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