be my advantage – I’ll have less problems on my checkride.

Final note. Although it was just second lesson and as of today I have barely 2.1h of total flight time I noticed that this time it was much less absorbing to actually flight the plane so I was able to concentrate on maneuvers or communication. Well 95 vs. 99% may not seem like a big change but if the progress will stay this way I should be able to go down to normal 30% in less than 20h of training

If you get to this point, I’d like to thank you for reading and as usually:

“Fly safe and have fun!”