Lesson 33 - Long Solo Cross Country

Whew! The last of the official requirements by the book is done. Although I didn't hit my goal of getting my checkride passed in May, I did complete all the requirements, alright!! Got back from 2.9 hours from my long cross country. A while back Paul had me plan out a flight to Merrill, then Wisconsin Rapids, then back to Eau Claire. I was really looking forward to this flight, my sister Amy and her family live in Merrill. So, this morning when it looked likely the weather was going to cooperate, I called Amerz up and she was able to bring Degen and Senna with her to the airport to meet me.

So, got to the airport around noon after a quick stop for a Subway, figured I could munch on that as Paul reviewed my flight plan. Finished flight planning, lunch, got an abbreviated weather briefing, and filed all 3 legs of my flight plan. Did a preflight, and the wheels where off the ground at 1:10 pm. Ride to Merrill was pretty uneventful, after opening the flight plan and clearing Eau Claire's class delta, then picked up flight following from Minneapolis approach which quickly handed me over to Minneapolis Center. Ride was quite bumpy for a bit, we are starting to get into summer and all the convective columns rising from the heated surface of the earth. I had absolutely no problems on this leg, it was almost identical to the Medford cross country, just another 26 miles past. Picked out all my checkpoints, center terminated my radar coverage just as I caught sight of Merrill and began my descent. Nobody else in the area, had a nice touch down that Amy and family got to see. After closing the flight plan, got to show Degen the cockpit, that was really fun (and I am sure Degen was excited too), I got some pictures...

After about 20 minutes of chatting with Amy and Degen, Senna was a bit shy and tired, got to use the restroom, pickup a bottle of water from the FBO, and I was off to Wisconsin Rapids. Again, uneventful trip, it was a short hop so I didn't want to do flight following, instead I got into contact with Mosinee/Central Wisconsin tower controller, and just advised of my position and he indicated there was no other traffic southbound to Wisconsin Rapids. Still a little bumpy, but I was on the ground in KISW before I knew it. Taxi back, couldn't get a hold of FSS to close the flight plan, took off and started heading back to Eau Claire. Finally got a hold of FSS, close/open the flight plan, just about leveling off at 6500 and got flight following again from Minneapolis center. Found my first checkpoints, and then was over Nellsville airport. While enroute I was monitoring 122.0 for any activity in the MOA since I was flying through part of it. Once over Nellsville I could pick out Lake Eau Claire and Lake Wissota, so I knew exactly where Eau Claire was, but no matter, I dialed in the VOR to 112.9 and followed roughly the 115* toward Eau Claire. Cleared for right traffic landing on runway 4, touched down in Eau Claire at 4:20 pm, after mains down, I brought the nose down a little harder than I like, but she held together. It was a nice crabbed landing into the wind. I am better at those landings, still not smooth greasers, but I am landing on the spots I want to and able to land straight without sideload on the mains, despite variable winds.

Overall a great flight, I felt much more in control. Not sure if I am ready for the test yet, but my I was able to maintain my altitudes much better and stay ahead of the plane. Fun time! I am now transitioning to PTS test preparation, I will be flying with Paul a few more times until he thinks I am ready, and it still might be a bit, but I am so close! Stay tuned!

Lesson 32 - Solo Cross Country to Medford

Ok, this afternoon I got to do another solo cross country, this time to Medford. This was quite a kick since I have never been to this airport before. Over lunch, I went to the airport and met Paul so he could go over my flight planning. He was quite impressed with my custom spreadsheet I created for my plan, and like my overall approach. I could have sworn I heard from the briefer that runways 9/27 was closed, and that surprised Paul since he had another student en route at that moment to Medford too. I said I must have misheard it. I later checked that day, and yes in fact the runway was closed, so I called up Paul telling him so. When I got to the airport, there was a note for me from Paul saying the same thing, he must not have gotten my message. :)

Anyway, preflight good, filed flight plans, was off the ground only 10 minutes past my scheduled time. The flight there was awesome and uneventful, although Minneapolis Center seemed too busy to give me flight following, since they ignored three of my calls. No big deal, but its always a little unnerving to see another plane pass just above or below you that you didn't see until the last minute, I suppose that is why we have our assigned altitudes. I also had a little trouble picking out my second checkpoint, a wide railroad track / power line, probably because I mistaken one lake on my map from another, but I found it eventually.

Once on the ground in Medford, I couldn't raise FSS to close and open my new flight plans until I was a good 10 minutes on my way back. The way back was equally nice and pretty easy. I am constantly looking for emergency landing sites and scanning for traffic, it's fun, although I have to do a better job of sharing my attention doing instrument scans. Maintaining altitude on the way back was pretty easy too. The excitement came when I was attempting to land back in Eau Claire. Tower 22 as the active runway, I was already cleared for a left base pattern entrance. About 3 miles before, a citation jet wanted to come straight in on the same runway, opposite direction! We considered that a bit, and controller asked me to keep up my speed and land "in front of" (or more accurate play chicken with the jet), well that threw me off a bit. My effort to accommodate the controller made me come in high and fast, bust my flap range and land WAY down the runway, making the second to LAST taxiway exit, it was ugly. Although the good news is I landed considerably ahead of the jet, and the controller thanked me for my help. I know what I did wrong, this is what I would have done differently when I have another instance like this:

• Keep my speed up until hitting that base leg turn.
• Cut throttle to idle
• Pitch way up to quickly bleed off that speed to quickly get to 75 kts. Don't worry about gaining a couple hundred feet, get those flaps down! Watch that airspeed don't stall!!
• Within flap range, quickly full flaps, pitch down to approach.
• Forward slip the crap out it.
• Finally, be HONEST. If I am uncomfortable, just ask the controller to go around.

So, some excitement at the end, I certainly pushed my skills, and learned a ton.

One more cross country, I have one planned for a two stop to Merrill, Wisconsin Rapids, and then back to Eau Claire.

After that, it's at least 3 hours of test preparation. I am at 45 hours now. If I were to guess, I will be going on my checkride at around the 50-55 mark, probably closer to 55.

Lesson 31 - Night Cross Country to Lake Elmo!

Tonight was our night cross country to Lake Elmo. This was such a fun, but a bit nerve-racking experience. As beautiful as it was, I am not too enthusiastic about night flying. There is a whole lot of darkness below you, and in the event of an engine failure, although you might be able to set it down on an interstate, there are things like power lines, overpasses, cars, that are darn difficult to see until you are right on top of them. This experience has taught me that in an event of an emergency, your options are very limited. And we all know in my experience, engine problems CAN happen.

Keeping that in mind, we planned accordingly for our flight. We flew directly over I-94 all the way to Lake Elmo and back. So, we always had an option underneath us. I arrived at the airport early at 8:00 pm. That gave me plenty of time to preflight the plane (in the daylight), get an abbreviated weather briefing, finish out my flight plan calculations, and chat with Chris about what we were doing this evening and what to expect. We were going to be picking up flight following from Minneapolis Center right after exiting the Eau Claire pattern. This was neat, it's been a while since I have interacted with ATC radar services. We finally took off around 9:30 pm, there was an inbound medical flight on the radio passing in front of us right before take off. We then contacted ATC, so they looking after us on our way over to Lake Elmo. That paid off right away, we had traffic below us heading right at us, i.e. they were doing exactly what we would be doing on our return flight home. They advised us, we were able to locate them, and confirm it wasn't an issue. It's very nice having those extra set of eyes looking out after you. The first 15 minutes, I think I was a bit nervous, and it showed. I really wasn't overwhelmed with work, but I felt behind the plane, and it really showed when I busted my assigned altitude and flew way past it. Chris corrected me, and quickly pushed the plane back done to altitude. I had trouble maintaining altitude the rest of the leg, not sure exactly why, it was calm winds but I was drifting up a lot. The rest of the trip went by uneventful... Menomonie, Baldwin, Hudson. Around Hudson, ATC passed us off to approach control, which is on a different frequency, that caught me a little unprepared, but adjusted. I was able to pick out the Lake Elmo beacon a good 15 miles out. Did a simple downwind pattern entry, and a decent landing, but not great. At night, your vision really messes with you and it's difficult to judge when you should flare, so I landed with a bit of a thud. So, back taxi, and off we go again.

Again, pick up flight following. The return flight I was more comfortable. I felt much more ahead of the plane and nothing came as a surprise and I was prepared for each step. I seemed to have a much easier time holding the exact altitude too. The whole return trip was more relaxing and enjoyable, I felt much more in control. Until at least we were trying to spot Eau Claire Airport. I think part of it was that Chris was trying to point to the location. Having somebody point to a location while in the plane is nearly a fruitless exercise, your brain gets in the way. After trying for almost 5 minutes, we finally got close enough to flick on the runway lights, and the airport was a good 40 degrees left of where I was looking, no wonder why I couldn't find the beacon. Another complication of flying at night.

So, we landed on runway 4 to a full stop. We had 1.6 hours in for the cross country. Chris asked if I was up to do a few more stop-and-gos, and get another 0.4 so I can finish my night requirements. Absolutely! So, we did another 4 landings. Ticked over 2.0 hours total night time, and I have met the requirement. Woot!

We got some good weather ahead of us this week still, hoping to get a few cross countries done soon! Then onto test prep!

Lesson 30 - Mini Cross Country to Chetek

What a gorgeous morning! Sunday morning, I joined Paul for a short hop to Chetek to validate my navigating skills to make sure I am kosher for my upcoming solo cross countries. What a fun trip! This "cross country" being less than 30 miles was actually a bit stressful. I wasn't really stressed because I was concerned about getting lost, the landmarks are pretty easy. The problem was the trip was so close, and the checkpoints so close together, the workload was constant and heavy. I really didn't have much time to enjoy the flight, it was all work.

Not to worry though, the fun came after first landing at Chetek. We landed on 35, a paved runway half the length (3500 ft) and width (60 ft) of any runway in Eau Claire. I came in high and had to do an aggressive slip (with Paul's encouragement) to get it down in time. We taxied to the end of the runway, and Paul instructed me to pull the plane off the runway.... onto the grass.... Ok....

What I didn't realize is that Chetek has a grass strip 25/7. Wow! 1100 ft!! As we begin the back taxi, I see a house that appears no more than 3-4 blocks away with telephone poles around. Yikes!! We have to keep the plane moving so we don't get the nose wheel stuck. And what a different feeling! Taxing on a grass "field" was bumpy. We circled round, never stopped the plane and starting full power as we came out of our turnaround at the end of the runway. Flaps to 10*. Yoke full aft. Wow, when you see the buildings getting so close at the end of the runway, it was a bit overwhelming.... are we going to climb out in time??? Nose off the ground quick, accelerate to barely flying speed, lift off, lower the nose, accelerate to Vx, climb out at Vx. This was a combined soft/short field take off. Quiet a test! We fly out over Lake Chetek. Left traffic, now for a landing on a 1100 ft grass strip. You have to hit your airspeed on approach, and you have to be slow! Normal approach is 70 kts. Short field is 55 kts, half way to stall speed. You have to be slow when you touch down because you MUST slow down in time. Full flaps. Slip if you have to. Touch down. Wow! That touchdown is bumpy on grass. Keep that nose up, full breaks!! Whew! We made it.

We continue to do a bunch of short field landings on the pavement. My greatest fault seems to drift into the runway on downwind before turn to base, I am not sure why. I think the narrower strip is giving me some optical illusion. Then headed back to Eau Claire, some more hood time to get another 0.2 instrument time. Did some practice steep turns, and then we called it a day. A great flight! Looks like I will be set to finish off the last of the requirements, but I learned a lot today, and got more confident controlling the plane at slower speeds.

Lesson 29 - All Alone!

Got back to the airport the same day as Lesson 27 for an afternoon flight, this time with Chris. When we got there, he was certain I was ready to solo again, so we got the paperwork in order and off I went! Really wasn't too nervous, but it was a big step from coming back, after only 3 lessons I was back in the cockpit alone, it was very rewarding!

I ended up doing 1.1 hours, staying in the pattern doing touch and goes. I shared the pattern with another pilot flying N815HA, Heartland's Cessna 172. I did about 10 landings, had 1 go around, a couple extended downwinds because of incoming jets (that still is so cool to be up in the air right next to those!), several wake turbulence warnings, and even a right hand pattern (which I was thoroughly impressed with myself, I thought I would have trouble, but it went well).

A couple landings were a bit ugly, particularly my first, but improved with each pass. The last one was pretty nice, I could have made the high speed exit, but forgot to brake in time, no big deal.

Things are coming back nicely, and I am chipping away at those requirements. Paul gave the go ahead to start planning my long cross country to Marshfield, Lacrosse, and back to Eau Claire. Woo Hoo! I can see I have some polishing though to do, my flying isn't precise enough yet to pass the checkride, so I will need a bit more practice before I am ready.

Lesson 28 - Fundamentals Review

What a fun day! Met Paul at the airport at 8:00 am, preflight, all good. Paul explained we'd be taking off using a soft field takeoff technique, do some hood work, do some stall training, and then finally steep turns.

So, the soft field takeoff, that was interesting to say the least. Ok. The goal here is to get off the ground as fast as possible, and avoid digging the nose gear into the ground. So, flaps to 10*, you want to take the runway on a roll, don't stop, have the elevator full aft, and full power. The nose will come up FAST, I mean really FAST. I didn't anticipate it, and I swear I might have bonked the tail slightly. The way you are supposed to do is, once the nose raises, reduce elevator and just keep the nose off the ground. Use right rudder, the high angle of attack is going to want to yaw the airplane. Once you are at 50 kts, you should be off the ground, lower the nose to the horizon, accelerate in ground affect to Vy, positive rate of climb, flaps up, normal climbout.

On climb out, we turned toward course, and the engine hesitated, only for a second. Funny, it didn't bother me much. We were already high enough, I was prepared to turn back toward the airport, no big deal. Although, Paul got quite excited, but he was impressed how cool I was. We applied some carb heat, saw that oil pressure, temperature, RPM was all in the green, so we decided to continue figuring it was just a small pocket of bad gas or air.

I got some more hood time, turned towards courses, standard rate turns, maintaining speed and altitude. Next was stalls. Honestly, this wasn't something I was looking forward to. Maybe it was because the last time I practiced stalls, that is when the engine gave out. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other, but I think I have a slight mental block. Fortunately, Paul was very methodical in his approach, and I seemed to have a much better understanding.

First was the Approach to Landing stall, this is to simulate a string of bad decisions on approach. So, here is how we execute:

1. First you must be legally 1500 AGL, we like a little more buffer, so we were up beyond 2000 AGL.
2. GUMPS check. Clearing turn to the right, carb heat, begin slowing to 70 kts
3. Flaps to 10*, clearing turn to the left.
4. Full flaps. Reduce throttle to idle. Maintain altitude by bringing back the elevator.
5. The reduction of power and bringing the elevator after, bleeds off the last bit of speed, then stall!
6. PTS standards call to recover from a stall at its first sign, in the C152, that is the stall horn.
7. Recovery is: Elevator Forward! Full Throttle! Carb Heat Off! Flaps to 10*. Positive rate of climb, 60 kts, Flaps to 0*.

We did several of these, we even took the plane to the full stall break, where the plane literally stops flying and drops. Good experience, and not as scary as I remember. Next was Power On, Take Off Stall. This simulates a stall on climbout, particularly when attempting a go-around. This is how you execute this:

1. Again, 2000 AGL.
2. GUMPS Check. Clearing turn to the right, carb heat, begin slowing
3. (No flaps), clearing turn to the left slow to 50 kts! Yep, slow, but still power, engine is not at idle! Watch that Right Rudder.
4. Carb Heat off. Elevator back to simulate rotation, but keep going back! This is weird, it feels like you are pointed straight at the sky. Stall!
5. Recovery is simpler: Reduce Elevator back pressure, nose to horizon, apply power to get back airspeed.

After a few of those, we proceeded onto steep turns, and then decided to fly back, where we did a straight in on runway 4. A good 1.0 hours of practice, looking good!

Night cross country scrapped

Well, I had planned out a cross country to Lake Elmo (21D), but mother nature brought through some thunderstorms. Oh well, I got to spend an evening with my ladies. Check out Evie vs. Tupperware.

Lesson 27 - Nightime Flying!

After a fun-filled weekend at the cabin celebrating my niece Senna's first birthday, I got to finish off the weekend with my first night flight. Part of the qualifying requirements of the Private Pilot License is to log 3 hours of night time flying including at least 10 landings (to a full stop) and a cross country of at least 100 nm. Tonight, I met Chris at 8:00 pm, it was still light out. We cannot count our time as official night flight until 1 hour after civil twilight. So, that made plenty of time to do a relaxed preflight and good conversation.

Once we were ready, we hopped in. Now after 8:30, the control tower retires, so we were communicating on CTAF our intentions. Also, we got to control the runway lights with our radio mic, very cool. 3 clicks for low, 5 for medium, 7 for high. So, the goal was to just do a few laps around the pattern to build my night-time experience, and get in as many full stop landings as possible. First time around was a different experience, I lost my bearings a bit coming off the upwind leg, very different flying in the dark, but it was very stunning to see the lights of the city and the airport! Landings went very good despite a slight crosswind, although many of the first few approaches I would come in quite low, after a few tries I adjusted for that. I bet that is because my last flying I did with Paul, the winds were much stronger, and I was getting accustomed to having that wind keep me higher, longer.

After 9 trips around, and 1 hour logged, it was time to call it a night. During debrief, Chris said we are going to do our cross country to Lake Elmo soon, I won't mention how soon since my Mom is likely reading this. :)

Also good news is that Chris thinks after tonight's flying, I am ready to receive my solo-endorsement back. It is very gratifying to know after taking almost 7 months off, I didn't loose the fundamentals. That checkride is looking closer and closer, I might just make my goal by end of May!

Oh by the way, I did take some pictures while flying, and they turned out absolutely terrible, hence the stock photo.