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

Around and around we go

The end of this week was interesting as far a flying goes. I drove to Albert Whitted airport yesterday (Friday) expecting to get a little flying in. Rob had planned on some ground school time before our flight. He wanted to make sure that I understood how airspace works, and he wanted to go over the traffic pattern. Albert Whitted sits under Tampa's class B airspace. East of the airport, the bottom of Tampa's airspace is only 1200 feet above sea level. To the west it is 3000 feet and climbs to 6000 feet past the beach. So, unless you want an airspace incursion (not a good thing) on your record, you need to understand how the local airspace works.

I had woken Friday morning with a slight headache. It seemed be be getting better, but by the time ground school was over, it had become nearly unbearable. I was relieved when I realized we had used up most of our time for the day and would be unable to fly. Rob scheduled a session for Saturday morning and I drove home in search of Tylenol. Friday night, I completed my presolo aeronautical knowledge test.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. I'm feeling much better and am looking forward to flying. We had some trouble starting N54666. She had been flow earlier, but did not want to start. We were considering taking a different plane when one of the other CFI's came over and said he had some trouble starting N54666 today. We were advised to lean the mixture and pump the throttle until she started. What do you know, it worked.

Rob planned on pattern work today, and that is what we did. Friday, we had gone over power settings, flap settings and speeds in the pattern. Today, I put that to use over and over.

"Whitted ground, Cessna 54666 at Bay Air, remain in the pattern, touch and go."

"54666, taxi to runway 7 and hold short."

At times it was interesting because there was another Cessna doing the same thing and other airplanes landing and taking off. It was the busiest I had seen Albert Whitted in my very short aviation career. Considering we never left the vicinity of the airport, there was plenty to look at.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of every trip around the pattern. (At this point the non pilot readers breathe a deep sigh of relief.) I will however, share some of the challenges. Rob's biggest concern is that I don't get too slow as I turn onto base and final approach. He says this is where most people get themselves hurt. I have to watch my airspeed, especially on those turns.

Final approach is interesting when landing on runway 7. We're flying over the land, so we have thermal activity. Additionally, buildings that are six or seven stories tall are near the end of the runway. On a breezy day, such as today, the buildings can make the air squirrely as you near the ground. We had all this going on today. The plane was jumping around on final approach. Now, on any other runway at Albert Whitted this would not be a problem. All the other approaches are over water where you would expect to find smooth air. This bumpy air is more of a nuisance that a big problem. It makes continuous course corrections necessary on final approach.

My last challenge is simply getting the landing technique perfected. I got better as the day went on, but I still have some work to do on my flare. I landed sort of hard a couple of times and I landed a little crooked a couple of times. Rob made some suggestions that helped. I need to increasingly apply back pressure on the yoke as we land, and I need to apply pressure to both rudder pedals and increase the right or left pressure as I need right or left rudder.

I did a few things well. I kept my speed up when turning on base and final. I lined up my approach well. If you'll look at the GPS track you will see that I was nearly down the middle of the runway every time. I managed my pitch/power and rate of descent well.

Thirteen landings and I was whipped. I've got some things to work on and some positives to be happy with. We will work on a more perfect rectangular pattern as time goes on. Rob signed my presolo knowledge endorsement and is telling me that most likely lesson after next he will get out of the plane and have me take it around by myself. I don't know if I'm excited or frightened by that.

On a curious note: If you use google earth to open the file of today's flight, you might notice that the runway number seen in google earth and the runway number in my taxi instructions don't match. A couple of years ago, runway 6 at Albert Whitted became runway 7. No, the runway was not turned. The earth's magnetic field is not uniform, nor is it constant. There is an annual drift of magnetic north to the west at about 0.1 degrees per year. This drift caused the magnetic heading of the runway to become closer to 070 than 060.

lesson 5 file

You will need to have google earth installed on your computer to open this file.

Statistics:

Dual Instruction Time: 6.4 hours

Landings: 20