Lesson 13 - More Progress

This will be another short entry, but a goodie.  After a week since my last lesson (my Wednesday lesson was cancelled for weather), I was eager to get back in the air.  Got to the airport around 5:20, Laura came again to watch, and there was perhaps some weather in the area.  We checked out the radar, and saw the clouds, but it looked good for a bit.  Got the plane preflighted, and taxied on charlie for runway 32.  We held short for a bit while a Menards jet was landing on another runway, once they were down, we were clear for some pattern work.  

First landing was ok, not great, I attributed it to knocking off some rust.  We had several landings, all not too bad, I then proceeded to have a really good landing, and got an "Excellent Landing!" from Jack.  We did 12 laps, most landings were decidedly better than last week.  I didn't have any more "Oh, my!"s from Jack, which was good.  Still working on that sight picture, getting a little better.  On one landing, we did a low approach, which is basically when we fly over the runway just a few feet above it the entire way, Jack took the controls and had me use the rudders to keep us straight.  This helped me understand a little better what it looks like to be straight down the runway.

I think I made some significant progress today, because Jack pulled the throttle again, and said "you lost your engines, now what?"  I was much faster to react this time, and got all the important stuff right:  

• Pitch for best speed, which is 65 knots.  Technically I was going 75, but Jack said that was just fine since I didn't try to fixate on a speed, and concentrated on FLYING THE AIRPLANE!
• I didn't let myself get too far away from the airport, I knew I had the longest runway, and turned to land on about 1/3 down the runway, good!
• I did NOT extend flaps until I was over the runway, and had it "made".  That is VERY important, flaps introduce drag, and brings the plane down in less time (allows you to land with a steeper pitch, and slower speed).  When you are still not sure if you have your landing spot made, you want to get us much horizontal distance as you can.
  

On the final lap, I continued my streak of "bad" landings.  Although, this one I think I deserve a pass on.  As the weather started to move in, we could tell things were changing, on the downwind, the wind was moving us around quite a bit.  When we turned final, Jack asked, "you sure you got this?"  My approach was getting ugly, but I felt I still had control of the airplane, "I responded yeah, I got it."  The crosswind got worse, and Jack repeated, "you sure?", "I said, yeah, I think so", then on short final, Jack pressed again... "you sure?" , I then relented, "ok, maybe you should take it..."  Wise choice, it was shaping up for a really ugly landing, Jack got us lined up, he let me control the rudders again, and did an excellent crosswind landing... right tire, hold it..., then left, hold it..., then nose.  Wow, I image crosswind landings will continue to kick my butt for a while.

Overall, a much better flight.  For the first time, I started to believe it was possible for me to solo.  Probably still going to be several lessons away, but I am feeling more confident.  Another 1.2 hours, I now have 15 total, woot!

Oh, I called the FAA after submitted more paperwork for my "permanent" medical certificate.  They said the just mailed my cert, Yeeessssss!  I will save the celebration when I see the print in front of me, but it appears I've cleared another hurdle!

Lesson 12: Incremental Improvements

Getting a little better, plus some minor excitement!

Another early evening in the pattern.  This time I was treated to having Laura there to watch the lesson from the ground.  We both got there about 5:15 pm, Laura watched me preflight the plane and peeked inside a bit.  When we were ready to go, exchanged a smile and a wave, and we began taxing to runway 22.  Winds today were light, and again fairly straight down the runway, good weather to practice my slowly developing landing skills.  Now earlier in the week, Jack had warned me that someday I will have a door open in flight, the important thing is not to panic, and FLY THE PLANE.  A door open is not an emergency, unless you make it one by panicking!  He mentioned this because it happened to him earlier in that day.  Sure enough (not more than a few days later) shortly after lift off, I felt my door open.  I did not panic, told myself, "ok, the door is open, that is not a problem, concentrate on climbing to a safe altitude, I am not going to fall out or anything."  So, after we made our crosswind turn, I had Jack take the controls for just a second, got my door closed, and resume the flight, no problem!  When you are going 80 knots (almost 100 mph), its hard to even open the door (to close it), lots of wind pressure keeping it shut!

Anyway, today I saw some marginal improvements.  I had many unassisted landings, although some were a bit ugly.  I also was able to remember I had feet during the landings, and did better keeping it straight.  We did about 10 landings, most were not that great, but a couple stood out nice.  I am starting to see what a good flare is, its not 100% clicking yet, but I had a couple smoother touchdowns, but many need work.   Fortunately, there wasn't any terribly teeth-crunching landings, but there was definitely one firm landing, and a couple where I had poor directional control after touchdown and needed Jacks help.  Midway through, Jack mentioned he was going to try a "new technique."  We take off, do the normal pattern, and Jack is quiet.  I do my thing, waiting for him to explain this new technique.  I proceed to have my best landing yet, while Jack isn't saying a thing.  We touched down, I retract the flaps, accelerate, and off we go for another lap.  So, I say, "your new technique is to be quiet?"  Jack replied, "yep, seemed to work!"  So, had some incremental progress, but I think its clear I probably won't solo until I have at least 20+ hours, which is just fine!  This is what I still need to focus on...

• Still a little unsure when to begin the flare, a couple I knew I missed the window, and flare late, then over-compensated with too much flare which made me float  
  
• Many had bounces, which meant I had too much speed going into the landing.  This also might be because I am flaring just a bit late and not arresting some of that speed.
  
• I had more stabilized approaches this time, but still a bit inconsistent.  I had definitely one approach too low, and many more too high, although I'd rather be too high on a longer runway.  
• Many times, after the initial touchdown, Jack felt me "relax," particularly in my feet.  I have to remember to keep the flare through the touchdown, and to control the nose with those rudders to keep on centerline.  EAU has great, long, wide runways to learn and practice on, but I will be expected later to be able to land much more precisely so I can land on short, narrow grass and gravel strips.

So, after our 9th landing, we went for another touch and go.  Shortly after takeoff, Jack noticed the engine was running a bit rough.  It was subtle, but it definitely sounded different.  We decided this was our last run, with the door incident earlier, we were definitely not in the mood to tempt fate.   So, on this lap, we made a tighter pattern just in case we would loose engines.   I think the prospect of an engine failure distracted me a bit, I ended the night with my worst landing of the evening.  Oh well, I am going to remember the better landings.

As we taxied back, Laura was there waving, welcoming us home.  She later said she was able to watch all the landings, she said most looked pretty good, but there were just a few she kinda covered her eyes on, yah, I remember those :)

Another 1.2 hours, had a lot of fun, and have a good attitude for the holiday weekend.  Got 3 more lessons scheduled next week!

Lesson 11: Plateau flying

Another evening in the pattern.

Well, this entry won't be terribly long, primarily because it's sounding a lot like the last few entries, lots of takeoffs and (ugly) landings.  And in the words of my instructor, Jack, I've definitely hit a "plateau,"  in my training.  Now it just depends on how long I sit in it. 

Anyway, I was scheduled for a couple different times this week, and with Memorial Day weekend approaching, my availability was going to be limited.  So, when I noticed today the weather outlook was nice this afternoon, and both Jack and the plane was free, I scheduled an impromptu lesson.  Got to the airport around 5:30 pm, took my sweet time preflighting, and we were ready to take off on runway 14 (first time for me) by 6 pm.   We did several laps around the circuit, and had little traffic to deal with, which meant I had little excuse.  Granted, it was rather hot, which put density altitude at 2800 ft, and significantly degrades engine performance.  Consequently, our takeoff roll was longer than normal and our climb performance was also weaker.  This meant we watched very closely today how much fuel we had in the plane to make sure we were not overweight, so running with about 2/3 tanks fuel, we were safely within weight and balance.

So, the actual flying part of the lesson.  Wind was pretty much down the runway, so I had little crosswind to deal with, but with it being so hot, we got plenty of thermals moving up and down.   It wasn't terrible, then again, I think I am getting used to being tossed around, so it isn't bothering me that much anymore.   As for landing, the good news is I think I might be improving only slightly on the actual landing part, only one teeth-crunching landing.  My flare is still crappy, and I have trouble maintaining runway heading right before touch down.  The bad news is now my approaches were totally inconsistent.  Too high, too low, poor turn to base, waiting too long to turn to base, poor crab angles on base, sheesh!  I am certainly in a rut.  After about 8 landings, Jack called it a night.  Granted, I didn't have any landings like my final landing from last week, which was truly laughable, but Jack definitely notices a bit more frustration from me and recognizes a definite "stall" in my progress.  So, we had a longer than usual debrief, and he tried to reassure me, and talked about some of his landings he did recently, that were not great.  So, its somewhat comforting that even with 900+ hrs like Jack, he'll still can have a few ugly landings too.  It was also helpful for Jack to say, "I've seen you do this before, you can do it!"  Jack also gave me some old VHS videos to watch, maybe a slight different perspective will help.

I am still having fun despite the frustration, and I keep telling myself I am in no hurry.  I have a long way to go, it will not happen overnight, nor am I guaranteed to beat the "national average."  So, I remind myself of two things at the end of these lessons:  1. The Lord has given me another day, enjoy it, and give thanks!  2. They can still use the plane after I landed it, so I must be doing somethings right!

Another 1.0 hours in the book, 12.6 total now.  Hard to believe I've been behind the yoke of plane for over 12 hours already!

Lesson 10: More Rough Landings

Another visit to Menomonie, Ugly Landings

Well, it has been a week since I was able to last fly. Weather had deterred me from getting back in the air despite aggressive rescheduling, but the winds just wouldn't cooperate. Winds today were quite interesting, 170 @ 9 kts. My mother-in-law, Carol, accompanied me to the airport, she was flying back to Rochester from a weekend visit. She took a peek inside the plane and got to watch me preflight the plane. I know she was a bit worried for me, but I was hoping her witnessing how much attention we paid during preflight might help. As we climbed in and got it started, and started to taxi, I looked back and gave Carol a little wave goodbye, and we headed for runway 22 for departure. There was a Menards jet in front of us, so we had to pay extra careful attention for wake turbulence. Upon takeoff, shortly off the ground, I would say 100 ft, we hit some very interesting winds, threw the little plane around quite a bit, actually needed Jack's help to stabilize it. I asked Jack if that was the wake turbulence, he said no, it was the winds aloft that was being blocked by the buildings and other ground obstructions, once we ascended high enough, the plane got the full brunt of the winds. So, that was interesting, today's flight was bumpy, but not ridiculous. Since there was so much activity in Eau Claire, we headed to Menomonie for some pattern work, but as we started our jaunt, we were facing a very strong southern wind, and we had to make a very significant wind correction angle (crab), relative to highway 29 below, we were flying pretty sideways, probably about 25* degrees or so.

So, on arrival into Menomonie, I got the wind direction all confused, and wanted to land on runway 27, that would have been bad. Jack corrected me, since we got a southern wind, runway 18 is far more appropriate. We did 4 takeoffs and landings, they were not great, nuff said. Some of it might have been getting a little rust knocked off, but I think I just need to learn so much more. I was forgetting stuff, and constantly behind the plane. I don't know what my problem was today, but I just couldn't get things to click. I also might be expecting more of myself, but my patterns are bit oval-ish in shape instead of rectangular because I am failing to account for wind. My "flare" was too late one time, and we came down all 4 wheels rather roughly. The next time, I flared too much, and we ballooned and floated for a bit. Meanwhile, I am concentrating so much on the flare, I am forgetting the crosswind components and landing off centerline nearly always. Jack did one for me to watch again, how does he do that!? So, on our way back to Menomonie, checked weather and reset radios. Call up tower, have us coming for runway 22, they then offered runway 14. I said sure, why not. Well, Jack later advised, all things being equal, runway 22 is longer, he'd gone for that instead. Good safety tip, I proceeded to have a pretty crappy landing there. We did a quick touch and go for a final landing, and I did probably my worst landing yet. Thanks to Jack, we got it down, but I was completely lined up wrong, came in low all the way, and proceeded to bounce. Man, overall, this was probably my worst performing flight yet, I learned a lot of ways how not to land a plane, but I am not sure if that is impressing on me the correct way to land.

Anyway, despite the frustration, 1.2 hours in the logbook. The light at the end of the tunnel dimmed a bit today, but I will get back at it later this week!

Ultrasound confirms...It's a girl!

We had our final ultrasound today, and we found out pretty confidently that we can expect a girl in about 6 weeks.  Here are some great ultrasound pictures.  Apparently the first picture identifies the "hamburger" typifying a girl, according to our very friendly ultrasound tech....  I have never heard anybody explain it that way before.

The baby is measuring right down the line, she estimated the baby weighs 5 lbs now.  We are 

only 2 weeks away from end of the "premie" stage, our hospital is best equipped to deal with deliveries beyond 36 weeks.

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Here is some more pics... 

 

Oh, quick update on flying, I have had two lessons cancelled on Wednesday and Thursday morning due to weather, but I am aggressively rescheduling.