Flight 11 - PAO to SQL to PAO

(note about GPS track: I only turned it on after landing at SQL so it's missing some of the track)

Flying with no CFI intercom

Patti has this pre-solo test where she unplugs her microphone so that she can't talk to you, and she can't do the radio. At first it freaks you out. All of a sudden you feel like you're in the plane by yourself and there's no one to help you. You HAVE to do all the radio calls, you have no choice. If you don't understand the control tower then you, the student pilot, have got to ask for clarification. It's quite overwhelming at first, and takes some getting used to. Plus chatting while flying is part of the fun!


Palo Alto (PAO) to San Carlos (SQL) and back

On top of the no CFI audio the next part of the challenge was flying to a different airport. I'd flown to San Carlos once before but only once. I made the mistake of being confident on the directions and I didn't fully review the map before I left. I also made the mistake of not turning on the GPS! Sometimes you learn things the hard way :)

Landing at a different airport

This time was the first time I actually landed on a different runway. My landings were not that great, I levelled too high, flared too little and dropped down onto the runway. The runway is a similar size to Palo Alto but it looks very very different. Different scenery, different markings, different surface - all confusing to a new pilot.

The other challenging thing at SQL was lots of helicopters in the pattern and a very talkative tower ATC.

Back to Palo Alto

Back 'home' at Palo Alto everything looked familiar again. Though my landing wasn't much better. I blame the fact that the airport looked different again :)

Happy flying!

Lesson Highlights: 100% radio (for part of the lesson at least), landing at a different airport

Stats: 4 landings, 1.0 hours.

Flight 10 - 2.3 hours of challenges!

I've probably written this before, but tonight seemed like most challenging lesson yet (and I thought last week was challenging!). Today we did 2.3 hours of flying, with a few new challenges including wearing the IFR visor for a while (more later), and some new landing challenges: power off with flaps, and flaps up. To fill out the rest, we did some basic VFR navigation, steep turns, power on and off stalls, go arounds, standard landings etc.

IFR "Instrument Flying Rules" - using instuments only

Just for fun Patti got me to try flying the plane wearing this. The Visor covers your eyes such that you can't see outside, but you can see the instruments and controls in the cockpit, hence why it's called Instrument flying. The experience was at first uncomfortable and challenging, you can fell the aircraft, and you can see some gauges with numbers, and from that you have to keep the plane level, turn to headings, and change altitude and speed. It went well though, I managed to keep us at 3500ft, 90knots, with a heading of 190, then we changed heading a few times.

From KPAO to California's Highway 1

We headed out to the coastal practice area, a sunny Wednesday evening presented us with the usual scenic distractions. After some clearing turns it was time to practice steep turns.









Stalls and steep turns

A few tips for steep turns:

• Use trim and aim for a hands off steep turn
• Add extra throttle to compensate for the reduced lift
• Use rudder for co-ordinated turns
• If losing height, add power or level out slightly
• If gaining height reduce power or turn steeper
• First 1/2 of turn the plane is 'settling' and may need changes in controls
• Entry is probably easier if applied quickly, turn first then pull back on elevator

Stalls:

The GPS tracks are not very accurate at this point, probably due to the lack of satellite visibility through the window when changing plane attitude. Practiced power on and power off stalls.


Some more pattern work....

This time with flaps up landing, no power, and no power flaps down.

Flight 9 - From Palo Alto to San Carlos and patterns

My first flight to another airport! Feels a little strange using the radio to call a different ATC, and it's also strange looking at at a different runway on the approach and takeoff. It was also a very windy day, ealier in the afternoon KPAO had winds from 350 degrees at 15 knots gusting to 22 knots, more about that later.

The graphic above shows the GPS track for the whole route, and is annotated with some of the notes about the radio calls I used and some of the landmarks for navigation. The basic route was to head of of PAO requesting a "Straight out departure to San Carlos". This gives PAO ATC a hint that I will need to change radio frequency as soon as possible, which they will permit me to do with "Frequency change approved". From there we follow the edge of the bay looking for the Cement works. During the journey we radio KSQL ATIS to learn about the wind and to understand the current winds and 'code' e.g. Foxtrot. Next we radio SQL and request "the option", our current location being "just departed Palo Alto". The option means we have the option to land, do a touch and go, or do a go around.

While at KSQL we did 3 loops around the pattern (go-arounds only, no actual landings). Much like KPAO it's a right hand pattern at 800 ft, crosswind turn is after the diamond water shape and after 500ft. You also pass what seems to be very close to a number of buildings including the Oracle offices. The air here was extremely bumpy, after 3 goes around the pattern I was starting to feel a little motion sick. The bumpyness in the air was partly due to the winds that day (which were extremely gusty), but also in part to do with the geography at KSQL and the buildings etc. Interestingly the crosswind here was from the left during approach and takeoff, which is the opposite of the typical wind in KPAO.

On return to KPAO we request a "Downwind departure to Palo Alto", and before arriving in KPAO air space we hope they offer us a "enter left pattern" or "enter left downwind" entry. A few more loops around the KPAO right pattern, lots more crosswind landing practice! One of the approaches had the windsocks showing we had a 90 degree crosswind which may have been as high as 16 knots. We were at the limit of crosswind correction and decided to do a go around. The other two landings went ok, still lots of crosswind to learn practice in.

Crosswind "slip"

I finally felt like I understood how do a crosswind slip. This is where you have a lot of pressure on one rudder to keep the nose straight, then use aileron as necessary to steer and level the plane. For a strong crosswind from the right, this would mean pushing all the way down on the left rudder pedal, and using some right aileron to keep level/straight (crossed controls).

Lesson highlights: Approach and travel to a new airport, go-arounds, crosswind 20-90 degrees at 18 knots, lots of radio practice and slips. 1.1. Hours hobbs, 3 landings.

Flight 8 - Saturday pattern work, 4 landings, GPS track

The GPS track overlayed on top of Google Earth above says it all :) 4 times around the pattern, and lots of Saturday morning traffic made for an interesting hour of flying. Nearly every pattern was different due to instructions from ATC to extend the pattern one way or another. Two patterns were following another Cessna which was doing the same thing (see the middle two patterns which look the same).

Another pattern involved extending out to the Dumbarton bridge, "Crosswind at Dumbarton" wasn't a weather warning but in fact an instruction to make the turn onto the crosswind leg when we reached Dumbarton. Looks like I might have turned a little early as the next instruction was a "360 degree left turn" so that we could spend longer on the downwind leg as ATC made some space for other planes. This same pattern extended all the way out to Moffit Field, the NASA air base which has lots of interesting things to look at from the air.

Weather is still hazy (from the smoke), and this morning the sky was overcast first thing, clearing out later in the day. With the overcast sky the best thing to do was to have an extended ground lesson then some pattern work.

Final approach was tricky as there was a good crosswind component today; this required a good slip correction with crossed controls (right aileron, left rudder). This is much trickier than it sounds! With the extended patterns the descent is delayed until you get closer to the runway. You can see from the diagram on the right that each of the 4 landing approaches looked pretty similar, though the starts were different based on the pattern that was flown.

Flight stats: 1 hour hobb, 4 landings (1 touch and go), lots of traffic!

Flight 7 - Emergency Landing Procedures

Livermore practice area

For my first time, we turned east out of the airport and headed over the hills to the Livermore practice area where we have large sparsely populated areas ideal for practicing the steps required to execute an emergency landing (without actually landing of course).

The air route and air space was not as complicated as it looks (see skyvector.com map here). Basically we took off from KPAO, turn right after passing the Dumbarton bridge, flew parallel with it until reaching the other side of the bay, headed towards Coyote Hills, then headed for the low pass over Sunol. Regarding SFO air space we need to keep below 2500 until Coyote hills, then keep below 4000ft until the hills, then 6000ft to Pleasanton etc.

Over at the practice area there were plenty of empty fields, straight dirt roads (for pretend emergency runways), and a nice tree in a field to practice turning about a point.

What could go wrong with the plane systems?

• No fuel? - check valves and gauges, re-start if possible (either from windmilling or electric starter)
• Faulty magneto - backup should work but at reduced power, use ignition switch to test and prove magneto is the problem
• Electrical power - no issue, magnetos will keep engine running but avionics may not work
  
• Air intake blockage - drop or loss of power, use alternate (carb heat)
• Fuel mix too rich (e.g. high temp or altitude) - fuel may foul the spark plugs and performance would be reduced, solution is to lean the mix [SIDE NOTE: mix should be learned for hot weather and altitude, wind back until engine sputters then wind in 2 turns]
  
• Fuel mix too lean (e.g. coming from altitude to sea level) - engine will sputter, use mix to richen up
• Carb frosting (e.g. running engine slow too long without carb heat) - may reduce or stop air flow, fix with carb heat (if not completely blocked), note melting ice will put water into the engine which will reduce performance momentarily

Emergency Landing! (only pretending of course)

The four important steps:

1. Maximize Opportunities: set for best glide (60 knots), trim, pick landing area (should be pre-determined)
2. Troubleshoot: see above, use flow check: Fuel, Mix, Throttle, Carb Heat, Mags, Master, Prime
3. Communicate: Transponder SQUAWK on 7700, Radio (121.50 or current) Mayday, Mayday, Mayday, Cessna xxxxx over (location), Engine Failure, 2 on board.
4. Shut down: Concentrate on the landing, turn off systems as appropriate, leave master on until flaps are all the way down. Note everything should be turned off for the final landing to reduce risk of fire and ignition.
   

Descent for emergency landing:

Generally this should be a glide over a small area, i.e. the chosen landing spot should be close by, and should be circled as appropriate until the key position is reached and the final approach is made. Banking angle should be chosen based on amount of height that needs to be lost, e.g. 45 degrees would lose the least, approx 500ft/circle, and 15 degrees would lose approx 1000ft/circle. In all cases the descent would be at 60 knots, and the flaps would only be lowered on final approach.

Other things from this lesson:

• Turn to heading (box formation, 90 degrees each turn)
• Turn around a point (e.g. a tree) left and right sides

.... more to come.

Flight 6 - Stalls, Emergecy descents, Engine fires and more

Yet another busy lesson, this time we focussed on trying stalls for the first time, and also practiced some other manouvers (slow flying and steep turns). It was also only the second time we managed to fly all the way out to the coast line (better visibility and no issues with sea fog).

Power off stall

The aim was to put the plane into an engine idle, 60 kts glide, then gently pull up until the plane stalls. At the point of stalling the controls become sloppy, and the stall horn sounds. This is always recovered by pushing the nose down and putting the throttle to maximum (removing carb heat). The important thing about putting the nose down is to allow the plane to quickly recover by allowing the airflow to move correctly over the wings, increase air speed and allow the controls to return to their normal function. One thing to note is that you shouldn't point the nose too far down, just enough that the airspeed will increase at a reasonable rate.

The point of this test is to experiment with what might happen if you stalled during a landing approach. It may seem uncomfortable, but the recovery would be to pitch the plane back down to towards the ground slightly before increasing power to allow the wings to regain lift.

• Notes: Power off stall [carb heat on, power off, flaps down, glide at 60 as though landing, then pull back to stall, recover from stall with full power, reduce flaps one at a time]
• Stall can also be experimented as part of a slight turn [10 degrees], plane tends to want to level
  

Power on stall

Power-on stall is entered from a slow flight configuration (see flight 2). Sequence is to drop to idle, carb heat on, no flaps, pitch up, then increase power and pitch simultaneously until the stall. Again recovery is to pitch down, and full throttle.

• Notes: Power on stall [carb heat, power off, no flaps, ease power up and pitch at same time until stall]

Emergency Descent

In case of an urgent need to lose height, the best way is a steep turn with engine idle and flaps down until close enough to a convenient landing location.

• Emergency descent 'dirty?', [carb heat, power idle, flaps down, 45 degree turn and fall keeping at 80kts, height is lost very quickly]

Engine fire

The emergency procedure if the engine is on fire would be to turn off fuel to the fire and gain air speed to try and put the fire out, in other words point down at a steep descent and aim for 120 kts.

• Engine on fire - turn off fuel, turn off mags and electrics [practice: carb heat, power idle, flaps up, point down and approach 120kts to put fire out]

Other things practiced on this lesson

• Ascent/Descent
• Steep turns (trying to end up on original heading)
  
• Slow flying (keeping within +/- 100ft) [carb heat, power idle, flaps down, power up]
• GPS - to KPAO: select location, airports, nearest, PAO
• Return to KPAO: "PA Tower this is Cessna xxxxx, Over SLAC, Request landing with 'Foxtrot'
  
• Descent to airport, aim for 2000ft by Standford tower (under 2500 limit for SFO), 1500ft at IKEA, and 1000ft into left pattern

Take off and Landing

See pictures to the right.

The views!

Lots of impressive coastal views along highway 1 just north of Santa Cruz. Blue seas, beaches, hills and the like. This is why I'm learning to fly :)

Lessons covered: 8 (stalls)

Next lesson: Depends on weather.