Wings on High.

Back in the air

So it’s been a while since I’ve been able to write, and it’s been a while since I’d had a lesson.  I’ve picked up the pace a little bit over the last few weeks, though.  I had an impromptu lesson two weeks ago, a night flight around Crest Field, which is notorious for its difficult approaches – you have to know it to find it – and I had another lesson yesterday. 

The night flight wasn’t my first time up in the air at night (I hitched along in a 182 a month or so ago sitting right seat hands off), but it was my first time up at night with the controls.  I’d asked the instructor (whom I shall call CFI) if I could do as much as I was comfortable with, including working the radio (which has maddened me since I started taking lessons to not be able to do – my first instructor allowed me to, and I was very grateful for the experience), landing procedures, etc, with his giving me commentary, advice, procedures etc as he felt like it – I indeed wanted his input and help throughout the flight, I just wanted to take on as many tasks as I could.

I’d flown through Crest a few times during some instruction a while back, and I didn’t have much to gauge it against, so I couldn’t comment about its difficulty in approaching.  I did remember that the trees and powerlines on either end got my pulse going a bit…  And it also turns out that the runway lighting is pretty bleak – not much to draw your attention to it, and zip to show you the approach.  You’re either on top of the runway, or it’s buried in trees.

Well, regardless of everything wrong, I loved it.  I ran three laps in the pattern, and though I know it wasn’t anywhere near as good as it needs to be for a checkride, I kept a handle on things much better than I thought I would.  Watching headings, staying relatively in the pattern (I went out a bit far on crosswind, which messed up my downwind approach because I had a hard time spotting the field), calling positions, and the takeoffs and landings.

I grew a bit frustrated, because well known landmarks aren’t that easy for me to spot (finding a McDonald’s at 1500 feet at night isn’t as easy as it sounds), so figuring out the boundaries of the pattern weren’t as easy as they were in the daylight.  I also discovered that landings are a big pain in the ass when you can’t see how far off the ground you are.  I bounced on a couple of the landings, and hard.  After another lesson I realized that eventually I’ll be able to feel it based on what the plane is doing and how the yoke/stick feels, but it was much more difficult without that muscle memory.

After the lesson I asked CFI how he felt I did.  I could see he was a bit reluctant to tell me (rarely a good sign), and I said “be brutal, i want to know.”  He said that one of the take offs got his hair on end because he felt me steer the yoke to the right right before takeoff, and that if the wing had clipped the ground or a light, it would have been game over.  He felt that someone with 7 or 8 hours should have had that down by now.  But aside from the knowledge of the pattern for that field, I did pretty well.

I heard what he said about what happened on that takeoff, but I remember that one, and that’s not how i remembered it… I knew exactly what (i thought had) happened – i felt the plane start to try and take off on me, but we were below speed, so I was trying to keep it from lifting up too early.  Whether it was trying to lift off or not I couldn’t tell you, because it was pitch flipping black and the lighting on the runway (even with the landing/taxi light) was barely enough to see the centerline, so it was feeling alone I had to go on.  I don’t remember it listing to the right, let alone going far enough to clip a wing, but he was the instructor and the one watching, so I take his word on it, and I’ve been watching my takeoffs since.   

His remark about someone having 7 or 8 hours ought to have takeoffs and landings down is absolutely right.  My problem is that those 7 or 8 hours that I’ve accumulated have been since April of 2008, just shy of a year now.  Lessons went with anywhere from a couple of weeks to 6 months between them.  So while I’ve learned a lot, including going through ground school, passing my written, and hitching along on as many flights as I can with friends or associates, I don’t have the inherent experience that consistent lessons (once every week or two weeks) would give someone by 8 hours.  Very frustrating.  My wife, by comparison, only took 1 hour in April, and has only flown with friends since, not any more stick time.  So, in turn, she doesn’t have anything she has to un-learn, or anything she learned then forgot and remembered wrong.  From where I sit, a fairly enviable position.

So I took another lesson yesterday, and did rather well.  I need to get procedures in the pattern down so I can do them without thinking about them.  Take off attitude, throttle adjustments, carb heat, when to put in flaps, and watching my speed.  I had been up since about 5.30 that morning to take a class down in Tacoma (with an hour drive each way), and my lesson went for about 2 hours.  I wasn’t tired going into it, but I certainly got there after about an hour and a half.  Fortunately we stopped for gas, so I was able to debrief with him a bit, and catch my breath again.  I think we ended the lesson just in time.

I knew going into that lesson that I have this particular issue, and I was able to make some improvement with it, but below a certain altitude I have an inherent dislike of pointing an aircraft at the ground.  Something very deep within me says “You’ve got to be kidding…”.  This makes landings difficult.  I realized what it is though – I don’t know the angles in which the plane glides.  I read about the concept and the difficulty students have with this concept in Stick & Rudder, understanding that a plane won’t go where it’s pointed in the same way a car will.  In fact, I experienced it first hand on a take off – I noticed that the nose was pointed right at the treeline, so it looked like we were heading right for it.  But instead we sailed right over it, and by several hundred feet at that.  So, now I need to learn to apply this to landings.  Pointing the nose at the ground (i.e. aiming at the numbers on a descent) does not mean said nose will come in contact with said ground.  There were a couple of landings towards the end where it started to feel better, but I’m still not happy about the idea. 

I also noticed that I’m making significant progress in handling the airplane.  Certain things like straight and level and trimming I was doing instinctively (which CFI commented on), and steep turns felt more ok to me, and produced less of the “Oh sh#% the plane’s not supposed to go this far” reaction.  In fact, I pulled a few steep turns quite happily.  Then we worked on some stalls, which were a complete non-event.  Apparently this 152 (or all 152s) are built so well they don’t stall unless the engine’s dead.  We had it at idle, put in full flaps, and just let it coast.  The needle was flapping around 20kts, the stall horn was blaring, but it just wouldn’t drop, it kept mushing along.  Awesome when you’re in flight, but when you’re trying to feel a stall and learn recovery, doesn’t help much. 

Not much of a problem though, as I feel pretty confident in handling a stall.  My wife, however, is scared witless about them.  I told her we worked on them, and I could see her tension rise.  It obviously wasn’t proof enough that I was standing in front of her when I told her (indicating we did indeed make it back to the ground), she was still worried about them. 

So I’ve still got an awful lot of work to do, and I hope I’m able to get cracking on it sooner rather than later.  My goal is to take my checkride come June, but I’m basing that call on if I feel ready, not my number of hours. 

No pictures from this flight, but I’ve got a bunch more I’ve put up, and I have a bunch more I have yet to edit.  Signing off for now.