Aft GC

Today it was (probably) the last lesson with Terry. After computing WB for my checkride with Mike it turned out that we are having real problem – we will be outside envelope on the front GC side of it. To correct that I had to add 75 pounds to the baggage area. So today’s lesson with Terry was a chance to figure out how the plane behaves in such an aft GC situation. At least for me because with those 75 pounds of luggage we are still in the middle of the envelope and good 300 pounds below gross. Anyway the plane flew completely different and I’m glad we went for that ride because it would catch me by surprise tomorrow. So after takeoff we went to KCID to train soft and short field landings there. That was supposed to get me used to both new situation and extremely wide runways (75 feet which is almost four time wider than Green Castle). those runways were causing some problems for me in the past (I was flaring to high) so I was happy to go there and practice. And I’m very glad I did. Surprisingly aft GC situation seemed to help my landings. I had no problems greasing nice soft field landings with stall warning on during last four-five seconds of the flare. I also did some very nice (at least in my opinion) short field landings. I was able to touch down within 50-100 feet from the designated touch down point (which was within 500 feet from obstacle over the numbers) and stop the plane within 800 feet of the ground roll. Which probably wasn’t the best one the plane is capable off but definitely was one of the very best ones of mine. The thing that caused me problems was soft field takeoff. I had (again) problems keeping the plane within the ground effect to pick up the speed. After 6 tries I got finally good enough at it. We finished lesson with some simulated emergency landing and headed back to Green Castle. Now I feel much more competent to take this checkride. If only the weather cooperated.

GPS track

1.0h/0.0h inst : 7 to/ldg logged
62.6h/3.1h inst : 315 to/ldg total

Another first

Today was my last solo flight before the checkride. I decided to train the things I’m the lousiest at. At least in my opinion. So I went to practice area and for starters decided to try some steep turns. These are the ones I have the most trouble with keeping the plane withing prescribed altitude limits. Today again I had some problems, but I noticed some progress.

After making two of those I went a little bit up and started the slow flight part of my program. Today was the very, very first time I did stalls solo. I was quite afraid because as probably most of students stalls used to scare me. Terry tried to comfort me saying ‘remember if you feel something is going wrong simply point the nose down and pick up some speed. Keeping that advice in mind I started to slow down. First I tried to fly around at 70mph (which is just above low end of green arc), some turns, some climbs and descents. Having time I played with plane reactions. This was the first time I had chance to practice how the Cherokee is behaving on the back side of power curve. It turned out that to keep 70mph in level flight with full flaps I pretty much have to power it up to 2100rpm. Quite sobering discovery, as it clearly shows that if I ever find myself in that situation on the approach only full power can save my butt and better it was there then. Stalls themselves were quite uneventful. Just a note that during power on approach to the stall I had to limit power to 2000rpm, otherwise I was running out of elevator authority before the actual stall happened and the plane was simply mushing air going slowly down. Power off stalls weren’t that docile. The nose was dropping down instantly and it took some time to pick up the speed before I could pull the nose up and clean the plane. Yet after third or fourth try I was able to do this loosing probably just a bit more than 100 feet. Nice.

I finished the training doing simulated engine out. After I established speed, picked up a place and performed the checklist I waited a bit and leveled off at 2000. Then another set of steep turns (much nicer than first one) and went back to Green Castle.

Now I feel a little more confident that I can handle Mike on Thursday. Tomorrow I have scheduled last dual with Terry to polish my skills again before the checkride. The big day is approaching fast.

GPS path

1.1h/0.0h inst : 1 to/ldg logged
61.6h/3.1h inst : 308 to/ldg total

No longer in red

As of today I finally finished all requirements. I flew over 0.6h of simulated instrument (small cross country) so now all is in green and I can officially apply for a PPL license.

But first things first. The lesson started with quite nice gusting winds so we went to KCID to practice short and soft field landings and takeoffs. I have to say that gusting crosswind can really spoil your day, but I managed.

After 4 landings we taxied to the tower to practice class C communication procedures. After that we headed south to Washington so I could finish off my simulated instrument time and get some fuel. Surprisingly flying cross country IFR is much easier that VFR having so dense network of VORs. Then it was back to Green Castle (again under the hood) where I could practice gusty wind landings again. I was really surprised what a difference a month makes. It’s been less than a month since we had similar gusting weather here and my landings now and then are like night and day.

After the flight we discussed with Terry what is there to do before I’m ready for checkride. He says I’m ready but I’m still going to use remaining two days to some more practice to feel ready myself.

GPS path

1.8h/0.6h inst : 6 to/ldg logged
60.5h/3.1h inst : 307 to/ldg total

Spatial disorientation

What a day. Today was one of those light when we were supposed to finish some things hanging above my heads like slow flight maneuvers, simulated instrument flight, simulated emergency landings and recovery from unusual attitudes. Everything went smooth with two exceptions. One not really wort mentioning is that the stall horn got stuck. First it got stuck on for quite some time after first try, it went off above 100mph. Then when it went oft it stayed off for the rest of the flight. That made all stalls quite… interesting. And that actually in my opinion is a good thing. Now I know much more about how Cherokee behaves in a stall than I would having the horn working properly. You see with horn working you push the plane to the point when horn goes off and than a little. But without it I really had to pay attention to what is going on as there was no light that would tell me when the stall is going to occur. Unfortunately the mechanic will take care of the horn today and everything should be back to normal tomorrow.

The other thing that still didn’t let me go is spatial disorientation. After we flew under the hood for about 25 minutes Terry took the control, asked me to close my eyes and tried to confuse me. First to tries were rather mild and I had no problem with selecting and performing proper control inputs to stabilize the plane. Nothing really worth mentioning other than I for the very first time saw the plane flying well in the yellow arc. But then Terry tried for the third time and that hit me really hard. He was much more aggressive on the controls and I my inner ear was really confused. What hit me hard is how much time I needed to recover. I opened my eyes and was looking at the instruments. And I was seeing the needles. And yet it took good 5 seconds before my brain woke up and started to actually work. I really didn’t expect this. I was expecting that I’ll have a hard time believing what instruments are telling me. None of that happened. I was so confused that I didn’t even try to figure out what my but feels, I just looked at the needles. And yet it took so much time before I was able to react, lower the nose, add power and level the wings. Actually for the rest of the flight and quite some time after it I felt a little bit dizzy. It was the very first time when I drove maybe 35mph home despite the 55mph limit. I just didn’t feel like I can drive faster. Every thing was still shaken badly.

Time to look for some aerobatics workout to condition my body

GPS path

1.3h/0.5h inst : 1 to/ldg logged
58.7h/2.5h inst : 301 to/ldg total

Tying up loose ends

The weather wasn’t cooperating so we couldn’t go up high enough to train slow flight ans steep turns. Terry decided that we should go to Iowa City where I could show him soft and short field operations.

So we did. First curved ball – right traffic pattern for 12 there. But that’s good as I have similar chances to get right and left traffic pattern in Cedar Rapids for no apparent reason. First landing in KIOW was regular one just to make me lined up property with the runway. The second one was supposed to be nice soft field landing and it was. I have to say that it was the best soft field landing I’ve ever made. Obviously training pays. Then we backtaxied and I tried to make a soft field take off. And again it was one of the best I’ve ever made. Nice brand new runway definitely help.

Terry decided that there is no need for practicing the soft field operations anymore and we went to the short field ones. Here it didn’t went as well. Trying to make as steep approach as I could I made all three tries too close to the numbers so I was way to high. One of them was so high that I had to go around. The remaining to were just barely acceptable. Even though I was able to full stop the plane in less than 1600 feet from selected touch down point it’s not what PTS calls for and I have to train this more. Short field takeoffs went easy. I trained them a lot so those are checked off too.

To finish the lesson we tried some emergency landing procedures. And here came the biggest surprise of them all. I was able to do them so close and fast that I actually run out of runway both times and had to go around. That would be a real bummer if the engine really quit, I have made the airport just to crash on the overrun.

Bottom line – almost all of the landings have shown that I have procedures memorized and down to the point except spacing myself from the runway. I was consistently cutting down the corners so to speak placing myself way to close to the runway. I have to remember that the Cherokee can go down only so fast and there is no point in trying to make it. It simply won’t.

GPS path

1.1h/0.0h inst : 7 to/ldg logged
57.4h/2.0h inst : 300 to/ldg total