Night Cross Country

I don't think that I will ever be a big night flyer, but flying was sure fun last night. We got to do a lot of new things, see some new sights and even got scolded by air traffic control. In the process, my night flying requirements were met as far as the FAA is concerned.

Rob had me plan a flight from St. Pete/Clearwater (PIE) to Venice(VNC). There is a training requirement for a night cross-country flight of over 100 nm. Whitted is only 43 nm from Venice, so we first flew to St. Pete and did some full stop landings before heading to Venice. We got in trouble at St. Pete.

The tower had us landing on 35R, which is a 9700 foot beast of a runway that the big boys use. At sea level in cool weather the 172 needs about 550 feet to land. My landings were very good last night, but in the dark and at an unfamiliar airport, I missed the first taxiway off the runway on my first landing. We had to motor down the runway a good distance before coming to the next taxiway. On the second landing, Rob decided to fix the problem. After all, he used to work at PIE and was familiar with the place. So I land and am motoring down the runway looking for taxiway "G", golf for you pilots. Rob thinks he spots it and jams on the brakes and turns for it. Bad news, golf is blocked and we are now turned ninety degrees to the direction of the runway. Rob simply completes a 360 on the runway and heads for taxiway "F", foxtrot. About this time the tower controller comes on the radio: "54666 did you just do a 360 on the runway?" I'm laughing and not about to answer him, after all it wasn't my 360. Rob tells him that indeed we did a 360. "Well don't do it again." No crap, we don't usually do 360s on runways.

We got clearance to taxi back to 35R for another trip around the pattern. This time I managed to find taxiway "M", mike, where we did a 180 on the taxiway, with permission, and departed for Venice. I had informed ground control that we were headed for Venice, which could involve transiting Tampa's class B airspace and control came back with a laundry list of instructions which went something like this: "Cessna 54666, taxi to runway 35R and hold, contact tower on 128.4 when ready, left turn to heading 270 on departure, climb and maintain 1600 VFR, squawk 0123, contact Tampa Approach on 119.65 after departing the area." That was a little more in the way of instructions than I was used to, so I had to ask him to repeat. Rob was a bit surprised that PIE ground did all that and had expected to simply depart to the west and request the class B transit with Tampa.

We followed the instructions and after leaving the class D airspace contacted Tampa approach. They told us to climb to 3500 feet and turn to heading 180. This class B stuff is easy, as long as you do what they say. After a few minutes, Tampa approach told us to fly direct to Venice, which took us over my house, and Sarasota International (SRQ). Sarasota International is less than a mile from Sarasota Bay, and Venice Municipal is on the beach, so we were following the coast south. It was beautiful, peaceful and very different from day flying. We had requested flight following, so Tampa informed us of traffic a few times. Once we had Venice in sight, I informed Tampa and requested a frequency change to Venice's ASOS. Tampa cancelled flight following and told me to squawk VFR.

I screwed up my first approach at Venice. On my turn to final, I lost sight of the runway and then picked up the wrong set of lights coming out of my turn. I ended up too high, so we went around. This time I flew the pattern nicely. Venice is an interesting airport. For one thing, it's on the beach. For another, the taxiways don't paralleled the runways. They mostly run around the perimeter of the airport. That means if you want to taxi back for departure, it seems as though you're driving through the boonies. I'm glad Rob knew his way around. I had an airport diagram, but in the dark, I would have been lost.

After departure from Venice, I contacted Tampa approach again. They cleared us through Sarasota's class C and Tampa's class B airspace straight to Albert Whitted. I was sort of liking this class B thing, but Rob told me it could be different during the day. Sometimes they're busy and might tell you to call back later or avoid their airspace all together.

Back at Whitted, Rob killed the landing light while I was on final and made me land without it. That's not a lot of fun. It's hard to see unlit asphalt at night, but the landing was not bad. Next week I'm going to put in some simulated instrument time and we're going over my log book to make sure we have not missed any required training. There's not a lot left. My GPS ground track is incomplete. Not sure what happened, but you can still see where we went.

Happy New Year!!!

lesson 23

Google earth is needed to view the lesson 23 file.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 21.0 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 13.0 Hours

Landings: 121

Night Flying

No, I haven't lost my mind. The picture is St. Petersburg at night. If it looks dark, that's because it is. I had my first night flight yesterday. My oldest son and brother, who are here for Christmas, rode along. In hindsight, night flying may not be the best way to introduce someone to general aviation.

After taking off at Whitted, Rob had me head west for the Gulf of Mexico. He had a lesson in mind that I had not anticipated. As we got over the beach, he announced that we were headed for the abyss. We flew out over the Gulf for a little instrument practice. I didn't put on a hood or foggles, but over water without land in view, a hood is not necessary for instrument work. Everything was black. I could see nothing outside the plane. Rob had me make a couple standard rate turns to specified headings and practice climbs on the instruments. On my part it took a lot of concentration. After we landed, my son said it was sort of horrifying. Living on the coast, it would be tempting to fly over water to Key West or another coastal destination. Rob wanted to show me what I would be in if I attempted such a thing at night.

After instrument work, we turned back toward the coast and headed for St. Pete Clearwater International (PIE). PIE is class D, and the largest airport I've landed at. We were instructed to make straight in for runway 9, following two other light planes. Traffic is a lot easier to see at night, but the airport is not. I could see the beacon from the beach, but I could not make out the runways until we were fairly close. I was truly grateful for the VASI, without which I probably would have been all over the place on my approach. Rob said I would flare too high because of the difference in perspective at night. He was right and I smacked the runway pretty good. We taxied back for departure to Whitted. Taxiing past airliners was cool.

Back at Whitted, I flew the pattern for five more landings. They were much better than the one at PIE. Rob had me make one with the landing light off. I couldn't see the asphalt until we were sitting on it, but the landing was good.

I forgot to turn on my GPS logger for this trip. I didn't realize that we were going to PIE before the flight or it would have been on. However, Drew did get a good video of my landing at PIE: Landing at PIE Sorry about the quality of the video. Google did it. It is quite good seen at full resolutuion

Next Tuesday we're flying to PIE and Venice (VNC) at night. I want to go to Venice during the day. There's a good restaurant on the beach that's only a short walk from the airport. Guess it will have to wait.

Thanks to all who read this blog. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do writing it. And... Have a very merry Christmas!

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 19.1 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 13.0 Hours

Landings: 116

Much better

I was back at Albert Whitted today. Nothing like getting back on the horse that threw you. Rob had planned a pre-knowledge test review, and that's what we did. Fun, fun, fun. There's nothing quite like Federal Air Regulations to get my interest. Seriously, we went over the test areas that I thought I might have trouble with. I'm using Sporty's FAA practice tests to help me prepare, and I did subscribe to their "premium" test prep service, for a small fee of course. I tried some of the free online tests, but found some wrong answers in one and decided that I'm getting what I pay for with Sporty's. The premium service has explanations that go along with the correct and incorrect answers, so it's easy to see where you went wrong and makes studying more efficient.

After an hour and a half of review, Rob endorsed my log book to take the aeronautical knowledge test. I'll take it after the first of the year. Then it was time to grab the key for N54666 and get in a little practice. Test review had taken longer than planned, so I decided to remain in the pattern and work on takeoffs and landings. For a while I had the airport to myself. You know it's not busy when air traffic controls clears you to takeoff and you haven't even exited the runway from the previous landing. I goofed up one short field takeoff and a short field landing. Just got distracted and forgot what I was doing, other than that it went pretty well. My GPS track shows a tight pattern that I was happy with.

Next week, night flying. My brother and my oldest son are flying with Rob and I Tuesday night. It'll be a working flight. I have to get in 10 night landings, so we'll knock out a bunch Tuesday. The following night flight will be cross country and we'll get in my class B work. Rob was talking about going to Orlando International (KMCO). That would be fine with me.

lesson 21

You'll need google earth to open the lesson 21 track.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 17.9 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 13.0 Hours

Landings: 110

Not my best day

Sometimes I feel like I'm starting to nail this flying thing, and then I have a day like today and get a reality check. It's not that I did anything horrible. I just wasn't on the top of my game and didn't perform like I expected. My navigation was fine. I didn't even cheat with the GPS. The weather was mostly clear and calm, a bit hazy with a few clouds scattered at 3000 feet. But, my landings were awful. I haven't flow in over a week, that's a long time off for me, and I'm hoping it was the cause.

It was my second solo cross country flight. Back to Charlotte County (PGD) and Arcadia (X06) then home to Whitted. Rob was not around Bay Air this morning, so CFI Pete looked over and approved my flight plan and endorsed my log book for the flight. No problems on the way to Charlotte County. The haze made finding my landmarks a bit more difficult, but I was tracking the VOR so the landmarks were not as important as if I had been navigating by pilotage. I must have estimated the winds correctly, because my ground speed was almost dead on.

Once at Charlotte County the fun began. About 15 miles out, I tuned their weather advisory channel and got the wind information, numbers in pilot speak. Winds 090 at 5. Cool, sounds like a nice easy landing on runway 9. The problem was that no one was using 9. I heard pilots landing on 4, taking off on 15, landing on 15 and doing something, who knows what on 22. Pilots were practicing instrument approaches from every direction. It's a damned confusing place, pardon my French. The last time Rob and I were there, the situation was almost as bad, and Rob instructed me to use the winds to select my runway, so I announced my intentions to land on 9. Must have been OK with everyone else, nobody said anything to me. Luckily, I seemed to catch a slight break in the activity and entered the left downwind for 9, announced all my turns and got configured to land. Last time we were here, Rob had me do a touch and go, but I'm not supposed to do them by myself. On final, I saw why Rob had me do a touch and go. The "new" runway 9 at Charlotte County is a small resurfaced area in the middle of the "old" runway 9, and the old 9 looks like crap. I didn't want to get off of the resurfaced area, so I announced I was doing a touch and go, and got out of there. My eyes were wide open looking for traffic as I climbed out and set my course for Arcadia. I hope I'm not sent to Charlotte County again.

The flight to Arcadia was as calm and uneventful as the trip to Charlotte County. It was only about a 20 mile flight that went by very quickly. I tuned Arcadia's CTAF and could hear pilots as far away as Clearwater and Okechobee, but no one was announcing anything for Arcadia. After Charlotte County it was a welcomed change. I suspected that the surface winds were about the same, but I overflew the field and got a good look at their wind T, which serves the same function as a wind sock. The winds were pretty much as I had guessed, just a bit stronger judging from the trees and bushes, so I entered the left downwind for runway 5. I flew a nice pattern, announced all my turns and got setup for a slight crosswind. I dipped my right wing into the wind, corrected the nose with left rudder and set her down on the middle of the runway, but.... I bounced... twice. I haven't bounced since I soloed. I was embarrassed, but the good thing was no one was around to see. Maybe I was concentrating on the cross wind and let my speed get too high on final. Who knows. I was not very happy. Taxi back to runway 5, announce my departure and I'm outta there.

I tracked the PIE VOR home on a Victor airway, sort of a highway in the sky. I was alert for traffic as I climbed to 4500 feet, a VFR cruising altitude, but no planes were to be seen. The VOR took me straight to Ruskin where I contacted Whitted tower for the trip home. Control told me to enter right pattern for runway 7 and look for the helicopter departing to the north west. Normal stuff for Whitted. I was feeling comfortable on the downwind and cleared to land, but.. I bounced again. I know my speed was right this time, what is going on? It wasn't a hard bounce, the kind that shakes the plane, just a gentle bounce that put me back in the air by a foot or two. This will have to be fixed.

Tomorrow, Rob is giving me a pre-knowlege test review, after which I'll be able to take the FAA private pilot knowledge test. Most likely, I won't take the test till after the first of the year. Things get kinda crazy around the holidays. I'll also get in a little practice. After today, it's needed.

lesson 20

You'll need google earth to open the lesson 20 flight track.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 17.9 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 12.0 Hours

Landings: 103

Rained out

I had hoped to get in my second solo cross country flight today, but the weather man was right and I'll have to wait. My tight schedule for the next few days, and maintenance on the 172s will have me waiting till the middle of next week most likely.

When I started flight training, I thought I would stretch it out over six months or so. Now that I'm getting close to my PPL, I'm wanting to finish sooner rather than later. My brother is coming to visit for Christmas and wants to go flying. It would be nice to be able to carry passengers without a CFI on board.

I'll try the cross country again next week. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.

More of the same...

I tried to get a bit of practice in yesterday, but my streak of bad luck with machinery was still intact. The oil seal on the nose gear strut gave out on the flight before mine, so N54666 was out for the day. N54058 was still getting it's new engine, and the other two 172s were taken. After rescheduling for today, I drove home.

Things were better today. No problems with N54666 were discovered during my thorough preflight inspection, so off I went. Same routine as my last few practice sessions. Out to the beach for maneuvers, then back to Whitted for pattern work. Nothing remarkable to report, except for the goofy winds.

I radioed Whitted tower as I crossed the beach on my way back to the airport, and as always he gave me the winds or "numbers "in pilot lingo. 080 at 4. Easy, a slight breeze almost directly down runway 7. Funny thing was, I was having to crab about 20 degrees to the south to avoid drifting north of the runway center line. It sure did not feel like any 4 knot breeze. Well, I would like to practice my crosswind landing, so I'm thinking about this: I'll crab until I cross the blast fence, then transition to a slip, right wing down, left rudder... Then the crosswind just went away. I straightened the plane and landed with almost no rudder input.

Same thing during my pattern work. I was seriously crabbed on the downwind leg, and overshot my turn to final several times due the southerly wind at pattern altitude. On the field the wind was calm. It was pretty weird as far as I was concerned, but at Bay Air, they said it have been like that yesterday.

I plan on flying cross country this Thursday, but the weather man is saying it may not happen. We'll see.

lesson 19

You'll need google earth to view the lesson 19 flight track.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 17.9 hours

Solo/PIC Time: 10.2 hours

Landings: 100

Did you ever have one of those days?

My day started early. One of my businesses is an automated car wash. It's pretty sophisticated. Sophisticated enough to call me when something is wrong. That's just what it did at 1:30 AM. I got the message, but nobody is washing their car at that time, and I'm not getting out of bed to fix anything either. Turn the phone off, go back to bed, up at 5:00 to head to work and find out what's wrong. I guess that's why I have an engineering degree, so I can fix car washes. My wife thinks it's for changing tires and fixing toilets, but it's really for car washes. Anyway, the problem is a pesky intermittent electrical glitch that I can't solve before I have to leave for Albert Whitted. The machine works most of the time, the rest will have to wait a few hours.

I was unable to schedule my favorite plane, N54058. It was out for maintenance. At Bay Air, I inquired about the nature of the problem. They found a crack in the engine block during a 100 hour inspection. OUCH! A new Lycoming 0-320 runs about $25K. Glad that's not my bill. So I finish my flight plan and Rob shows up and approves it. I pre-flight N54666 and were off, or almost off. I'm doing the engine run-up... 1700 RPM, mag check, left down 50, right down 75, mags OK, carb heat... oops. I pulled the carb heat knob out of the dash. I don't know if the cable was broken, or if the linkage to the carburetor was broken, but we're not taking N54666. Rob heads over to maintenance while I go back to the counter to inquire about another plane.

Good news and bad news. The good new is that N9400L is available. The bad news is that it has no GPS. Well, we are working on VOR navigation today, so we won't be able to cheat with the GPS. By the way, the push to talk on the pilot's yoke doesn't work either. Rob has to make all the radio calls. Being the good instructor, he makes me tell him what to say and when.

I thought I knew all there was to know about VOR navigation. Heck, I have Microsoft Flight Simulator and have "flown" all over the county using the VOR. It works real nice in FSX, not so nice in the real world. I was surprised how high we had to climb to receive the nearby PIE VOR. Rob did not want to fool with class B airspace, so we could concentrate on the VOR. By the time we had the PIE VOR we were almost out from under the class B. We were able to pick up the PGD VOR, and I tracked it to Charlotte County. That's the airport in the pic at top. It's not my pic. I... um... borrowed it from AirNav. I sent them a picture of Albert Whitted, so I guess we're even.

Charlotte County (PGD) was a piece of work. It's an uncontrolled airport, but busier than Whitted. The CTAF was like a party line. Planes were landing and taking off from intersecting runways. We kept our eyes peeled, did a touch and go and got out of there. I'm a new pilot, but Rob was saying "These guys are nuts." Three things I definitely learned to appreciate today were the Garmin GPS, it's traffic system and air traffic control at Whitted. I tracked the PGD VOR back to Parrish, then dead reckoning to Whitted. A nice uneventful ride home.

Back at Bay Air, Rob told me I need to finish my test study guide. I'll finish it in about a week and have a review session with him, then I can schedule and take the test. I'm to plan a solo cross country to Charlotte County and Arcadia (X06). That will be the first new airport I've flown to solo, and will take care of one of the cross country requirements for my license. Next time Rob and I fly, it will be at night. We'll take care of the class B requirement at night. That should be a lot of fun.

lesson 18

You will need google earth to open the lesson 18 file.

Statistics


Dual Instruction Time: 17.9 Hours


Solo/PIC Time: 8.8 Hours


Landings: 94

Study, practice, study, practice....

My youngest son thinks his mom and I are cruel for making him prepare for his upcoming SAT. He'll really think we're cruel after he takes the test 3 or 4 times. At any rate, we're evil because we make him work practice questions 30 minutes each day. I've got news for him, I'm harder on myself. I put in at least an hour a day in preparation for my upcoming private pilot knowledge test. Having been out of school for some time, studying is not as easy as it used to be. I usually study right before bedtime, helps me get to sleep.

I took another practice flight today. I was pretty happy with the way it went and thought my maneuvers were up to standards. In hindsight, or in GPS hindsight, I did cut my turn around a point a bit close. Next time I'll make sure to finish it off properly. The landings went well. It seems to be getting easier to transition between normal/short/soft field landings. The only thing I did wrong was getting on the brakes before I dumped the flaps on one of the short field landings. The tires on the 172 were squeeling down the runway.

Thursday, Rob and I are flying to Charlotte County (PGD) and navigating by VOR. Should be fun. I have my flight plans prepared, or as prepared as they can be until I get the weather Thursday morning. I've prepared two routes, one involves Tampa's class B and Sarasota's class C airspace. I'm hoping we go that way. Guess it will depend on how Rob feels Thursday.

lesson 17

You'll need google earth to open and view the lesson 17 flight track.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 16.4 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 8.8 Hours

Landings: 92

Flying with the family

We've got a house full right now. All the kids are home from college. My son's roommate came with him, and my in laws are here for Thanksgiving. It's a little stressful. The good thing is that when I offer to take a carload of them with me, my wife has no problem with flying. Suddenly she fully supports it.

My son's room mate is an aeronautical engineering student at Georgia Tech. He works for a company that rebuilds airplane parts and he wants to fly himself one of these days. Well, we were going to the airport anyway so I called early this morning and scheduled a discovery flight for him. I got home from work and told him I had some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that you're not flying with us today. The good news is that you get to pilot an airplane today. The picture at the top is him in one of the 172 G1000s. My son rode along in the back seat and took pics and video. I think seeing the look on his face when he got out of the plane was more fun than anything else we did today.

While they were up, I preflighed good old N54058, none of that fancy G1000 stuff for me, no sir. That's me and my flying guests to the right. When Drew and John landed, it was my turn to play pilot. I took Drew and his fiance, Aubrey, up first. Aubrey is not real sure about small airplanes. The first thing she said when we got to Whitted was "Those are smaller than anything I've been in before." I was on my best piloting behavior. Fortunately, the weather was beautiful. We had very little turbulence, even over St. Petersburg. We flew out to the beach, south to Egmont Key and back to Albert Whitted. We were cleared for a straight-in approach to runway 7, but someone in the pattern extended his downwind too far and we had to circle on final before we were cleared to land. First time that has happened to me.

Next I took my daughter Sarah and her grandfather up for a spin. This time we flew south to Egmont Key, then over the bay to the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Sarah and Drew took a bunch of photos and some video. I've added to my slide show and have one of the flight videos available on the blog. Sarah also took my favorite shot, only a pilot would like this one, my turn onto final for runway 18.

The best thing to come of today was that Sarah and Aubrey gave my wife a good report. They told her I did not scare them. Now my wife says she might go flying with me. If she let her children go, I can get her in the air one day.

My gps logger was goofy. I don't know if it was in a bad spot or if the batteries were low because I forgot to charge it. No gps track this time. Next week I have some practice scheduled and cross country to Charlotte County.

How to use the VOR and how to waste $19.20.

Today I learned all about VOR navigation. Actually, I already had a pretty good idea, having read about it and having played Microsoft Flight Simulator a bit. Rob made it fairly interesting anyway. He did show me a seriously cool web site that has a VOR simulator along with other navigation and aviation tools, luizmonteiro.com. Truthfully, GPS has all but made VORs obsolete, however we still learn about it because the equipment is very common on light airplanes, it's good as a backup if the GPS fails, and the FAA will test me on the material. We also went over a truly obsolete system, the automatic direction finder and NDBs. Although none of the planes I fly has a working automatic direction finder, I still have to know how they work because I might get tested on it.

Having learned this, my mission is to plan a flight to Charlotte County (PGD). I'm to plan it two ways:
1) Track the Sarasota VOR to SRQ, then track the Punta Gorda VOR to Charlotte County.
2) Track the St. Petersburg VOR to Parrish, then track the Punta Gorda VOR to Charlotte County.
I don't know which route I prefer. Either way, we plan on requesting to transit Tampa's class B airspace. That would be new for me. Tampa handles approaches to Sarasota's class C, so that might include a little more radio work which would be good. Maybe Rob will let me fly one route on the way down, and the other on the way back.

The coolest thing about today was going over the training I still need. There's not a lot. Some solo cross country work, night flying and instrument flying. Then preparation for the practical test.

I had planned on a practice session today but the clear sky had disappeared by the time ground school was over. We still had 10 mile visibility and a ceiling of 4400 feet at Whitted, so I gave it a shot. By the time I had the plane started and tuned the ASOS, the ceiling was down to 3200 feet. I requested taxi clearance and the controller told me we had showers in the area. Air traffic control at Whitted is very helpful, so I asked him to advise me if the weather deteriorated any further. By the time I finished my run-ups, the controller told me we had showers west of the airport and moving our way. Time to call it a day. I don't need to be flying in rain showers and poor visibility. When I got to my truck, I think we were down to IFR conditions. I managed to put 2/10 of an hour on the hobbs meter to the tune of $19.20 starting and taxiing the plane.

Friday, Josh and I are taking my kids for a ride. The weather should be spectacular, and I'm really looking forward to it.

1st Solo Cross Country

I had a beautiful day for my first solo cross country flight. I got to work this morning and it was 38F with frost on the ground. Some in Florida would say that's too cold, but it's just right for me. The sky was clear and the winds calm. Perfect flying weather.

I finished my flight plan at Bay Air. I had left my E6B in the plane on my last trip, so all the math had to wait until I retrieved it. Took me about 45 minutes to get the weather, NOTAMs, calculate courses, times and fuel consumption. After Rob arrived and checked my flight plan I was good to go.

The trip north was very uneventful. The air was calm. I hit all my checkpoints within a minute of the calculated times. I remember reading that another student pilot blogger had written that flying the plane is not all that hard, it's all the stuff that comes with flying that complicates the issue. Once at altitude and with a proper flight plan, flying in good weather could not be much easier. OK, if I had an autopilot it could be easier, but even without one it's not hard. Now, if you're trying to land at an unfamiliar airport and take some pictures things can get kinda sticky. That's what happened to me.

The automated weather was out at Crystal River, but someone at the FBO there was good enough to give me wind and active runway information over the unicom frequency. I would be using runway 9, which was opposite of the way I landed Tuesday with Rob. I'm coming from the south and landing on 9, so I'm supposed to overfly the field 500 feet above pattern altitude and make a teardrop entry into the downwind, and I want to get photos of the springs, which happen to be right under the left hand pattern for 9, and I'm at an uncontrolled field which means I have to announce every turn on the CTAF. If it seems like I was trying to accomplish too much, I was.

I got a photo that was not real good (the one at top), I completely butchered my entry into the pattern and who knows what I said on the radio. Lesson learned: Take photos while cruising, NOT in the traffic pattern. I completely forgot about the teardrop, and in an effort to get my photo, my downwind leg drifted far too close to the runway. My turn to final was tight and overshot lining up on the runway. Additionally, I was too fast. The good news is that the runway at Crystal River is 4555 feet long. That's almost 1700 feet longer than 18/36 at Whitted. I touched down on the second half of the runway and had room to spare. It worked out better than it sounds. As soon as I cleared the runway, the guy on the unicom announced that we were now using runway 27. Other inbound planes were announcing themselves on the CTAF, so I spun the plane around on the taxiway, announced that I was departing 27 to the south and got out of there. Anyone who saw me had just two words to say: Student Pilot.

I'm still unhappy about not getting good photos. In my youth, I was a scuba diver and had my checkout dive at Crystal River. The river is fed by several springs, one of which is huge. The water is as clear as a swimming pool and filled with fresh and salt water fish. Diving with the manatees is a big tourist attraction now. However, the springs were literally under the traffic pattern and I was not going to try to get another photo.

The return trip was as uneventful as the trip out. Calm clear air, checkpoints on time, very little traffic to worry about. After my series of screw-ups at Crystal River, I was glad to be back at Whitted. I have VOR ground school scheduled for Tuesday and a brief practice session. The kids will be in town for Thanksgiving, so I'm going to take them up for a little sightseeing on Friday. CFI Josh will be our chaperon. I'm really looking forward to that.

lesson 16

You'll need google earth to open and view the lesson 16 file.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 15.4 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 7.3 Hours

Landings: 84

PilotMall.com Scholarship

Yesterday, after I had purchased my knee board at Pilot Mall, the young lady who waited on me mentioned that I might apply for their aviation education scholarship, if I had not finished my private pilot training. At first, I thought it was funny, that I, at 47 years of age would apply for a scholarship. But after she told me they have had only 5 applicants, I didn't think it so funny any more. They are offering one $1000 and two $500 scholarships to U.S. citizens training for a private pilot certificate. Fill out a brief application, pen a 500 word essay and that's it. I would post my essay, but one of you guys might copy it.

PilotMall.com scholarship link.

1st Cross Country Flight

Today's flight was a real learning experience. Some of the lessons were big and some were tiny little things. For example, immediately after finishing the flight, I walked around the corner from Bay Air to Pilot Mall and purchased a knee board. I had more trouble keeping my charts and flight plan organized than flying or finding my checkpoints. It's a small lesson that makes a big difference.

This was a beautiful day for flying. We cruised at 2500 feet from Albert Whitted to Crystal River (CGC). Climbing out of Whitted and Crystal River, we had some pretty strong turbulence, but once at altitude the air was smooth. I could mostly fly with my hands off of the yoke, just using the rudder to make small course corrections and making minor trim adjustments as needed.

Rob check my flight plan before we left. I had my wind correction angle wrong on the trip out. Other than that, it was good. We recorded the time at all the checkpoints and checked estimated against actual ground speed. We had more wind aloft than forecasted. Our trip north was slower, and the return trip was faster than planned. The only thing I was unhappy with was my landing at Crystal River. The north-south runway at Crystal River is grass and Rob wanted to land on the pavement. The difficulty was the 10 knot wind directly out of the north. Great. 9/27 at Crystal River is long (4555 feet) but only 75 feet wide. That 75 feet goes by pretty fast when you're drifting in a 10 knot crosswind. Rob got on the controls and put more aileron into the wind and I set her down on the left side of the runway. I would like to have taken a couple trips around the pattern and tried that again, but we headed back to Whitted.

The return trip was uneventful. After adjusting for the wind, we hit the checkpoints on schedule. Landing at Whitted, a Coast Guard Jayhawk helicopter (not my photo, borrowed from another web site) did a touch and go in front of us, so we flew through his wake/rotor wash on final. That bounced us around a bit and is the reason for the long slow turn from downwind to final, if you bother to look at the GPS track.

I'm to fly the trip to Crystal River solo next. I may practice again before I fly the solo cross country. After that, VOR navigation and a longer supervised cross county. I'm getting close to being free to fly new places on my own. Too cool. By the way, Rob and I were talking about the cross wind while we were at Crystal River, and I forgot to fly north to the springs and get photos. Next time I won't forget. The photo at top was one of my checkpoints, the inlet at the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge. That's a mouth full.

lesson 15

You'll need google earth to open and view the lesson 15 flight track.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 15.1 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 5.4 Hours

Landings: 82

Practice makes perfect?

I feel like I took a step backwards today. Saturday, my maneuvers were smooth and nice (read benign stalls). Today, different story. I don't know if it was weather or what, but my stalls were more violent than they've been for some time. The first power-on stall was downright scary. But I got back on the horse and did another that was better. I wonder if warmer, more humid weather made the stalls worse. Most likely, it's just me.

I flew the same routine as my last practice session. Out over the beach for maneuvers, then pattern work back at Whitted. The GPS track does not look so good, but I thought my steep turns were perfect. I caught my wake on both the left and right turns. I would have landed right on my selected emergency landing site. If not for those wicked stalls, I would have called it a great day. My pattern work was fair. I'm still having trouble moving from normal to short field to soft field landings. Practice will iron that out.

Tuesday starts my cross country. I hope to get some photos in route to Crystal River. My family used to spend weekends there when I was a teenager. I'm hoping Rob will let me fly low over the springs and get some good shots. We'll see.

lesson 14

You'll need google earth to open the lesson 14 flight file.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 13.0 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 5.4 Hours

Landings: 80

More ground school

Three hours of ground school today left me with a headache and sore eyes. Man, the numbers on those charts are tough for an old guy, especially if the "class room" is not extremely well lit. That's behind me, so I can start some cross country work.

Rob and I went over flight planning using navigation by dead reckoning. "Dead reckoning is navigation solely by means of computations based on time, airspeed, distance and direction." Yea, that's from the book. You can see why it puts me to sleep. We also went over some more weather, or how and where to get weather information. Now I can plan a short trip. And that's my job. I've got to prepare a flight plan to and from Crystal River (CGC). Next week we get to fly there. The airport at Crystal River has one paved and one grass runway. I'm hoping the wind is out of the north so we can land on the grass.

I'm going to practice a bit more on Thursday. Cross country next week. I'm sure I'll get in some more ground school before taking longer flights and learn about the other navigational methods available to me. It's funny to use dead reckoning in a plane equipped with a state of the art GPS system. But, them's the rules.

Practice, practice, practice

My wife is out of town this weekend. Our daughter has an event at college, and Alice wanted to attend. So, can I find something to do with myself? Yep, I'll go flying, and what a beautiful day it was. I took off a little after 8:00 with no sign of clouds in the sky, calm winds, cool temperatures and great visibility. Typical November day in Florida.

I set out to practice all my practical test maneuvers and all the landing/take off procedures. I accomplished nearly all, with varying degrees of success. The maneuvers went very well. I caught my own wake in the steep turn to the right. Transitioned to slow flight while keeping my heading and altitude. Rode the ragged edge of the stall for a minute and went back to normal cruise. I know I'm getting more comfortable in the plane by myself. I did the dreaded power-on stall without Rob. Kept my heading, recovered and had no problems. The only minor problem was that I would have over shot my landing site when I practiced an emergency landing. I'll have to do a few more of those to better judge my glide path. The winds were so light, there was little point in practicing turns around a point.

I headed back to Whitted. My landings were good, but not great. Actually, I was very happy with the way I handled my most serious error. Coming back from the beach, I must not have been paying attention. I found my self too high and way too fast on final. I immediately decided to go around. I had worried that I tend to fixate on the landing, and have not actually needed to go around to this point. When the need arouse, I did the right thing. I practiced all my landing and take off techniques. The biggest problem I'm having is switching gears from one technique to another. I'll have to do all of them when my check ride comes, so I'll just keep working on it.

Alice took the good camera with her, so the shot at the top is from my cell phone. There are a lot of interesting aircraft at Whitted on the weekends, and I'll get some photos my next opportunity. A WWII vintage Stearman biplane was taxiing out as I was doing my pre-flite, and a Waco cabin biplane was doing sightseeing tours. Both are beautiful airplanes.

lesson 13

You'll need google earth to open and view the lesson 13 file. While not really a lesson, I'll keep the files sequential to avoid confusing myself.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 13 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 4.1 Hours

Landing: 74

Short shorts

I know the picture at the top of this post is a bit confusing, but bear with me. I'm trying to give you an idea of what I was looking at today.

Had another lesson. I brought Rob up to speed on what Josh and I had done last time. No need to go to Manatee again. We briefly went over short field takeoff and landing procedures before taking off for some pattern work.

Short field landings are similar to to normal landings. You're just moving slower, and on final approach, you are descending much more rapidly. It was not hard once I had done it a few times. The only problem is that things look different. The angles are different. Here is were the photo at the top comes in. At Whitted, Tampa Bay is just off of both ends of runway 18/36. Landing on 36, there is a seawall, a few feet of grass, and the runway. When landing at a steep angle, like on a short field approach, it sure looks like you're gonna hit that seawall. It took a few laps around the pattern to convince me that I could clear it.

I did 5 or 6 short field landings and takeoffs, and practiced the soft field technique a few times. All in all, my landings were good. The only one I was unhappy with was my first soft field approach. I don't think my brain had shifted gears between the short field technique and the soft field technique. I ended up bouncing through some goofy hybrid landing and was crooked in the crosswind to boot. Rob told me not to be too hard on myself. He thought all my landings were up to practical test standards. OK, I feel better.

Soon, the fun begins. We get to start our cross country work. I've scheduled a 3 hour ground school session for my next lesson, and I have a pile of reading to do. I'm really looking forward to cross country. I like going other places.

lesson 12

You'll need google earth to open and view the lesson 12 file.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 13 Hours

Solo/PIC Time: 2.8 Hours

Landings: 68

Dude, that's some sweet grass

I had two "first" today. I made my first landing away from good old Albert Whitted, and I made my first landing on grass, all with a different instructor. In the process, I had more fun than I've had in a long time. Other pilots have told me they prefer grass fields. Now I can see why. Grass is a bit more forgiving than asphalt. It requires you to do more of the "pilot" stuff, but it's a lot of fun.

I got a call from Bay Air yesterday. I knew that Rob was buying a house. He finally closed and was trying to get moved. So, I could cancel today's lesson, fly another solo trip, or schedule another instructor. Quickly thinking to myself, I thought one day I would have someone other than Rob in the plane, certainly the FAA inspector for my medical flight test and the examiner for my checkride. So might as well try someone new. Today it was CFI Josh. We talked for a couple minutes about where I was in my training and what Rob had planned next. We went to the "classroom" and went over radio procedures for uncontrolled fields and technique for soft field landing. I was up to speed with the radio, but the soft field procedures seemed daunting.

I've gotten ahead of myself. When I got to Bay Air, Josh was still up with another student. A group of guys were taking discovery flights. They were excited that they got to fly the airplane and such. Sound sort of familiar? Anyhow, they were asking about lessons, costs, scheduling all things that they needed to know. I'm minding my business, just standing around waiting for Josh, until they find out that I'm a student pilot. Guess who got to be the aviation expert for a few minutes? It was fun talking to someone who sounded just like me a few months ago. Josh showed up and put a quick end to my celebrity status.

The soft field technique is a lot of fun. You try to do a wheelie down the runway in a effort to keep the nose wheel off the ground. Once airborne, you level off quickly, remaining in ground effect until you gain airspeed, then you can begin a normal climb. It may sound like a lot, but it makes sense once you do it and is easier than it sounds. Landing is similar, you try to keep the nose wheel off the ground as much as possible. We made four landings at Airport Manatee (48X, photo at top) before heading back to Whitted. The last landing was a touch and go. Josh never demonstrated anything. He explained and expected me to do it. I prefer that. I learn faster if I do it myself.

To pilots this may sound strange, but I was happy to have a decent crosswind at Airport Manatee and have a chance to practice my crosswind landings. So far, I've not had much trouble with crosswinds. I understand the technique, but I don't think about it. I just fly the plane and it works out. Not thinking about it makes me think that I didn't do anything, but today we had a 10 knot wind 50 degrees off the runway. My books shows that as a 7 knot crosswind. That's the limit Rob signed off on for me, and good enough for now.

We were going to work on short field technique back at Whitted, but the place was so busy that we did one touch and go and called it a day. At one point we were number 5 to land. Josh laughed and said that never happens at Whitted. All in all, a great day.

lesson 11 file

Remember, you'll need google earth on your computer to open the flight file.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 12 hours

Solo/PIC Time: 2.8 hours

Landings: 60

Medical Flight Test Update part 2

A little background for anyone who may not have read some of the oldest posts in this blog. I have an vision condition called amblyopia, more commonly known as lazy eye. I've had to jump through a few hoops due to this, but the end is in sight. I hope.

I received a letter from the FAA today instructing me to call the Tampa office of the FAA and schedule a time for my medical flight test. I spoke to one of the inspectors in Tampa, who was a very nice and helpful gentleman. He told me what the test involves. Basically, one of the inspectors will drive to Albert Whitted and we will take a ride. I will have to perform normal pilot functions like selecting an emergency landing site, spotting air traffic, reading a chart and landing the plane. Nothing that I haven't already done.

I tried to go ahead and schedule but the inspector balked when he found I had limited time in the plane. I don't think he wanted to ride with a freshly soloed student pilot. He suggested that I wait until I have 20 hours or so in the plane. That won't be long.

Tour de Coast

I had planned on flying yesterday. Woke up at 5:00 and called Whitted's ASOS. Winds were 18 knots gusting to 24. I promptly logged into the flight schedule and cancelled my reservation. I'm restricted to 17 knot maximum winds for solo flight. Just for grins, I called back at 9:00 when I was scheduled, the winds were 20 knots gusting to 30. I rescheduled for today and had a beautiful flight.

You might call it the lighthouse tour. I flew from Whitted north to the Anclote lighthouse. Anclote Key is the northern most of the barrier islands on Florida's west coast. North of Anclote the coast changes from beach to saw grass. In the middle of the top photo is the Anclote lighthouse. Look hard, because it's a rusty steel structure and does not show up very well when you're flying 1000 feet above it. It s no longer in use, but preservationists keep it from falling apart.

I took as many photos as I could manage. I had a real camera with me today. However, I had to fly while I was snapping pictures, and shoot through the window of the plane, so they're not perfect. To the left is the Egmont lighthouse. It looks a bit more like a traditional lighthouse. The water is not as blue as it should be this time of year. We have had high winds the last couple of days, and that has muddied the coastal waters.

I added a slide show of the pictures I took in flight. I'll keep adding to it as I travel to new places. If you click on the slide show, you should get a larger version. I've mastered one more tiny piece of technology. If you open the GPS file of today's flight, (which I forgot to turn on until I was over the beach) the track will be colorized and extruded from the ground to give you an idea of my altitude. Looks better too. Thanks to gpsvisualizer.com for the help with that.

Today's flight was fairly uneventful. However, for the first time, I did get to use runway 18/36 at Whitted for takeoff. I had planned on practicing my flight maneuvers and taking a couple laps around the pattern, but coffee and cold weather is a bad combination for Tony. My bladder was telling me it was time to land. I called the tower and the controller asked me which runway I wanted to use! He told me he had one reading on his wind indicator but the windsock on the field was pointed a different direction. I requested runway 36, having never landed on that one and wanting to try it. Moments later he was back on the radio telling me to land on runway 7.

The weird thing for me is believing someone would actually rent me a plane to fly around in. I know I'm doing it, but somehow it just doesn't seem real. The next weird thing is that I'm actually doing it. Taking off, flying, landing, all by myself without hurting myself or anyone else, or damaging the plane. Too cool.

lesson 10 file

You'll need google earth to open the flight file. I called this lesson 10 even though it's not really a lesson. Helps keep me organized.

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 11 hours

Pilot in Command: 2.8 hours

Landings: 51

Free at last

Well, not really free, just sort of free or free with limits, but free to fly alone within the local area, and today I did.

Bay Air uses an online scheduling service called Flight Schedule Pro. Last night, I received an email from Flight Schedule Pro letting me know that my reservation for today had been revised. Rob had scheduled me for an additional hour in the plane. OK, but what's up with that. Nothing like a little mystery to pique my interest.

So, we have a bit of ground school that we had planned. We reviewed airspace in the St. Petersburg area. Rob does not want me flying into Tampa's Class B airspace and getting him into trouble. Apparently, if a student pilot does something like that, it's the instructor who suffers the consequences. Then we went over some weather information. Specifically, how to get and make sense of routine aviation weather reports or METARSs. Bay Air subscribes to an online weather service for pilots and this information is available in the lobby, but anyone with Internet service can access aviation weather reports from the National Weather Service. We looked at some local weather reports as they related to my ability to fly on a given day or not. Rob increased my maximum permissible wind to 17 knots, but it will be nice to know if I am able to fly before I drive to the airport. He also gave me the telephone number for Whitted's ASOS so I can check the weather without a computer.

Ground school complete and I head out to make sure N54058 is ready to go. Rob hops in the plane, we take off and head west for the beach. There is a lot of traffic at Whitted today. Whitted is only a mile or two from Tropicana Field, where game one of the World Series will be played tonight. Rob says that a lot of people will be flying into Whitted to see the game. I guess that explains some of the traffic. Once over the water, I practice slow flight, stalls and the emergency landing procedure. Rob then slides his seat back, tells me to get back to the airport and turns his microphone off.

No problem. I've done this before. I spot the Don Cesar and turn for it. Once over the Don:

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 over the Don, inbound touch and go."

I did two touch and goes and a power off landing on runway 7. The wind was at 15 knots, gusting and shifting a bit. On one approach, I looked at the windsock at the end of runway seven. Once second it would be 20 degrees left of the runway, the next it would be down the runway. It make landing interesting. I would set up for a slip and find myself drifting left. Next trip I would line up straight and have the crosswind pushing me right. I gave up thinking about it and just flew the plane, that worked better. After the power off landing, Rob got out of the plane and told me to go have fun. Cool, with an airplane to myself, I think I can do that.

I stayed in the pattern and made two full stop landings before deciding to go to the beach.

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 at Bay Air ready to taxi for westbound departure."

"Cessna 54058, wind 070 at 15, taxi to runway 7."

I taxi to the runway and hold, get takeoff clearance and I'm off. The plane performs better than ever. With a 15 knot headwind and Rob out of the plane, I'm climbing like a rocket. Usually, headed to the beach from Whitted, I would climb east bound, turn north around the pier while still climbing and then turn west, still climbing. Today, I had to level off as I was turning north around the pier to avoid climbing into Tampa's airspace.

Once over the beach, I flew south to Egmont Key. I circled the lighthouse and took the photo at the top of this post. All I had was my cell phone, so don't be too critical. I didn't expect to be doing this today, so I did not bring a real camera. Next time, I'll be prepared. Then I flew to the south end of Egmont and got this photo of what is left of the old fort.

It may not look like much now, but this was an artillery battery built during the Spanish-American war to guard the entrance to Tampa Bay. In historical perspective, a Spanish invasion of Florida was unlikely. I figure that politics has never changed, and Florida just had a good congressional delegation that knew how to bring home the pork.

Alter flying over Egmont, I climbed to 2000 feet and transitioned to slow flight. It was a little unnerving hearing the stall warning without Rob in the plane, so I resumed normal flight. I could not bring myself to attempt a stall without Rob, but I did practice setting up an emergency landing. Next time, I've promised myself to practice the stalls.

My time was starting to run short, so I headed for the Don. Once over the Don:

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 over the Don, inbound to land."

Nothing.

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 over the Don, inbound to land."

Again nothing. We had radio problems earlier in the day. At times, I could barely hear ATC. Other pilots were having the same problem, evidenced by their request to have instructions repeated. But this was silence. I adjusted the volume on the Garmin 430 and was considering turning back toward the beach until I had radio contact when I heard:

"Cessna 54058, how do you read?"

"Loud and clear, 54058."

"Cessna 54058, make straight in runway 7 winds 060 at 15."

I was relieved to hear the tower. I know the procedure for loss of radio communications, but I didn't want to do it today, not with all the traffic inbound to Whitted due to the World Series. My landing was uneventful, even with the gusty variable winds. I taxied back to Bay Air and could not find a parking spot. They weren't kidding about people flying in to the World Series. Steve at the desk told me not to worry about parking, the flight line guys would move the plane.

Rob wants me to fly a couple more times by myself before we get together again. Fine with me. Next time I plan on flying north to the Anclote Lighthouse, then south to Egmont again. Anclote is a little more than 25 miles, but Rob says it's OK. I'll have a real camera and hope to get some good photos. After that, I plan on heading east. In a previous life, I grew oranges for a living. I had an orange grove near a little town called Wiamauma. I want to have a look at it. When Rob and I get together next, we'll start working on soft and short field takeoffs and landings. Should be fun, I want to land on grass.

Once again, you can take a look at where I've flown by opening the lesson 9 file. You will need to have google earth installed in order to open the file. I'm trying to use a site called GPSVisualizer to add altitude perspective to these files, if I can figure it out.

lesson 9 file

Statistics

Dual Instruction Time: 11.0 hours

Pilot In Command: 1.5 hours

Landings: 50

Slide show from Alaska

I've been meaning to do this for some time, but I finally added a slide show from our Alaska vacation this summer. You will find photos from all of the places we went, and some good shots of the Juneau ice fields we flew over. If you click on the slide show, you should get a larger version.

By the way, I got within about 15 feet of the bear in the photos. He was a tame wild bear that frequented the lodge we visited.

I'll add a St. Pete/Tampa Bay slide show when I get some good pictures of the area where I've been flying.

1st Solo!!!

I'm feeling like the king of the world! I got to fly an airplane all by myself today. No one else was in it! I had to take off, handle the radio, watch out for traffic, manage my speed, altitude and pitch, and land the plane. Three times! If you're getting the idea that I enjoyed myself, you would be correct. I loved it!

I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning. I stayed up kinda late last night, hoping to see the Rays clinch the American League championship. Fortunately, I went to bed before the wheels really fell off. So, I'm sort of tired this morning and not in the best of moods. I get to work and rush through my "to do" list before I head off for Albert Whitted. Driving to the airport, across Tampa Bay, I notice that the weather is perfect. A slight breeze out of the east north east. This might be the day. I start to get excited.

Rob got to the airport before I did, so he has some coffee while I preflight the airplane. We're in N54058 today, my favorite of the older Cessnas at Bay Air. We hop in the plane and wait as a tour group of school kids walks past. It's probably a bad idea to start an airplane engine with kids on the ground nearby. The kids watch me startup and finish my preflight checks. Ground clears us to taxi and tower clears us for takeoff.

Rob has me run a couple laps around the pattern while he is endorsing my log book and student pilot certificate. I'm legal for solo flight now within 25 nm of Albert Whitted, with a 3000 foot ceiling restriction, a 12 knot wind restriction, a 7 knot cross-wind restriction and 5 mile visibility restriction. Cool. No problems with the pattern. I seem to have cured my flare problem with the simplest of fixes. I raised the seat in the airplane. Now I can see over the dash and keep the runway in sight while in the landing flare. I make two beautiful landings.

Rob says we need to practice two things before I can solo. Slips and go-arounds. I've already used a forward slip to land in a crosswind, so the side slip is no big deal. He has me climb too high on the downwind leg of the pattern and perform a side slip on final approach to get rid of the excess altitude. I land and we go around to practice the go-around. This is the simplest of all maneuvers. I'm guessing the problem with a go-around is with making the decision when to go around. One more trip around the pattern and Rob has me make a simulated emergency landing and taxi back to Bay Air. Then it happens, Rob gets out of the airplane and says good luck.

"Whitted Ground, Cessna 54058 at Bay Air, ready to taxi for pattern work."

"54058, Taxi to runway seven, you're second in line after the Cessna doing his run-ups."

I had to wait a few minutes while another student did his engine run-ups. He must have been newer than me, it took him a little while. After he is out of the way, I switch the radio to tower frequency:

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54058 at runway 7, ready to go."

"Cessna 54058, hold for Cessna on final."

I have to wait again.

"Cessna 54058, cleared for departure, right hand pattern."

"Cleared for departure, right hand pattern, 54058"

I'm ready for business now. I taxi onto the runway, line up down the runway, give the plane full power and something is wrong. I've got about 40 knots of airspeed and the nose is coming off the runway. Think fast. Crap, I trimmed for best glide on that simulated emergency and never set the trim back to neutral. So I hold the nose down until I get 55 knots, rotate and I'm up. Now I trim for my 76 knot climb and all is well, except for the stain in my shorts. I ran through the after landing and takeoff check lists on the ground, but neutral elevator trim is in the preflight checklist. I won't make that mistake again. It was too exciting for my first solo trip. Later, Rob said he should have caught it before he let me go, and told me that it's a good idea to visually check the entire panel before you take off.

"Cessna 54058, cleared for the option."

"Cleared for the option, I'll be making a full stop. 54058"

My first trip around the pattern was the easiest, after the takeoff excitement. The airport was getting busier. Other students were in the pattern and other flights were inbound. When I taxied back to runway 7 for my second trip, three planes were waiting to take off. On my third trip, I had to extend my downwind a bit as I was third in line to land.


That's me with the stupid grin on my face. But, what a day. It just does not get much better. I logged my first PIC (Pilot in Command) time! Good thing that I wore a ratty T-shirt, because the back side of it is now on the bulletin board at Bay Air. I'll have a photo of that next time. Rob says that next we're going to head out to the beach (life is rough when you live in a place where you have to go to the beach to get something done) and practice stalls and such for a few minutes. He then wants me to run the landing approach from the beach to be sure that I can get myself home. After that, he will have me solo again. Then I'm to fly a few hours on my own, within 25 miles of the airport as noted earlier. I'm really looking forward to it.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 9.9 hours

Pilot in Command Time: 0.5 hours

Landings: 43

Look familiar?

I think I'm finally getting a good feel for the landing flare. As you can see on the picture to the left, we went around and around the traffic pattern again today. I won't bore you with the details of every trip, but today's lesson went very well and I was pleased with my performance. I did not solo today. I've been a little apprehensive about that, mostly due to my poor landings, but today I feel very confident and ready to solo.

The wind was blowing at 15 knots down the runway. This was the biggest factor that kept Rob from letting me solo. I'm flying again Friday, and Rob says he will endorse my log book for solo flight, with a few restrictions. I really hope to solo Friday.

Changing wind conditions are good in a way. The first trip around the pattern, I landed with 30 degrees of flaps. With a 15 knot headwind, we seemed to be barely moving. Next trip, Rob had me land with 10 degrees of flaps. My airspeed was higher and the runway looked different because we were not pitched down as much, but all was well and a smooth landing resulted. Rob recorded 10 landings in my log book, but he lost count. If you check the GPS track, we went around 14 times.



I forgot to mention last lesson, but Rob had me practice a power off landing. Basically, he set the engine power to idle on the downwind leg of the pattern and had me land the plane. It was the best landing of my sad attempts last week. He did the same thing today, mostly to show me that I was extending my downwind too far. He cut the engine power to idle and told me to land. With today's strong wind, I could not make it back to the airport. Power on, and back to Whitted to land. After that lesson, I stayed closer to the field.

On one trip, the controller has us make a short approach. Another plane was inbound to land and we needed to get out of the way. Even that did not bother me. I'm getting a good handle on the airspeed/altitude/pitch and power that I need in the pattern. And, my landing flares were much better today. I know I can do this by myself.

I do have a couple of things to work on. I need to be just a little more aggressive with the elevator in the flare and during rotation. Rob says that I need to keep the nose gear off the runway more. I need to pay attention to airspeed during takeoff a little better and make sure I rotate at the correct speed. As for the flare, what bothers me is that as I flare, the nose of the airplane rises and the dash of the airplane rises above my view of the end of the runway. I guess I have been unwilling to loose sight of the end of the runway and have not pulled back enough on the elevator as a result. However, on our last trip around, I looked more toward the left side of the runway as this happened, and I think that helped. I could also try raising the seat.

Hopefully, in the next few weeks I'll be able to do some sightseeing as I fly. I have not bothered to take a camera with me, other than my cell phone, because I just don't have the time to use one. Between Rob talking to me, air traffic control in my ear, and the plane to manage, I've been busy while in the air. I'm looking forward to taking some pics of where I've been and sharing them with you.

I enjoy reading the few comments that have been left on my blog. If you have a comment, suggestion, question or criticism, please leave a comment. I have a thick skin and can take it.

lesson 7 file

You will need to have google earth installed on your computer to open and view the lesson 7 file.
Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 9.2 Hours

Landings: 36

Too many things at once...

I was looking forward to working on landings and the traffic pattern this morning, but Rob and Mother Nature had other ideas. Rob wanted to review slow flight and stalls, and Mother Nature threw us a curve ball when it came time to work on landings.

We took a different airplane today. N54159 is another 1981 Cessna 172P, but without the Garmin 430 radio/GPS system of the other planes. For what we were doing it was fine. Well, almost fine. It had a finicky alternator and the rudder trim was a little off. Some 172s have a rudder that can be trimmed from inside the cockpit. Others, like the ones we have flown, have a manual trim tab that can only be adjusted on the ground. A little right rudder was required at almost all times today. I'm going to blame some of my difficulties today on that factor. Maybe not. There's an old saying that goes: a good carpenter never quarrels with his tools. On second thought, my problems were mostly my fault.

My stalls were a little rough. It's funny how fast newly acquired skills degrade. I'll be glad when I can practice these on my own. Rob wants to make sure I'm practicing the correct procedures. We did a set of steep turns, which went pretty well, and an emergency landing procedure over Egmont Key. Again, that went pretty well. We had a little wind today, so Rob decided to demonstrate the turn around a point. Pretty simple maneuver. You simply fly a circle around a point on the ground. The complications come with windy conditions. Your speed is constantly changing as you turn, so you have to vary the bank angle as you turn. I thought I did pretty well. If you notice the big circles on the GPS track of today's lesson, Rob did the first turn and I did the next two. They all look like good circles.

Rob had me run the whole landing as we headed back toward Albert Whitted. So, I headed north for the Don Cesar.

"Whitted Tower, Cessna 54158 over the Don, inbound touch and go."

"54158, make straight in runway 7, touch and go."

"Straight in runway 7. 54158"

Rob left me alone to get the plane ready to land. Once over I275, I reduced power and trimmed for level flight, 90 kts. From here on in, I visualized where I might be it the traffic pattern at the distance from the runway where I was. Reduce power, 1700 RPM, 10 degree flaps, pitch nose down. Reduce power, 1600 RPM, 20 degree flaps. It was about at this point we noticed that the wind had picked up a bit was somewhat across the runway. The wind was pushing me left of the runway. I can correct that in flight simply by turning slightly into the wind. My course would then be down the runway, but the plane would be pointed right of the runway. So, we decided that today would be a good day to start working on crosswind landings.

I guess I've been lucky so far to have the wind coming pretty much straight down the runway. Sooner or later, the wind and my luck had to change. The crosswind was not too strong, so Rob let me finish the first landing. It was not my prettiest. As I flared for landing, I eased up on the rudder to straighten the nose of the plane and I drifted left with the crosswind. Landing on the left side of the runway rattled me and I let the plane come down too hard. Full power and we're up again for another try.

Rob demonstrated his crosswind technique this time around. He likes to crab (the plane is pointed to the right of it's direction of travel) into the wind on final and then transition to a slip (uncoordinated flight where the plane slips or skids through the air) as he flares for landing. He has a little more experience at this than I have and what worked well for him, was a handful for me. My attempt at his technique was ugly. He decided that I might just try the slip on my final approach.

The slip worked better. Rob's concern with the slip is that it is uncoordinated flight (rudder and ailerons move in opposite directions) creating more drag and losing altitude fast. In fact, a slip is a method pilots use when they are too high or fast on final approach to kill altitude or airspeed. It is also easier and more dangerous to stall in uncoordinated flight. So, more power is needed if you want to descend at the normal rate. OK, I understand the concept, but the execution is still off a bit. I tried three landings this way, each one getting better, but none good enough.

We were out of time. I felt good about today's flight, even though I did not perform as well as I hoped. I was mentally set for working on the landing flare, but adding the crosswind component got me off my game. Rob said he has seen a lot worse. If so, I'm glad I wasn't in the plane. He did say that my landings were not all that bad and next week, if I get the flare right, I should solo. There is a tradition among pilots where the back of a pilot's shirt is cut off after his/her first solo. I was told not to wear a good shirt next week.

lesson 6 file

You will need to have google earth installed on your computer to open the lesson 6 file.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 8.0 hours

Landings: 26