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.
You will need to have google earth installed on your computer to open this file.
Statistics:
Dual Instruction Time: 6.4 hours
Landings: 20
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