Learning to Fly
February 15, 2010 -
Jen's first solo!
October 25, 2009 -
Broadening my horizons
October 4, 2009 - And
then there were two...
September 15, 2009 -
On
instruments...
March 28, 2009 -
Leave the plane behind...
March 21,
2009 - Finally! A new Private Pilot
March 20, 2009 - The anticipation is killing me
November 3, 2008 - The
Cross-Country Flights
July 17, 2008 - First
Solo!
June 17, 2008 - Making progress
May 14, 2008 - First 3
lessons
April 25, 2008 -
Getting Started
February 15, 2010 - Jen's first solo!
Today was a huge day - Jen had her first solo flight! She had
been ready for almost 2 months, but the FAA and winter weather put
delays into the process. Still, she soloed in less time, and
fewer landings, than I did, and I think her first touch-and-go's were
smoother than mine. Congratulations Jen! Here's some action
photos:
A status update for me: Still flying a few times a month, building up
the 50 hours of cross-country time necessary for the instrument
rating. Only about 5 more hours to go! We did a flight this
past weekend to Alton Bay,
NH (B18) to land on the seaplane's base winter ice runway but were
turned away due to weather. We'll try again soon.
October 25, 2009 - Broadening my horizons
Last week I had a business trip to Boulder, Colorado, and on some
previous visits to the area I noted some companies which offer flight
training in some other kinds of aircraft, so I decided to try something
new and take a couple
of demo flights while I was there: glider and helicopter!
I started the day at Boulder
Municipal Airport (BDU), at Mile High Gliding, where I
got
there early and watched some others being towed up and returning
unpowered. After a while I met Brian and he gave me an
introduction to the glider I'd fly, the Schweizer
SGS 2-33A. It's a two-seater with one set of instruments, but
two sets of controls. Hanging off the pitot tube in front of you
is a length of string, which you watch to adjust the rudder controls to
stay coordinated. Low tech, but highly effective.
Here's some pictures of the plane, being set up on a small parallel
runway that's just used for gliders (it's only 20 feet wide). On the
bottom in front of the wheel is a steel plate which you nose over on as
you slow down. There's a wheel brake too, but I think the plate does
most of the work.
Being towed by a Piper PA-25. See the string?
Landing - you only get one chance.
Here's the tow plane coming in for a landing, with the tow line
trailing behind. He usually landed on the grass between the main
runway and the little glider runway.
The glider was a lot of fun. I got towed up to 9500', or about
4000' above the runway, and then just got the feel for it, did some
stalls (it's really hard to stall), steep turns, and just got the feel
of trying to stay up as long as possible. It wasn't a day with great
thermals so it was hard to gain altitude. But we'd land and get
towed back up to do it some more. It's not enormously practical,
but it is real flying, and precision counts, especially during the
landing. It's relatively inexpensive, and you don't need a
medical certificate to do it. I can see getting a rating in that
someday.
After that I drove down to Rocky
Mountain Metropolitan Airport (BJC), also known as "Jeffco", and
met up with Nathan at Colorado
Heli-Ops, to
fly a Robinson
R44 helicopter.
The R44 was luxurious and felt like a BMW. We got settled in and
started the preflight. I was surprised when he started the engine that
it sounded like a big snowblower, and that the blades didn't start
turning at first. After the engine warmed up, we then adjusted
the throttle, which is at the end of a stick on your left on the floor,
to get the RPM's synchronized and up to a certain rated
percentage. After that the engine governor took control and the
big blade (and I assume the rear blade) started to slowly turn.
As it spun slowly you could feel the aircraft swaying in response to
that big force in motion, but as it got faster that became less notable.
We then
The cockpit - looks a little different than an airplane. The flight
controls are different - the collective pitch control is the stick
on the floor on your left, with the throttle on the end. That
adjusts the pitch of the blades collectively, or all together, and
makes you climb or descend. The cyclic adjusts the angle of the
rotor disk, which can be forward/back, or left/right. In this
picture you can see the cyclic stick in front of you, which is really
sensitive. It took very little pressure to make the helicopter
move in the desired direction. On the floor are the anti-torque
pedals which serve a similar purpose to rudder pedals in an airplane.
We took a short flight where we got off the ground, taxied to the
runway and were given clearance to takeoff, then headed north for about
10 minutes, and then turned around and were cleared over all the
buildings around the airport to do a steep descent to the company's
landing pad. It was weird being only about 20 feet above the
buildings without a runway in front of you.
Opinion? It was also a lot of fun, but a lot more expensive to
fly than a glider or even a regular fixed-wing airplane. I can
see doing this someday too.
And a status update on the instrument rating? Still need about 10
hours of instrument, and about 16 hours of cross-country
pilot-in-command (PIC) time. Just need to bore some holes in the
sky and burn some avgas to build the time. Leaf peeping?
October 4, 2009 - And then there were two...
Jen and I have been enjoying the flexibility flying gives us, as long
as the weather cooperates. A long slog to Lake George was made
easy by flying to Glens Falls airport - it cut 3 hours off the trip
each way. We even got to fly past a flight of balloons on the way
back!
On these longer flights, it's nice to have a second person be able to
help hold the plane straight and level, follow a heading, change
altitude, or change frequencies, leaving me to set up the navigation
equipment to stay on course. We thought it would be good for Jen
to get a few hours of flight training herself to feel confident in
those basic skills.
So today she took her first flying lesson with Dennis, my CFII.
She went way
beyond what I did on my first lesson, moving rapidly from the initial
fright of this unusual activity, and showing amazing innate skillz,
going on to steep turns, stalls, and a little formation flying...
I got to enjoy it from the back seat and take some pictures.
What's this foretell? Another pilot in the making? Stay
tuned.
September
15,
2009 - On instruments...
It's been a while since I updated the blog, but it's not for lack of
activity. Since I was licensed I've been working toward the
instrument rating, and have about another 10 hours of required time
toward it (need a minimum of 40). It's lots of fun, and I'm
seemingly pretty good at it. I guess those years of playing
Flight Simulator (RIP) weren't a waste.
Since I didn't take a lot of time flying friends and family around
before continuing on with instrument training, I am a ways away from
the 50 hours of required cross-country time. Because of that, a
lot of the training time has been spent traveling to other locations in
the IFR system to double-up on the hours - getting instrument and
cross-country time in the same trip. So we've been to a variety
of area airports, including Meriden
(MMK), Bradley (BDL),
Barnes (BAF), Westerly RI (WST), Orange County (MGJ), Block Island (BID), Willimantic (IJD), Chester (SNC), Groton (GON), and Glens Falls (GFL).
During much of this time, I've been flying a Piper
Arrow, which is a
complex aircraft, meaning it has flaps, variable pitch propeller and
retractable gear. There's an extra lever on the instrument panel
for the propeller pitch. I've flown it enough to earn my complex
endorsement, one of hopefully many additional future endorsements and
ratings.
Here's a pic of the panel of the Arrow, and me with my foggles, on
approach to Block Island:
There's been other fun in the Instrument curriculum, like flying
"partial panel", without your two main instruments- in this picture
they've been covered up with sticky notes. You have to fly a
non-precision approach without your two main instruments as one of the
tasks of the checkride. This went pretty well.
And last week I had a new experience - flying solo through the New York
City airspace at night. An opportunity came up to fly down to Wildwood, NJ (WWD), with my
instructor, so he could pick up an airplane and fly it back. I'd
end up flying back solo in a club plane. So we went simulated-IFR
down, with me under the hood, and asked to go via JFK,
then direct to
WWD. While we had skirted through NY's airspace on my night
cross-country (with their permission), flying down to the Tappan Zee Bridge, we
didn't really go far into the airspace. But this time it would be
right into the maw of the beast- some of the most busy airspace in the
world. But to go around it meant heading out to sea, or going 100
miles around the area, or flying over it at 8500'.
It turned out to be no big deal - as we were getting up to altitude, we
requested transition through their airspace at 6500 feet (their
airspace goes up to 7,000). They worked on it and about 5 minutes
later gave us the clearance to enter Class
Bravo Direct JFK, then on a
220
radial direct WWD. Cool!
The flight down was pretty uneventful, and took about 80 minutes.
We used the autopilot most of the time, for familiarity as well as
accuracy. After dropping Dennis off I turned around and headed
back. With a 25 knot headwind it was slow going, but flight
following gave me someone to talk to, or at least listen to, and helped
me keep an eye on the planes landing at Philadelphia
and McGuire
AFB. As I headed north it was getting dark, which was
something
anticipated but not looked forward to - I hadn't landed at night in 9
months. Good thing I never took the flashlights out of my bag,
and kept batteries in there. McGuire handed me off to NY Approach
and they cleared me into the Bravo at 5500 and were vectoring me as I
got near JFK, to keep departures and me separated. Seeing the
747's taking off below me and heading in my area certainly kept me on
the ball. Passing JFK the sun went down and I rigged for
night. There was a ceiling at about 5500 east of NY that seemed
to be getting lower, and as I headed toward Bridgeport I could see the
clouds getting closer, even in the dark. I asked for descent and
they gave me liberty to maneuver as I wanted since there was no
conflict and I was getting near the edge of their airspace. I
kept clear of the clouds and ducked below, and then headed home.
I'm pleased to report my night landing went fine - stayed on the VASI
the whole way down and touched down nicely. Dennis had reminded
me to keep my speed up and I did.
An awesome flight with new experiences - solo night flight, the Class
Bravo, and a two hour leg, my longest so far. This is so
great!
March
28, 2009 - Leave the plane behind...
I've now been licensed a week and am starting to take up friends.
Wednesday I took Mike for a half-hour fly around the area, just
enough to get a feel for the experience.
Today the plan was for
us to fly to Hartford-Brainard
and pick up another friend then fly around the area for a while, maybe
down to the casinos.
A storm came through last night, and the forecast was not great, but by
early afternoon the weather cleared and the storm appeared to be well
south of us. So we decided to go for a bit and see how it goes.
The flight up was nice, only 20 minutes, and Jen kept her cool.
We met Jon and then took off to the southeast. We could see the
clouds over Long
Island, but the CT shore was clear. It was about a half hour
to Mohegan Sun
at a nice leisurely pace, and then made a nice easy turn past Foxwoods
and back toward Hartford. By now we could see the clouds starting
to roll in over the Sound and
begin to cover the shoreline towns, including our original departure
point. We had a nice tailwind so there was no problem getting
back to Hartford, but once we landed a weather briefing was in order.
WSI showed no significant clouds or precipitation, but obviously that
wasn't quite true. I called the line crew at Bridgeport and asked
how the weather was down there, and they said they couldn't see the
runway due to the fog. Oh no! My instructor happened to
still be there and he said it was below IFR minimums and no way I was
getting back there, and it was going to be like that for a couple of
days.
So I arranged to leave the plane at Atlantic Aviation for a
few days ($15 a day, not bad) and we'd pick it up next week. Oh
well. It's better to be on the ground wishing you were flying
than the other way around!
March 21, 2009 - Finally! A
new Private Pilot
It's over, and I did it! I now hold a temporary Private Pilot
certificate. The checkride actually went much better than I
expected, and ended up being fun. I even learned some things, which I
hear is not unusual. Here's how it went:
Preflight
Got up early and got to the airport around 8, with the checkride being
at another airport at 10. Got the maintenance records for the
plane and went through them again, because something had been gnawing
at me. The plane I'm flying doesn't have its original engine, it
got a 180 hp upgrade years ago. But all the performance charts
seemed to have not been changed, and I was assigned to do some takeoff
performance calculations based on real values. I wanted this to
be right, so I went through the actual manuals again and found there
were no updated performance charts. Hopefully that won't be a
problem.
Got all the required paperwork in a folder for organization, then went
and did a very solid preflight. It was cold this morning so I
needed to give some extra time to warm the engine up. Some people
came in and knew it was the big day and all had very encouraging
words. I also called Flight Service for a weather, NOTAM and TFR
briefing. All was well
Getting to
Danbury
I packed everything up, double checked everything was in place and then
started up a little before 9:30. Everything was normal, and
takeoff was at 9:30, and I headed on my route to Danbury. It's only
20 miles, but the airport is behind some hills and I had not been there
before, so I was kind of nervous.
I used the VOR as a backup to my planned route, and got to the vicinity
and called Tower. As I got closer I could see the approach end of
runway 26 (roughly West) between two hills so as I turned base I
started to descend. But I had a 1000' of altitude to lose and
needed to descend steeply over the highway. As I got to the
runway I knew I was fast and not going to bleed off enough airspeed to
land safely, so I went around. Tower wasn't too pleased, "I don't
know, I'll figure out what to do with you", and
directed me around the airport to land on runway 35 (roughly North),
which was a little more into the light wind, but was shorter, and you
have to descend through a valley. Great....
This time I watched my speed a lot more and had watched someone else
descend through the valley so I had an idea how to do it. I
landed right where I wanted to and slowed down in plenty of time before
the end of the runway. I taxied to the ramp, was parked by an
attendant, then shutdown, gathered my things and went into Executive
Air. It had already been a long morning....
I met the examiner, who thankfully was making coffee. We took
care of the details in the FAA IACRA
system, then got settled in for the oral exam. With coffee.
Black.
The Oral
Exam
He started by going through the maintenance records and asking
questions about the kinds of inspections that are needed for different
kinds of flying. Check.
Then he got out the Pilot's Operating Handbook (POH) for the plane and
paged through, asking many questions I expected and all of which were
worthwhile to know: Amount of fuel, oil, max takeoff weight, the
various critical airspeeds, whether the plane is spin approved, the
spin recovery procedure, and how the flap control works. Check.
Then he went through the ASA
Private Pilot Oral Exam review guide and
asked about 50 questions out of there. Good thing I read through
that many times over the last few weeks. Only a couple of minor
memory lapses. Check.
Next we discussed weight & balance and my proposed flight plan.
That was really brief. I had a few checkpoints but my first major
course change was at Bradley Airport. He said we'd start out on the
route and he'd probably divert me before then to some other
airport. He showed me an easy way of determining your diversion
heading using a pen and the VOR compass roses on the chart, which made
sense and which I hadn't seen before. Nice. He then went
over the plan and the order we'd most likely do everything.
Check.
Then it was off to do my preflight while he made a few calls. So
far, so good!
The Flight
Test
We got settled in, and he noticed the GPS unit and asked if I knew how
to use it. It's not something I'm expert in, but I knew the
basics. Each of the planes I fly has a very different
system. He said not to worry, once you know one you can figure
them all out. He said he'd play with it while we flew, because he
was interested in getting one of that model for his own plane.
Taxied to the runway, and set up for a short-field takeoff. I
talked through it while I did it and he seemed satisfied. Started
my
clock and off we went to Laconia! I pointed out my first
checkpoint, the confluence of two rivers, and said I also had a VOR as
a backup if he wanted me to use that. He said to go ahead, use what you
have, so I set up to track that, then hit my second visual checkpoint,
a local highway. About 3 minutes later he asked where we were, I
pointed out some visual clues and showed them on my chart, and then he
said that was fine, then pointed to Sky Acres airport (44N) on my
chart and said he wanted to go there, and to give him an
estimate. I used his pen technique to point from my estimated
location to Sky Acres, then moved it to a VOR, keeping it parallel to
the angle it was at. Said I thought a heading of 310° and
about 25 NM. He played with the GPS and said it said 313° and
26 NM - good estimate. Now put that stuff away and let's do some
air work. I'm feeling good!
He said to do a steep turn, which is a 45° banked turn. I did
one to the left first, and did all right, since I was looking outside
like I had been practicing recently. In recent weeks these had
started to not be as good, but I did okay today. Next to the
right, and I lost a little more altitude than before but he said it was
fine. Now on to stalls...
The long-dreaded stall maneuvers, which had given me years of
apprehension, went okay. I first did clearing turns to look for
traffic in the area, and slowed down at the same time, then put on full
flaps and got set up in a 20° bank. My recovery was okay and
I was slowly gaining altitude, but it took me a little bit before I
remembered to take off the first notch of flaps. Doh! At least I
was doing everything
else right and not losing altitude.... Was that going to bust the
checkride? He then said to set up for a departure stall, I got to
60 knots, no flaps, and set full power and nose up and a slight bank,
but I kept climbing and really had to work to raise the nose high to
stall the plane. Finally there was the buffeting, I identified
the
buffet and recovered by lowering the nose. He was okay with
it. I guess perfection isn't a requirement. Whew! Now
instrument work.
I put on my foggles (plastic glasses that allow you to only look at the
instrument panel, not outside), and then did turns to two different
headings, a climb with a turn, then descend and track a VOR
radial. Next he put the plane into two "unusual attitudes", in
which he controls the plane to disorient you then leaves the plane
either climbing in a turn and slowing rapidly, or descending in a turn
and gaining speed. We did both, and I thought my performance was
fine. I guess he did too, because he said to take the foggles
off. Almost there!
He identified where we were, since I had not been looking outside it
wasn't obvious, but we were north of the Waterbury-Oxford airport (OXC)
and Danbury was behind us. He then took the throttle control and
closed it and said I just lost my engine and not to spend much time
trying to restart it, they never seemed to restart on a checkride....
Time to do an emergency landing. I was too far from Oxford to
make it there, but we were in farm country with lots of nice
fields. Earlier we had been talking about how long you can glide
without your engine running, and he now said we can use this
opportunity to experiment and see how long we can make it last.
First I slowed down and trimmed for 73 knots, the best glide speed for
my plane, which will keep us up the longest. I picked out a nice
long field that we could easily make, since we were at least 4000'
above the ground, and I looked around for any other good options.
I then started heading for the field. There was another field
around that had a worn pattern which looked like it could have been a
disused runway, but I felt the other field was a better option. I
started circling over it, and he noted our altitude and said let's see
how much altitude we lose on a single circle. I kept the
bank shallow, and in one rotation we only lost about 1000', and it took
what felt like a long time, probably two minutes or more. Another
two circles and I thought I could make the field. He said he
didn't think so, do one more circle, so I did, and then I was more at
an altitude I could make. He said everyone makes that mistake at
first. A good learning experience, I never really thought we
could stay up for more than 5 minutes doing circles, but we did.
A good confidence booster.
Next he said let's find something to do a turn around a point over, and
he said let's use a pond which was located at a schoolground, which was
closed since it was Saturday. Winds were light so I needed a
little wind correction, but not a lot. As I was coming around to
finish one turn he said okay, let's head back to Danbury for
landings. It's almost over!
I headed toward the airport and he showed me the area since I wasn't
too familiar. Tower
said to report over the prison, and the examiner said that was fine,
which I told tower. He asked me how I would know where the prison
is if I wasn't familiar? I said, ask? He laughed and guided
me to it and pointed out how to align
myself with it and the bank of Candlewood Lake which would be on a
perfect approach to the airport. Good knowledge for future
flights. I went through the before-landing checklist as had been
drilled into me over and over and over...
We needed to do three landings, and I thought to do soft-field first,
which I had least experience with. The goal
is to come in and land as softly as possible and hold the nose off,
because if you landed on soft grass or mud, it might grab the nosewheel
and you could nose over. I came in a little harder than I liked,
but he said I had the general idea.
Next time around I tried a short field landing, I got a little slow and
cut power a little early so we landed a little hard but it was
definitely short. We taxied back for a soft field takeoff and
that was okay.
We got into the pattern and during the circuit talked about some ways
to improve those landings, which he said were all right but I should
continue to practice them. On landing he said to taxi to
Executive Air. He hadn't said anything had gone wrong, so I must
have passed. YES!!!
Total flight test time, 1.7 hours.
After filling out the paperwork and a little debrief we were done, and
I had temporary certificate in hand. It felt incredible, and an
amazing relief. I made a few calls and then took off for the 20
minute flight home. In the pattern, Tower asked if I could make a
short approach. Of course I can, I'm a pilot!
March 20,
2009 - The anticipation is killing
me
It's been a while since I've posted here, but it's not for lack of
activity. Since my last posting, I completed my long
cross-country, my night requirements including a cross-country flight,
and hours and hours of practice. Finally, tomorrow, TOMORROW, is
my checkride! I have it scheduled with an examiner at the airport
in Danbury, CT, which so far, I have never flown to. I'll do it for the
first time tomorrow morning. So much to remember, so many things
to get organized. The anticipation is killing me...
On November 3 I had completed 58.1 hours of flight time and 297
landings. Today, the number stands at 81.8 hours and 368 landings.
At the end of November I did the long cross country flight, which had
to be at least 150 NM long with three stops. I flew first to Columbia County, NY (1B1),
then to Barnes Muncipal in
Massachusetts (BAF), which has a nice 9000' runway, then returning
to Bridgeport. This was delayed a few times due to weather, and
the day I did this there was weather forecasted to move in later in the
afternoon, so I got an early start. Everything was going well but
on the last leg I could see the clouds rolling in, and I had to duck
under them to stay VFR, so I lost NY Approach's flight following
because they couldn't see me any more. It was okay, I could see
my destination.
After that, since it got dark earlier, we got started on the 3 hours of
required night flying, which included landings and a
cross-country. My instructor usually takes people to Greenwood Lake Airport in New
Jersey (4N1), because it's a nice flight past New York City, and
the airport is in a really dark area, so you have to work for it.
Night flying is nice, but you do have to be aware of your instruments
and anything which makes you
think you're getting into a cloud. On our return from Greenwood
Lake we were at an altitude where we could see snow starting to fly
past the wingtip lights, which was a neat effect, but definitely had us
paying attention.
With the cross-countries and night work done, and the holidays over
with, it was time to just practice, practice, practice the maneuvers
required on the checkride. The stalls used to be a worry but
those turned out to be not a real problem, even stalls in a 20°
bank. Steep turns, which had been done well almost all the way
through my training started to slip, but have gotten good enough to
pass. The consistent source of trouble was ground reference
maneuvers, in particular turns around a point.
In turns around a point you maintain a constant radius from a point on
the ground while adjusting for wind, which affects your groundspeed,
and the crab angle you maintain around the point. For whatever
reason, despite understanding it, picturing it, and going around a
point until it made me dizzy, it still was tough to do
consistently. I think by today it's good enough, I've been
practicing still, but we'll find out tomorrow.
S-turns across a road is another maneuver that was somewhat difficult
to do consistently, though I think it's partly due to the lack of
straight roads in this part of the country to do the maneuver
over. I don't think these were ever very poor, but were never my
specialty. The examiner only needs to test you on one of the 3
ground reference maneuvers, but can test you on all of them.
Hopefully he's kind.
This week I've flown several times, re-read the red Gleim books,
re-watched a King checkride video, re-read the ASA Private Pilot Oral
Exam Guide, gone over the airplane maintenance
records a bunch, planned my cross-country to Laconia, NH and have
basically agonized over being as prepared as
I can be. At this point I'm as ready as I will ever be.
Wish me luck!
November 3, 2008 - The
Cross-Country Flights
Hello vicarious travelers! It's been a busy few months and I'm
happy to report solid progress on the pilot's license.
As you may have seen, I was away for
about a month, and since I've been back it's been mostly work and
flying.
Since I got back, I took a week of vacation and did a lot of flying,
and that has really helped. My landings have gotten very reliable, and
my handling on crosswind landings have gotten quite good too. I've had
19 flights since I returned, totalling 22.8 hours, and now I'm doing
the last major activities of the training - solo cross-country flight.
I had some "dual" cross-countries with a couple of instructors, and
went to Westerly RI, Windham CT, Worcester MA, Bradley International
north of Hartford, down to Montauk, Fisher's Island, and some other
places. This was good training in the main navigation methods - pilotage, dead-reckoning
and radio-aid navigation.
"Cross-Country" in this sense is not flying coast-to-coast: it's
flying to a different destination from where you started. For the
pilot's license, there are certain requirements, such as being more
than 50 nautical miles away from your original location.
On Friday, 10/24 I took the day off, and took my written exam in the
morning. Got a 93, thanks. In the afternoon, I did my first solo
cross-country, which was to Westerly, Rhode Island (KWST),
a nice small airport just past Groton, CT, and easy to find, because
you can just follow the shoreline. I used VOR
navigation as well, for the practice.
This is looking northeast, in the Madison area.
Here I'm looking over the cowling toward my destination - Long
Island Sound is on the right.
Here's the big bridge in New London.
The Foxwoods casino is easily visible from a mile up.
After landing, contacting Flight Services to close my flight plan,
calling my instructor to tell him I made it, and filling out my log
book, I went inside and had some very nice people sign my logbook to
prove I was there. I then flew back along the same route. I called Dad
beforehand to tell him I was leaving, and he was at the airport to
greet me when I arrived. He took the picture at the top of this posting
after I shut down, and this of my touchdown. A very successful day!
Next, on Friday, 10/31 I took the afternoon off, and flew to Orange County, NY airport
(KMGJ),
which was challenging because it was the first time I flew somewhere I
had never been before, and where I did not know the area.
Here I'm just reaching the Hudson River. It's definitely autumn.
West Point should be over in this area.
Here's Stewart International Airport. I didn't have to talk with
them because I was flying over
their airspace.
After a good landing I taxied to my destination: Rick's Runway
Cafe, a nice restaurant right on the field. I had time for lunch, which
was a really good meatball sub and fries. And someone signed my logbook
here too.
And here's my final picture from the trip - some of the lakes just
west of the CT border. It's definitely autumn.
The trip home was uneventful, and fast - there was a big tailwind so
I was doing about 150mph over the ground. Cool!
Soon I'll do my long cross-country, do the 3 hours of required
night flying, and practice the required maneuvers for the checkride.
Hopefully in a month or so I'll have my license. A long time coming.
July 17, 2008 - First Solo!
I'm happy to be able to write that yesterday, 7/16 I had my first
solo in Piper Warrior N80964. It took a while, and I'm still not
completely confident, but I proved I can takeoff, land, and bring
myself and the plane home in one piece, in light to moderate crosswind.
Total time: 35.3 hours (23 in 2008, 10.3 from 2005)
Total Landings: 181 (151 in 2008, 30 from 2005)
Crosswind correction continues to be an issue, and the last few
inches of the flare, although they were good enough during my solo for
the tower to tell me I did a good job. Stalls are generally okay, I'm
able to keep my altitude loss mostly at minimum, and we just did
turning stalls for the first time earlier this week. Steep turns have
been good right until the last week, for some reason I started losing
altitude when I hadn't before. Ground reference maneuvers seem to be
my toughest challenge - turns around a point were better last time but
I still have a tendency to get closer to the point. Think I need to
look at the ground more and less at the point, but maybe not. We've
only done S-turns a couple of times, and no one yet has taught the
rectangular course except in the actual traffic pattern, which is far
from rectangular due to noise abatement necessities. It doesn't help
that there are few rectangular ground objects or straight roads here in
Connecticut.
So I'm pleased that I've made a lot of progress, and am excited to
continue improving and proceeding with more cross-countries. Lots of
people will solo in less time than I did, but I'm happy with where I
am. I won't be flying for the next month while I'm on a trip to
Japan, but I'll be back with more stories in September. Hopefully I
can finish the Private Pilot by the end of the year.
June 17, 2008 - Making Progress
I wrote a while back that I've started flying again. This time it
looks good: I'm close to an airport, I've got some spare time, I have
the money, I have no major trips planned until later this summer that
would impede progress, and most importantly, I have the motivation.
That and a good instructor.
So in the last 6 weeks I've had 7 lessons, have flown a 1983 Piper
Warrior for 6.4 hours of Hobbs time, taken family and friends up in a
Cherokee Six once, and landed 57 times. Dad came up for the ride and
has enjoyed it, even taking pictures along the way.
I'm doing okay I think, and Dennis is readying me for solo. Still
have to get landings down better, I'm improving but not quite there
yet. Steep turns are good, stalls are decent, need some more time on
ground reference maneuvers, and rote memorization of things like
emergency procedures are hard for me to recall. But I'll get there.
I'm on vacation for two weeks and am flying 7 times (weather
permitting) so I'm hoping to solo during this time. Wish me luck!
May 14, 2008 - First 3 Lessons
After a 3-year hiatus, I've finally think the
planets have aligned properly so I can start flying again.
While I enjoyed my lessons in 2005, I think the combination of the
tiny Tomahawk plane, my general jitters about stalls and spins, coupled
with all the pressure of planning and anticipating my imminent India
trip, made it hard to get far. I also found that if I didn't have a
block of time to dedicate to multiple lessons that it was more an
expensive roller-coaster ride, and less a progression in skill.
So right now, I have a few months without large trips planned, so I
have started flying again, and I'm really enjoying it and am excited!
I've had 3 lessons so far - the first was more a re-introduction
and getting used to a new school, which is organized as a flying club,
a new instructor who is highly qualified and makes me feel relaxed, and
a larger plane, the Warrior series.
We went for a flight in the area, did some stalls, steep turns, and
I found I could actually handle it and remember things. My landings
were not great but we lived through them.
My second flight two weeks later, built on the foundation but was
really fun. We took a cross-country flight from BDR to Groton, over the
sound and back to BDR, and took some family and friends in a 300 hp
Cherokee Six with variable pitch propeller. This is not normally the
training aircraft of choice; in fact I can't rent it without a PPL and
special endorsements, but we needed a plane large enough for the 5 of
us, plus it was way fun to fly. Read the story.
My third lesson, the following day, was in a 160 hp Warrior II,
which is what I'll typically be flying. This was going to be a local
flight, but turned into a trip to Waterbury-Oxford airport. Did some
navigating, but not a lot of maneuvers because it was pretty bumpy. But
I did ok and had 6 landings.
I'll post more here as it goes on. Hope you enjoy following along.
Flying Lessons - Resumed!
April 25, 2008 - Getting Started
I've long wanted to learn to fly. I didn't realize until
recently how long-term and pervasive that desire was, because I didn't
really act on it for long. I took some flying lessons in 2005 and as of
May have started them up again with the hope and expectation of
completing my Private Pilot. I should have lots of interesting things
to post here.
Here's
some links to some earlier pages about flying:
Flight
Training (The Introductory flight)
Dad
takes the controls - December 1, 2005
A flight I took in
May with my instructor and some family.
