Lesson 4 - What a way to start a day!

More turns, rolls, gliding, transitions, and crosswind landing!
Well after having the last two lessons cancelled, I thought I would take some initiative and make sure I at least get a flight in this week. So, I called up Jack to see if he wanted to do an early morning flight, 6:00 am. I know, that meant me getting up at 4:30 am, but I would be rewarded soon thereafter. I got to the airport a little early, around 5:50 am, hoping to find Jack so we could get a quick preflight in and be in the air as close to 6 as possible. My goal was to be done by 7 am, and at work by about 7:15. Well, I got there, and waited for about 20 minutes, and didn't see Jack. Crap. Of course, dummy me, I didn't walk around the corner to see him drinking coffee and talking it up with other pilots. Duh. Oh well, 20 minutes down the drain. There was also the Menards bunch waiting to get their charter flights off, so that was neat seeing all the jets. As we were finishing preflighting the plane, a jet was warming up their engines just a few feet away, quite a rush!

So, did our checks, and I was reintroduced to the radio, and he had me make most of the calls. I tell ya, its the identical speak to flying virtually online, but its so easy to get tripped over your words. I said the phrase about 5 times to Jack before having the courage to transmit it over the air. Remember the 4 Ws: Who are they? Who are you? Where are you? What do you want? "Eau Claire Ground, Cessna 588BR, at the Heartland ramp, VFR departure to the southwest, we have the weather!" Simple huh? Eau Claire Ground responds... "Cessna 588BR, taxi to runway 4 via taxiway alpha". I look at Jack with a dumb look, oh yeah, I have to repeat that back! "Runway 4 via alpha, 8BR." Then taxi, did ok here except I was a speed demon for a bit, heh, this plane rents by the hour, do you blame me? I also started to turn down the wrong taxiway, Jack quickly corrected me. Got to the runup area, and we let a turbo prop go ahead (since I am still learning). Did our runup as we waited, all good there, getting better at the routine. Ok, taxi to the hold line, scanning for inbound traffic, radio time again, switch frequencies to tower... "Eau Claire Tower, Cessna 588BR, at the hold runway 4, ready for departure," Tower responds "588BR winds XXXX, make left turn at 1400 ft, cleared for take off runway 4, caution wake turbulence." Repeating back "Cleared for take off runway 4, 8BR." Fun! Nerve racking, but I will get it eventually.

Ease the throttle in, keeping on center, pull the nose up just a bit, accelerate, off we go, watch the engine pressure and temp, all good. Pitch, power, maintain 80 knots, trim it (which I forgot to do, so I was fighting it, but later I get better). Turning towards the southwest. Alright, as we approached the practice area, we realized the cloud level was much lower than expected, crap, so certain maneuvers were out (I had a feeling he was going to introduce stalls). We have to maintain 500 ft below the clouds, so we descended to 2500 ft (1600 ft agl). And did some turns for a refresher, did pretty well, although forgot the rudder. Jack really liked my smooth rollouts. I am also getting more accustomed to maintaining my positional awareness, and I could rollout close to desired heading by looking outside and watching section lines on the ground. Jack obviously noticed my poor rudder control, so he introduced a new exercise, called rolls, these were fun! Basically we rock the wings with aileron control, and at the same time use the rudders to always keep us pointed in the same direction. He demonstrated, I tried it and got us all over the place, hah! Although, I could definitely feel my butt move in the seat when I did it wrong this time. He showed me again, and I felt with two hands a little better. Then I tried again and got it, was very fun. We then did some more gliding and flaps work, and tried to drill into me the sight picture for gliding and landing pitch attitudes. Things are starting to sink in. Yikes, when I first tried though, I reached for the mixture instead of the throttle, and tried to pull, thank goodness it has a button to push to move it, if I was successful at pulling out the mixture, I would have killed the engine, not good when you are only 1000 ft above ground. Jack said he's done that once or twice himself, you learn quick when you have to scramble to get the engine restarted in midair. Hopefully I have learned this lesson the easy way.

Oh yeah! Jack introduced the scenario, "what if a goat runs out on the runway when you are landing." So, while in the air we introduced the concept of a go-around, basically, throttle to full, with full flaps, the plane wants to pitch way up, so you have to resist that pressure, otherwise you could turn yourself right into a stall (very bad at a low altitude). Slowly retract the flaps when you have positive rate of climb and good airspeed. Not bad!

Ok, time evaporated on us real fast, Jack had another student waiting on the ground for a lesson at 7:30, so we turned to head back. And guess what!? I remembered where the airport was this time! Eau Claire is starting to become a little more familiar from a few thousand feet up!

Jack had me make calls again to tower for landing... "Eau Claire Tower, Cessna 588BR, 5 miles southwest, 2400 ft, landing" "588BR, report 5 mile base for runway 4". "Report 5 mile base, runway 4, 8BR" I turned to Jack and asked, aren't we already 5 miles, he said yes, so we'll call in a few seconds once we get lined up. We haven't yet done a regular pattern entry landing, we've always come in on an angle for base or straight-in on final, but that is what the tower wants, so that is what we do. Here I got to practice my gliding skills again, slow us down to flap range, first notch of flaps, pitch down a bit to maintain 75 knots. I am definitely better at my transitions than last time. Jack helped me out a bit with power so I tried to concentrate on aiming for the "4" and keeping it in the same spot in the windshield. It was a crosswind landing, which was really goofy! It felt like we were flying the plane sideways all the way down, we were lined up with the runway, but crabbed into the wind. Felt very weird. As we landed, we dipped our wings into the wind (right) slightly, used left rudder to keep us lined up on centerline, touch one wheel down, then let the wind push the plane down and set on the other wheel. Nice. Then tower piped up ... "Cessna 588BR, exit taxiway, alpha 4, taxi to parking." I was still distracted with the plane, and clammed up again on the radio, Jack jumped in and took care of the response "Taxi to parking, taxiway alpha, 8BR." Ok, taxing back to the heartland ramp, and going through shutdown checklists, and power down!

Wow, what a way to start the morning, another 0.9 hrs in the logbook. I am definitely going to do more morning training sessions, puts me in a good mood all day! The other student was patiently waiting and smiling, apparently she just soloed for the first time on her last flight, she must be flying high (figuratively and soon physically), she had in over 20 hours before she got to do that, who knows how long it will take me! :) But I feel things clicking better, could be teens, could be 30-40 hours, all I know I am really enjoying this! No rush to solo!

Drat! Weather and Waukesha!

Well, I've had two lessons cancelled in the last couple days.  On Friday after work, I was schedule for a 5:30 flight.  Around 4:30 pm, my CFI called and said it was quite gusty, not great learning conditions (up to 30 kts).  I agreed I wasn't in the mood to be tossed around, good thing, about 30 minutes later some serious thunderstorms moved into the area super fast, by 5:15 pm it was hailing nickel size hail.  Laura keeps telling me the Lord is teaching me patience now.  No worries, I got another lesson on Monday I thought.  

So today comes along, I am watching weather all day, current conditions had ceilings hovering around 1000 ft AGL, not good.  So when Jack called around 4:30 again, I figured he was saying ceilings were just too low, despite improving to about 2500 ft AGL.  Surprisingly, he was in Waukesha for a last minute training session.  Although they took the jet, it was unlikely he would make it back before 6 pm.  Nuts.  He apologized, he mistimed his return he said, but was possible he could get back.  Still a glimmer of hope, I was a little late getting out of work, so I swung by the airport, hoping to catch Jack there by a stroke of luck.  Nope, around 5:45 pm, the FBO was silent.  Drat, spoiled again!  Oh well, I have another scheduled this week, and I might try to sneak in another, but we'll see.  This is part of flying, and besides as the old adage goes... "It's much better being on the ground wishing you were in the air, rather than being in the air wishing you were on the ground!"  Can't disagree with that!

Of course, as I pen this blog, I just checked conditions at KEAU.  Winds calm, clear skies, drat!

Lesson 3: Love it up here!

Rectangular Courses, Turns Around a Point

Well I returned to EAU on Saturday, April18th for my second lesson. I was very excited for this lesson, still coming off my high from the first real lesson. When we got there, since the plane had not been run since this morning, we did a full equipment checklist (a normal part of every flight). The plane POH (Plane Owners Handbook - I think) has detailed checklists on what should be inspected. I won't repeat the entire checklist here, I am actually working on customizing my own checklist to make sure I don't miss anything and so its relevant to the aircraft I am flying, i.e. I noticed several items on the checklist that my instructor said, ah skip it, the piece of equipment isn't on this plane. But in brief, we turned on the master switch in the cabin, checked fuel, lights, and flaps. Shut off master switch, then walked around the plane to check the condition.

After checking weather, dialed up ground and starting taxing to the runway. Got to our runup area, Jack let me run through the entire runup procedures. Nifty! Then asked tower for clearance to take off, onto the runway we went. Jack let me attempt to keep us centered which was a little more challenging than I thought, torque really wanted to pull the left, so I had to compensate with right rudder. The nose wheel shimmied a lot more than last time so Jack pitched up just a bit to get the nose wheel off the ground, then we accelerated to takeoff speed and off we went. This time to the northwest.

Now we practiced some of which we did last time, level flight, turns. We also did something a little newer, transitions! Boy this was tough! Basically you are asked to maintain your current altitude but change speeds. This required a careful balance of pitching and adjustments in power. Hence: PITCH, POWER, TRIM! Much harder than it looked. I frequently was going too fast, and either way above my assigned altitude or way below. Although I did a little better keeping my turns coordinated, honestly I didn't feel it. I still have trouble detecting an uncoordinated turn in the seat of my pants. Did I mention the wind was a little stronger today with the occasional convective hot air columns, bouncing us up and down. I asked Jack a little later his thoughts on the severity of the bumps we felt, and he replied "minor." Well, it certainly didn't feel that way, it wasn't ridiculous, but it definitely contributed to my ability to control the plane.

Anyway, after a review of things from last time, we went on to doing rectangular courses in preparation for pattern work. This also included introduction to crab angles to compensate for the wind direction, which I found a bit mystifying to determine and then work with. We also tried turns around a point. After this practice, I began to tire a bit, I also remember mentioning I was having trouble with the wind. And of course, Jack replied, "You will always have wind, this is your airplane, control it and make it do what you want despite the wind." Right about then I was wondering if I would ever be able to remember all this stuff. I knew flying is challenging, but wow! So much to control the airplane, much less remembering where you are and how to navigate and communicate where you are going! Although I know every student pilot feels this, it's no easy challenge to learn to fly, which makes the accomplishment that much more rewarding.

Anyway, we decided to head back. Of course Jack asks, "Where is the airport?" I pointed in the exact opposite direction.... sigh.... Another realization, that it is again very different than maintaining your orientation on the ground than in the air. Jack let me pretty much control most of the approach and landing, although he really executed the final touchdown. Then taxi back to the hangar, shore up the plane, record our final time. And lesson #2 is in the books! Another 1.4 hours to the log book! Despite the difficulties, had another incredible time!

Oh, I realized flying can be just as physically exhausting than it is mentally. That evening by hips, lower legs (calfs), and arm hurt from all the rudder work and turning.

More pictures...

Lesson 2: Head in the Clouds

Turns, Slow Flight, & Gliding

Wow! Had my official first flight lesson today, and it was absolutely incredible. As my wife Laura and brother Bryan can attest, I won't shut up about it! As 5:00 approached, I started to get nervous, and as I drove out the CURT parking lot, I started thinking to myself... "Dennis, what are you doing, are you sure?" As I arrived at the airport, the excitement and nervousness were much more intense. I met Jack, my flight instructor, we went over the FAA medical stipulations and the CFI requirements. After that we talked about my goals, our baby arriving soon, and how that would affect my training. So, with that out of the way, we set out to begin our first lesson.

Jack had preflighted the plane ahead of time, but left a few things to do. We went around the plane briefly, more to just check the oil and the flap rollers. The plane look darn new, apparently the result a recent paint job, it looked nice on the outside. The inside was very nice too. After verifying the oil looked good, we went through the startup checklist. Its difficult for me to remember everything, its amazing how overwhelming it all is, and its hard to imagine a day when it all comes naturally. But we checked mixture, throttle, primer, shouted 'clear' to make sure everyone was safely away, and fired it up. I can't remember if we did this before or after startup, but we got on the radio and listened to weather. We calibrated our altimeter and directional gyro. Called up tower for taxi, and we began to move!

Controlling the plane on the ground is exactly as I remember, but executing was another story. But it didn't take too long to get a hang of it, the brakes are the hardest to master since they are located near the rudder pedals and require you to push with your toes while you are steering with your heals. I did ok here, but misunderstood what Jack was asking for when making the turn into the wind to do the run-up check. We basically held the brakes and ran the engine up to I think 1900 rpm, then turned on just the left mag, and saw the RPM decrease, back to both and saw it return to 1900 rpm. Then did the same for the right mag, it was a little bigger decrease, but within tolerance. Set trim to takeoff. Did another check on oil pressure, fuel. Radioed for clearance to taxi to the runway. Jack gave a complete explanation of what happens if we have an engine failure during takeoff and what the plan is, there will be no thinking, just action if required. If engines failed at anytime, Jack will take complete authority over the controls. If engines failed during takeoff roll, we basically roll to a stop on the runway. If a failure occurs above the runway, we set it back down. If we are beyond the runway and below a certain altitude, we are going straight ahead into some pre-picked fields off of runway 04. If we are a safe altitude with an engine failure, we'll attempt to turn back to the runway. I can't remember what altitude that was, I am sure I'll be reminded of that again. Once we cleared, we taxied onto the runway, smoothly but assertively pushed in the throttle, keeping the plane on centerline with rudder pedals (nose wheel controls), and before long we were off the ground. I admit, I was quite nervous during that roll, I also imagine I will carry that nervousness for quite some time, because my biggest fear is losing engines right on take off or on landing. But once we were at a decent altitude, I relaxed and began to really enjoy the flight.

Okay, once in the air, we headed to the southwest for some practice maneuvers. Once we were about at 3000 ft, we practiced steady flight. Basically keeping the plane level and at a consistent altitude. I had a natural tendency to fixate on the instruments, but it wasn't too difficult to maintain attitude and altitude. However, I feel it will take me some bit to master the trim. Although Jack explained a lot of students tend to become overly dependent on it and constantly overuse it to maintain altitude, I didn't feel that inclination. However, I found it difficult to remember to even use the trim, I wanted to continue fighting the controls to maintain position. So, that will be something I will need to work on, among the many things!

Next came basic turns, only to about 30 degrees and trying to maintain altitude. I was surprised how well I did, I struggled with the rudder control, and I understand that will take many hours to master. When Jack first told me, look out of the plane and get a sight picture in mind, it became much easier instead of staring at the instruments. So, we practiced a few turns both to the left and right. Turning to the right was much more difficult because I had less points of reference in the sight picture because my view is more obscured.

Onto slow flight, we reduced throttle and felt how the plane wanted to right itself. Obviously it wanted to nose down, but after adjusting pitch and trim we were fine. Turning in slow flight was also interesting, the controls were much more sluggish and mushy. We also contrasted that with increased throttle and how the plane wanted to pitch up.

Before we began work on gliding and descent, it was time to head back to the airport. Jack calmly asked if I knew where I was and where the airport was. I realized I was concentrating entirely on figuring out the plane, and I had absolutely no clue where I was, hah first real lesson and I am lost somewhere over Eau Claire. I answered, "uh... Honestly, I have no idea." I learned its better not to guess, and admit when you don't know and ask. So he asked for me to look around to see if anything is familiar, I saw a freeway, and said that could be I-94 or Hwy 29. It was I-94, and figured on our current heading, the airport should be .... that way. Jack indicated that was more-or-less correct, which is a nice way of saying, "good guess, but not quite." Driving a car through Eau Claire is much different than your understanding and recognition of how things look when you are a couple thousand feet in the air! Navigation is several lessons away, so there is plenty of time to figure that out, for now we are concentrating on controlling the plane.

Finally onto gliding, and descent. Here we wanted to repeat the rule: Pitch, Power, Trim. So we set our pitch descent angle, then adjust power appropriately to get our target speed (around 75 knots), then trimmed to reduce control pressure. I also learned how flaps affects the airplane and how as flaps are increased we have to redo the Pitch, Power, Trim formula again. So, we radioed back to the tower that we were entering the pattern for a landing, we approached for almost a straight in landing, but we came at an angle, intersecting the pattern roughly at the downwind and base legs. So as we "glided in" we made a small turn to base and then final. Jack was aiming for the "4" on runway 04. Just as he touch down the stall horn was blaring along with a nice soft landing. I can't wait for me to do that someday! Jack did the entire landing, but had me put my hands on the controls to feel what he was doing.

So, as we taxied off the runway, I begin to think to myself uh-oh, I think I've found myself a challenging, fulfilling, exciting, and expensive new hobby. We'll see what the weeks bring and where the dollars fall, for we know a the weeks will definitely bring a baby! I am so excited to go home to tell Laura all about it and relive the experience with her. I will be making another appointment shortly! Woo Hoo!

Back in the Saddle

A few weeks ago, a letter arrived from the FAA. I knew what it was, it was either my Third Class Airman Medical Certificate or it was a denial. The letter seemed rather light, not good. There was clearly more than 1 piece of paper in the envelope, so maybe a good sign, but I was expected something a little large if it was in fact my cert.

As I opened the letter and read the beginning sentences, my heart sank, ... it read "due to your medical history you do not qualify for a medical certificate." I figured the rest of the letter was the bureaucratic details on how to do an appeal. But as I read on, I was surprised, instead I qualified for a special issuance. The issuance comes with some strings, I have to return to the doctor in early May, get an updated "appraisal" along with a statement from my CFI stating I am adapting well to tasks in the air. Ok. I can do that.

And then there it was. The last page was my Medical Certificate, which is my student pilots license. I was stunned. Its been so many months, I didn't think I would get it. As you know, our life has changed rather significantly in these past few months. I was filled with a mix of emotions, I honestly figured that eventually I would just get lost in the bureaucracy and never hear back or I would just get flat out denied. With our new baby, it was also a bit of an "excuse" that well I can't fly because I don't have my medical. Now I do, so now I have to make a decision. We are 2 1/2 months away from welcoming our first child, extraordinary excitement, guilt, confusion flooded me. Obviously its a significant commitment in time, money, and energy to do this right. And of course even more so can be said for that of our baby to be born.

So, I decided to take this to God, I received the medical certificate back in March, so I have been praying, trying to get some guidance and discernment. I went to the Eau Claire fly-in 2 weeks ago, to see if the excitement was still there. It is, but I still feel conflicted. After a couple more weeks of contemplation and prayer, I decided to at least complete the requirements to get my permanent medical certificate. Hopefully this won't take too long, and will get me a few more hours in the plane. If after that I decide this is something I want, I can always pick it up at a better time in our lives (within the next 5 years when the medical needs to be renewed). And of course, after these next few lessons, if I am bitten hard by the aviation bug, then Laura and I can work that out. She has already been ultra supportive and thinks I should go for it right now.

So, I scheduled an appointment with my CFI on Friday 4/10, to review the medical requirements and hopefully an hour in the air. I figured, if God wants me to continue, let me first get the medical completely done and see how I feel.

I will write another blog entry after the first "official" training flight, I am sure there will be lots to discuss.


EDIT! Hah! As I posted this, my CFI called and has a sinus thing going, so no flying, rescheduled for next week.